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Mark Hale Old Persian Word Order

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Mark Hale Old Persian Word Order MARK HALE OLD PERSIAN WORD ORDER ~ The Old Persian inscriptions of the Achaemenid dynasty provide us with our earliest records for the study of the so-called 'Western' branch of the Iranian language family. A detailed study of the syntax of these inscriptions thus represents a critical step toward an adequate conception of the syntax of Common Iranian (which itself must precede an understanding of the syntax of the higher-order families Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Indo- European). Yet the subject has received little attention) It is my purpose here to rectify, at least to some degree, this neglect. One of the most striking characteristics of Old Persian syntax 2 (especially in light of the oldest textual evidence for the other branches of Indo-Iranian -- Gathic Avestan and the Rigveda) is the stable structure of the verb phrase in the majority of sentences in the corpus. The various subconsti- tuents of the verb phrase are normalIy arranged in a contiguous fashion, with the verb placed at the end of the VP string. The nominative subject almost invariably stands before this verb phrase. 3 Thus, for example: (1) DB 1.12 Auramazdfi [x~a~am manfi fifibara] vP 'Auramazda bestowed the kingdom upon me" (2) DB 2.16 hauv [hacfi = ma hamiqiya abava] vP 'he became rebellious from me' (3) DB 3.29 pasfiva adam [kfiram Pfirsam utfi Mfidam frfiigayam] vP 'then I sent forth the Persian and Median army' (4) DB 4.15 hauv [Bfibirum hamiqiyam akunaug] vP 'he made Babylon rebellious' (5) DNa 46 Pfirsa martiya [dfirayapiy hac5 Pfirsfi partaram patiyajatfi] vP 'a Persian man has delivered battle far indeed from Persia' Examples (1--5) show verb phrases of varying degrees of complexity, all of which are continuous, and all of which show the finite verb at the end of the sentence. The subjects all stand outside of and precede the VPs. However, the most frequent sentence in the corpus, which functions as a sort of paragraph marker, reads: Indo-lranian Journal 31 (1988), 27--40. 1988 by D. Reidel Publishing Company. 28 MARK HALE (6) DB 12ft. pfitiy Dfirayavau~" x~fiyapiya 'speaks Darius the King' There are two possible explanations for the exceptional position of the verb in this sentence. The first possibility is that the structure present here does not represent an actual syntactic possibility in the synchronic grammar of Old Persian, but is rather an inherited formulaic method of phrasing 'authoritative' utterances (of. Young Avestan mraot ahur6 mazdd ...).4 Alternatively, it is possible that Old Persian syntax, although having normally a verb-final sentence structure, allows for the fronting of elements to sentence-initial position for some pragmatic function. The evidence unambiguously supports the latter position. (Note that this is not to say that the verb-fronting in (6) is not formulaic, only that this formulaic expression is well-formed given the synchronic rules of the grammar). Thus, although we have noted above that the verb phrase in Old Persian is not normally discontinuous, such discontinuities do arise from the application of the rule of fronting or topicalization, s (7) DB 1.42 x~aqam hauv agarbfiyatfi 'he seized the kingdom' (8) DB 1.46 utfi Pfirsam utfi Mfidam ut~ aniyfi dahyavfi hauv fiyasatfi 'he took both Persia and Media and the other provinces' (9) DNa 53 aita adam Auramazdfim jadiyfimiy 'this I ask of Auramazda' Examples (7--9) show topicalized accusative objects. The fronting of these constituents is responsible for the discontinuous verb phrases in these sentences. Any argument may be topicalized in this manner, the only constraint on the fronting being the general restriction on topicalization which (almost by definition) prohibits the movement of more than one constituent by this process. That oblique arguments and prepositional phrases may also be topicalized can be seen from examples (10--13). (10) AmH 6 man~ baga vazraka Auramazdfi fr~bara 'upon me the great god Auramazda bestowed (it)' (11) DB 2.75 duvarayfi --~ maiy basta ad~riya "he, bound, was held at my palace entrance' (12) DSf 56 q2fi~fiyfiparuv fra~am framS, tam "at Susa a very excellent work was ordered' .
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