Contrastiveness and Collocational Change of /'mma:/ (But)

This article explicates the use of such devices as stress, displacement, extension, predication and contrastive coordinators, to create contrastiveness in Farsi. One of these devices in coordinated structures is the word /'mma:/ (but) that usually appears in the beginning of the second clause. However, about five decades ago, the Iranian poet, Shamloo, used it in mid-position in the second clause. Some writers followed suit; someothers rejected it as 'incorrect.' Here, the writer gives a brief historical sketch of the development of this phenomenon and elaborates on the debates regarding the new, defamiliarized usage of the word /'mma:/ among scholars.