The diversity of inflectional periphrasis in Persian

Abstract

Modern Persian conjugation makes use of five periphrastic constructions with typologically divergent properties. This makes the Persian conjugation system an ideal testing ground for theories of inflectional periphrasis, since different types of periphrasis can be compared within the frame of a single grammatical system. We present contrasting analyses of the five constructions within the general framework of a lexicalist constraint-based grammatical architecture (Pollard & Sag 1994) embedding an inferential and realizational view of inflectional morphology (Stump 2001). We argue that the perfect periphrase can only be accounted for by assuming that the periphrase literally fills a cell in the inflectional paradigm, and provide a formal account drawing on using valence for exponence. On the other hand, other periphrastic constructions are best handled by using standard tools of either morphology or syntax. The overall conclusion is that not all constructions that qualify as periphrastic inflection from the point of view of typology should receive the same type of analysis in an explicit formal grammar.