Uses, Types and Transformations of a Copula (hen) in the Old Dialect of Shirazi

The surviving poems from the old dialect of Shiraz are one of the most valuable surviving collections from the old Iranian dialects, which still contain many lexical, grammatical and semantic ambiguities. One of the ambiguous words of this dialect, which is also used in the old Hervi dialect with fundamental differences in meaning and application, is “هن” /hen/. This word has entered in old Persian dictionaries with the explanation “in the old dialect of Shiraz” with the meaning “ast”. In this article, considering the basic differences of this word in Shirazi and Heravi dialects, we will only discuss the use of this word in Shirazi dialect. Based on the poems of Shah Dai Shirazi (which is currently the most complete, available and published corpus in the old Shirazi dialect) and referring to some other surviving verses from this dialect, we will try to find out the types, morphemes, uses, and developments; and finally show its original version. “hen” /h-en/ is used in three forms in the old Shirazi dialect: 1. with initial h- (complete with n): (هن) /hen?/; 2. with initial h- (imperfect bin): (هه) /he/ (rarely /e/, similar to spoken Persian); 3. Without initial h-: (-en) /-en?/ (rarely /n/). “هن” and “هه” are only used as copula in this dialect; but the form without the initial h of this word has progressed to the stage of complete exhaustion. According to the author, “هن” in the old Shirazi dialect can be a product of the transformation of the third person regular form of the verb ah-: hēd/hed > hen. Therefore, the verb “هن” has changed from two aspects in comparison to the Middle Persian: 1. Sound; 2. Application.

In some ancient Persian dictionaries, there is an entry whose appearance is “هن” and the meaning “is” is mentioned for it (for example, cf. Sorouri, 1338, Vol. 3: 1536 and Khalaf Tabrizi, 1376, Volume 4: Under هن and Farouqi, 1386, Volume 1: 1088). This meaning and use is also proved by the old poems and phrases of the Shirazi dialect (for example, cf.: Da'i, verse 195 and Sadeghi, 2011: 21 and Mahmoud ibn-Othman, 2018: 278 and also cf.: Introduction 60 and three). But in the old Shirazi texts, in addition to the form of “هن” in the meaning of “is”, other forms and uses can be mentioned for it, which have not been mentioned in any of the researches in this field. For example, in a verse by Shah Da'i (1353: 58) it is said: “Vâ ham-end o 'az ham-end-en dur” (meaning they are together and far from each other). In this paper, we have investigated the uses and roots of this word according to the surviving texts.

Theoretical framework:

“Being and existing” in the present tense (participle) in the MP is expressed in two ways: 1/ with the present participle b(aw)- (< OP: bav-); 2/ With the present participle h- (< OP: ah-) and third person singular “ast” (< OP: asti) (cf.: Cheung, 2007: 152-153). The present participle ah- has been used in two ways in NP: 1/ with initial h-: h-ēm, h-ē, 'ast/hast, h-ēm, h-ēd, h-ēnd; 2/ Without initial h-: -am, -ī, -ast, -īm, -īd, -and. “hast” (< MP: hast [hozwaresh: AYT'] < OI: *has-ti) is formed with a non-derivative initial h-. In the NP, the simple form of “hast” was also made into the form of “hast-īd-an”. The verb h- and its various conjugations have various uses in the old dialect of Shiraz. These applications can be summarized as follows:First person singular:هم      /h-em/  ,  آهم        /â-hem/     ,       -م          / em/
 
First person plural:هیم        /h-em/
 
Second person singular:هه         /h-e/     ,           هسته      / hest-e/
 
Second person plural:هیت       /h-et/
 
Third person singular:هست  /hest/     ,    آهست    /â-hest/  ,  هن   / hen/   and its varieties   هه  /h-e/  ,  ه   /e/  ,  ن   /en/
 
Third person plural:هند            /h-end/     ,      هستند    hest-end    ,    -ند     /end/ 

In this research, based on the largest corrected and published corpus of Shirazi's dialect, that is, the poems of Shah Dai, we will examine the uses and different types of the verb “هن”. For this purpose, first all examples of this verb and its variants will be extracted from the above text and then its meanings and uses will be analyzed with the help of analogy. In order to investigate the origin and use of this verb in the MP, examples of the third person singular form of the verb h- are extracted in MP texts and compared with the forms of this verb in the old Shirazi dialect.

The usages of the verb “هن” and its variants in the old Shirazi dialect:In general, “هن” can be seen in three ways in the poems of Shah Da'ei and other works of the old Shirazi dialect: 1. with initial h- (complete with n): (hen) /hēn?/; 2. with initial h- (imperfect stem): (heh) /he/ (rarely /e/); 3. Without initial h-: /-ēn?/ (rarely /n/). “هن” is always used as a conjunction and means “is”. “هه” also has no use except as a relative agent; But “ن” is much more diverse than its original form in terms of usage, meaning and grammatical role: 1. In the position of the connecting agent and equivalent to “is/is”; 2. Null morphology (connected to the verb); 3. Auxiliary verb in past (indefinite) construction.
hēd in third person singular participle:“هست/ است” unlike other forms of the present participle verb is not made by joining the participle identifiers to the participle. Rather, without observing the rules of construction of the present participle verb, it is directly taken from the OP form of “asti”, and in the form of “ast/hast” it is used in MP and then “ast/hast” in NP (cf.: Cheung, 2007: 152-153). But in rare examples, the third person singular form of the verb h is regularly h-ēd (h: stem of the past tense, -ēd: third person singular present tense) in MP. The verb h-ēd is also used as a linking factor in NP with changes. While examining the verb “اید” and the suffix “-ید” in Tabaqat al-Sufiyah, he considers Pahlavi hēδ as the root of “اید/ -ید” (Ivanow, 1923: 349). Lazard also considers –ی/یذ/اید as a remnant of MP hē/heδ (Lazard, 1963: 34-327). It seems that "hēd" gradually evolved into “هن” /hēn?/hen?/. The transformation of d at the end of the word to n is observed in the second person plural identifier of spoken Persian in Tehran and many other parts of Iran: -ēd > -edd > -end > -en > -in (cf. Sadeghi, 2010: 61).

“هن” in the old Shirazi dialect is a product of the transformation of the regular third person conjugation of the verb ah-: hēd/hed > hen. Compared to the MP, this verb has changed from two perspectives: 1. phonetic; 2. Application. Phonetically, in the first stage, the final d of the identifier -ēd has changed to n. In the second stage, “هن” /h-en/ is used in the old Shirazi dialect with three phonetic transformations: 1. with initial h- (complete with n): (هن) /hēn?/; 2. with initial h- (imperfect stem): (heh) /he/ (rarely /e/); 3. Without initial h-: /-ēn?/ (rarely /n/). In terms of usage, “هن” and its morphemes have undergone changes compared to hēd/ast in the MP. What is interesting in this context is that with the disappearance of the initial h of this verb, on the one hand, its uses have changed, and on the other hand, it has progressed towards complete emptying, which is in complete agreement with the rules of grammaticalization.