The Generic Noun in Old and Middle Persian

Introduction

A noun phrase that denotes a class of entities rather than a specific referent is called a "generic noun" (Qirk et al., 1985:265; Tabatabai, 2016:17). Within this definition, the term "entities" includes both concrete and abstract referents. The examples below from Modern Persian and English illustrate the use of generic nouns:

bābā=š barā=š             gūsfand            gereft

father=3SG      for=3SG          sheep               get.PST.3SG
‘His father got him a sheep.’

eyn=e jaabe=ye         mive    boland            šod                   ru        havā

like=EZ            crate=EZ         fruit      high                 be.PST.3SG      on        air
‘Like a fruit crate flew into the air.’

Safeguarding children is too important to have such loopholes (Benninghoven, 2018:88).

In the examples above, the nouns gūsfand 'sheep', jaabe=ye mive 'fruit crate', and children refer to an entire class rather than to specific referent. In fact, neither the speaker nor the listener holds a particular referent in mind; instead, all members of the class are referred to equally. This study employs a corpus-based approach to investigate the generic noun in Old and Middle Persian languages.
 

Review of Literature

The "generic noun" category has received relatively little attention in linguistic studies (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:274; Partington, 1998:90; Malmberg, 2005:1). Both synchronic and diachronic studies on this topic are rare. For instance, generic nouns have not been studied in Old Persian (e.g., Schmitt, 2009; Kent, 1953), and in Middle Persian, they have rarely been the focus of scholarly attention (e.g., Windfuhr, 2009).
However, Rastorgueva (1968:56) categorizes generic nouns under the term "indefinite" in her Middle Persian Grammar, suggesting that the indefinite marker -ē is added to a noun to encode its generic reference. Furthermore, in general, there is little agreement among researchers on how generic nouns should be categorized. For example in Persian, Some scholars (Ahmadi-Givi & Anvari, 2015; Moin, 1963) consider them definite, albeit in terms of semantic interpretation rather than grammatical marking. Others (Meshkinfam, 2022; Tabatabai, 2016; Shariat, 1992) argue that "genericity" represents a distinct grammatical category in Persian. This study aims to indicate that generic nouns constitute a unique and independent grammatical category.
 

Methodology

This research adopts a corpus-based approach to investigate generic nouns in Old and Middle Persian. The Old Persian data comes from Schmitt's (2009) compilation of Achaemenid inscriptions and Middle Persian data is sourced from various texts including:

The Middle Persian corpus gathered  by Jamasp (1992)
Shāyest nē shāyest (Dhabhar, 1912)
Rastorgueva’s Middle Persian Grammar (1968)
Dānāk-uMainyô-i Khard (Anklesaria, 1913)
Kār-nāma-î Artakhsîr-î Pāpakān (Anklesaria, 1935)
Husraw ī Kawādān ud Rēdag-ē (Azarnouch, 2013)
Encyclopedia Iranica (Boyce, 1975)
The Pārsīg corpus.

I first identify the strategies used in Old and Middle Persian in order to encode "genericity" among those known typologically (e.g., definite singular/plural, plural marking, zero-marking, singular indefinite) as suggested by Behrens (2005). Then, I will investigate whether the indefinite grammatical marker, similar to those noted in other languages and observed by Rastorgueva (1968) in Middle Persian, is also able to encode the generic reference; since, Heine (1997) proposes that in the grammaticalization process of indefinite markers, there is a stage where referents are unknown both to the speaker and to the hearer. Does this stage allow for encoding generic nouns as well? Or has grammaticalization contributed to the emergence of dedicated grammatical markers for encoding genericity in Persian?
 

Discussion

The analysis of the data illustrates that two strategies are employed in both Old and Middle Persian to encode the genericity concept: 1. zero-marking (bare forms) and 2. plural marking. For instance, in the example below from Old Persian the word drau̯ga ‘lie’ is a bare singular noun used generically:

pasāva             drau̯ga              dahyau̯-vā        vasi̯      abava      

after-that          lie.SG.M.NOM land.SG.F-LOC much    become.PST.3SG
‘Then lies became widespread in the land.’ (Schmitt, 2009:41)
Plural marking is another strategy for encoding genericity in Old Persian mentioned before, as in the following example using the -nām suffix:

adam    Dārayava.uš                 ...         xšāyaJiya                    xšāyaJiyā-nām ...

1SG     Dāryuš.NOM.SG.M                  ...         king.NOM.SG.M           king.M-GEN.PL
xšāyaJiya                    dahyū-nām
king.NOM.SG.M           land.F-GEN.PL
‘I am Darius ... king of kings ... king of lands.’ (Schmitt, 2009:36–37)
Similarly, in Middle Persian, both bare forms and plural markers (-ān, -īhā) serve as generic markers:

andar   hamag  šahr                  ī           ērān     zan                  

        in                          all        country            EZ        Iran     woman            
       az                          ōy         hu-čihr-tar                    n-ēst
      from                       3SG     good-face-CMPR          NEG-be.PRS.3SG
 ‘In all Iran, there is no woman more beautiful than her.’ (Jamasp, 1992:212)

xwad    kōf-īhā             gyāg-īhā           [ī]          

self       mountain-PL    place-PL          EZ       
škast-ag                                    nihān    būd                  hēnd 
break.PST.3SG-PTCP               hidden be.PST             3PL
‘They themselves had taken refuge in the mountains and rugged places.’ (Anklesaria, 1913:41–42)
The following figures clearly depict the distinction in encoding genericity using the means of "zero marking" and "plural marking":



 


 
 



 
 
 
 
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*                                                                    
 
 
 
 



 
 
 
 


 
 





Fig 1. Encoding genericity using plural marking




 


 





Fig 1. Encoding genericity using zero marking




 


 



 
 
 
 
Additionally, in Middle Persian instances, one encounters some examples of the indefinite marker =ē, which corresponds to Heine’s Stage IV: the use of an unspecific indefinite i.e. the referent is unknown both to the speaker and the hearer. However, this marker encodes indefiniteness, not genericity:

kū                    kāč …. murw=ē        būd                      hēm     ō          daryāb

COMP             wish     bird=INDF    be.PST.3SG         1SG     at         sea
‘I wish I were a bird in the sea.’ (Jamasp, 1992:205)
Such uses refer to an unspecific instance of a type in a class, not to a class as a whole. Crucially, indefinite NPs trigger discourse referents, while generic nouns do not. That is, generic nouns are not referred back to later in the related discourse, in contrast to indefinite NPs, as shown in:

agar      diz=e                rōyēn   bē        farmāy-ē          kard-an                        ...

if                      castle=INDF    firm      SBJ      order-2SG        do.PST.3SG-INF          ...
kay-wištāsp-ša              andar   ān        diz       bē        farmāy-ē          nišast-an
great-Wištasp-king       at         that      castle   SBJ      order-2SG        sit.PST.3SG-INF
‘If you order a strong fortress to be built  ... you order King Vishtasp to sit in that fortress.’ (Jamasp, 1992: 209)
Here, the indefinite NP diz=e ‘a fortress’ is referred back to as ān diz ‘that fortress’; while a generic noun would not behave this way. Therefore, the study confirms that the indefinitenes and genericity semantically and syntactically are distinct categories. Some previous studies (e.g., Behrens, 2005) have mistakenly conflated these categories, however even those note that indefinite markers are rarely used to express genericity. In this regard, Meshkinfam (2022:257) outlines three diagnostic tests based on Modern Persian to distinguish the two categories:

Substitution test: Generic nouns cannot be replaced with indefinite NPs without a shift in meaning.
Using the word anvā ‘types’: This word precedes generic nouns but not indefinites.
Compatibility with vague quantifiers: Words like har ‘each’ and hame ‘all’ combine with indefinites but not generics.

Moreover, Jespersen (1949: 442) and Wirth (1980: 252) have also emphasized the distinction between "indefinite" and "generic" reference in English, where the indefinite article is often mistakenly assumed to mark generics.
The only apparent contribution of grammaticalization to the encoding of genericity lies in the development of generic pronouns. For instance, the lexeme man, expressed as martiya in Old Persian and mard in Middle Persian developed to codify the human class as a whole, rather than an individual referent. The preference for the word man over woman is likely attributable to the higher frequency of mard compared to zan ‘woman’ in social usage, and consequently, in the language over time.
 
 
 
 
 

Conclusion

This paper presents, for the first time, a corpus-based investigation of generic nouns in Old and Middle Persian, a topic that has received limited attention in linguistic researches. The findings indicate that, consistent with Modern Persian (Meshkinfam, 2022), both Old and Middle Persian employ zero and plural marking as the strategies in order to encode the category of "genericity". Moreover, this study illustrates that, although indefinite markers are sometimes assumed in the literature to mark genericity, they do not perform this function. Therefore, genericity should be considered as a distinct grammatical category, separate from indefiniteness. The distinction between zero-marked generics and plural-marked generics is also emphasized, with plural forms referring to individual members of a category, while bare forms denote the entire class. Finally, the emergence of generic pronouns such as martiya and mard through grammaticalization highlights an additional mechanism by which languages encode generic reference.
 
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