A new look at the suffix -gari with a look at some Azerbaijani data

This paper is a diachronic, synchronic and contact study of Persian suffix -gari with a look at some Azerbaijani data. Contrary to the earlier studies, I divide action nouns (ANs) suffixed with –gari into three major groups: Hierarchical ANs,(zargari),Reanalyzed non-hierarchical ANs(qazigari) & Derivational non-hierarchical ANs(mazhabgari,morabbigari). In the first section of the paper I give a brief introduction of the study then in the second section review the works done earlier. In section three after taking a look at the background of –gari in Old & Middle Persian I present the hypothesis and try to prove it giving evidences from Persian and a typologically far different language, Azerbaijani. I continue with counting the characteristics of the three major groups of the words mentioned above and giving examples from literary works of 4th century on I show how –gari have developed in Persian history. The last section concludes the paper.