هانا حسینی

Persian independent pronouns can be considered as the head of noun phrases) Shaghaghi, 2015). However, the head of the noun phrase with a prepositional phrase (preposition + pronominal clitic) can be occupied by a pronominal clitic. To deal with this dual behavior, we adopt distributed morphology, developed by Halle & Marantz (1993), to analyze the internal structure of dependent pronouns or pronominal clitics. This research draws upon descriptive-analytical method, and the data come from Persian language. In this paper, theoretical arguments as well as linguistic evidence will be employed to examine the hypotheses. We suggest that the so-called “pronominal clitics” are actually different elements with different semantic features and structural relationships. Finally, we argue that the (M) index, as a secondary product of morphological merger (Merger) between the two heads, is supposed to be the distinctive element of the dependent pronouns, not of the independent pronouns.

In Farsi, the clitic pronouns are often added to the stem as the last element, but in some structures, they can be immediately attached to their hosts. The ability to describe this dual behavior can be used as a criterion to check the effectiveness of different approaches. This research aims to find out if Distributed Morphology and its post-syntactic mechanism are needed to determine the position of different morphemes at the level of the word? Or it can be explained using lexicalist hypothesis? For this purpose, after introducing the theoretical background and previous researches, we analyze data from Farsi; the analyses shows that the assumptions of lexicalists cannot explain why the clitic pronoun (shon) has two positions in (xodeshoniha) and (xodihashon), but this phenomenon is not allowed in other structures. On the other hand, by analyzing the data in the framework of Distributed Morphology, it was found that only with the existence of post-syntactic operations such as local dislocation and considering the content feature of clitics and stems the dual behavior of the clitic pronouns can be explained.