Incorporation in Persian from the Transitivity Continuum point of view

Noun incorporation is considered as a word formation process which is not treated similarly in different languages and has various representations. The incorporated noun is unmarked for features of definiteness and specificity; it does not take definite article, demonstratives or case marking. This study aims at finding an explanatory account for this phenomenon in Persian in order to decide whether a particular structure involves incorporation or not. To do this, incorporation is examined with respect to its relation to transitivity as a prototypical phenomenon. In this regard, it may be analyzed according to the notion of the degree of transitivity and the presence or absence of different transitivity parameters. The results show that the two parameters of individuation of object as well as affectedness of object specifically have role in the occurrence of incorporation. Aspect, also, has some effect through its relation to affectedness. Therefore, incorporation is better to be considered as an instance of transitivity decrease which occurs due to the lack of object individuation and object affectedness in a transitive clause. The deviation from the prototypical transitive clause due to the absence of these features is responsible for the structural differences of the incorporated clauses with that prototype.