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The Intonational Grammar of Persian Nima Sadat-Tehrani

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The Intonational Grammar of Persian Nima Sadat-Tehrani The Intonational Grammar of Persian by Nima Sadat-Tehrani A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics University of Manitoba Winnipeg Copyright © 2007 by Nima Sadat-Tehrani i Abstract This thesis is a detailed investigation of the phonology and phonetics of the intonation of Persian carried out in the framework of the AM theory of intonational phonology. Based on 2112 utterances read by a total of 8 native speakers, the work, on the one hand, presents a phonological account of the prosodic structure of this language, a structure that consists of the level Accentual Phrase with the pitch accent (L+)H* immediately dominated by the level Intonational Phrase, each level being marked by a low or high boundary tone. On the other hand, it scrutinizes the phonetic implementation of tones with regard to segments and shows how the phonology of Persian intonation is phonetically realized in the speech string. This research also studies the intonational patterns of simplex sentences, compound sentences coordinated with different types of conjunctions, subordinate structures, and vocative constructions. The sentence types include copular verb declaratives, sentences with unaccusative and unergative verbs, (S)(O)V sentences with and without adjuncts, null subject sentences, scrambled sentences, yes/no questions, leading yes/no questions, alternative questions, tag questions, single and multiple WH-questions, echo questions, imperatives, and single, double, and phrase focus constructions. ii Acknowledgement My gratitude goes to: My advisor Prof. Kevin Russell for his invaluable help in the course of thinking about and writing this dissertation. He’s given me lots of linguistic ideas and provided me with answers and questions. He’s also made me laugh (he’s very funny). Prof. Jila Ghomeshi, one of my advisory committee members, with whom I’ve had many useful linguistic discussions and from whom I’ve learned a lot. She’s full of positive energy and always there when you need her help. Prof. Rob Hagiwara, another committee member, whose intelligent comments have solved many of my linguistic problems through the years. He always makes you feel welcome with his big laughs. Prof. Todd Mondor, another committee member from the Department of Psychology for his helpful comments on my thesis, which made me look at issues from the eyes of a non- linguist scientist, a fact which broadened my vision. Prof. Gorka Elordieta, my external examiner from the Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, University of the Basque Country, Spain, whom I knew through reading his widely-acclaimed writings, and whose detailed comments made me rethink some of the issues, raising the quality of my thesis. The linguistics people at the University of Manitoba, Profs. H.C. Wolfart, Terry Janzen, Lorna MacDonald, David Pentland, Moshe Nahir, our administrator Debbie Spindler, and our technician Arden Ogg for their help and kindness along the way. My language consultants, without whom I would have had no data to work on! Finally, the University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship, which was partly responsible for keeping me alive during my research! iii Table of contents Abstract..............................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgements...........................................................................................................iii Table of contents...............................................................................................................iv List of tables....................................................................................................................viii List of figures.....................................................................................................................ix List of abbreviations......................................................................................................xvii Chapter 1: Preliminaries...................................................................................................1 1.1. Introduction..........................................................................................................1 1.2. Thesis map and main findings..............................................................................6 1.3. Modern Conversational Persian.........................................................................20 Chapter 2: Literature review..........................................................................................27 2.1. Lambton (1957), Mahootian (1997), Hayati (1998), Vahidian-Kamyar (2001), Scarborough (2007)........................................................................................... 27 2.2. Towhidi (1974)...................................................................................................32 2.3. Eslami (2000).....................................................................................................34 2.4. Mahjani (2003)...................................................................................................36 Chapter 3: The prosodic structure of Persian...............................................................41 3.1. The Accentual Phrase (AP)................................................................................41 3.1.1. Inside an AP...........................................................................................45 3.2. The Intonational Phrase (IP)..............................................................................50 3.3. Chapter summary...............................................................................................52 iv Chapter 4: The intonation patterns of Persian – simplex sentences...........................54 4.1. Declaratives........................................................................................................56 4.1.1. Copular verb constructions.....................................................................56 4.1.2. (S)(O)V declaratives..............................................................................59 4.2. Interrogatives......................................................................................................69 4.2.1. Yes/no questions....................................................................................69 4.2.1.1. Leading yes/no questions............................................................73 4.2.1.2. hi č questions................................................................................76 4.2.2. Tag questions..........................................................................................77 4.2.3. WH-questions.........................................................................................80 4.2.3.1. Multiple WH-word questions......................................................86 4.2.4. Echo questions........................................................................................89 4.3. Imperatives.........................................................................................................93 4.4. Chapter summary...............................................................................................96 Chapter 5: The intonation patterns of Persian – compound and complex sentences : coordination and subordination................................................................100 5.1. Compound sentences – coordination................................................................100 5.1.1. Section summary..................................................................................111 5.2. Complex sentences – subordination.................................................................112 5.2.1. Adjective clauses (relative clauses)......................................................113 5.2.1.1. Subsection summary .................................................................121 5.2.2. Noun clauses........................................................................................122 5.2.2.1. Subsection summary .................................................................130 v 5.2.3. Adverbs clauses....................................................................................131 5.2.3.1. Subsection summary .................................................................135 Chapter 6: The intonation patterns of Persian – focus..............................................136 6.1. The phonology of focus...................................................................................136 6.2. Focus in declaratives........................................................................................139 6.3. Focus in yes/no questions.................................................................................142 6.4. Focus in WH-questions....................................................................................144 6.5. Focus in compound and complex sentences....................................................149 6.6. Focus on more than one element......................................................................156 6.7. Chapter summary.............................................................................................160 Chapter 7: The intonation of vocatives........................................................................162 7.1. Stress in vocatives............................................................................................162
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