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Negation in Persian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Saera Kwak
Saera Kwak*
Affiliation:
department of Persian at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Seoul, Korea)
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Abstract

This paper classifies Persian negative elements and analyzes the negative structures based on Minimalism and Distributed Morphology. Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) in Persian which have [−neg] check its feature against [+neg] of negative marker for convergence. Negative Concord Items (NCIs), which are inherently negative, have [+neg]. Thus, in the NC Sentences, we have two [+neg]—one in negative marker, and the other in NCI. It can be misread that a NC structure, like Double Negation, delivers an affirmative reading. To prevent the misreading, we assumed Neg-absorption and Neg-criterion. However, that is impossible in Double Negation with two negative markers placed in different NegP, so the [+neg] in the sentence remain till Logical Form (LF) and they cancel each other and, as a result, the sentence becomes affirmative. Based on Minimalism and Distributed Morphology, the unified account on the structure of negation is examined.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 5: On Persian Language and Linguistics , December 2010 , pp. 621 - 636
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2010

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References

1 “not” and “n't” are considered as the forms of negative marker in English.

2 As space is limited, I will not cover the discussion on inherently negative verbs in this paper.

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8 Sentences in (9), (11) and (12) are from S. Kwak, “Sāxt-e jomalāt-e manfi dar zabān-e fārsi” [The Structure of Negative Sentences in Persian] (PhD diss., Tehran, 2008), 76.

9 In some Romance languages, like Italian, more than two NCIs can construct negative sentences. The following sentence is from Watanabe, A., “The Genesis of Negative Concord: Syntax and Morphology of Negative Doubling,” Linguistic Inquiry, 35 (2004): 650.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

e.g.) Nessuno ha letto niente.

Nobody has read nothing.

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16 It should be noted that “nothing, nobody etc” in English cannot be NCIs. They are not used with a negative marker, and when they are used with the marker, the meaning of the sentence becomes affirmative. We call this structure Double Negation.

17 Watanabe, “The Genesis of Negative Concord,” 568.

18 Giannakidou, “Negative…Concord?”; Watanabe, “The Genesis of Negative Concord;” Kwak, S. and Darzi, A., “The Syntax and Semantics of Persian NCI, Hič-Phrase,” paper presented at the Second Workshop on the Persian Language and Computer (Tehran, 2006), 61.Google Scholar

19 This is not an exhaustive list of NSIs.

20 Kwak, “Sāxt-e jomalāt-e manfi dar zabān-e fārsi,” 86.

21 Kwak, “Sāxt-e jomalāt-e manfi dar zabān-e fārsi,” 78.

22 Kwak, “Sāxt-e jomalāt-e manfi dar zabān-e fārsi,” 80.

23 Kwak, “Sāxt-e jomalāt-e manfi dar zabān-e fārsi,” 86.

24 Kwak, “Sāxt-e jomalāt-e manfi dar zabān-e fārsi,” 82.

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33 As Chomsky (The Minimalist Program) claims, the interpretability of features can be defined by their semantic properties. Therefore, it is natural that we assume that the negative marker in negative structures whose main role is to negate whole proposition contains interpretable negative feature.

35 Kwak, “Sāxt-e jomalāt-e manfi dar zabān-e fārsi,” 114.

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