Grammaticalization of Persian's Object Clitics Coupled with the Historical Change in its Clitic System: Supported by the Data of Mazinani Dialect

Introduction Generally, the term ‘clitic’ refers to those bound linguistic elements that phonologically attach to the beginning/end of their adjacent words, while, at the same time, play a significant syntactic role in their respective clauses. In other words, as Zwicky (1994) also puts it, they are affixes since they attach to other free words, and besides, they are words because they can function as an argument or the head of a (single-word) phrase; and this is why they have been placed in different categories, e.g. ‘pronominal clitics’ (See Halpern, 1995; Klavans, 1985; Zwicky, 1997; Zwicky & Pullum, 1983).
Spencer lists three reasons why pronominal clitics need to be linguistically studied: a) the existence of interactions between cliticization and argument structure, b) the importance of such studies for syntactic theorizations, and c) the change of most pronominal clitic systems to agreement systems in the course of history (1991, p. 180).
Taking another step in the direction of studying different aspects of Pronominal Clitics of Persian (See Bahrami & Rezayi, 2013; Mazinani, 2008; Mazinani, Kambuzia & Golfam, 2013; Mazinani & Sharifi, 2015; Mazinani, Alizadeh, & Sharifi (2016); Mofidi, 2007; Rasekh-Mahand, 2007, 2008, 2010, among others), the Clitic System in Mazinani Dialect (MD) of Persian - in which some remnants of Middle Persian (MP) can be found (See Mazinani, 2008, 2016) - was intended to be compared with those of MP, Classic New Persian (CNP), & Contemporary Standard Persian (CSP); consequently, following a descriptive-comparative approach, the research was carried out by answering the following questions: 1. Which clitic system does Mazinani Pronominal Clitics respond to?
2. What are the differences between Pronominal Clitics of MD and the abovementioned periods of Persian in terms of placement and the syntactic roles they can play?
3. What linguistic effects may practically or theoretically be considered to be the consequence of the possible answer to the 2nd question?
Methodology To answer the first question, the researcher adopted the classification introduced by Halpern (1995) and its extension by Mazinani and Sharifi (2015): 2-1- Second Position Clitic System
a) Second Word Clitic System: a subdivision of the Second Position System in which the clitic encliticizes to the first phonological word of a sentence.
b) Second Daughter Clitic System: a subdivision of the Second Position System in which the clitic encliticizes to the first syntactic constituent of a sentence (Halpern, 1995, p. 15-16).
2-2- Verbal Clitic System: It’s a system in which the clitic is placed immediately adjacent to the verb before or after it (See Halpern, 1995, p. 183-187). Mazinani and Sharifi (2015) have extended this system and divided it into two categories: a) Preverbal Clitic System: a subdivision of Verbal System in which the clitic encliticizes to a possible host and appears immediately adjacent to the verb.
b) Post-Verbal Clitic System: a subdivision of Verbal System in which the clitic encliticizes to the last element of the verb (Mazinani & Sharifi, 2015).
Clitic System in the course of Persian history
3-1- MP
Like Old Persian (OP), MP also makes use of Second Word System. Nevertheless, some differences can be observed between the forms and the functions of their correspondent clitics. Unlike the OP, MP’s Clitics were assigned abstract case thanks to the loss of OP’s morphological endings. In addition, it was also added to their syntactic functions to play the role of the subject in MP’s Ergative Constructions (See examples in Mazinani & Sharifi, 2015).
3-2- CNP
In this period, and henceforward, morphological changes have not affected the clitics’ form. However, compared to MP, a significant change in the placements of clitics can be seen in this period. Besides, one can hardly find Ergative Constructions in CNP. Mazinani and Sharifi (2015) state that they have encountered many constructions that could serve a fine example for all the above mentioned clitic systems by the following specified constraints: Second Word Clitic System: if Complementizer Phrase (CP) has an overt Complementizer such as ke (which) and agar (if), a clitic simply assigned genitive case may encliticize to it.
Second Daughter Clitic System: both direct object and indirect object clitics may encliticize to the last word of the first syntactic constituent of the clause.
Preverbal Clitic System: both direct object and indirect object clitics appear frequently in preverbal position and encliticize to the last word of a wide range of syntactic constituents.
Post-Verbal Clitic System: both indirect object and direct object clitics may encliticize to the last morpheme of the verb. (See examples in Mazinani & Sharifi, 2015).
3-3- CSP
The main system one encounters in CSP is Post-Verbal Clitic System. However, in this period, contrary to the CNP, one can hardly find an indirect object clitic in post-verbal position. Beside the main verb, there are lots of prepositions that assign case to CNP’s clitics. A genitive clitic necessarily encliticizes to its own modifier.
3-4. MD
Pronominal Clitics of Mazinani Dialect are placed immediately-adjacent to the verb as its internal arguments whether they are direct or indirect objects. They encliticize mostly to the preverbal permitted hosts, and if none present, they attach to the verb itself. The results of this research showed that the permitted hosts are usually one of the obligatory constituents subcategorized by the verbs.
Other hosts in the VP domain include Imperative/Negative/Present Perfective/Past Morphemes, Past Participles in Past Perfect Tense Constructions, nominal or adjectival parts of Complex Predications and Interrogative Pronouns questioning direct objects (see examples in Mazinani, 2008).
Comparison & Conclusion In this research, the MD’s Clitic System was compared to those of MP, CNP, and CSP. This comparison is illustrated by five different versions of a sentence meaning ‘I took her/him from home to the market’ which is supposed to have been produced in different periods/dialects of Persian. The historical linguistic changes are also explained in their respective footnotes: 1. [az=om= iš xānag] [pad bāzār] bord.
2. [az xāna]=š [be bāzār] bord-om.
3. [az xāna] [be bāzār] =eš bord-om.
4. [az xāna] [be bāzār] bord=eš-om .
5. [az xune] [be bāzār] bord-am=eš.
Table 1: the CNP, MD, & CSP’s Clitic System Compared and contrasted
Sentence
No. A typical example
of Permitted
to be produced in Mostly
produced in
1 Second Word Clitic System MP MP
2 Second Daughter Clitic System MP / CNP CNP
3 Pre-verbal Clitic System CNP / MD MD
4 Mid-verbal Clitic System CNP?!! / MD MD
5 Post-verbal Clitic System CNP / MD / CSP CSP
After analyzing and comparing the data, the following results emerged: a) hypothetically, the Dialect’s Clitic System represents the mid-state of change in the same system from CNP to CSP in the course of Persian history; b) diachronically, this research confirmed that the process of ‘reanalysis’, suggested in the literature, has been the main factor of change in Persian’s Clitic System; c) the syntactic roles played by the Persian Pronominal Clitics has been reduced step by step as a result of another change from MP’s Abstract to CSP’s Structural Case-assigning. Therefore, according to the principle of functional transparency, it was approved that the grammaticalization of these pronouns has been at work coupled with the change in Persian's Clitic System; d) results of the comparison shown in the 3rd column of the above table reminds us of Hawkins’ (1983) ‘Dual Acquisition Hypothesis’; beside this, referring to what is seen in the 4th column, it was emphasized that researchers interested in linguistic change should consider different historical mid-states between the so-called Old/Middle/New eras of Persian as the order OP>MP>CNP>MD>CSP can be regarded to be a hypothetical chain of change in the Persian cliticization.