Islamic Azad University,Tehran Science&Research Branch
Abstract
Crosslinguistically, completive aspect is a grammatical function through which the concept of 'to do something thoroughly and completely is encoded. In this survey, analyzing the verb raftan 'to go' basically as a marker of completive aspect in Persian, based on grammaticalization theory, I argue that other types of concepts that are related to the completion of a certain action,e.g expression of regret, unexpectedness, non-volitionality and humbleness are metonymically emerged and have dramatically been overlooked in the literature so far. These elaborated meanings indicate that a completed situation signals a shift in emphasis toward both the temporal endpoint of the action and the endpoint of the causal chain. An unanticipated completion of a situation may involve the concept of involuntary agent which in turn draws the emphasis away from the starting point of the action in order to make the non-canonically instigation of the situation prominent.
