Locative Alternation in Persian: A Constructional Account

Document Type : Research Paper

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Abstract

In this paper I will study the syntactic and semantic features of locative alternation in Persian. The central claim is that alternating verbs have a single lexical entity and these alternations arise when a single verb evokes more than one semantic frame. It is shown that locative alternation arises when a special part of the schematic scene described by the verb is focused and this leads to two different interpretations. Following Iwata (2008) I make use of lower level constructions to account for different variants of the locative alternation. Based on the usage-based theory of language (Tomasello, 2003), constructions sanction the whole expression, so the role of verbal arguments in argument alternation can be accounted for.

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