Aspects of Persian

Phonology and Morpho-phonology

by

Elham Rohany Rahbar

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Linguistics University of Toronto

© Copyright by Elham Rohany Rahbar 2012

ii

Aspects of Persian

Phonology and Morpho-phonology

Elham Rohany Rahbar

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Linguistics University of Toronto

2012

Abstract

This thesis deals with aspects of Persian phonology and morpho-phonology which are

less studied or controversial, and has two specific goals: (i) to examine the structure of

the Persian vowel system with the goal of understanding the asymmetries in patterning of

different vowels in the system; (ii) to examine some suffixation processes in Persian with

the goal of understanding the seeming irregularities in morphophonemics. The more

generals goals of this work are to contribute to the discussions of: (i) determining

dimensions of contrast in a vowel system; (ii) interactions of vowels and consonants at a

morpheme boundary. Although the main focus of this work is on the synchronic status of

these issues in Persian from a theoretical viewpoint, many discussions in the thesis

benefit from an historical and/or an experimental investigation. As such, the thesis

contributes both to the field of theoretical and experimental phonology, and offers both

synchronic and historical perspectives on many issues at hand.

iii

Acknowledgements

First, I give thanks to God for giving me such a beautiful life full of blessings, including

the honour of being a part of the U of T Linguistics community. I feel privileged to have

had this opportunity and I will cherish it for the rest of my life.

I would like to thank my committee members: Keren Rice (my supervisor), Elan Dresher,

Yoonjung Kang, Peter Avery, and Marc van Oostendorp. I couldn’t have asked for a

better or nicer committee! Keren is an extraordinary supervisor. She has been, without

question, the most influential figure in all years of my education. I have learned so much

from her both as her student and as her assistant for IJAL. Thank you, Keren, for always

being there for me, for your invaluable guidance and high standards of academic work,

for your less-than-a-minute e-mail responses even over the weekends and holidays, for

your unbelievable speed in sending meticulous comments on drafts of my thesis, for

caring beyond the call of duty, for all the rewarding meetings, and above all for making

me believe in myself and my work. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! I am also

very grateful to Elan, who has been involved with my work since my first year at U of T.

I greatly appreciate all his sound advice and invaluable input throughout these years. Elan

has been also my mentor in my teaching appointments, which has been a pleasure. Many

thanks, Elan, for teaching me so much and for making each and every appointment and

discussion so fruitful and fun-filled. Yoonjung has been instrumental in helping me look

at data from a different angle. She raises the type of questions that I usually do not think

of, and I am very thankful to her for this and for her thoughtful feedback on my work.

During the years that I was working on my thesis, I always hoped that Peter Avery and

Marc van Oosdtendorp would be on my committee. Peter was on my first generals paper

committee and I still remember how much I enjoyed discussing my work with him, and I

am deeply grateful to him for accepting to be on my thesis committee and for letting me

have the same enjoyable experience once again. I have never met Marc, but his influence

on my research has been tremendous. Thank you, Marc, for all your inspiring work, and

for your encouraging comments on my thesis! I feel fortunate that you were my external

iv

examiner.

My thanks also go to the faculty and administrative staff of the department, and to my

fellow grad students for creating such a supportive and friendly environment. I would like

to especially thank Ron Smyth, Alexei Kochetov, and Christopher Neufeld for their help

with the experiments of my thesis, Elaine Gold, our undergraduate coordinator, for her

guidance on teaching and running courses, and Mary Hsu and Bill Forrest for their help

with everything administrative and technical. Special thanks also to the participants of

my experiments.

I also wish to extend my gratitude to the Linguistics departments at the Ferdowsi

University (Iran), where I first discovered my interest in linguistics, and the University of

Calgary, where I first discovered how exciting phonology is.

I am happy to acknowledge the financial support of University of Toronto Doctoral

Thesis Completion grants, Ontario Graduate Scholarships, University of Calgary and

University of Toronto open fellowships, and SSHRC grant #410-2008-2645 to Elan

Dresher and Keren Rice.

I feel lucky to have the support of great friends outside linguistics. Farideh and

Banafsheh Tajik and their families deserve special mention in this regard.

Finally, my deepest thanks go to my loving family: my parents, my husband, our son, my

brother, and my sister-in-law. I can’t thank my very wonderful husband and friend,

Afshin, enough for his unwavering love, support, and understanding. I could write

volumes on what he has done for me during the very long journey of my education. There

is no doubt in my mind that without his incredible patience, constant encouragement,

tireless help, and exemplary positive attitude, I couldn’t have done this. Big thanks to my

dearly beloved son, Damoun, the joy of my life, for bearing with his always-student mom

– I believe he doesn’t remember me not being a student – my sincere apologies! Damoun,

I am glad I finished university before you start! What a blessing to have a brilliant and

kind brother like Ali, and a lovely sister(-in-law) like Sahar! I am so grateful for their

friendship and moral support. Ali, thank you for making me laugh so hard every time we

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talk! I will never forget our conversation the night before my defence (you are right -

academia has indeed been the hot topic in most of our conversations in the last decade!).

And, of course, I owe the greatest thanks to my parents, the best parents in the world, for

a lifetime of unconditional love, immeasurable support, and great sacrifices, for instilling

in me the appreciation for knowledge and the pleasure of learning, for their strong belief

in me and my path, for not holding me back when I followed my dream to move to the

other side of the world, for being here the last two years of my program and for their

crucial help during this time period, for everything they have done and are doing for me,

which cannot be put in words. I got where I am because of their prayers.

I dedicate this dissertation to my family.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1. Goals…………………………………………………….................................1

1.2. Theoretical foundation……………………………………………………….3

1.3. Morpho-phonological issues………………………………………………....9

1.4. Organization of thesis……………………………………………………….10

Chapter 2 The active features of the Persian vowel system: the problem

2.1.The Persian vowel inventory: background…………………………………..11

2.1.1. Persian historical background……………………………………...14

2.2. Literature review…………………………………………………………….17

2.2.1. Arguments in favor of quality……………………………………..21

2.2.1.1. Phonetics of vowels……………………………………..21

2.2.1.2. Stress…………………………………………………….28

2.2.2. Arguments in favor of quantity……………………………………32

2.2.2.1. Versification………………………………………………32

2.2.2.1.1. Middle Persian versification…………………..34

2.2.2.1.2. Folk poetry…………………………………….36

2.2.2.1.3. Adopting Arabic meter………………………..39

2.2.2.1.4. Conclusion…………………………………….41

2.2.2.2. Categorization of vowels based on phonotactics………..42

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2.2.2.3. Summary………………………………………………...47

2.2.3. The synthetic analysis……………………………………………….49

2.2.4. Summary and discussion……………………………………………53

2.3. Vowel harmony and a featural analysis for the system………………………55

2.3.1. Harmony across a morpheme boundary…………………………..55

2.3.2. Harmony within stem……………………………………………...58

2.3.3. Harmony in loan words……………………………………………60

2.3.4. Preliminary analysis……………………………………………….63

2.3.5. Harmony in low vowels…………………………………………...64

2.3.6. Harmony in low and non-low vowels: a question………………...67

2.4. Summary and conclusion…………………………………………………....69

Chapter 3 The active features of the Persian vowel system: the solution

3.1. Harmony patterns: an account based on height……………………………..71

3.1.1. Harmony patterns in non-low vowels: an account based on height.72

3.1.2. Harmony patterns in low vowels: an account based on height……77

3.1.3. Harmony patterns in a height-based account: discussion…………78

3.2. Tense/lax distinction………………………………………………………...79

3.3. On the nature of tense/lax …………………………………………………..81

3.4. Phonetic experiment…………………………………………………………85

3.4.1. Results…………………………………………………………......88

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3.4.2. Discussion…………………………………………………………91

3.5. Contrasts in the Persian vowel system………………………………………95

3.6. Markedness and vowel features in Persian……………………………….....99

3.6.1. Assimilation…………………………………………………….....99

3.6.2. Epenthesis………………………………………………………..100

3.6.3. Deletion…………………………………………………………..101

3.6.4. Neutralization…………………………………………………….102

3.7. Harmony in low vowels across laryngeals………………………………..105

3.8. Pre-nasal raising…………………………………………………………..110

3.9. Summary…………………………………………………………………..118

3.10. Diphthongs……………………………………………………………….119

3.10.1. ɑj, uj, oj, and aj…………………………………………………120

3.10.2. ej and ow……………………………………………………......123

3.11. Summary………………………………………………………………..128

Chapter 4 The epenthetic –e in suffixation: evidence for quantity?

4.1. Epenthesis in suffixation: synchronically………………………………….131

4.2. Incorporating quantity……………………………………………………...136

4.3. A question about epenthesis………………………………………………..140

4.4. An overview of Persian suffixes…………………………………………...141

4.5. Cluster types, productivity of suffixes, and frequency…………………….152

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4.5.1. Cluster types and productivity of suffixes……………………….152

4.5.2. Frequency of suffixes and the suffixed forms……………………153

4.6. Epenthesis in suffixation: an historical perspective..………………………160

4.6.1. An historical investigation of suffixes and epenthesis in suffixed

forms……………………………………………………………160

4.6.2. A note on epenthesis within stems……………………………….169

4.7. Epenthesis in suffixation: the experiment………………………………….172

4.7.1. Methodology……………………………………………………..174

4.7.2. Task 1: Production (reading)…………………………………….175

4.7.3. Task 2: Production (question and answer)………………………178

4.7.4. Task 3: Production (wug test)……………………………………182

4.7.5. Task 4: Perception (acceptability rating)……………………..….183

4.7.6. Summary and discussion…………………………………………192

4.8. Summary…………………………………………………………………...194

Chapter 5 VCC co-occurrence restrictions: evidence for quantity?

5.1. VCC co-occurrence restrictions: review of the literature………………….195

5.2. CVC forms…………………………………………………………………202

5.3. Vowel-consonant co-occurrence restrictions in tense/lax-based

vowel systems………………………………………………………………….204

5.4. VCC restrictions: why a support for quantity?.............................................206

5.5. Geminates.…………………………………………………………………208

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5.6. On Syllabification in Persian………………………………………………215

5.7. On different syllable structures…………………………………………….216

5.8. VCC# restrictions: a tense-based account…………………………………224

5.9. Loanwords…………………………………………………………………227

5.10. VCC co-occurrence restrictions: not a support for quantity……………...234

5.11. A note on historical status of final CC’s and germination………………..235

5.11.1. Final CC’s in Middle Persian…………………………………...235

5.11.2. Geminates in Middle Persian…..……………………………….243

5.12. Summary………………………………………………………………….245

Appendix………………………………………………………………………..246

Chapter 6 Minimal word requirements: evidence for quantity?

6.1. Minimality requirement……………………………………………………254

6.2. Data: description and discussion…………………………………………...256

6.3. Analysis of patterning of Persian vowels in vowel-final monosyllables…..261

6.3.1. Phonetic length……………………………………………….......262

6.3.2. /o/ in #CV#.....................................................................................262

6.4. Experiment on o/ow in final position………………………………………264

6.5. Minimal words in Persian………………………………………………….271

6.6. Summary and conclusion…………………………………………………..273

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Chapter 7 More on suffixation: the case of –v

7.1. The case of v in suffixation: overview…………………………………….279

7.2. Possible analyses…………………………………………………………..286

7.2.1. Different underlying representations…………………………….287

7.2.2. Default pattern vs. lexicalized items……………………………..294

7.2.3. Phonetic effect…………………………………………………...294

7.2.4. Summary…………………………………………………………296

7.3. The experiment…………………………………………………………….298

7.3.1. Task 1: Production (question and answer)……………………….298

7.3.2. Task 2: Production (wug test)……………………………………302

7.3.3. Task 3: Perception (accessibility rating)…………………………304

7.3.4. Discussion………………………………………………………..305

7.4. Summary………………………………………………………………….307

Chapter 8 More on suffixation: the case of -ɡ

8.1. The synchronic status of -ɡ………………………………………………...308

8.1.1. The -ɡ: overview……………………………………………..…..309

8.1.2. Words with other vowels in final position……………………….312

8.1.3. The adjective-forming –i…………………………………………316

8.2. Literature review…………………………………………………………...318

8.2.1. Natel Khanlari’s account…………………………………………318

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8.2.2. Lazard’s account…………………………………………………319

8.2.3. Kalbasi’s account………………………………………………...320

8.2.4. Mahootian’s account…………………………………………......323

8.2.5. Meshkatod Dini’s account…………………………………….....326

8.2.6. Conclusion…………………………………………………….....328

8.3. Possible analyses of -ɡ (synchronic and historical)………………………..330

8.3.1. Different levels of suffixation……………………………………331

8.3.2. The -ɡ is word final………………………………………………337

8.3.2.1. A synchronic investigation…………………..…..….....337

8.3.2.2. An historical investigation……………….…………….340

8.3.3. The -ɡ is suffix initial…………………………………………….342

8.3.4. The -ɡ is epenthetic………………………………………………346

8.3.5. Summary…………………………………………………………346

8.4. The experiment…………………………………………………………….347

8.4.1. Task 1: Production (question and answer)……………………….347

8.4.2. Task 2: Production (wug test)……………………………………352

8.4.3. Task 3: Perception (accessibility rating)…………………………356

8.4.4. Summary…………………………………………………………358

8.5. Summary and discussion………………………………………………..…358

Appendix to chapter 8………………………………………………………… .361

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Chapter 9 Summary ……………………………………………………………... 372

References……………………………………………………………………………...376

Appendices……………………………………………………………………………..394

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List of Appendices

Appendix 1 - Vowel harmony………………………………………………………… 394

Appendix 2 - The list of suffixes………………………………………………………397

Appendix 3 - Experiments……………………………………………………………. 417

Appendix 4 - Readings (Task 1 - experiment on epenthesis)…………………………. 444

Appendix 5 - Question and answer (Task 2 - experiment on epenthesis)…………….. 449

Appendix 6 - Wug test (Task 3 - experiment on epenthesis)…………………………. 450

Appendix 7 - Acceptability rating (Task 4 - experiment on epenthesis)……………… 452

Appendix 8 - The list of o- and u-final made-up words used in the experiment……… 453

Appendix 9 - The list of e-final made-up words used in the experiment……………... 456

Appendix 10 - The list of real words used in the experiment for all three processes….458

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Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1. Goals

The specific goals of this thesis are twofold. First, I examine the structure of the Persian

vowel system with the goal of understanding the asymmetries in patterning of different

vowels in the system. Second, I examine some suffixation processes in Persian, with the

goal of understanding the seeming irregularities in morphophonemics. The more general

goals are to contribute to the discussions of determining active features of a vowel system

and the processes and interactions of vowels and consonants which occur at a morpheme

boundary, based on evidence from Persian.

Persian, also known as Farsi, is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the

Indo-European family (Trask 1996, Ghomeshi 1996, Lewis 2009). The major dialects of

Persian are Persian spoken in Iran, Dari spoken in Afghanistan, and Tajik spoken in

Tajikistan (Windfuhr 1987, Toosarvandani 2004). The focus of this study is on Persian or

Modern Persian spoken in Iran. The dialect of Modern Persian under study here is

Standard Persian. Within this dialect, there are differences between informal daily speech

and formal speech/written form. The former is under discussion in this study.

The Persian vowel system, a controversial topic in the Persian literature, has attracted

attention and various analyses have been offered for the system. I review and critique

these analyses, and argue that a re-examination of Persian vowels, and the phonological

processes in which the vowels are involved, shed light on the structure of the Persian

vowel system.

This thesis also aims to account for particular suffixation processes in which v and ɡ occur at a suffix boundary between vowel-final roots and vowel-initial suffixes. The

occurrence of these consonants has been discussed in the literature on Persian. No

thorough account, however, has been provided for their occurrence. I show that a careful

2

study, theoretically and experimentally, gives significant insight into the occurrence of

these consonants.

Thus the major empirical goal of this study is to account for some Persian phonological

and morpho-phonological processes which are controversial or less studied.

Theoretically, this work contributes to the field of phonology by arguing that, in the light

of the theory of Modified Contrastive Specification and markedness and contrast as

defined by this theory, in order to determine the active features of a system, phonological

activity in that language should be taken into consideration. This study contributes to our

understanding of phonological theory by analyzing the Persian vowel system considering

markedness and contrast, concepts of central and current importance and controversy in

the theory. In particular, this work contributes to studies on determining active features of

vowel systems. It is sometimes difficult to determine whether contrasts in a vowel system

are based on quantity or quality (see, for instance, van Oostendorp 1995, Odden 2011).

The Persian vowel system presents an interesting example in this respect.

On the morpho-phonological side, the thesis touches upon vowel as well as consonant

occurrence at a suffix boundary and raises issues concerning the interaction of vowels

and consonants in suffixation. Thus it contributes to the field of morpho-phonology with

respect to processes occurring in suffixation.

Another aspect of the thesis is its historical perspective on the processes under study.

Although the goal of this work is to account synchronically for the Persian vowel system

and for some morpho-phonological processes in the language, the discussion of vowels

and morpho-phonological processes benefit from an historical view as well.

In addition to its theoretical dimension, this thesis includes experiments on morpho-

phonological processes. Thus, it also contributes to the field of experimental phonology

and to the growing body of experimental work designed to probe linguistic patterns (e.g.,

Ohala 1987, Albright and Hayes 2003, Hirata 2004, Kang 2007, Alderete and Kochetov

2009, Babel and Johnson 2010, Johnson and Babel 2010, Kawahara 2011, Cohn,

Fougeron, and Huffman 2011).

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1.2. Theoretical foundations

Markedness and contrast have been the focus of considerable research and different

proposals have been made about their roles in phonological theory (e.g., Saussure 1916,

Sapir 1925, Trubetzkoy 1939, Jackobson and Halle 1956, Kiparsky 1982, Pulleyblank

1986, 1988a, 1988b, Archangeli 1988, Mohanan 1991, Dresher, Piggott and Rice 1994,

Steriade 1995, de Lacy 2006, Avery, Dresher and Rice, 2008, Dresher 2009). In

discussing markedness and contrast, several questions need to be addressed, including the

following. What is the role of contrast in phonology? What features are actively present

in phonology and how can they be identified? Do non-contrastive features play a role in

phonology? How is markedness encoded? Which features are marked and which are

unmarked? What diagnostics should be used to determine (un)markedness of a feature? Is

markedness universal or language specific? Does phonetics play a role in determining

markedness and contrast in phonology? Various theories answer these questions

differently.1

Working within Modified Contrastive Specification, I assume that phonology is rooted in

contrast and features appear in a system to show these contrasts. A contrast has two

poles, a marked one and an unmarked one. Within the structural markedness perspective

embraced by this theory, an unmarked element is the pole of opposition for which the

The theory I adopt is Modified Contrastive Specification, also known as the

Toronto school of phonology (e.g., Avery and Rice 1989, Rice and Avery 1993, Walker

1993, Dresher, Piggott, and Rice 1994, Dresher 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, Rice and Avery

2004, Rice 1999, Mackenzie 2005, Rice 2007, Hall 2007, Mackenzie 2008, Dresher

2009). Throughout this work, I use the notions of contrast and markedness as defined by

this theory. I discuss these below, presenting examples.

1The Sound Pattern of English (SPE), for example, takes underlying representations to be fully specified (Chomsky and Halle 1968); Radical underspecification does not distinguish contrastive and non-contrastive features in phonological computation, that is redundant features might be available to some phonological rules (e.g., Archangeli 1984, Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1994); phonetically-based phonological theories take non-contrastive phonetic features into account in phonology (e.g., Steriade 1997, Kirchner 1997). With respect to markedness, based on one view, as observed in some OT-based accounts, there are fixed universal hierarchies for markedness of features (e.g., McCarthy and Prince 1994, Urbanczyk 1996, Beckman 1997, Lombardi 2002); another view, however, looks at markedness from a language-particular perspective and so different features can pattern as marked in different languages (e.g., Rice 2004).

4

feature is literally not marked or is absent, while the marked element is present. Two

languages with the same surface inventory can have different unmarked features because

the two systems may have different choices of features and also contrasts may be built up

differently in the two systems (see Dresher 2003a, 2003b, Rice 2004, Dresher 2009). As a

consequence of different pathways to the same surface inventory, variation in markedness

is observed even in similar inventories. For example, Yoruba (Niger-Congo) and Gengbe

(Niger-Congo) have identical vowel inventories but behave differently from one another

with respect to markedness. In Yoruba, the vowel /i/ shows the unmarked patterning,

while in Gengbe, the vowel /e/ does so (see Abaglo and Archangeli 1989).

In this theory, feature contrasts and phonological patterning are taken into consideration

to determine which feature is unmarked in a language (Rice 1999). Various diagnostics

are proposed in the literature in order to determine markedness. In particular, unmarked

elements result from neutralization, are likely to be epenthetic, are the target of

assimilation, and are lost in coalescence and deletion (see Rice 1999, 2007 for a

summary). In the theory of Modified Contrastive Specification, markedness is a matter of

structure.2

2 For a different view see de Lacy (2006).

Unmarked elements have less structure than marked ones. Since languages

differ in the amount of structure that they need (depending on relevant contrasts),

different features can play the role of unmarked across languages. How is the amount of

structure decided for a language? Contrast is the determining factor (e.g., Avery and Rice

1989, Dresher 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2009). For example, consider vowel height. When

there is no contrast in a vowel system, that is, in a vowel system of only one height, a

vowel can potentially be realized at any height (the language-particular properties

determine which height). In a two-height system one can be [low] and the other non-low

(this non-low height can be phonetically mid or high); or one can be [high] and the other

non-high. In a three-height system, there are various possibilities (Dresher, Piggott, and

Rice 1994). For instance, if [low] and [high] are marked based on the phonological

activities of the language under study, mid vowels will show unmarked patterning (for

example they are targets of harmony or used as epenthetic vowels), as argued by Dyck

5

(1995) for Iberian Spanish dialects, where metaphony (vowel raising or high harmony)

targets mid vowels. If, however, the features [low] and [mid] are specified, high vowels

would be expected to show unmarked patterning. An example of the latter case is

Yoruba, where /i/ shows the unmarked patterning (see Pulleyblank 1998, 2003).

The key point, thus, is that phonological activities are the main diagnostics for

determining contrast and markedness of features in a system because, as the theory of

Modified Contrastive Specification suggests, only contrastive features are present

underlyingly, and are, therefore, active in the phonology of a language. In this work,

when I use ‘active feature’, ‘phonologically active feature’, ‘dimension/basis of contrast’,

‘contrastive feature’, I mean features which are marked or underlyingly present as

defined in this theory.

An important aspect of this theory is that contrastive features are ordered into a

contrastive hierarchy (e.g., Dresher 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, Dresher and Xi 2005, Dresher

2009). Thus not only is identifying the active features in a system important, but so is the

order in which they enter into a system.

Assume a language with the following vowel system: /u, i, e, a/. Let us further assume

that this language has the following contrastive hierarchy: [low] > [high] > [peripheral]

(following Rice (1995, 2002), I consider [coronal] and [peripheral] − whose phonetic

realization can be [labial] or [dorsal] − as vowel place features). [low] > [high] >

[peripheral] means [low] is ordered before [high] which is ordered before [peripheral].

Thus [low] makes the first cut in the system:

(1) First cut made by [low]

i u

e

______________________________

a [low]

6

/a/ does not need to be further specified because it is distinguished from all other vowels

by [low], and there are no other low vowels from which /a/ needs to be distinguished. In

the non-low region, we enter [high] given the assumed hierarchy for this language. The

result is shown in (2).

(2) Second cut made by [high]

i u [high]

______________________________

e

______________________________

a [low]

/e/ does not need to be further specified. We do, however, need a feature to distinguish /i/

and /u/ from each other. [peripheral] then makes the third cut, but only in the [high]

region, as shown in (3).

(3) Third cut made by [peripheral]

[high] i u [high], [peripheral]

______________________________

e

______________________________

a [low]

7

Based on [low] > [high] > [peripheral] (or [high] > [low] > [peripheral] – they yield the

same results), the feature specifications in this language are as follows. The √ shows

where a feature is present/specified.

(4) The feature specifications of /u, i, e, a/ assuming [low] > [high] > [peripheral]

i u e a

[low] √

[high] √ √

[peripheral] √

Now assume the contrastive hierarchy in this language is [low] > [peripheral] > [high].

The first cut, [low], gives us the following (the same as in (1)):

(5) First cut made by [low]

i u

e

______________________________

a [low]

Next, we enter [peripheral], as shown in (6).

(6) Second cut made by [peripheral]

i u [peripheral]

e

______________________________

a [low]

8

/u/ does not need further specification. Now [high] enters to make a cut between /i/ and

/e/.

(7) Third cut made by [high]

[high] i u [peripheral]

____________

e

____________________________

a [low]

The [low] > [peripheral] > [high] order gives the following feature specifications.

(8) The feature specifications of /u, i, e, a/ assuming [low] > [peripheral] > [high]

i u e a

[low] √

[peripheral] √

[high] √

Comparing the features of /u/ in (4) and (8), we see that even in the same inventory (e.g.,

/i, u, e, a/) with the same set of active features (e.g., [low], [high], [peripheral]), vowels

can be distinguished differently. But how can we decide which order is the right one in a

language? We need to look at the phonological processes of that language.

It should be noted that phonetic measurements do not need to necessarily match

phonological patterning based on Modified Contrastive Specification. The vowel /e/, as

an example, may pattern with /i/ in a language although the former is phonetically mid

9

and the latter is high. See, for example, Dresher and Zhang (2005). They consider /i/ in

Written Manchu to be phonetically ATR but phonologically neutral with respect to

harmony. When in position of trigger in harmony, /i/ only occurs with non-ATR vowels.

So a distinction is made between being phonetically ATR, but not being so

phonologically. That is why considering phonological activity is so important. One

cannot decide on the features for a segment just based on its phonetics. The phonological

activity of that segment is the crucial factor.

This is the framework within which my analysis of the Persian vowel system is

presented.

1.3. Morpho-phonological issues

As noted above, one of the goals of this thesis is to examine some Persian morpho-

phonological processes which show irregularities and which involve vowels and

consonants. One of these processes involves vowel epenthesis at a suffix boundary

seemingly with particular stem structures. The other two involve the occurrence of

consonants at a suffix boundary between a vowel-final stem and a vowel-initial suffix,

namely the occurrence of v after o-final and u-final words and the occurrence of ɡ after e-

final words. These processes raise discussion of several issues such as the underlying

representation and the historical background of vowel-final words in Persian, the effect of

phonetic environment, vowel epenthesis, consonant epenthesis, minimal word

requirements, and phonologically-conditioned allomorphy, all of which contribute to our

understanding of Persian vowel structure and activity at a suffix boundary and of vowel-

consonant interactions in that environment. Given that I examine these processes both

from a theoretical perspective and an experimental viewpoint, accompanied by a

historical investigation, an in-depth insight into these processes, and consequently of

Persian phonology and morpho-phonology is gained.

10

1.4. Organization of the thesis

The structure of the thesis is as follows.

Chapter 2 provides background on the Persian vowel system and discusses the active

features of the system, which is a controversial issue in Persian phonology and for which

different views are presented in the literature. I review the literature in this regard and

evaluate the evidence it presents. I examine Persian phonological processes and suggest

that vowel harmony is a decisive process with respect to the phonologically active feature

of the Persian vowel system.

In chapter 3, I propose a featural analysis of the system based on the tense/lax

distinction. I present the contrastive hierarchy of features of the system and discuss

markedness of features in the system. A phonetic study of Persian tense and lax vowels,

harmony across laryngeals, pre-nasal raising, and diphthongs are also discussed in this

chapter.

In chapters 4, 5, and 6, I discuss three processes which appear to provide support for a

quantity-based analysis of the system. Chapter 4 examines epenthesis in suffixation.

Chapter 5 discusses VCC co-occurrence restrictions. Chapter 6 deals with minimal word

requirements. I will argue that none of these processes provides an argument for quantity

in the system and that they are in fact compatible with the underlying tense-based

account.

Chapters 7 and 8 evaluate two morpho-phonological processes occurring at a suffix

boundary between vowel-final bases and vowel-initial suffixes. In chapter 7, I discuss the

occurrence of v after o- and u-final words in suffixation. Chapter 8 presents discussion of

ɡ after e-final words in suffixation.

Chapter 9 presents a summary of the thesis.

11

Chapter 2

The active features of the Persian vowel system: the problem

In this chapter, the organization of the Persian vowel inventory will be discussed. The

particular question which will be addressed is: what are the phonologically active features

in the system? The main distinguishing feature among vowels in Persian has been a

matter of debate in the literature and different accounts have been provided in this regard.

Some consider the system to be height-based (e.g., Samareh 1977, Pisowicz 1985) and

others consider it to be quantity-based (e.g., Hayes 1979). In addition, a synthetic analysis

which requires both quality and quantity is found in the literature (Toosarvandani 2004).

In this chapter, I will review the literature and discuss the evidence it presents in favor of

each of these views. I will then show the problems each of these encounters and conclude

that the arguments offered in the literature for these views are inconclusive. Following

the assumption that in order to determine the phonologically contrastive feature of a

system one needs to examine the phonological activities of that system, as argued by

Modified Contrastive Specification (see section 1.2), I will argue that there exists an

active phonological process in the language, namely vowel harmony, which strongly

supports a feature-based (i.e., qualitative) analysis for the Persian vowel system. I start

my discussion with the vowel inventory and its background.

2.1. The Persian vowel inventory: background

Modern Persian has the surface vowel system given in (1):

(1) i u

e o

a ɑ

12

This arrangement of Persian vowels is usually seen in the literature (e.g., Samareh 1985,

Pisowicz 1985, Darzi 1991, Meshkatod Dini 1999). There are differences in the literature

with respect to the symbols chosen for the vowels, in particular the symbols used for the

two low vowels vary. Some examples of the symbols used in the literature for the two

low vowels which are indicated by a and ɑ in (1) are respectively as follows: æ and a (Darzi 1991), æ and ɑ (Zolfaghari Serish and Kambuziya 2005), ɑ and ɑ (Lazard 1992),

a and â (Windfuhr 1979, Najafi 2001), a and ā (Hayes 1979). Toosarvandani (2004)

uses the low vowel symbols given in (1). The symbols used for the other vowels are

more or less agreed upon in the literature. Sometimes “:” or “ ” might be used in the

literature when referring to length (i.e., i:, u:, ɑ:, ī, ū, ɑ). I use the IPA symbols for low

(unrounded) vowels and represent the vowels as presented in (1) throughout this work

except for when I quote directly from other studies or when, for the sake of argument, it

is necessary to keep the symbols as they are in the original work.

I now present the different views found in the literature regarding the Persian vowel

system with respect to this phonological contrast. Three possibilities are proposed, as

follows (I show the vowels in (2)-(4) as they are shown in the surface vowel system; a

discussion of the underlying representation of the system based on the three possibilities

is given in section 2.2):

(2) Quantity-based analysis

short long

e o i u

a ɑ

13

(3) Quality-based analysis

high i u

mid e o

low a ɑ

(4) Synthetic analysis (integrating quality and quantity)

short long

i u high

e o

a ɑ low

By “quantity” I mean phonological length with long vowels bimoraic and short vowels

monomoraic (based on, for example, Hyman 1985, Hayes 1989). Perlmutter (1995),

discussing prosodic theories of quantity, says that “The important point of agreement is

that the understanding of quantity requires consideration of prosodic structure above the

segmental level” (p. 311). Gordon (2004) notes that “Contrasts in segmental length are

represented by assuming that long segments are associated with two weight units, while

short segments are associated with one unit of weight” (p.3). Considering the mora as a

unit of weight (van der Hulst 1984, Hyman 1985, Hayes 1989, McCarthy and Prince

1995, Perlmutter 1995 among others), what makes a vowel long is association to an

additional mora, that is, a vowel linked to two morae is long (e.g., Perlmutter 1995,

Tranel 1995, Fitzgerald (forthcoming)). In this work, assuming a moraic theory of the

syllable, when I use ‘long’ for a vowel I mean a bimoraic vowel and when I use ‘short’ I

mean a monomoraic vowel. Vowel quantity or phonemic length, therefore, is associated

with syllable structure and the number of morae a vowel carries. A vowel system is

14

quantitative if quantity is the dimension of contrast in that system, that is, if the vowels

are grouped based on the number of morae they occupy.

By “quality” I mean a feature; thus a vowel system is qualitative if a feature (e.g., height,

tenseness, ATR) is the basis of contrast in that system. Note that quantity or length is not

a feature, as discussed in the previous paragraph. In the literature on Persian which argues

for quality in the system, that quality is considered to be height, as shown in (3).

The three views given in (2)-(4) will be discussed in section 2.2. Before turning to these

positions, it is useful to give some historical background on Persian.

2.1.1. Persian historical background

The Old Persian vowel system and the Middle Persian vowel system both were believed

to have been quantitative. Purely quantitative views consider the system of Modern

Persian to remain quantitative, as the former vowel inventory of the language was, while

purely qualitative ones argue that a change of quantity to quality occurred, restructuring

the inventory. In the synthetic analysis, the vowel system of the language still shows a

quantity contrast in addition to a quality contrast which is due to ongoing historical

change from quantity to quality.

Three historical eras are proposed in the evolution of Persian (Bahar 1942, Natel Khanlari

1987 among others), as follows:

i. The old era: from the earliest documents to the end of the Achaemenid empire

(559-331 BC)

ii. The middle era: from the beginning of the Sassanid empire to the Arabs’ conquest

of Iran in 652 AD

iii. The modern era: from the dominance of Islam in Iran to the present time.

15

It is generally agreed that the Old Persian vowel inventory, presented below in (5), was a

quantity-based system (e.g., Natel Khanlari 1987, Beekes 1997).

(5) The Old Persian vowel inventory

i ī u ū

a ā

Diphthongs: ai

au

As (5) shows, the system had three pairs of vowels, each of which included a short

vowel with its long counterpart. In addition, the system had two diphthongs.

It is believed that the Middle Persian vowel system showed no change from the Old

Persian vowel system except for the monophthongization of the diphthongs, as follows:

the Old Persian diphthongs ai and au became ē and ō3

(6) The Middle Persian vowel inventory

respectively in Middle Persian

(Salemann 1930, Rastorgueva 1969, Windfuhr 1979, among others). The Middle Persian

vowel system is given in (6):

i ī u ū

ē ō

a ā

3 The vowels ē and ō were called majhul meaning ‘unfamiliar’ (Amouzgar and Taffazoli 1994, Natel Khanlari 1987, Zomorrodian 1999, among others).

16

It should be noted that, according to Natel Khanlari (1987), “there is no doubt that

quantity was not the only difference between short and long vowels in the Middle

Persian. Quality differences, as we observe in the modern system, existed, too” (p. 255).

Also, in addition to the vowels given in (6), in a few publications (McKenzie 1971,

Amouzgar and Tafazzoli 1994) the vowels e and o are included in the system with the

explanation that their phonemic status is doubtful (McKenzie 1971) and that perhaps they

were allophones (Amouzegar and Tafazzoli 1994)4

It is generally agreed that the Modern Persian vowel system, presented in (7),

distinguishes its vowels by quality, with quantity playing a secondary role (Samareh

1977, 1985, Pisowicz 1985, Darzi 1991, Meshkatod Dini 1999 among others). That is, a

change occurred in the Persian vowel system from the middle to the modern era which

resulted in a quality-based vowel system for Modern Persian.

. The inventory in (6) shows that, as in

the Old Persian vowel system, in Middle Persian, quantity was important. The difference

is that the Middle Persian vowel system has two more long vowels, which were

diphthongs in the old system.

(7) The Modern Persian vowel inventory

i u

e o

a ɑ

4 In Amouzgar and Taffazoli (1994), it is not mentioned of which phonemes e and o were allophones. They are given within parentheses beside i and u. This probably means that they were considered to be allophones of i and u.

17

Several changes must have occurred to change the inventory from (6) to (7): (i) the loss

of two vowels (i.e. ē and ō); (ii) the loss of quantity in the system; (iii) the appearance of

the mid vowels e and o; (iv) backing and fronting in the low vowels.5

The focus of this thesis is on the synchronic status of the Persian vowel system,

particularly with respect to its active features. However, it is important to have some idea

of the historical development since historical arguments are used as evidence in the

synchronic analysis.

I now turn to an investigation of the types of evidence that might distinguish the analyses.

2.2. Literature review

The Modern Persian vowel system, as noted above, is generally considered to be a

quality-based system in which quantity has a secondary role or, in other words, is non-

contrastive. That is, as seen in the literature (e.g., Samareh 1977, Zomorrodian 1999), ɑ, i, u are considered to be non-contrastively long, as displayed in (3). Nevertheless, there

are a few studies (e.g., Hayes 1979, Windfuhr 1979) which consider quantity to still be

the active feature in the system. In this view, ɑ, i, u are phonologically long, or bimoraic,

while a, e, o are phonologically short or monomoraic, as in (2). There are also some

studies which consider quality and quantity to both be active in the system

(Toosarvandani 2004), as in (4). In this view, a synthetic analysis which includes both

quality and quantity is offered and the vowel system of Modern Persian is considered to

be in a “transition state” between the purely quantitative system of classical Persian (see

(6)) and the system of future Persian (as in (3)), which will eliminate any phonological

evidence for quantity altogether and keep quality as the only distinguishing feature. In

this view, a, e, o are short, and ɑ, i, u are long. In addition, i, and u are high, while a and

ɑ are low, e and o are mid ([-high, -low]).

5 It is widely believed that i and u lowered to e and o and also ē and ō merged with ī and ū from Middle to Modern Persian (e.g., Pisowicz 1985).

18

Thus, in general, there are three views in the literature regarding the structurally active

feature of the Persian vowel system, as follows.

(i) In the view according to which quality is active and quantity is not phonologically

relevant, the system is presented in the following way. As suggested in the literature,

height is the qualitative feature involved.

(8) [front] [back]

i u [high]

e o [mid]

a ɑ [low]

It should be noted that following the framework of Modified Contrastive Specification

adopted here, only two of the three height levels observed above can be underlyingly

present or marked, and not all three of them (see section 1.2). I leave this discussion aside

for the moment and return to it in 3.1.1. The point to note is that the vowels are

distinguished from each other by height differences. Given the nature of the system,

having only height is tenable (leaving aside place features).

(ii) In the view according to which quantity is active, the system is presented in the

following way. The phonetic realization of each vowel is given below it. I write features

in square brackets (see (8) and (10)). Length is not written in square brackets since it

involves a quantity distinction, represented with morae (see section 2.1).

19

(9) short long short long

i ī u ū

[e] [i] [o] [u]

short a ā long

[a] [ɑ]

Thus, the system is essentially a three-vowel system, plus a length contrast. Given the

nature of the system, having only quantity in the system is tenable.

(iii) In the view according to which quantity and quality both are active, the system is as

in (10).

(10) [high], long ī ū [high], long

[mid], short e o [mid], short

[low], short a ā [low], long

Assuming that features enter into a system to show contrasts, as required by the

framework of Modified Contrastive Specification, in the Persian vowel system, if vowels

are distinguished by quality, quantity is not required to be active for the same contrast

and if they are distinguished by quantity, there is no need for quality to be present. Thus,

given the nature of the system, under the theoretical assumptions of the adopted

framework, having both quality and quantity is untenable.

Note that the system could be mixed with, for instance, low vowels distinguished by

quantity and non-low vowels by quality, as in (11).

20

(11) i u [high]

e o [mid]

short a ɑ long

This is different from the synthetic system in (10) in which all vowels are distinguished

by both quality and quantity. I set this alternative aside. The synthetic analysis will be

discussed in 2.2.3.

The assumptions provide a research direction: if it is assumed that the view presented

above in (iii) (i.e., synthetic analysis) is not theoretically possible (we will see that

evidence from phonological activity of the language shows that a synthetic analysis is not

required), are there arguments to distinguish between the views presented in (i) (i.e.,

purely qualitative) and (ii) (i.e., purely quantitative)? In the remainder of this chapter, I

examine the evidence in the literature for the phonologically active feature in Modern

Persian. I show that what are widely considered as arguments in favor of quality are, in

fact, inconclusive (section 2.2.1). I also discuss evidence presented in the literature for

Modern Persian being quantitative and show that this evidence also is inconclusive

(section 2.2.2). I further show the problems faced by the synthetic analysis (section

2.2.3). Although the view in (iii) is not a possibility given the assumptions here, in order

to have a review of all three views and to show that there is in fact no need for both

quantity and quality in the Persian system, this perspective will be discussed too.

Having discussed the ambiguities and uncertainties about the active phonological feature

in the Modern Persian vowel inventory based on the literature, I examine a process found

in Modern Persian that distinguishes the hypotheses, namely vowel harmony. I argue that

it plays a decisive role providing strong evidence for a quality-based analysis (section

2.3).

I start my discussion with arguments presented in the literature for quality.

21

2.2.1. Arguments in favor of quality

It is a widespread claim, as noted earlier, that the Persian vowel system is quality based

(e.g., Samareh 1977, Pisowicz 1985, Zomorrodian 1999). The system, thus, is

represented as in (8), repeated as (12).

(12) [front] [back]

i u [high]

e o [mid]

a ɑ [low]

The arguments in the literature for quality involve phonetic measurements and stress. I

first discuss phonetics of the vowels in section 2.2.1.1. Stress will be discussed in section

2.2.1.2.

2.2.1.1. Phonetics of vowels

The literature on the Modern Persian vowel system suggests that the common idea that

the system is no longer quantity based started with phonetic studies on the vowels.

Acoustic experiments carried out around the middle of the 20th century play an important

role in considering quality —and not quantity— to be the main distinguishing feature in

the system. As discussed below, these phonetic studies argue for a qualitative system

based on the following observations: (i) the length distinction is neutralized in most

contexts and (ii) the distribution of length is contextual. Leaving aside the important

point that in order to recognize phonological contrasts in a system, one needs to look at

phonological activity in the language, these phonetic arguments are not conclusive,

because there is not agreement among the phonetic accounts in the literature on where

one sees a length difference in the vowels, as shown below.

22

As Windfuhr (1979) writes “the theoretically based short-long interpretation was

seemingly shaken by a phonetic experiment by Sokolova et al (1952); they demonstrated

that the length distinction is neutralized in most contexts” (p. 136). That is, the phonetic

measurements showed that sometimes the so-called long vowels are not longer than the

so-called short ones. Gaprindašvili and Giunašvili (1964), to which some literature refer

(e.g., Kramsky 1966, Pisowicz 1985), is one of these studies. According to them, the so-

called short vowels (a, e, o) can be phonetically longer than the long ones (ɑ, i, u); for

example (cited in Kramsky (1966)):6

(13) ‘short’ ‘long’

a. ɢam = 230 ms. ‘sorrow’ mɑh = 230 ms. ‘moon’

b. ɑxor = 230 ms. ‘manger’ ɑʃub = 190 ms. ‘riot’

Recall that /i/, /u/, /ɑ/ correspond to former /ī/ (or /ē/), /ū/ (or /ō/), /ā/ respectively, and

the vowels /e/, /o/, /a/ to former /i/, /u/, and /a/. The examples in (13) show that a in ɢam,

which corresponds to a former short vowel, has the same length as ɑ in mɑh, which

corresponds to a former long vowel, and that o in ɑxor, which corresponds to a former

short vowel is even longer than u in ɑʃub, which corresponds to a former long vowel.

6 A point should be made here about vowel-initial words in Persian. Whether a syllable can start with a vowel in Persian or there is a glottal stop preceding a vowel in initial position of a syllable is controversial in the Persian literature (e.g., see Samareh 1985, Meshkatod Dini 1999). I leave this topic aside in this work and do not use the glottal stop.

23

Kramsky (1939) and Kramsky (1966) clearly show the turning point in the analyses from

quantity to quality as the main feature for the system. The 1939 paper considers the

Persian vowel inventory to be quantity based. In the 1966 paper, published 27 years later,

he considered quantity to be secondary in the system7

7 Note that Kramsky (1966) considered quantity to be secondary in Modern Persian, and therefore gives the impression that quantity is phonologically absent from the system in his view. But the vowel system as he represents it seems to include both quality and quantity (at least on the surface). He writes: “when we consider quantity as secondary in Modern Persian, it does not mean that quantity plays an unimportant part in Persian.” (p. 220). In conclusion, Kramsky says that the system of vowel phonemes of Persian should be changed from the original three-phoneme system (i, u, a vs. ī, ū, ā) to a six-phoneme system. He then presents the following vowel system for Persian (p. 220):

. Kramsky (1966) says that the

length-based account given in his 1939 paper needs to be modified in view of the results

of the phonetic research. According to Kramsky (1966), “an exact picture of quantitative

conditions can be obtained by a phonological approach in a close connection with an

exact phonetic research. The latter has been realized quite recently by Gaprindašvili and

Giunašvili and the results published” (p. 217). He further says that, unlike Gaprindašvili

and Giunašvili, who decided quality to be the distinctive feature based on their acoustic

study, one cannot conclude that quantity is not contrastive solely based on these acoustic

results. What is important, he writes, are phonological criteria, coupled with phonetic

criteria. The phonological criteria he considers are correlation and stress. I will return to

stress in 2.2.1.2. In this section, I focus on correlation. Kramsky writes: “Correlation is,

according to Trubetzkoy, a sum of all correlative pairs which are characterized by the

same correlative mark. Correlative pair is formed by two phonemes which stand mutually

in a logically privative proportional one-dimensional opposition. Correlative mark is then

the phonological feature by the presence or absence of which a series of correlative pairs

is marked” (Kramsky 1966, p. 218). To argue for the position that in Persian the

correlation of quantity is absent, Kramsky refers to the work of Gaprindašvili and

ī ū e o a ā

Whether Kramsky means that secondary features can also have a role in phonology or whether he means that the system needs both is not clear. Whichever is the case is not an issue here. The point is that phonetic findings played an important role in introducing quality to studies on Persian vowels.

24

Giunašvili, according to whose study the pairs /i/ - /i:/ and /u/ - /u:/ are not as

proportional as had been assumed based on a difference in their length (or a combination

of length and tension since /i/ and /u/ are realized as lower than their long counterparts in

articulation). Gaprindašvili and Giunašvili, as represented in Kramsky (1966), consider

two levels for high, high1 and high2, and a level of mid. According to them, both ī and ū

are high2; i is high1 while u is mid. So in fact, this criterion, while claimed to be

phonological, is evaluated based on phonetic facts.

Other literature presents similar reasoning for the Modern Persian vowel system to be

quality based. For instance, according to Pisowicz (1985) “the traditional stand-point

referring to diachrony, orthography, and versification bids one to perceive /â/, /i/, and /u/

as long vowels contrasting short /a/, /e/, and /o/ respectively.” He continues, “the above-

mentioned traditional stand-point can be questioned on the basis of experimental data,

which do not confirm the length distinction in the articulation of, on the one hand /â/, /i/,

and /u/, and on the other /a/, /e/, and /o/” (p. 12).

Toosarvandani (2004) says that in Classical Persian the underlying contrast of quantity

was realized on the surface, distinguishing the corresponding short and long vowels,

which had identical quality; in Modern Persian, however, the quantity opposition is

realized only in certain limited environments on the surface. In most environments, the

length of a, e, and o (former short vowels) and the length of ɑ, i, and u (former long

vowels) match. Therefore, one cannot a priori consider a, e, and o to be underlyingly

short. In open, non-final, unstressed syllables, the former short vowels (present a, e, o)

are realized as short; elsewhere, however, they are lengthened. For instance, compare the

first vowels of the words in (14)-(16) with each other (the examples in (14)-(16) are from

Sokolova 1952, cited in Toosarvandani 2004).

A note about the examples in (14)-(16) is important. The present a, e, o are former short

vowels /a/, /i/, /u/ and present ɑ, i, u are former long vowels /ā/, /ī/ (or /ē/), /ū/ (or /ō/)

respectively. I put the vowels under study in each word within brackets and the

historical form to which each of these vowels is related in front of the word which

contains the vowel. Some of the words presented in the examples (14)-(16) are from

25

Arabic and did not exist in Middle Persian, thus the historical form of the vowels should

not be considered as the historical form of the vowel in that particular word. It is

included simply to show how the present vowels can be matched to historical vowels.

In (14), words with historical short vowels are given. Former short vowels are

phonetically short in open, unstressed syllables and long in closed unstressed syllables.

(14) a. *i s[e].dɑ ‘voice’ *i s[e:]f-tár ‘harder’

b. *u x[o].dɑ ‘God’ *u x[o:]ʃk.tár ‘dryer’

c. *a ɢ[a].bɑ ‘a kind of clothes’ *a ɡ[a:]rm.tár ‘warmer’

In (15a), the vowel e in the first word corresponds to a former short vowel and the vowel

i in the second word corresponds to a former long vowel. The same correlation applies to

o and u (15b) as well as to a and ɑ (15c).

(15) a. *i ʤ[e].dɑ:r ‘wall’ *ī b[i:].dɑ:d ‘oppression’

b. *u ʃ[o].dá:n ‘to become’ *ū b[u:].dá:n ‘to be’

c. *a b[a].dá:n ‘body’ *ā b[ɑ:].dé: ‘wine’

These forms show that in open, non-final, unstressed syllables, the former short vowels

(present a, e, o) and the former long vowels (present ɑ, i, u) contrast in quantity in

addition to quality. They also show that contextual quantity distinctions among the two

sets of vowels are observed in some environments.

In addition to the unstressed cases in (14) and (15), in vocative and imperative forms, in

open, non-final stressed syllables, a quantity distinction is observed. For instance,

compare the first vowels of the following words (see Sokolova 19528

8 Cited in Windfuhr (1979) and Toosarvandani (2004).

, Windfuhr 1979,

Toosarvandani 2004). The vowel o in the first word corresponds to a former short

26

vowel and the vowel u in the second word corresponds to a former long vowel. The

same correlation applies to e and i as well as to a and ɑ below.

(16) a. *u h[ó].sejn ‘Hosseyn!’ *ū h[ú:].ʃanɡ ‘Hushang!’

b. *i b[é]-deh ‘give!’ *ī b[í:]-adab ‘impolite!’

c. *a n[á]-kon ‘don’t!’ *ā l[ɑ:]-maz(h)ab ‘infidel!’

The former short vowels, therefore, are realized as short only in certain contexts.

Elsewhere, there is no quantity distinction between them and the former long vowels,

which always retain their long duration.

Another study, however, claims that in a pair such as the one in

(17a), â (my ɑ) in bâr, which corresponds to a former long vowel (/ā/), is longer than a in

bar, which corresponds to a former short vowel (/a/) (Samareh 1977, p. 92). The same

applies to i and e in (17b) and to u and o in (17c).9

(17) a. bâr ‘load’ b. sir ‘full’ c. dur ‘far’

bar ‘over, fruit’ ser ‘secret’ dor ‘jewel’

Based on this study, then, in closed syllables a length distinction exists.

These accounts contradict each other with one saying that in open, non-final, unstressed

syllables, and in vocative and imperative forms in open, non-final stressed syllables a

quantity distinction is observed, and the other saying that in closed syllables a quantity

distinction is observed. Thus one cannot draw any conclusion from these studies about

the Modern Persian vowel inventory.

Regardless of their contradictory results, what these studies show is that phonetic

measurements have received great attention in arguing for quality. The observation that

9 I should mention that the words ser ‘secret’ and dor ‘jewel’ are both considered in Persian to have a final geminated consonant. Gemination will be discussed in 5.5.

27

the quantity distinction changes from context to context and is, in fact, observed only in

limited environments (although there is no agreement on what environments), while the

quality difference is always observed, can explain why quality is widely considered to be

the active feature in the Modern Persian vowel system.

Another phonetic observation that has been used to argue in favor of quality as the

contrastive feature distinguishing Persian vowels is that the length distribution is

contextual, as noted before. The literature suggests that the length of vowels changes

based on the structure they occur in (Samareh 1985). In (18a), the vowel e in ʧeʃm,

which corresponds to a former short vowel, has the same length as the vowel i in sib,

which corresponds to a former long vowel. In (18b), the vowel a in dard, which

corresponds to a former short vowel, is even a little longer than the vowel ɑ in ɡɑz, which

corresponds to a former long vowel.

(18) ‘short’ ‘long’

a. ʧeʃm = 0.17 sec. ‘eye’ sib = 0.17 sec. ‘apple’

b. dard = 0.24 sec. ‘pain’ ɡɑz = 0.23 sec. ‘bite’

It is suggested that former short and long vowels both are long before a consonant and

very long before a consonant cluster (Samareh 1985). As shown in (19), the vowel u

which corresponds to a former long vowel and the vowel a which corresponds to a former

short vowel both are long (based on Samareh, shown below by “v.”) before a consonant

and very long (based on Samareh, shown below by “v:”) before a consonant cluster.

(19) a. ɡu ɡu.ʃ ɡu:ʃt ‘the present stem of ɡoftan ‘to tell’’, ‘ear’, ‘meat’

b. na na.r na:rm ‘no’, ‘male’, ‘soft’

If length distributions are purely contextual and predictable, then it might be argued that

length is not a phonological property.

Nevertheless, I conclude that these phonetic results do not by themselves provide

sufficient evidence for quality being phonologically distinctive: they show that length

28

does not derive straightforwardly from Middle Persian and that the length distinction is

observed only in some particular contexts. A thorough phonetic study on Persian vowels

needs to be done to show what phonetics reveals about the vowels. Moreover, the

phonetic results need to be supported by phonological evidence. It is the latter that I

pursue in this work.

2.2.1.2. Stress

Stress is another criterion to which some literature refers in considering the Modern

Persian vowel system to be qualitative (e.g., Pisowicz 1985). In order to understand the

argument, I begin with a discussion of Persian stress. In Modern Persian, stress is

accounted for without reference to vowel quantity (e.g., Amini 1997, Kahnemuyipour

2003) – although that does not necessarily mean that quantity is not contrastive, as

discussed below; this is why stress does not provide conclusive evidence about the issue

at hand. In Modern Persian, the final syllable in a word receives stress, and in prefixed

verbs the prefix carries stress. To explain the behavior of prefixes in this regard,

Kahnemuyipour (2003) considers prefixes to be phonological words and makes a

distinction between word- and phrase-level stress rules: the word-level stress rule assigns

stress from the right edge while the phrase-level stress rule assigns stress from left,

stressing the initial word in a phonological phrase (see Kahnemuyipour 2003 for

discussion).

Kramsky (1966) considers Trubetzkoy’s typology (1939) for stress, which is based on

syllable peak and quantity, and concludes that Persian cannot be included in this

typology. Kramsky says (in addition to correlation, as discussed in 2.2.1.1), “there is

another relevant circumstance that is connected with the problem of quantity of vowel

phonemes. It is word stress” (Kramsky 1966, p. 219). In order to understand its

relevance, I briefly elaborate on Trubetzkoy’s typology. Trubetzkoy categorizes

languages based on their relation to the formation of syllable peaks and quantity. Both of

these phenomena, according to him, can be “free” (distinctive, contrastive) and “bound”

(fixed, predictable). Thus there are four types of languages:

29

(i) Bound stress and bound quantity: all words with the same number of syllables show

the same distribution of stress and quantity.

(ii) Word differentiating stress and bound quantity: words are distinguished only by

stress. The stressed syllables are longer than the unstressed ones or the duration of

syllables is automatically determined by other factors.

(iii) Word differentiating quantity and bound stress: words are differentiated only by

syllable quantity. The place of stress is automatically determined. There are two

subclasses:

(a) Languages in which all words with the same number of syllables put stress on

the same syllable (e.g., languages with initial or final stress).

(b) Languages in which stress is dependent not only on the word boundary but

also on the quantity of the last or first syllable and therefore all words of the same

number of syllables and of the same distribution of quantity put the stress on the same

syllable.

(iv) Word differentiating formation of the peak and word differentiating quantity: words

are differentiated by both stress and quantity. There is a limitation though: open stressed

final syllables are always long, that is, the opposition of quantity in this position is

neutralized.

According to Kramsky, categorizing Persian in one of these four types is impossible. He

claims that Modern Persian has to be considered to form a transition type between types

(iii) and (iv). This leads us, Kramsky says, to re-examine quantity in Modern Persian, and

if this re-examination shows that quantity is not a relevant feature in Modern Persian,

then the language must be excluded from Trubetzkoy’s prosodic typology. The important

point for our discussion is that if one considers stress to be a determining factor with

respect to quantity (i.e, if one considers the place of stress to be related to vowel length),

then Persian cannot be easily classified. Thus, stress is not an appropriate diagnostic to

conclude that the Persian vowel system is quantity based.

30

Pisowicz, who considers the system to be quality based, also considers stress as an

argument in favor of quality and against quantity. Pisowicz says that “in a stressed

position, which is particularly reliable in the matter of quantity, the length of all vowels is

more or less identical and comparatively small” (p.12).

It is true that a frequent diagnostic for syllable weight is stress pattern. In many

languages, stress is one of the phenomena which treat some types of syllables as heavy

and others as light (e.g., Allen 1973). For example, stress in Yana (also Yanan, an extinct

language isolate of North America) falls on the leftmost syllable which is closed or

contains a long vowel (Sapir and Swadesh 1960 cited in Gordon 2002, 2004). In words

without closed syllables and long vowels, the language places stress on the first syllable.

That is, in Yana, stress treats closed syllables (CVC) and syllables ending in long vowels

(CVV) as heavy and open syllables ending in short vowels (CV) as light. Sample

representations of weight in Yana in Hayes’s moraic theory (1989) are as follows

(Gordon 2004), abstracting away from the possibility of onset clusters:

(20) σ σ σ

μ μ μ μ μ

t a: t a t t a

/ta:/ /tat/ /ta/

As a second example of the attraction of stress to quantity, in Yidiny (a nearly extinct

Australian aboriginal language), a complex interaction of vowel length, syllable count

and stress is observed: syllables alternate between stressed and unstressed, all long

vowels occur in stressed syllables, long vowels must always be separated by an odd

number of syllables, and all words with an odd number of syllables must have a long

vowel in at least one even-numbered syllable (Evans 1995).

31

Thus, stress and syllable weight interact in many languages. The fact that stress in

Modern Persian does not refer to quantity, however, cannot be taken as an argument for

the system to be qualitative since there are languages with distinctive quantity whose

stress systems do not refer to quantity. According to Hayes (1995), although there is a

tendency in languages with quantity distinctions to have quantity-sensitive stress, this is

not a requirement. Some examples of languages with phonemic quantity in which stress

patterns independently from quantity are given in (21) (taken from Hayes 1995; see also

Fitzgerald (forthcoming)).

(21) language place of stress

Livonian (Baltic-Finnic) initial syllable

Mansi (Finno-Ugric) initial syllable

Dalabon (Gunwinyguan) initial syllable

Piro (Arawakan) penultimate syllable

Djingili (Australian) penultimate syllable

The existence of languages with distinctive quantity but with quantity-insensitive stress

systems indicates that the existence of a quantity-insensitive stress system in Modern

Persian cannot be an argument that quality is the active feature in its vowel system.

So far, I have reviewed the evidence that is presented in the literature for the Persian

vowel system to be qualitative –evidence based on phonetic length and evidence based on

stress– and I have argued that none of this evidence allows one to conclude that quality is

the primary feature in the system, as generally assumed in the literature. I now turn to

arguments in the literature for quantity as the distinctive feature in the system. Here too I

will conclude that these arguments do not provide strong evidence for what they claim.

32

2.2.2. Arguments in favor of quantity

In addition to the widespread idea that quality is the active feature in the Persian vowel

system, there are studies which consider quantity to be the dimension of contrast in the

system (Hayes 1979, Windfuhr 1979). Considering quantity to be active in the vowel

system of Persian, the system is represented as in (9), repeated here as (22).

(22) short long short long

i ī u ū

[e] [i] [o] [u]

short a ā long

[a] [ɑ]

The arguments in the literature in favor of quantity are versification and categorization of

vowels. First I examine versification (2.2.2.1), followed by a discussion on categorization

of vowels (2.2.2.2).

2.2.2.1. Versification

In this section, I examine Persian versification, which is referred to in the literature on the

Modern Persian vowels, and in particular is counted as evidence for Modern Persian to be

quantitative. It is, therefore, important to discuss it here. I start from versification in

Modern Persian. Although the main focus of this thesis is a synchronic study of the

Persian vowels since the quantitative system of Modern Persian poetry may be

considered as a continuation of Middle Persian poetry, I will examine Middle Persian

poetry as well.

33

Before starting the discussion, it should be pointed out that there is not agreement on the

versification of Middle Persian, Persian folk poetry, and how Arabic meters have

influenced Modern Persian poetry, as we will see below. Therefore, there are open

questions and unclear points in what is presented below, which is basically a literature

review. In particular, it is not always clear what the evidence is for a claim that a study

has made about Middle Persian poetry or folk poetry and so on. My goal is not to

investigate Middle Persian or Modern Persian poetry or folk poetry or to present an

analysis of these. The point, which I will get at (as seen in 2.2.2.1.4, the conclusion of

this section) and which is important for the purpose of this research, is that we cannot

argue for quantity in Modern Persian based on versification considering what the

literature on Middle Persian and Modern Persian versifications offers. I start the

discussion with Modern Persian.

There are different views of versification in Modern Persian. Samareh (1977) remarks

that “in Persian prosody, which is entirely based upon the syllable, every meter has a

fixed number of syllables, and the number of syllables is the same, from the rhythmic

point of view, in the two hemistiches of a distich. The number of syllables is determined

by counting the vowels, no matter how many consonants they may have around them”10

Let us consider the view which takes versification in Modern Persian to make reference

to quantity. The vowels /ɑ/, /i/, and /u/ are considered as long and the vowels /a/, /e/ and

/o/ as short. The pattern of a Persian poem is expressed as a sequence of macrons ( _ ) for

a long metric position and breves ( ‿ ) for a short metric position. Phonologically, long

vowels are considered as geminates; that is, V is represented as VV. So in assigning

syllable types, CV is considered as a short syllable, represented by a breve, while CVV is

(p. 75). Hayes (1979) points out that “although various scholars have attempted to assign

a role to stress in Persian verse (Rypka 1944; Natel Khanlari 1958), none of these

theories has been documented well enough to receive general support (cf. Elwell-Sutton

1976), and it will be assumed here that Persian verse is purely quantitative” (p. 195).

10 Samareh refers to Natel Khanlari (1958) in saying that Persian prosody is based on the syllable and that every meter has a fixed number of syllables.

34

considered as a long syllable, written with a macron or two breves (e.g., see Hayes 1979).

Based on versification, Hayes (1979) considers the Persian vowels as “either short (i, u,

a) or long (ī, ū, ā)” and he adds that “short i and u are phonetically e and o” (p. 195).

This view that i, u, ɑ are long and e, o, a, are short in assigning metric positions is also

found in other studies on Persian versification (Shahri 1991, Mahyar 1994). The question

here is that if Modern Persian is not a quantity-based system, why is a quantitative

system used even for the poetry written in the recent century? That is, why does

versification represent a quantity-based system while it is generally thought that Modern

Persian is a quality-based system?

It might be argued that versification is conservative, representing a continuation of the

Middle Persian system, a system which is expected to be purely quantitative since the

Middle Persian vowel system is considered to be a quantity-based system. However,

surprisingly, it is claimed that Middle Persian versification is not in fact based on

quantity (see Natel Khanlari 1966 for references). This is important for two reasons.

First, if Modern Persian versification is quantitative, it must not be a continuation of

Middle Persian versification if Middle Persian versification is not quantity based. Second,

if Middle Persian versification is not reliant on quantity, as is argued, as the active feature

in its vowel system, then either (i) the treatment of the Middle Persian vowel system as a

quantity-based system should be revisited if one considers versification as a valid

criterion for identifying the main contrastive feature in the vowel system of a language or

(ii) versification is not a valid criterion for recognizing the active feature of a vowel

system if the Middle Persian vowel system was indeed quantitative. Let us now take a

look at Middle Persian versification.

2.2.2.1.1. Middle Persian versification

Natel Khanlari (1966) reviews the literature on Middle Persian poetry and provides an

account. I first summarize Natel Khanlari’s review of the literature (Nyberg 1929,

Benveniste 1930, 1932, Jackson 1932 are among the references cited in Natel Khanlari

1966), and then review his perspective.

35

According to the work on Middle Persian poetry (not many examples of Middle Persian

poetry have been found), versification is based on the number of syllables and not on

quantity. It is very important to note that folk poems of the present time in some parts of

Iran are argued to follow the same versification pattern. That is, they are not based on

quantity but rather on the number of syllables.

The Modern Persian versification rules that are referred to in arguments for quantity are

from Arabic and all the terminology used for versification also comes from Arabic.

Arabic meter is quantity based and thus the meters of Modern Persian, like those of

Arabic, are considered to be based on quantity. It is interesting, however, that among the

common meters in Arabic poetry (such as tavil, kamel, moteqareb, etc.) only one of them,

moteqareb meter ( _ _ ‿ | _ _ ‿ | _ _ ‿ | _ _ ‿ ), is common in Persian. The most common

meters in Persian poetry (ramal, hazaj, khafif, etc.) are less common in Arabic, Natel

Khanlari writes (citing Christensen 1936). The creativity that Iranians had with respect to

poetry was to make some adjustments between the syllabic principles of Persian and

quantitative Arabic meters. The oldest and the most complete example of this adjustment

is moteqareb meter. According to one study (Tavadia 1950, cited in Natel Khanlari

1966), many poems found in ‘Deraxt-e Asurik’, a book written in Middle Persian, are

parsed in a way very similar to moteqareb meter.

Natel Khanlari believes that neither quantity nor the number of syllables were the basis of

Middle Persian poetry, but that stress had a role in meter. The approximate equality in the

number of syllables in a line was important, with some minor differences in the number

of syllables acceptable. But the exact number of syllables was not the determining factor

for meter.11

11 There are four types of meters: (i) purely quantitative, (ii) purely syllabic, (iii) purely tonic (stress-based), and (iv) syllabo-tonic (both stress and the number of syllables matter) (see, for instance, Preminger et al 1996). According to Hanson and Kiparsky (1996), although many stress-based meters have fixed syllable counts, there are some in which the number of syllables varies according to constraints on syllable weight (see the reference for discussion). If in Middle Persian, stress and the number of syllables were both important in meters, we can categorize the Middle Persian poetry as syllabo-tonic.

Natel Khanlari says that there is not much evidence to show how meters

were determined in Middle Persian as the principles of Middle Persian are not well

36

documented, and the pronunciation of words is not always clear; moreover, the

possibility of dialectal differences adds to the problems. Regarding unclear pronunciation

of words, I should point out that, in addition to the usual problems that one may

encounter in studying the former pronunciation of words (due to changes of sounds, etc.),

in Middle Persian short vowels, /a/, /i/, /u/ (Modern Persian /a/, /e/, /o/), were not

reflected in writing (unlike long vowels); therefore, there are uncertainties about the

pronunciation of words at that time with respect to these vowels, to which Natel Khanlari

also refers. For example, a word written as rōʃn can be rōʃn or rōʃan or ʃkanʤ can be

ʃkanʤ or ʃikanʤ (the examples are from Henning 1950, cited in Natel Khanlari 1966).

How words are considered to have been pronounced in Middle Persian, especially

regarding vowels, can affect our understanding of metrics of that time period.

Natel Khanlari argues, nevertheless, that there are two pieces of evidence from which we

can gain insight into Middle Persian poetry. One is through comparison with other

languages from the same family. It is believed that in Old Persian and also in Avestan

(Old Iranian)12

meter was determined based on stress. The other is folk poems which do

not follow literary Persian meters. I discuss folk poetry next.

2.2.2.1.2. Folk poetry

In this section, folk poetry is discussed. I focus on folk poetry as discussed in Natel

Khanlari (1966). There are two ways to study folk poetry. One is to look at the poems

remaining in the literature from centuries ago. This is difficult, however. The first

problem with these poems is that they do not show the pronunciation of the vowels /a/,

/e/, and /o/ because these vowels are not written in the Arabic script that is used for

Persian. Thus we are faced with the same problem we have with Middle Persian poems

and cannot be sure how words with these vowels were pronounced at the time they were

written. That is, it is not clear if a vowel is present in what is written as a consonant

12 Avestan, an Old Iranian language, is the language used in Avesta, the Zoroastrian scripture.

37

cluster. The second problem in interpreting Middle Persian folk poems is that since folk

poems were not based on Persian formal meters (which are adopted from Arabic), they

were changed in many cases by scholars and poets who accused folk poets of making

mistakes in poetry. Although there are some untouched poems which we can study, the

best way to study these poems is to look at those folk poems which are still used. In a

study of current folk poems, Natel Khanlari notes that these poems follow meters which

are different from those of the Persian literary poems. One of the differences is that in

formal Persian poems which are based on quantity, those syllables which have /a/, /e/,

and /o/ are short and those with /ɑ/, /i/, and /u/ are long. In folk poems, however, stress is

more important. In folk poems, the quantity of the syllables is not fixed and if stress falls

on a short syllable, it will be like a long syllable with respect to phonetic quantity, and if

a long syllable does not carry stress, it will be as short as a short syllable. That is why a

long syllable can be replaced by a short syllable and the opposite provided that the

placement of stress is appropriate. He thus suggests that the meter of folk poems is based

on both stress and quantity and that the quantity of syllables is not fixed (a long syllable

can be replaced by a short syllable and vice versa) and therefore stress is more prominent.

Natel Khanlari gives an example of Persian folk poems and its mismatch with Arabic

meter, as follows. Consider a couplet of a very popular folk poem, focusing on the part in

bold (Note: low vowels are shown as a and ɑ. ā and ɑ are these vowels when they

receive a macron):

38

(23) dĭʃāb ke bɑrun umad jɑr-am lab-e bum umad

last night when rain came sweetheart-1st.sg.gen. edge-Ezafe13

“Last night when the rain came, my sweetheart came on the roof….” (literary)

roof came

“Last night when the rain came, my sweetheart was in the horizon…”

Natel Khanlari assigns this couplet the metric pattern in (24), where stress is shown by

.14

(24) _ _ ‿ | _ ‿ | _ ‿

Note the given pattern should be considered from right to left according to Persian

orthography.

mad u run bɑ ke ʃab di

Natel Khanlari points out that stress placement is important; if stress is incorrect, the

poem will not read well. He considers various Arabic meters and examines this pattern

against those patterns and concludes that there is a mismatch between the pattern of this

poem and the Arabic ones.

For these poems two origins can be considered, as suggested by Natel Khanlari. Either

they represent a continuation of pre-Islamic poetry or the form arose after Arab

dominance in Iran – Iranians who did not deal with formal literature created these meters

as opposed to the Arabic meters adopted by the Persian poets. The latter is very unlikely

and the former is more plausible, so Natel Khanlari concludes that in Middle Persian both

13 Ezafe literally means ‘addition’. It refers to an unstressed –e in Persian which links elements of certain phrases together (e.g., Ghomeshi 1996). For instance: sib-e sorx or ketɑb-e Ali

apple-Ezafe red book-Ezafe Ali

‘red apple’ ‘Ali’s book’

Abbreviations: sg=singular, gen=genitive. 14 It is not clear why stress is not always final in each word. It seems to fall on alternate syllables. Whether the stress pattern was different in the time the poem was made or the non-final stress is due to dialectal differences or due to the metric pattern needs investigation.

39

stress and syllable quantity played a role in versification – he considers quantity to play a

role too because, as noted above, the meters require reference to short and long syllables

but this is determined by stress so both stress and quantity are important according to

him. Recall that other literature considers syllable number to be the main criterion in

Middle Persian versification (e.g., Nyberg 1929, Benveniste 1930, 1932, Jackson 1932;

cited in Natel Khanlari 1966).

What is important for our discussion is that all of these accounts agree that quantity was

not the main element in versification and, more importantly, that the Arabic meters

adopted by Iranians did not suit the characteristics of Persian and were altered. According

to Deo and Kiparky (to appear), “Persian created a hybrid metrical system by adopting a

subset of Arabic meters and modifying them to conform to Persian constraints, while also

retaining a class of indigenous meters that were analyzed within the Arabic system.

Further, Arabic meters which were not unobtrusively assimilable into Persian despite

modification dropped out of use.” Deo and Kiparsky consider the typical Arabic meters

to be weight sensitive, that is, the contrast between light and heavy syllables marks strong

and weak positions. In contrast, Persian meters tend to be mora-counting, that is, meters

are based on feet with a fixed number of moras and they distribute the constant total

weight of the feet in different ways among their syllables. According to them the

indigenous Persian system, to the extent that it can be reconstructed, seems to exhibit this

property (see Deo and Kiparsky (to appear) for discussion). Utah (1994; cited in Deo and

Kiparsky (to appear)) also considers Modern Persian meters to be a fusion of inherited

pre-Islamic Perisan and adopted Arabic elements.

2.2.2.1.3. Adopting Arabic meter

According to Natel Khanlari, differences between Arabic and Persian poetry have been

noticed by Iranians from the time Arabic meters entered Persian poetry and from the

beginning Persian poets realized that they could not follow Arabic meters completely, so

they made changes in those meters (see Hanson and Kiparsky (1996) for a discussion of a

similar situation, how Finnish metrics shows the interplay of linguistic and cultural

40

pressures, and how borrowed Germanic meters were modified in Finnish). Natel Khanlari

furthermore suggests that new principles for versification should be created for Persian

poetry, disregarding Arabic versification. He points out that stress is one factor which

makes Persian incompatible with Arabic meters.

It is important to recognize that there is another fundamental difference between Arabic

and Persian vowels. Natel Khanlari says that in Arabic there is a quantity difference

between vowels while in Persian the vowels are distinguished based on quality. The

Arabic script, Natel Khanlari writes, misleads many researchers and so they consider

Arabic and Persian similar in this respect. For example, Kramsky (1939) mistakenly

considers there to be three long vowels in Persian with their three short counterparts.

Natel Khanlari refers to Trubetzkoy (1949), who posits six vowels for Persian which are

different in quality and for which quantity is not primary. Trubetzkoy says this system is

not compatible with Persian versification which is based on quantity (i.e., Persian

quantity-based versification is somewhat arbitrary and does not really reflect the native

phonology). Natel Khanlari remarks that it is not clear when quality started to be the

main distinguishing factor for the Persian vowel system. In Modern Persian quantity is

important only in poetry which still follows the traditional meters. Again this refers to the

mismatch between the Modern Persian poetry (quantity-baased) and the Modern Persian

vowel system (quality-based).

Let us consider an example of the adjustments of Arabic meters in Persian (taken from

Natel Khanalri 1966). One of the Arabic meters is called Raʤaz and it is as follows (right

to left):

(25) _ ‿ _ _ | _ ‿ _ _ | _ ‿ _ _ | _ ‿ _ _

Most of the Persian poems which are based on this meter are divided into eight parts in

each line (while there are four parts in Arabic) and each part has a stress –the stress can

be on any syllable in that part. (26) shows an example of Raʤaz followed by its metric

pattern as adjusted for Persian - it should be considered from right to left (Note: low

vowels are shown as a and ɑ. ā and ɑ are these vowels when they receive a macron):

41

(26) ēj sɑre bɑn ma nzḗl mắkon ʤṓz dār dĭjɑr-e jɑr-e man

O! cameleer house do not except in land-Ezafe sweetheart-Ezafe my

“O! Cameleer, do not stop in any land other than my sweetheart’s” (literary)

“O! Cameleer, take me to my sweetheart’s place”.

(27) _ ‿ | _ _ | _ ‿ | _ _ | _ ‿ | _ _ | _ ‿ | _ _

Some adjustments have been made in Arabic meters adopted by Persian. Instead of four

parts in the Arabic meter ((25)), there are eight parts in the adjusted version used in

Persian ((27)). Moreover, each of these eight parts has a stress but the position of stress

varies in the parts (from right to left: in the first, second, third, sixth, seventh, and eighth

parts stress is on the last syllable while in the fourth and fifth parts stress is on the first

syllable. In part 4, stress is on a light syllable while a heavy syllable is available. Also

note that Ezafe (see footnote 13) can be both short and long). In the Arabic meter ((25)),

however, there are four parts and in each stress is on the second syllable (from right to

left). The adjustments suggest that Arabic meters were not directly suitable for Persian

poetry. That is, Persian did not show compatibility with the quantity-based meters of

Arabic. According to Elwell-Stton (1976; cited in Deo and Kiparsky (to appear)), Arabic

meters are ill suited for the Persian meters and the profound differences between the two

metrical systems show their independent origins.

2.2.2.1.4. Conclusion

In this section, I discussed versification, an argument in favor of quantity in the literature.

Versification is important to be taken into consideration because either versification can

be considered as a phonological argument for the contrastive feature in a vowel inventory

or not. If we argue for quantity to be active in the modern system based on versification

for which /a/, /e/ and /o/ are monomoraic and /ɑ/, /i/, and /u/ bimoraic, then since in

Middle Persian quantity was not used for versification, we can conclude that the Middle

42

Persian vowel system was not quantitative. If, however, we cannot consider versification

as the basis for an argument for quantity, then a type of evidence that is considered to

provide support for quantity in Modern Persian is no longer valid as evidence. What is

important for our discussion is that if versification in Modern Persian is not a

continuation of Middle Persian, according to most of the literature, then one cannot use

versification to argue for the system to be “still” the same as the one of the middle era.

And the fact that there were problems realized by the Persian poets from the beginning in

following Arabic meters for Persian is important in showing a difference between the two

languages even in the time that we assume the two languages were similar with respect to

their vowel systems (i.e. Middle Persian and Arabic are both thought to be quantity-based

systems).

2.2.2.2. Categorization of vowels based on phonotactics

Another argument that is introduced in the literature for the Persian vowel system being

quantitative involves categorization of vowels. A classification of a, e, o (former short

vowels) versus ɑ, i, u (former long vowels) is observed in the literature on Persian

vowels regardless of the position these studies take with respect to the active feature of

the system. The reason for this is that these two sets of vowels pattern differently in some

ways, as is discussed in this section.

According to the literature, phonotactic constraints in some cases require a categorization

of Persian vowels according to which a, e, and o are grouped together as opposed to ɑ, i, and u, which form a second group. In this section I start my discussion of phonotactics

with Samareh (1977), who proposes a quality-based system for Modern Persian and

whom other studies (e.g., Darzi 1991) refer to in taking quality to be phonologically

active in the system. According to Samareh, “phonologically speaking, vowel length in

Persian has little or no significance” (p. 92). He adds that “it is true that the historically

long vowels in some situations tend to be longer than the historically short ones”. For

instance, in each of the following pairs (Samareh 1977, p. 92; repeated from (17) for

convenience), the vowel in the first word is longer than the vowel in the second word

43

(e.g., /i/ in sir is longer than /e/ in ser). Recall that /i/, /u/, /â/ correspond to former /ī/ (or

/ē/), /ū/ (or /ō/), /ā/ respectively, and the vowels /e/, /o/, /a/ to former /i/, /u/, and /a/.15

(28) a. sir ‘full’ b. dur ‘far’ c. bâr ‘load’

ser ‘secret’ dor ‘jewel’ bar ‘over’

“Yet it is not mainly the length that makes contrast in these situations but rather the

absolute difference in quality involved.” (Samareh 1977, p. 93).

In his discussion of consonant clusters and the vowels that occur preceding them in

monosyllables, Samareh identifies two functionally different groups of vowels: /e, a, o/,

and /i, â, u/ (recall that Samareh uses /â/ where I use /ɑ/) with respect to possible

following consonant clusters. Before going through what Samareh says in this regard, let

us consider the Persian consonant inventory, shown in (29).

(29) Persian consonants

labial labio-dental alveolar palatoalveolar palatal velar uvular glottal

stops p b t d k ɡ ɢ ʔ

fricatives f v s z ʃ ʒ x h

affricates ʧ ʤ

nasals m n

trill r

lateral l

glide j

15 Recall from footnote 9 that the words ser ‘secret’ and dor ‘jewel’ are both considered in Persian to have a final geminated consonant. Gemination will be discussed in 5.5.

44

A thorough discussion of Persian vowels, the possible following consonants, and the

distributional details will be presented in chapter 5. The point which should be focused

on here is that there are two groups of vowels, a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u, with respect to following

consonants.

Dividing the vowels into /e, a, o/, and /i, â, u/, Samareh writes that the first group can

occur before all combinations of consonants as far as the first member of the cluster is

concerned. The only exception is /e/, which cannot occur before clusters starting with /x/.

The vowels of the second group have a very limited occurrence preceding consonant

clusters. They cannot occur before those clusters whose first consonant is /q, ʔ, ǰ, z, h, m/

– as seen, there are differences in the symbols Samareh uses and those which I used for

consonants in (29), which is not an issue for our discussion. Samareh adds /b, t, d, k, n, l,

r/ which occur following the second group of vowels in a few loan words (e.g., kâbl ‘cable’, dubl ‘double’, ritm ‘rhythm’) and only three Persian words (i.e. bâng ‘shout’,

dâng ‘share’, pârs ‘related to Persia, Persian’). Samareh continues that the vowels of the

second group /i, â, u/ can precede /s, f, x/ combinations — the second consonant must be

/t/ with a few exceptions. The consonant /š/ is permitted after /â, u/ but not after /i/. A

summary of these observations is provided in (30).

(30) a. / e, a, o/

No restriction on C1 in C1C2 (/x/ not after /e/)

b. /i, â, u/

*/q, ʔ, ǰ, z, h, m/ as C1 in C1C2

? /b, t, d, k, n, l, r/ as C1 in C1C2

√ /s, f, x/ as C1 followed by /t/ as C2 (with a few exceptions)

√ /š/ (but not after /i/)

Samareh concludes that ‘the most interesting fact is that these two groups correspond

exactly to the traditional “short” and “long” vowels in Persian and although quantity is

45

not the basis for contrast, since the behaviors of “long” and “short” vowels are different

before consonant clusters “the traditional labels “long” and “short” may justifiably be

preserved for the two functionally different groups” (pp. 92 and 93).

Regarding the consonants that can follow /a, e, o/ and /ɑ, i, u/, Zolfaghari Serish and

Kambuziya (2005) note that in words with CVCC structure, the sonority sequencing

principle is met when the vowel is /ɑ, i, u/ (e.g., mɑst ‘yoghurt’, bist ‘twenty’, pust ‘skin’), but it need not be met when the vowel is /a, e, o/ (e.g., tabx ‘cooking’, zebr ‘rough’, sobh ‘morning’). They note that in monosyllabic words, the principle is met, for

instance, if the first consonant of the coda is /r, l, j, n/ and [w] or the second consonant of

the coda is /d, ʔ, ʤ, ʃ, k, ɡ, t/ (e.g., nanɡ ‘shame’, ɡerd ‘round’). Zolfaghari Serish and

Kambuziya say that with respect to the sonority sequencing principle two natural classes

of vowels are formed in Persian; these are /ɑ, i, u/ and /a, e, o/. They do not use any

feature for these two classes so it is not clear how they treat these vowels with respect to

their distinguishing characteristic. The point is that the categorization of former long

vowels versus former short vowels is observed with respect to the sonority principle. I

will return to the VC co-occurrence restrictions in chapter 5.

Lazard (1992) points out that grammars usually classify Persian vowels as long and short.

According to him, this classification refers to an etymological difference: ɑ, i, u represent

former long vowels and a, e, o former short vowels. He further says that the distinction

in quantity is retained in poetry and is the basis of traditional versification. In common

pronunciation, however, he notes that quality is the primary feature. Lazard adds that

quantity, although less important than quality, still plays a role in the Modern Persian

system. “Different facts taken together lead to a grouping on the one hand of the vowels

â, i, u and on the other of the vowels a, e, o. Nevertheless, rather than of “long” and

“short”, it is better to speak of “stable” vowels and “unstable” vowels.” (p. 17). Lazard

calls â, i, u “stable” vowels because they have a relatively constant duration and are not

subject to change in quality16

16 The exception is â (my ɑ) becoming u before nasal consonants (e.g., nɑn ‘bread’ → nun). A discussion of this process will be given in 3.8.

as opposed to a, e, o, which he calls “unstable” vowels

46

that are of variable duration and often show changes in quality. For the purpose of

clarification of Lazard’s statement, by “change in quality” Lazard refers to the harmony

processes in which e and o become i and u respectively (e.g., be-bin ~ bi-bin ‘see!’, kelid ~ kilid ‘key’, xorus ~ xurus ‘rooster’), and a becomes ɑ across laryngeals (e.g., bahɑr ~ bɑhɑr ‘spring’). These processes are discussed in section 2.3.

Windfuhr (1979) argues that the Modern Persian vowel system is still quantitative. He

considers i, u, â to be long vowels and e, o, a to be short vowels (Windfuhr 1979, p.

129). Presenting examples previously given in (14a) and (16) (see section 2.2.1.1),

Windfuhr says that a quantity distinction between stable and unstable vowels is retained

in open, non-final syllables, both stressed and unstressed. He continues that since a

quantity distinction exists, even if only in restricted contexts, the question as to whether

quantity or quality is the major distinctive feature between the two sets of vowels is

important. “It goes without saying that a rule which would attempt to unify e, o, a vs. i, u, â in qualitative terms would be very complex indeed, since there are no single or even

pairs of features that would accomplish such distinction” (Windfuhr 1979, p. 136). He

further notes: “Based on the phonetic evidence it would seem possible to return to length

as the major distinguishing feature” (Windfuhr 1979, p. 136). Windfuhr proposes a

lowering rule to change i and u to e and o respectively. To this then the lengthening rule

applies. These rules lengthen the three short “unstable” vowels in closed syllables17

(31) [-length] → [+length] / __________

and

word-finally, at least in mono- and bi-syllabic words. This rule partially neutralizes the

length distinction (taken from Windfuhr 1979, p. 136):

+vocalic CC

-conson. (C) #

17 Recall that according to Samareh (1977), in closed syllables former short vowels are shorter than former long vowels.

47

Windfuhr continues that “if length is accepted as the primary distinctive feature of

vowels, then quality can be viewed as secondary; and if so, then it would be possible to

posit the short vowels as synchronically rather than diachronically underlying vowels

opposed to the long vowels; i.e., to posit the oppositions as underlying i: ī, u: ū, and a: a. To these then, would apply a pre-surface rule which lowers short i, u to e, o and the rule

that raises final a to e (e.g., banda → bande ‘servant’)” (Windfuhr 1979, p. 137).

In this section, a categorization of vowels into ɑ, i, u versus a, e, o based on phonotactics

was discussed. Phonotactics provides a grouping of vowels into ɑ, i, u versus a, e, o. It

does not, however, show how this categorization is related to quantity. That is, the

categorization could be right but it is not necessarily an indication of quantity.

2.2.2.3. Summary

In this section I discussed the evidence in the literature for quantity in the vowel system

of Persian. In 2.2.2.1, I discussed versification. Versification, which treats ɑ, i, u as long

and a, e, o as short, is a piece of evidence used in the literature for quantity. Another

piece of evidence for quantity used in the literature is phonotactics, which was examined

in 2.2.2.2. Phonotactics suggests a grouping of vowels into ɑ, i, u versus a, e, o.

From what was reviewed above, it is apparent that some categorization between the

historical short vowels (present a, e, o) and the historical long vowels (present ɑ, i, u), is

still assumed in much of the literature on Persian vowels. I used “some” because there is

no unanimous interpretation of their status in the literature. For instance, Samareh

believes quality to be the active feature in the modern system and uses the “traditional

labels” because they are “functionally” useful. Lazard proposes a less important role for

quantity in Modern Persian compared to quality, which plays the primary role, and that is

why in his view it is better to speak of “stable” and “unstable” vowels rather than “long”

and “short”. Toosarvandani (2004) also adopts Lazard’s terms. Toosarvandani points out

that since the former short vowels are realized as short only in limited environments and

have the same phonetic length as former long vowels in most environments, the term

48

“short” is confusing when used to refer to the Modern Persian vowels a, e, and o.

Toosarvandani continues that for descriptive purposes we have to recognize that a, e, and

o behave as a group due to their variable length. He further adds that, “therefore, until

such a point as their true status has been revealed, I will refer to these vowels as

“unstable” following Lazard. Conversely, ɑ, i, and u whose durations remain the same in

all environments, I will refer to simply as “stable” vowels” (p. 241). As previously noted,

Windfuhr and Hayes, considering quantity to be still the active feature in the Persian

vowel system, divide the vowels into “short” and “long”.

I should add that the orthography also divides Persian vowels into two categories. In the

Perso-Arabic script, the vowels a, e, o are not shown in writing. They are shown by

diacritics for new learners or sometimes for clarification when a word which could be

read in different ways is written out of context. The vowels ɑ, i, u, however, are shown

by three letters.

The categorization of the vowels as discussed in the literature, based on versification and

phonotactic evidence, is not an argument for quantity. Persian formal meter, as discussed

in 2.2.2.1, is from Arabic meter with some changes to become compatible with Persian.

Persian folk poetry does not follow Arabic meter and is not quantity based. Having

discussed Modern Persian and Middle Persian meter as well as formal and folk poetry, I

showed that versification is not a strong argument for quantity.

The categorization of vowels based on phonotactics also does not offer a convincing

argument for quantity. As noted above, it shows a categorization of vowel into ɑ, i, u

versus a, e, o but it does not show how this categorization argues for quantity in the

system.

The other categorizations, such as “stable” and “unstable” or using the “traditional

labels” because they are “functionally” useful, which are offered by scholars who argue

for quality (Lazard 1992, Samareh 1977), show there is a grouping of ɑ, i, u versus a, e, o

but it is unclear how these should be interpreted in phonological terms to contribute to the

discussion of the active feature of the system.

49

So far, I have discussed quality-based and quantity-based analyses of the Persian vowel

system. Next, I discuss the synthetic analysis of the system.

2.2.3. The synthetic analysis

As previously discussed, in addition to the quality-based analysis and the quantity-based

analysis of the Persian vowel system, a synthetic analysis which considers both quality

and quantity to be present in the underlying vowel system of Persian is suggested in the

literature (Toosarvandani 2004).18

Toosarvandani (2004) discusses the purely quantitative and qualitative analyses of the

Persian vowel system, and suggests that Persian “requires oppositions of both quantity

and quality in the underlying vowel system in order to describe the observed

distributional facts and alternations adequately. If one posits underlying quality alone, the

underlying system is attractively concrete but a reasonable explanation of surface vowel

length becomes impossible. On the other hand, positing a primary underlying opposition

of length alone yields an elegant, but abstract vowel system” (pp. 250-251).

Toosarvandani speculates that Classical Persian had a vowel system which was

quantitative both underlyingly and on the surface. By Modern Persian, surface historical

forces had changed the quality of the short vowels, forcing a reanalysis of the qualitative

features of the underlying representation to mirror the ones of the surface system.

Toosarvandani says that “While length distinctions are only realized minimally on the

surface, a number of phonological processes depend on the presence of a length contrast

in the underlying representation for their realization, namely short vowel lengthening and

short vowel height and backness assimilation.” (p. 251). By short vowel lengthening,

As also discussed in section 2.2, having both quality

and quantity present underlyingly in a system such as Persian is not tenable given the

assumptions of the theory adopted here. I will, however, present this analysis in order to

provide a thorough review of the literature on Persian vowels.

18 Toosarvandani (2004) considers Kramsky (1966) as the origin of the synthetic analysis for Persian (see footnote 7 for discussion on Kramsky 1966 in this respect).

50

Toosarvandani refers to what acoustic studies show about the lengthening of a, e, o in

some environments, as reviewed in section 2.2.1.1; short vowel height and backness

assimilation refer to cases in which e, o, a, becomes i, u, ɑ respectively (e.g., kelid ~ kilid ‘key’, xorus ~ xurus ‘rooster’, bahɑr ~ bɑhɑr ‘spring’) to which Lazard also refers.

These cases of change in quality will be discussed in 2.3.

According to the synthetic view, the purely quantitative analysis must be rejected for the

following reason. In the quantitative analysis of the system vowels are categorized into

two groups which are distinguished from each other by quantity even though on the

surface the length distinction is neutralized in most environments. The variable duration

of “unstable” vowels in Lazard’s terms, a, e, o, is derived by rule (Toosarvandani refers

to Windfuhr 1979). All short vowels become long in closed syllables and word finally;

elsewhere they are short. Toosarvandani continues that complications arise in accounting

for surface qualitative changes of a, e, o by the quantitative analysis. One needs two rules

to account for these changes: a lowering rule which applies to i and u to yield e and o,

and a fronting rule which applies to ɑ, giving a. Both rules lack conditioning

environments and therefore constitute an appeal to absolute neutralization. It would be

difficult, if possible at all, for learners to construct this abstract system. Toosarvandani

argues: “Though the “quantity only” analysis is able to generalize unstable vowel

lengthening as a group process, its qualitative opacity requires us to reject it” (p. 244).

The purely qualitative analysis of the system should also be rejected, according to

Toosarvandani, for the following reason. A division between a, e, o and also ɑ, i, u,

“unstable” and “stable” vowels, is not possible based solely on quality. Therefore, an

account based on quality cannot explain the unstable vowel lengthening process as a

group lengthening process.

Accordingly the synthetic analysis integrates quantity and quality, with both present in

the underlying representation of the system. This analysis, thus, considers two groups of

vowels, as follows (taken from Toosarvandani 2004, p. 245):

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(32) i: u:

e o

a ɑ:

The feature specification of the system is as follows according to this account

(Toosarvandani 2004, p.245 - I include the values as they are in the reference):

(33) e o a i: u: ɑ:

high + +

low + +

back + + +

In this account, the alternation observed in Persian is represented as given in (34)-(36)

(Toosarvandani 2004, pp. 247-248). I give examples from Toosarvandani (2004) for each

rule. (34) and (35) show that quality is needed in the system. (36) shows quantity is also

needed.

Recall that Toosarvandani says that a number of phonological processes need quantity to

be present underlyingly, namely short vowel lengthening, short vowel height and

backness assimilation. But the rules given for short vowel height and backness

assimilation, (34) and (35) respectively, do not involve a length contrast. Only the rule

for short vowel lengthening, (36), refers to a length contrast.

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(34) a. Synthetic analysis height alternation rule (p. 247)

V V

[-low] [-low]

=

[-high] [+high]

b. Examples (pp. 246, 247)

devi:st ~ divi:st ‘two hundred’

fozul ~fuzu:l ‘impertinenet’

be-bi:n ~ bi-bi:n ‘see!’

be-gu: ~ bo-gu: / bu-gu: ‘say!’

(35) a. Synthetic analysis backness alternation rule (p. 248)

V V

[+low] [+low]

=

[-back] [+back]

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b. Example (p. 247, referring to Lazard 1957)

bahɑ:r ~ bɑhɑ:r ‘spring’

(36) a. Synthetic analysis lengthening rule (p. 248) –this rule lengthens the short vowels

everywhere except in non-final open syllables.

X X X

→ / { –―C]σ }, {–―]σ }

V V

b. Examples (p. 242) –all the examples given in Toosarvandani 2004 related to

this discussion were previously given in (14), (15), and (16). I repeat an example.

xo.dɑ ‘God’ xo:ʃk.tár ‘dryer’

In this section, I examined the synthetic analysis of the system which considers both

quality and quantity to be underlying in the system. I will argue in chapter 3 that we can

account for various processes in the language with underlying quality alone, and as

predicted by the framework of Modified Contrastive Specification, for a system like that

of Persian, both quality and quantity are not required contrastively.

2.2.4. Summary and discussion

The active feature of the Persian vowel system is an issue of controversy in the literature

on Persian vowels, as discussed in this chapter. Some studies consider quality (height) to

be phonologically distinctive in the system based mainly on phonetic measurements as

54

well as stress. Others consider the system to be phonologically quantitative and they take

versification and phonotactic patterning as arguments for this position. A synthetic

analysis which requires both phonological quality and quantity in the system has also

been proposed. This final view is not tenable given the assumptions of the Modified

Contrastive Specification framework based on which, considering the nature of the

Persian vowel system, if one distinguishes Persian vowels phonologically by quality,

there is no need for quantity to be active and vice versa. Thus the system can be either

qualitative or quantitative (see also (11) on mixed system).

In this section, I examined the arguments which are presented in the literature for quality

and quantity and argued that they do not provide strong support for the position they take.

I summarize here the reasons: (i) Phonetic measurements do not strongly argue for

phonological quality because they do not agree upon where the length difference is

observed or upon whether or not there is a correlation between phonetic length and

phonological length in Persian. (ii) Stress is not a conclusive argument for phonological

quality as it is not required that the stress pattern of a quantitative vowel system

necessarily refers to quantity. (iii) Versification does not argue for phonological quantity

since Persian meters are borrowed from Arabic and adjusted into the Persian system and

are not created based on Persian vowels. That is why, as discussed in the literature, only

Persian formal poetry, and not folk poetry, shows a quantitative system; (iv)

Categorization of vowels, which suggests a, e, o as a group versus ɑ, i, u as another

group is not a convincing argument for phonological quantity either. The grouping is

found, as I will argue in chapter 3, but no real account in the literature is given for it.

Different literature considers different criteria as the basis of this categorization, and no

analysis provides a convincing account of the nature of this categorization. In the quality-

based studies, no feature is introduced to distinguish a, e, o versus ɑ, i, u, simply because

this two-way distinction is not easily explained based on height. That is why these studies

either consider the vowels to be “functionally” divided into these two groups – it remains

a question as to what “functionally” means in phonological terms – or they consider the

vowels to be “stable” and “unstable” – again it remains a question as to how these terms

can be transferred into phonological features. In the quantity-based studies, this

categorization is assumed to be necessarily based on quantity because, according to these

55

studies, no qualitative categorization of a, e, o versus ɑ, i, u is possible. However it is

unclear why this grouping must point to quantity. I will argue in chapter 3 that the

grouping can be accounted for with phonological quality.

Following the view that for recognizing contrasts in a system, one should examine the

phonological processes of the language under study (see 1.2), a common shortcoming of

all of these arguments (i.e., arguments just discussed in (i)-(iv)) is that none of them

refers to an active phonological process of Persian based on which one can draw a

conclusion. In the next section, I will show that such a process exists in the phonology of

Persian. This process is vowel harmony, which strongly argues for phonological quality

in the system, as discussed below.

2.3. Vowel harmony and a featural analysis for the system

Quality as the phonologically active feature in Modern Persian is strongly supported by

the raising harmony observed in the language. Persian shows several patterns of vowel

harmony with a mid vowel raising to a high vowel. While all involve raising of mid

vowels to high, there are slight differences depending upon domain, and I thus organize

this section considering the domains in which vowel harmony takes place.

2.3.1. Harmony across a morpheme boundary

In this section, a harmony pattern in non-low vowels which occurs across a morpheme

boundary will be discussed. Persian has a number of verbal prefixes, as follows:18F

19

19 In addition to these prefixes, the conjugated forms of the infinitive xɑstan, as an auxiliary verb, precede the past stem of a verb to mark the future tense in Persian; for example: xɑham raft ‘I will go’. This form of the future is mostly used in formal speech.

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(37) be- (imperative and also subjunctive marker)

na- (negative marker)

mi- (indicative marker)

The prefix be- combines with the present stem of the verb to form the imperative. An

example is given in (38):

(38) Imperative: prefix /be/ + the present stem of the verb

e.g. xɑbidan ‘to sleep’

xɑb the present stem

be + xɑb → bexɑb ‘sleep!’

The prefix vowel /e/ may assimilate to the first vowel of the stem unless it is a low

vowel.20

(39) e prefix……u stem → u prefix / o prefix (place −and height−assimilation)

The forms in (39) through (41) present a schematic representation of this

assimilation.

a. be + ɡu → beɡu ~ buɡu/boɡu ‘say!’

b. be + xun → bexun ~ buxun/boxun ‘read!’

20 I used “may” because the assimilation of the vowel e in prefix to a high vowel in the stem seems to be influenced by sociolinguistic factors. The assimilation of the prefix vowel e to the vowel o in the stem (e.g., be + ro → boro ‘go!’; be + xor → boxor ‘eat!’) is more common; that is, the assimilated version (e.g., boro) is observed by far more than its non-assimilated counterpart (e.g., bero).

57

(40) e prefix……i stem → i prefix (height assimilation)

a. be + ɡir → beɡir ~ biɡir ‘get!’

b. be + ʃin → beʃin ~ biʃin ‘sit!’

(41) e prefix……o stem → o prefix (place assimilation)

a. be + ro → boro ‘go!’

b. be + xor → boxor ‘eat!’

Compare (39)-(41) with (42).

(42) e prefix……a/ɑ stem → e prefix (no assimilation)

a. be + xar → bexar ‘buy!’ *baxar

b. be + zɑr → besɑz ‘built!’ *bɑsɑz

The main point to be aware of is the raising of a mid vowel to a high vowel as in (39) and

(40). I include the other cases in order to present the overall picture of this case of

assimilation.21

The examples of assimilation in (39)-(41) all involve consonant-initial stems. With a

vowel-initial stem, a j is inserted between the vowel of the imperative marker and the

vowel-initial stems and the e is pronounced as [i], as in (43). This can be considered as a

case of raising triggered by the epenthetic j, which has the same place of articulation as i.

21 Note that the negative imperative form does not show assimilation. Consider na (negative marker) and see the following examples: na + ɡu → naɡu ‘don’t tell!’ (*noɡu/nuɡu), na + ɡir → naɡir ‘don’t get!’ (*niɡir), na + ro → naro ‘don’t go!’ (*noro), na + sɑz → nasɑz ‘don’t build!’ (*nɑsɑz).

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(43) e prefix-jepenthetic-a, ɑ, o stem → i prefix

a. be + andɑz → bijandɑz ‘throw (sth)!’22

b. be + andiʃ → bijandiʃ ‘think!’

c. be + ɑ → bijɑ ‘come!’

d. be + ɑvar → bijɑvar ‘bring!’ (bijɑr in informal speech)

e. be + oft → bijoft ‘fall down!’

Between morphemes, raising occurs with a mid vowel raising to a high vowel before a

high vowel and preceding the high glide [j].

Next, I discuss what is generally considered to be height harmony within stems.

2.3.2. Harmony within stem

Persian shows two patterns of height harmony within the stem, as follows:

(44) o → u / — Cu

a. soɢut ~ suɢut ‘falling’

b. sotun ~ sutun ‘column’

c. xorus ~ xurus ‘rooster’

d. holu ~ hulu ‘peach’

e. koluʧe ~ kuluʧe ‘a type of cookie’

22 Note that bijandɑz is also pronounced as bendɑz in speech, which suggests the deletion of stem vowel in order to resolve vowel hiatus.

59

(45) e → i / — Ci

a. kelid ~ kilid ‘key’

b. sebil ~ sibil ‘mustache’

c. ɡelim ~ ɡilim ‘a kind of rug’

d. zeɡil ~ ziɡil ‘wart’

e. fetile ~ fitile ‘wick’

Evidence for the underlying presence of /o/ and /e/ (and not of /u/ and /i/) in the above

forms (and so the occurrence of harmony and consequently raising of /o/ and /e/ to high

vowels) is as follows. First, the existence of words with CuCu and CiCi in the language

argues for /o/ and /e/ in the above examples. These words, some of which are given in

(46) and (47), are never pronounced as CoCu and CeCi even in very formal speech. In

their written forms they have the letters used for [i] and [u] which are pronounced in both

formal and colloquial speech.

(46) CuCu (C) Words

a. kuku ‘name of a food’

b. ʤuʤu ‘birdie’

c. susul ‘dandy’

d. tutun ‘tobacco’

e. kuʧulu ‘small’

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(47) CiCi (C) Words

a. ɡiti ‘universe’

b. bini ‘nose’

c. sili ‘slap’

d. ʃirin ‘sweet’

e. kimijɑ ‘alchemy’

Thus surface C-highV-C-highV words have two sources: the vowels may be

phonologically high, as in (46) and (47), in which case vowel height is invariant, or the

first vowel may vary in its height between mid and high, as in (44) and (45). This varying

vowel is phonologically mid under this height-based analysis.

Second, the orthography of the language supports the presence of /o/ and /e/ in forms such

as those in (44) and (45). In Persian /a/, /e/, and /o/ are represented by diacritics (which

are not inserted in writing except in books for new learners, as noted in 2.2.2.3), and /ɑ/,

/i/, and /u/ by three letters of the alphabet. None of the words in (44) and (45) contain the

symbols used for /i/ and /u/ for their first vowel in their written form. It is only in speech

that [i] and [u] are pronounced. In (46) and (47), on the other hand, the vowels are both

represented by the vowel symbols.

Within-stem height harmony does not occur in other sequences of vowels in a stem (see

Appendix 1 for full data). However, the sequence eCo needs comment. Recall that in

prefix-stem vowel harmony in Persian imperatives discussed in section 2.3.1 the most

frequent pattern is the change of /e/ to [o] (see footnote 20). This place assimilation is not

as common within the stem. While there are cases such as ʤelo ~ ʤolo ‘front’ and ʧelo ~ ʧolo ‘steamed rice’ which might be taken as cases of /e/ to [o] assimilation within

stems, there are cases such as dero ‘harvest’, keʃo ‘drawer’ and senobar ‘black poplar’

which do not show any change in /e/ (*doro; *koʃo, *sonobar) even in informal speech.

Whether there is a pattern in this regard, what the underlying form is in the cases such as

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ʤelo ~ ʤolo, and in general how CeCo words should be treated are questions for further

research. Comparing the harmony within stems with the one across morphemes leads us

to consider different domains in discussing harmony patterns. That is, although in the

prefix-stem sequence, the change of /e/ to [o] is the most frequent pattern of harmony, in

other words, place harmony is more frequent than height harmony, in within-stem

harmony, height harmony (i.e. change of /e/ to [i] and also /o/ to [u]), and not place

harmony, is more frequent. The assimilation of e to u is not observed in stems either. The

main point for the purpose of this study is the occurrence of harmony among vowels.

2.3.3. Harmony in loan words

Patterns of vowel harmony are also observed in English or French words that have been

borrowed into Persian. Initial and medial consonant clusters are forbidden in Persian, and

an [e] is inserted to break up these clusters. In words starting with sC, the epenthetic [e] is

inserted at the beginning of the cluster. For example:

(48) English/French Persian

a. star → estɑr

b. small → esmɑl

c. steel → estil

d. ski → eski

e. stop → estop

In other cases, [e] is epenthesized between the two consonants, as in pelɑstik for

‘plastic’, pelɑn for ‘plan’ and kelɑs for ‘class’.

The epenthetic [e] optionally undergoes harmony when it is non-initial, assimilating in

height to a following non-low vowel across one consonant. Some examples are given in

(49)-(51). The raising of the epenthetic vowel to a following high vowel is not

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mandatory, although it is frequent, as there are words with two pronunciations, one with a

raised epenthetic vowel and the other without a raised epenthetic vowel. I include the

unraised version, when it is possible.

(49) Assimilation of [e] to [i]

English/French Persian

a. freezer → firizer ~ ferizer

b. ɡrease → ɡiris ~ ɡeris

c. cliché → kiliʃe ~ keliʃe

(50) Assimilation of [e] to [u]

English/French Persian

a. flu → fulu ~ felu

b. blu(-ray) → bulu ~ belu

b. cruise → kuruz

(51) Assimilation of [e] to [o]

English/French Persian

a. project → poroʒe ~ peroʒe

b. profile → porofɑjl ~ perofɑjl

c. blonde → bolond ~ belond

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(52) Failure of assimilation of [e] to [a] and [ɑ]

English/French Persian

a. plan → pelan/pelɑn *palan/*pɑlɑn

b. class → kelɑs *kɑlɑs

c. traffic → terɑfik *tɑrɑfik

As in native words, in loan words too [e] changes its height when the potential trigger is a

high vowel.

One might ask why I take [e] as the epenthetic vowel for loanwords in Persian, since we

see different realizations of epenthetic vowels in the examples. In (49)-(51), there are

some reasons to consider [e] as the epenthetic vowel in loan words, putting aside its

similarity to the native assimilation process. In the cases in which no harmony is seen —

when the cluster precedes a low vowel— [e] is always observed in the epenthetic vowel

position (see (52)). In addition, even in cases where harmony normally takes place,

sometimes the foreign word with an [e] as epenthetic vowel can interchangeably be used,

as in [firizer] and [ferizer] for freezer. Finally, the insertion of [e] at the beginning of sC

clusters as the strategy of cluster-breaking (see (48)) also suggests the nature of the

epenthetic vowel. In these words, there is no harmony, perhaps because of the existence

of two consonants between [e] and the next vowel, and [e], as a default epenthetic vowel,

always appears. Thus, in the absence of assimilation, the epenthetic vowel in Persian is

[e].

2.3.4. Preliminary analysis

In this section, I examined three patterns of vowel harmony in Persian, in all of which a

mid vowel is raised to a high vowel: raising across a morpheme (e.g., be + ɡir → beɡir ~

biɡir ‘get!’), raising within a stem (e.g., kelid ~ kilid ‘key’), and raising of an epenthetic

vowel in loan words (e.g., ferizer ~ firizer ‘freezer’).

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Persian also has a raising process in which ɑ raises to u before nasal consonants, that is, ɑ → u/ −m, n (e.g., bɑdɑm ‘almond’ → bɑdum; bɑrɑn ‘rain’ → bɑrun), but this is not a

case of harmony. It is raising due to the nasal context. Section 3.8 presents a discussion

of pre-nasal raising.

Given the harmony patterns in Persian, the question is: what are the implications of the

occurrence of these patterns for the analysis of the Persian vowel inventory? That is, what

does harmony tell us with respect to the phonologically active feature of the system

considering the two possibilities: quality or quantity? Harmony is generally assumed to

be feature based (e.g., see van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1995, van Oostendorp 1995),

as suggested by the cross-linguistically attested harmony patterns (this will be discussed

in detail in 2.3.6). Thus if quality is considered as the basis for contrast in the system, the

changes due to harmony are easy to account for. Quantity, however, occupying two

positions, is not a feature and cannot spread. Thus a quantity-based analysis cannot

explain the changes occurring due to harmony. To sum up, harmony patterns strongly

support the presence of a feature in the system and the absence of quantity.

In the next section, I examine an additional harmony pattern, one found in Persian low

vowels.

2.3.5. Harmony in low vowels

In sections 2.3.1-2.3.3, it was seen that low vowels do not participate in the harmony

patterns as either triggers or targets in interaction with non-low vowels. There is,

however, an interaction between the two low vowels. In formal speech, the form before

assimilation is more frequent, while in informal speech the form with harmony is

common.

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(53) a → ɑ / C−ʔɑ(C)

a → ɑ / C−hɑ(C)

a. bahɑ → bɑhɑ ‘price’

b. bahɑr → bɑhɑr ‘spring, also a name for girls’

c. ʤahɑn → ʤɑhɑn ‘world, also a name for boys’

d. ʃahɑb → ʃɑhɑb ‘meteor, also a name for boys’

e. mahɑl → mɑhɑl ‘impossible’

f. behbahɑn → behbɑhɑn ‘a city in Iran’

g. maʔɑʃ → mɑʔɑʃ ‘livelihood’

h. saʔɑdat → sɑʔɑdat ‘happiness’

As (53) illustrates, a assimilates to ɑ across a laryngeal consonant.

Evidence for the underlying presence of a in these words come from various sources.

First the orthography does not show ɑ for the first vowel in these words. Second in

formal speech the first vowel of these words is a and not ɑ; and third there are words such

as those in (54) which do not show a for the first vowel even in very formal speech, and

which include ɑ in written form for both vowels.

(54) a. morɑʔɑt ‘consideration’ *moraʔɑt

b. sɑʔɑt ‘hours’ *saʔɑt

c. farɑhɑn ‘a city in Iran’ *farahɑn

d. mɑhɑn ‘a city in Iran’ *mahɑn

The process only occurs across laryngeal consonants and does not occur across other

consonants, as the following examples show.

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(55) a. tabɑr *tɑbɑr ‘lineage’

b. ɢatɑr *ɢɑtɑr ‘train’

c. davɑ *dɑvɑ ‘medication’

d. maʤɑl *mɑʤɑl ‘opportunity’

e. marɑm *mɑrɑm ‘doctrine’

f. salɑh *sɑlɑh ‘advisable’

g. xarɑb *xɑrɑb ‘ruined’

h. kamɑl *kɑmɑl ‘perfection’

The process does not occur in the ɑʔa or ɑha environment, as shown in (56).

(56) a. xɑhar *xahar/*xɑhɑr ‘sister’

b. rɑhat *rahat/*rɑhɑt ‘comfortable’

c. sɑhat *sahat/*sɑhɑt ‘realm’

d. etɑʔat *etaʔat/*etɑʔɑt ‘obedience’

Also, the process involves only low vowels, as the following examples show. That is, h

and ʔ are not transparent if they are not flanked on both sides by low vowels.23

(57) a. mahin *mihin ‘better’ (a high vowel follows h)

b. mihan *mahan ‘country’ (a high vowel precedes h)

c. sɑhel *sehel ‘shore’ (a mid vowel follows h)

23 An exception is sɑheb which can be pronounced as sɑhɑb ‘owner’ in informal speech.

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d. kohan *kahan ‘ancient’ (a mid vowel precedes h)

e. moʔin *miʔin ‘helpful’ (ʔ intervenes a mid and a high vowel)

f. mohit *mihit ‘surrounding’(h intervenes a mid and a high vowel)

Is this process a case of laryngeal transparency? Why would it occur only in the low

vowels? How can this phenomenon be related to the feature characteristics of h and ʔ, and also to those of low vowels? These are interesting questions which I leave aside for

now and return to in 3.7. The point relevant to our discussion at the moment is the

occurrence of harmony. Given the feature-based nature of harmony, a feature must be

involved in the assimilation of a to ɑ across laryngeals.

So far, the harmony patterns in low vowels and in non-low vowels have been discussed

separately. In the next section, the harmony patterns will be examined putting low and

non-low vowels together.

2.3.6. Harmony in low and non-low vowels: a question

I argued in 2.3.4 that the existence of harmony patterns in Persian strongly support a

featural analysis for the system. The assumption that harmony is feature-based derives

from a number of surveys of harmony which argue that harmony is based on features

rather than on length. That is, length harmony is unattested (Kramer 2003). The attested

types of harmony found in the languages of the world are as follows (e.g., van der Hulst

and van de Weijer 1995, Kramer 2003):

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(58) Attested types of harmony across languages

Palatal harmony Finnish, Hungarian

Example

Labial harmony24

Tongue root harmony African languages (e.g., Yoruba)

Altaic languages (e.g., Turkic)

Height harmony Bantu languages (e.g., Shona)

Nasal harmony Kikongo

Retroflex harmony Yurok

Tense/lax Harmony Canadian French25,

Andalusian Spanish26

Unattested → Length harmony (Kramer 2003, p. 17)

In addition to these harmony types, some mixed systems (two or more harmony patterns)

are also attested. In these mixed cases, no instance of length in combination with another

type of harmony has been found. Some examples of mixed cases are as follows (from van

der Hulst and van de Weijer 1995, Kramer 2003): ATR and height in Klao (Kru) and in

Togo-remnant languages, backness and ATR/RTR in Kalabari (Niger-Congo), backness

and roundness in Turkish, backness and roundness and ATR in kàlɔŋ (Niger-Congo),

etc.

24 Note that Kramer (2003) puts a ‘?’ in front of labial harmony. Kramer writes that the question mark indicates that no clear instances of this type of harmony have been found. The reason is that, according to him, labial or rounding harmony is a by-product of backness harmony and/or is limited to vowels of a particular height. Regarding the need for having both [labial] and [back] for vowels in harmony process, D’Arcy (2004), reexamining several patterns of harmony in different languages, shows that two place features are sufficient for vowels on accounting for cross-linguistic harmony patterns. She follows Rice (1995, 2002) in considering [coronal] and [peripheral] (the latter covers [labial] and [back] in vowels) as vowel place features. As pointed out in 1.2, I also follow Rice’s two-place model in my analysis of Persian vowels. 25 Douglas Walker (1984), Rachel Walker (2005). 26 Rachel Walker (2005).

69

I do not go further into the details of these cases of harmony. The point is that length

harmony is not attested27

and in all harmony patterns features are involved. Thus a

feature-based analysis is needed to account for harmony patterns in Persian. Given

harmony patterns in low vowels and non-low vowels, the question is: is there one

harmony system or two harmony systems (one among mid and high vowels, and the other

between the low vowels)? That is, is there one feature involved in all these harmony

patterns or are there two features involved? This will be fully discussed in the next

chapter.

2.4. Summary and conclusion

In this chapter I studied a controversial issue in Persian phonology, namely the active

feature of the vowel system of the language. A review of the literature showed that three

different views are found regarding the active feature of the system. Some studies

consider height, a quality, to be the phonologically contrastive feature. Others consider

quantity to be the basis of phonological contrast in the system. A synthetic account which

considers both quality and quantity to be underlyingly present in the vowel system of

Persian is also found in the literature. The third view is not tenable under the assumptions

of Modified Contrastive Specification because, given the nature of the system, if the

vowels are distinguished by phonological quality, there is no need for quantity to be

involved and vice versa. This leaves us with quantity or quality as the basis of contrast in

the system. I reexamined the arguments in the literature for quantity (versification and

phonotactic patterning) and those for quality (phonetic measurements and stress), and

showed that they are inconclusive. Based on the occurrence of several harmony patterns,

assuming that harmony is feature based, I argued for a featural analysis.

27 I have found only one case where it is argued that length harmony is required, Leggbó (Hyman and Udoh, 2002). The authors point out that this is truly unusual given the cross-linguistically attested patterns of harmony, for which a feature is required. This system may perhaps be open to reanalysis.

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I end this chapter with two questions. First, are there two features involved in harmony

patterns (one for harmony in non-low vowels and the other for harmony in low vowels)

or is there one feature by which harmony in low vowels and harmony in non-low vowels

both can be accounted for? Second, considering that the major evidence for quantity

comes from the different distributions of the two classes of vowels (a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u), can

this be accounted for with a feature-based harmony system? In the next chapter, I address

these questions and present a detailed analysis of Persian harmony patterns.

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Chapter 3

The active features of the Persian vowel system: the solution

In chapter 2, I argued that quantity is not the dimension of contrast in Persian as it cannot

account for harmony, which requires a feature. In this chapter, I turn to quality in order to

account for harmony. I first provide an account of harmony assuming that height is the

active feature of the system, as assumed by qualitative and synthetic accounts of Persian

vowels (e.g., Samareh 1885, Pisowicz 1985, Toosarvandani 2004). I show that although

height accounts for harmony patterns, it does not capture another fact about Persian

vowels, the categorization of vowels into two groups: ɑ, i, u vs. a, e, o. I propose an

account of the system based on tenseness and show that both harmony and the

categorization of vowels can be explained by tenseness. I then present a phonetic

experiment on Persian vowels in order to see how Persian tense and lax vowels pattern in

terms of duration and if their patterning in this respect is closer to what we observe in

quantity-based systems or in tense-based systems. I further discuss contrasts and

markedness in the system. In addition, I study two processes which show changes in

vowels in the environment of particular consonants, namely harmony in low vowels

across laryngeals, which will be discussed with respect to characteristics of laryngeals

and low vowels, as well as pre-nasal raising, for which I will offer an account based on

tenseness. I end this chapter with a note on Persian diphthongs and argue that there is no

phonemic diphthong in Persian.

I start this chapter with a height-based account of harmony patterns.

3.1. Harmony patterns: an account based on height

In the previous chapter, I argued that quantity is not the dimension of contrast in the

system based on a widespread assumption about the feature-based nature of harmony (see

2.3.6). This provides strong evidence in favor of qualitative accounts of the system. The

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accounts in the literature consider height to be the main feature in the system and in this

section I examine how the harmony patterns can be explained assuming a height-based

system for Persian vowels. In the previous chapter, different patterns of harmony among

non-low vowels and also a harmony pattern between the low vowels were presented (in

2.3). I will first discuss the harmony patterns in non-low vowels, followed by a

discussion of the harmony pattern in low vowels.

3.1.1. Harmony patterns in non-low vowels: an account based on height

In this section, I show how harmony in non-low vowels can be accounted for assuming

that height is the active feature in the system. First, I repeat some examples of the

harmony patterns in non-low vowels, which were discussed in 2.3.1-2.3.3.

(1) Harmony across a morpheme boundary: the vowel e of the prefix be may assimilate

to the following non-low vowel of the stem as in (a-c), and it raises preceding the high

glide [j] as in (d).

a. be + ɡu → beɡu ~ buɡu/boɡu ‘say!’

b. be + ɡir → beɡir ~ biɡir ‘get!

c. be + ro → boro ‘go!’

d. be+ɑ → bijɑ ‘come!’

(2) Harmony within a stem: o and e may assimilate to u and i respectively

a. soɢut → suɢut ‘falling’

b. hozur → huzur ‘presence’

c. sebil → sibil ‘mustache’

d. zeɡil → ziɡil ‘wart’

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(3) Harmony in loan words: the epenthetic e may assimilate to a following non-low

vowel

a. freezer → firizer ~ ferizer

b. blu(-ray) → bulu ~ belu

c. blonde → bolond ~ belond

Before discussing how these patterns can be explained in a height-based account, I need

to comment on the status of these harmony patterns as lexical rather than post-lexical.

One may ask for evidence to show that the harmony process in Persian is lexical, in

particular given that there is the pattern of raising of e to i before j (e.g., be + ɑ → bijɑ

‘come!’) which may suggest a post-lexical status for the process as it occurs after the

epenthetic j is inserted at the prefix boundary. It is important to know whether the

harmony process is lexical or post-lexical, because if it is post-lexical, it is a phonetic

process; if, however, it is lexical it belongs to phonology and involves underlying

features, and for this reason, it helps us to find out what features are phonologically

present in the system.

Based on criteria usually argued to be characteristic of lexical rules (see Kiparsky 1982,

1985, Mohanan 1982, Kaisse and Shaw 1985, D’Arcy 2003 among others), I argue that

harmony across a morpheme boundary in imperatives where the stem is consonant-initial

(e.g. be + ɡir → biɡir ~ beɡir ‘get!’) and harmony within a stem (e.g., kelid ~ kilid

‘key’) are not post-lexical for the following reasons.

In harmony across a morpheme boundary in imperatives, the process has access to

morphology as it occurs across morphemes –it occurs between the imperative marker be

and the stem (see (1)).

In harmony within a stem, the process is category-sensitive. It is usually nouns which

undergo harmony (see (2)) and not verbs (see (4)).

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(4) a. keʃid ‘s/he pulled’ *kiʃid

b. resid ‘s/he reached’ *risid

Moreover, there are some exceptions in the noun category itself:

(5) a. neɡin ‘gem’ *niɡin

b. setiɢ ‘ridge’ *sitiɢ

I thus conclude that the harmony is lexical.

I now offer an account of harmony assuming height is the dimension of contrast in the

Persian vowel system. Consider once more the representation of the system if height is

taken to be the contrastive feature, as presented in the literature (e.g., Samareh 1985).28

(6) [coronal] [peripheral]

i u [high]

e o [mid]

a ɑ [low]

Given the system in (6): the feature [high] spreads from a high vowel to a mid vowel.

Recall that, as discussed in chapter 1, in the framework of Modified Contrastive

Specification within which my analysis is presented one does not need three height

features to be active in a system such as the one of Persian. Only two of them (along with

a place feature) are enough to distinguish the vowels from one another in the above

system. The harmony patterns suggest that [mid] is absent underlyingly given the

structural markedness assumed by Modified Contrastive Specification. Recall that one of

the diagnostics to identify marked elements (present in underlying representation) from

28 In the height-based accounts in the literature, the features [back] and [front] are used for vowel place (e.g., Samareh 1985) instead of [peripheral] and [coronal] which I use (see 1.2). This substitution has no effect on the analysis.

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unmarked ones (absent in underlying representation) is assimilation. Triggers of harmony

are structurally more complex while targets of harmony are less complex. Thus in these

cases of harmony in Persian, high vowels, triggers of harmony, are more complex then

mid vowels because the former must have the feature [high] to spread. The feature [mid],

on the other hand, must be absent since mid vowels are targets in harmony. For a mid

vowel to become high, it would obtain the feature [high] from a neighboring high vowel.

One might ask why the vowel o can be the trigger of harmony for the vowel e although

they both share the feature [mid] (or both lack a height feature) (e.g., be + ro → boro

‘go!’). The fact that o can be a trigger of harmony for e shows that o is structurally more

complex than e. The vowel o is specified for place but not for height. That is, in e to o

assimilation, [peripheral] spreads from o to e, which is not specified for place ([coronal]

is underlyingly absent). It will be shown in 3.6 that other processes of Persian confirm

that [coronal] is unspecified in this language whereas [peripheral] is specified.

Another question which might be asked is why low vowels do not interact with non-low

vowels in the harmony processes in Persian. In order to account for the failure of low

vowels to participate in harmony, I assume a distinction between low and non-low

vowels in the Persian inventory, with low vowels being marked by the feature [low]. This

assumption is supported by evidence from the language, and low vowels pattern similarly

in other languages. The two low vowels do not participate in the processes of height

harmony in Persian (i.e. the low vowels neither raise to a non-low vowel nor does any

non-low vowel lower to them). Similar cases occur in other languages. For example, in

Shona, a Bantu language with a three-height vowel system, the low vowel does not

trigger height harmony although the language shows height harmony among mid and

high vowels. Height harmony also fails to apply across the low vowel in this language

(Beckman 1997). Some examples (taken from Beckman 1997) are given in (7). Compare

(7a)-(7d) with (7e) and (7f).

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(7) a. pera ‘end’ per-era ‘end in’

b. sona ‘sew’ son-era ‘sew for’

c. oma ‘be dry’ om-esa ‘cause to get dry’

d. bvisa ‘remove’ bvis-ika ‘be easily removed’

e. pamha ‘do again’ pamh-isa ‘make do again’

f. cheyama ‘be twisted’ cheyam-isa ‘make be twisted’

The suffixes in (7) are generally analyzed as beginning with a high vowel; this vowel

assimilates to a preceding mid vowel (a-d) but not to a preceding low vowel (e, f).

Clements (1991) argues that low vowels typically do not trigger height assimilation such

as vowel lowering in Bantu languages. An example of an assimilation rule that does not

apply with low vowels can be found in a height assimilation rule in Kimatuumbi, another

Bantu language, in which any nonlow suffix vowel gains the height of a preceding

nonlow vowel (Clements, 1991). Kimatuumbi has four vowel heights in stems, low, mid,

high and what is identified as super high. Suffixes simply distinguish low and non-low

vowels. The non-low vowel suffix assimilates to non-low vowels, but is realized as super

high following a low vowel. In (8), the cedilla under the vowel indicates a super high

vowel and the capital letters indicate the underlying high vowels of the suffixes.

(8) underlying surface example

a. i + I i + i yi pilya ‘thatch with for’

b. i + U i + u tikulya ‘break with’

c. e + I e + e cheengeya ‘make build’

d. o + I o + e boolelwa ‘be de-barked’

e. a + U a + u tyamu lya ‘sneeze on’

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In (8a) because of the preceding super high vowel, the suffix vowel is realized as super

high. In (8b) a preceding high vowel makes the suffix vowel high. In (8c) and (8d), /I/ is

realized as [e] due to the presence of preceding mid vowels. Clements explains that with

a preceding low vowel this rule does not apply, as in (8e) above, /U/ is realized as [u ], a

super high vowel. These cases indicate that low and high vowels do not interact in a three

height system. Why the feature [low] shows this exceptional behavior needs

investigation. The point important to our discussion is that the fact that low vowels do not

participate in harmony processes with non-low vowels is not unique to Persian since

cross-linguistically it is not unusual for low vowels to not participate in harmony

processes with vowels of other heights.

In addition, according to van der Hulst and van de Weijer (1995), spreading of both

[high] and [low] in a system is unattested. They discuss harmony systems that involve

either [low] or [high] spreading and they point out that “we do not know of systems that

involve spreading of both” (p. 510). In Persian, as shown, [high] spreads and thus, based

on cross-linguistic patterning, [low] is not expected to spread.

To sum up, the harmony patterns in non-low vowels can be neatly accounted for in a

height-based account: [high] spreads from high vowels to mid vowels.

I now turn to the harmony pattern in low vowels.

3.1.2. Harmony pattern in low vowels: an account based on height

In low vowels, a pattern of harmony is seen, as discussed in 2.3.5., in which a becomes ɑ

across a laryngeal consonant. (9) presents some examples:

(9) a. bahɑ → bɑhɑ ‘price’

b. ʤahɑn → ʤɑhɑn ‘world, also a name for boys’

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c. maʔɑʃ → mɑʔɑʃ ‘livelihood’

d. saʔɑdat → sɑʔɑdat ‘happiness’

Why the harmony in non-low vowels occurs only across laryngeals and whether this has

to do with the feature characteristics of low vowels and laryngeals in Persian will be

discussed in 3.7. Let us focus on harmony for now.

Considering the representation of the vowel inventory in height-based accounts (see (6)),

the harmony in low vowels is a case of place assimilation: [peripheral] spreads from ɑ to

a. Based on the structural markedness assumed here, this shows that [peripheral] is

marked or present in the system and [coronal] is unmarked or absent, as also shown by

the assimilation of /e/ to [o], as discussed in section 3.1.1.

3.1.3. Harmony patterns in a height-based account: discussion

The underlying representation of the inventory in a height-based account within the

framework of Modified Contrastive Specification will then be as shown in (10). Based on

phonological patterning of the language, the features [peripheral], [high], and [low] are

underlyingly present, while features [coronal] and [mid] are absent.

(10) [peripheral]

i u [high]

e o

a ɑ [low]

Thus the height-based account suggests the two features are involved in harmony

patterns: height and place. That is, there are two harmony systems: one involves

spreading of [high], which is seen in non-low vowels; the other involves spreading of

[peripheral], which is seen in low vowels and in the assimilation of e to o.

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But if one considers the patterns of harmony in low vowels and non-low vowels together,

the following pattern is observed.

(11) targets triggers

a → ɑ place harmony

Under a height-based account

o → u height harmony

e → i height harmony

The triggers of harmony are ɑ, i, u, the former long vowels (see 2.1), and the targets of

harmony are a, e, o, the former short vowels (within targets, e may change to o as

discussed in 2.3.1 so o can be both target and trigger but the point is that ɑ, i, u are

always triggers and never targets). Recall that a categorization of ɑ, i, u versus a, e, o is

suggested in quantity-based accounts of Persian vowels (see 2.2.2), but it was already

established that due to harmony cases, quantity is not the dimension of contrast in the

system, and a feature should necessarily be involved in the harmony patterns (see 2.3.6).

Can we account for the harmony patterns, which require a feature to be active in the

system, and also for the categorization observed in (11)? I examine this question next.

3.2. Tense/lax distinction

In this section, I provide a feature-based account for the Persian vowel system by which

harmony patterns in low and non-low vowels will find a uniform account and the

categorization of vowels into two groups a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u, will also be accounted for.

I argue that the system is captured if the contrast between the vowels is explained through

a tenseness feature. That is, I suggest a featural analysis for the system based on tense/lax

distinction. Under this view, the system is represented as follows:

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(12) [tense] i u [lax] e o

ɑ [low] a

I ended the previous chapter with two questions: (i) are there two features involved in

harmony patterns (one for harmony in non-low vowels and the other for harmony in low

vowels) or is there one feature by which harmony in low vowels and non-low vowels

both can be accounted for? (ii) can the different distributions of the two classes of vowels

(a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u) be accounted for with a feature-based harmony system? An analysis

based on tenseness provides clear answers to these questions. Regarding the

categorization of vowels, the tense/lax distinction categorizes the vowels into two groups:

ɑ, i, u, as a group versus a, e, o as another group, as seen in (12). With respect to

harmony, the harmony processes in low vowels and non-low vowels are proposed to be

cases of tense harmony. That is, the feature [tense] spreads from ɑ, i, u to a, e, o. Thus,

by using a tense/lax distinction, harmony can be neatly accounted for, since [tense] is a

feature and can spread, and at the same time, ɑ, i, u, the triggers of harmony, are in one

group as opposed to a, e, o, the targets of harmony, which form another group.

Represented structurally, tense harmony can be captured as follows:

(13) V V

[tense]

The advantages of a tense-based account over a quantity-based account are that (i)

tenseness, being a feature, can account for harmony while quantity cannot; (ii) tenseness

categorizes the vowels into a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u based on an active phonological process of

the language, namely vowel harmony, while for such categorization quantitative accounts

rely on evidence such as versification and phonotactics, which are not phonological

processes.

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The advantages of a tense-based account over a height-based account are that (i)

tenseness provides a uniform account for harmony patterns in low vowels and non-low

vowels while a height-based account presents two harmony systems, one for low vowels

and the other for non-low vowels; (ii) height cannot account for the categorization of

vowels into a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u, which is in fact the reason some literature considers

quantity to be active in the system. Tenseness can do so, however.29

The tense-based account also shows that, as predicted by Modified Contrastive

Specification, it is not necessary for both quality and quantity to be underlyingly present

in the Persian vowel system. Thus the synthetic analysis is ruled out.

One may ask why

we need a uniform account for harmony patterns in low vowels and in non-low vowels

given that the environments are not the same. It is true that there are differences in the

domains in harmony patterns in non-low vowels and that the environments of the

occurrence of harmony in low and non-low vowels are not the same but what all these

harmony processes share is ɑ, i, u being always the triggers in harmony patterns and

never the targets. That makes it legitimate to look for a uniform account.

In the next section, I will elaborate on the nature of the feature [tense].

3.3. On the nature of tense/lax

I considered the feature involved in harmony patterns in Persian to be [tense] and I

therefore call the process tense (or tensing) harmony. In this section, I discuss this feature

and explain my reasons for this choice.

There are discussions of tensing/laxing harmony and ATR/RTR harmony in the harmony

literature as well as discussion of whether [tense] and [ATR] are equivalent. For instance,

29 One may ask how this is different from “functionality” (recall that discussing the vowels Samareh (1977) says that “the traditional labels “long” and “short” may justifiably be preserved for the two functionally different groups” (see 2.2.2.2)). The point is that functionality is not a phonological feature so even Samareh who discusses functionality has to use a feature (i.e., traditional long and short). But tenseness is a feature.

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Halle (1983) considers [tense] and [ATR] to refer to the same phonological property. Van

der Hulst and van de Weijer (1995) say that before the feature [ATR] came into use,

African systems were described in terms of features referring to vowel height

(open/close, high/low), or in terms of a feature [±tense]. Trigo (1991) suggests that

vowel harmony in Turkana involves a tense versus lax distinction. Benus (2005) notes

laxing harmony in Pasiego. D. Walker (1984) discusses laxing harmony in Canadian

French. R. Walker (2005) shows cases of laxing harmony in Andalusian Spanish and also

in Canadian French. In her discussion of Canadian French, R. Walker points out that the

pattern of laxing harmony can be treated as involving spreading of [-ATR]. According to

van Oostendorp (1995), tense is a feature which is not very well defined and is a cover

term for various properties. The same is true for its counterpart, lax. In a discussion of

these terms, he uses [ATR] wherever phonetic explicitness is required and [lax]

everywhere else in his thesis.

Returning to Persian, from the phonological perspective, a feature is needed in order to

account for harmony and the two classes of vowels (a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u). I choose [tense] as

a cover term, abstracting away from the following: (i) the discussion of whether or not

[ATR] and [tense] are the same –I will explain below why I choose [tense]; (ii) the

phonetic correlates of tenseness in Persian –I also elaborate on this below.

Let us first focus on why I choose [tense] and not [ATR]. For my purpose, I could use

either [ATR] or [tense] (i.e., they are features so they can explain harmony and also they

are able to categorize a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u). I prefer [tense] because [ATR] is associated with

a particular phonetic gesture, advancement of tongue root, while [tense] does not have

such a correlation -it will be shown below that tenseness can have different phonetic

realizations across languages. Taking the feature involved to be [ATR] instead of [tense]

requires that the low back vowel ɑ also be considered as having [ATR], and taking a low

back vowel like ɑ to be [ATR] is phonetically hard to account for (e.g., ɑ is taken to be

[RTR] in Kramer 2003, van der Hulst and van de Weijer 1995). I should note that I could

use [ATR] as a cover term without worrying about its phonetic properties. Nonetheless, I

prefer using [tense], which does not correspond to a particular phonetic property, as

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discussed below. This therefore avoids confusion on what is phonetic and what is

phonological, in particular given the presence of ɑ in the system.

I now turn to tenseness and its phonetic correlates, and review phonetic realizations of

tense/lax across languages to show that what is called [tense] or [lax] can have different

phonetic correlates depending on the language under study. This is, as said above, the

main reason for my choice of [tense] over [ATR] – [tense] is not related to a particular

phonetic property and therefore is a more appropriate cover term for a phonological

analysis.

According to Jessen (1998), phonetic studies on different languages show that what is

called ‘tense’ and ‘lax’ in vowels can have different phonetic manifestations across

languages. He identifies at least three types of languages in this respect, as follows (see

Jessen 1998 for discussion, examples, and references):

(i) The Germanic type which is categorized by a difference in duration and in vowel

quality between tense and lax vowels. An example is German.

(ii) The African type in which the tense/lax distinction in vowels is categorized by a

primary distinction in vowel quality, most particularly resulting from an advancement or

retraction of the tongue root. Unlike the Germanic type, a duration difference is of little

importance.

(iii) The Asian type, such as some languages spoken in China, in which the main

difference in tense and lax vowels are due to voice quality, and therefore vowel quality or

vowel duration are not important as correlates of tense/lax.

Jessen proposes that there is another realization of the feature [tense], as observed in

Thai, in which the tense/lax opposition seems to be almost completely based on phonetic

vowel duration (cf. the Germanic type where both duration and quality matter as

correlates of tense/lax). In 3.4, I will discuss phonetic length in tense-based and quantity-

based languages and how they are different.

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It is interesting to find out the phonetic correlate(s) of tenseness in Persian. Given the

cross-linguistically attested phonetic realizations of tenseness, we might expect to see

height, or duration, or a combination of them as phonetic correlates of tenseness in

Persian – as noted above because of ɑ, a low back vowel, advancement of tongue root

does not seem to be a reasonable correlate for tenseness in this language. In Persian if one

considers the pairs /e, i/ and /o, u/ it can be said that both duration and/or quality (height

in this system) can be phonetic correlates of tense/lax. Now if one includes the vowel ɑ,

which patterns along with the two vowels i and u in vowel harmony, a phonetic

characteristic which can put ɑ along with i and u is required. For this reason, duration (as

opposed to height) might be the relevant phonetic correlate for tenseness in Persian. That

is, if [tense] phonologically puts ɑ, i, u in a group, it is possible that duration or length (as

phonetic correlates of tenseness in the language) phonetically puts them in a group. In

fact, evidence from the language (i.e., harmony) makes it clear to us that tenseness is

primary, and duration, or any other phonetic characteristic, should follow from it. What is

in particular an important factor in considering ɑ, i, u as [tense], regardless of their

phonetic description, is the similar phonological behaviour of these vowels (as opposed

to a, e, o).

The fact that ɑ behaves phonologically similarly to i and u and is thus classified along

with these vowels as tense vowels make the presence of tenseness easier to argue for

because of the fact that tenseness behaves independently of height in this language. There

are languages like Chamorro in which one does not get a tense/lax distinction

independent of height, so it is harder to know whether phonologically it is tenseness or

height that is involved. Other evidence in such languages should be found to show that

which one is indeed active (see van Oostendorp 1999).

To sum up, I use [tense] as a cover term through which the vowel system and the

phonological patterning of the vowels in Persian can be accounted for. I consider

tenseness to be phonologically active in the system and therefore ɑ, i, u are specified by

[tense].

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I carried out an experiment on Persian vowels in order to see how the tense and lax

vowels pattern in terms of length. As we will see next, based on studies on other

languages, the durational difference between long and short vowels in quantity-based

languages is more than the durational difference between tense and lax vowels in tense-

based languages. Thus we want to find out how Persian behaves in this respect. I discuss

this next.

3.4. Phonetic experiment

In 2.2.1.1, I discussed what we find in the literature regarding phonetic length of Persian

vowels. It was shown that there is not agreement on where one sees length differences.

For example, according to one study (Samareh 1977), a length distinction exists in closed

syllables (e.g., bɑr ‘load’ vs. bar ‘over, fruit’) while based on another study (Windfuhr

1979) the length distinction is neutralized in closed syllables, due to a lengthening rule

which lengthens a, e, o in closed syllables (see 2.2.1.1 for discussion).

I conducted a phonetic experiment in order to measure the length of Persian vowels.30

The prediction for Persian, based on what we see in tense-based and quantity-based

languages, as discussed below, is that tense vowels may show more duration compared to

lax vowels in the same environment, as length could be the phonetic correlation of

tenseness in a language, but we do not expect to see a very large length difference

The experiment had two goals: (i) to see if Persian tense and lax vowels have different

lengths and if there is a pattern among vowels with respect to length; (ii) to compare the

results with the length of vowels in quantity-based and tense-based languages to see to

which group Persian is similar.

30 I am grateful to Alexei Kochetov for his advice and guidance on the experiment, and to Christopher Neufeld for doing the measurements and the tables and graphs (18)-(21). Thank you also to Keren Rice, my supervisor, for her financial support. I would also like to thank my parents for participating in the experiment.

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between tense and lax vowels. In quantity-based languages, however, a very large

difference is observed between long and short vowels. I will discuss this below.

There were two speakers, one female and one male, both speakers of Standard Persian.

Each speaker read 18 tokens, which were embedded in a carrier sentence, 5 times. The

participants did not repeat the same sentence consecutively. The carrier sentence was as

follows:

(14) Un kalame ……. bud.

That word ……… was

“That word was ….”

The tokens included three syllable structures:

(i) CV

(ii) CV.CVC (the first V is target; stress is not on target vowel)

(iii) CVC

Comparing CV in (i) and CV in (ii) with CVC in (iii) shows us the duration of vowels in

open and closed syllables. Comparing (i) and (ii) reveals the effect of stress (CV in (i) is

stressed while CV in (ii) is not). Additionally, CV in (i) is important for the discussion of

minimal words, which is the topic of chapter 6.

For recording, I used an Olympus digital voice recorder WS-500M and a cyber acoustics

microphone (CVL-1124R-CW). The sounds were recorded in WMA format stereo with

bit rate 128 Kbps.

In (15)-(17), I list the tokens based on their structure -the target vowels are in bold. In the

actual experiment the sentences were randomized through random.org.

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(15)

e/i contrast

CV structure

se ‘three’

si ‘thirty’

o/u contrast

to ‘you (sg.)’

tu ‘inside’

a/ɑ contrast

na ‘no’

nɑ ‘energy’

(16) CV.CVC structure

e/i contrast

(syllable boundary is shown by ‘.’)

de.ɡar ‘other, else’ (the literary form of di.ɡar)

di.ɡar ‘other, else’

o/u contrast

ko.tak ‘beating’

ku.tɑh ‘brief’

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a/ɑ contrast

ka.tɑn ‘linen’

kɑ.teb ‘writer’

(17)

e/i contrast

CVC structure

keʃ ‘elastic band’

kiʃ ‘faith’

o/u contrast

pok ‘a puff, a drag’

puk ‘hollow’

a/ɑ contrast

tak ‘unique’

tɑk ‘vine’

3.4.1. Results

The results show that tense vowels are longer than their lax counterparts in CV.CVC and

CVC structures. In CV structure, however, lax vowels can be longer than tense vowels.

The graphs and tables in (18)-(21) show the mean of vowel nucleus length by tenseness,

vowel quality (i/e = front, ɑ/a = low, u/o = back) and syllable structure. In tables (19) and

(21), numbers are bolded where lax vowels are longer than their tense counterparts. The

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results of the female speaker’s performance are given in (18) and (19), followed by the

results of the male speaker’s performance in (20) and (21).

(18)

(19) Female speaker

back front low

CV (lax) 141.4 133.4 185.5

CV (tense) 114.6 122.7 183.3

CV.CVC (lax) 46.7 77.5 58.1

CV.CVC (tense) 61.2 117 113.3

CVC (lax) 76 76 81

CVC (tense) 93.9 115 127

back front low back front low back front low0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

Female SpeakerDuration of vowel nucleus

LaxTense

CV CV.CVC CVC

mea

n du

ratio

n (m

s)

90

(20)

(21) Male speaker

To sum up, the results of the experiment show the followings:

(i) Tense vowels are longer than their lax counterparts in CV.CVC and CVC structures.

(ii) Lax vowels may be longer than their tense counterparts in CV structure.

back front low

CV (lax) 161.75 141.49 194.48

CV (tense) 156.59 147.12 236.6

CV.CVC (lax) 57.05 94.09 60.71

CV.CVC (tense) 82.62 108.78 136.4

CVC (lax) 101.68 100.13 96.1

CVC (tense) 134.8 164.17 197.57

back front low back front low back front low0

50

100

150

200

250

Male SpeakerDuration of vowel nucleus

LaxTense

CV CV.CVC CVC

mea

n du

ratio

n (m

s)

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(iii) Regardless of tenseness, the vowels in CV structure are usually longer than the

vowels in the other syllable structures.

3.4.2. Discussion

The results of the experiment bring up the following questions:

(i) Why can lax vowels be longer than or as long as tense vowels in CV structures (unlike

in CV.CVC and CVC)? I used ‘longer than or as long as’ because one may say that the

difference between, for example, 185.5 and 183.3 in (19) is not significant.

(ii) If tense vowels are longer than lax vowels in Persian, given that long vowels are

longer than short vowels in quantity-based languages, how do we know that the

difference in phonetic length in Persian is not due to underlying presence of quantity in

the system?

The answer to the first question (why in the CV structure lax vowels can be longer than

their tense counterparts) involves a minimal word requirement which holds on the surface

(not underlyingly). In order to satisfy minimality constraints, the vowels, in particular lax

vowels, are produced with more duration. I will return to this in chapter 6 (see also

Fitzgerald (forthcoming) for lengthening due to minimality constraints).

The response to the second question is as follows: the phonetic length difference in

Persian tense and lax vowels is less than what is expected if the language were truly

quantity-based. Studies show that languages in which quantity is the basis of contrast

exhibit a larger difference between the phonetic length of their long and short vowels.

That is, long vowels are significantly (about twice or so) longer than short vowels (Tranel

1995, Goodman 2005 (cited in Kozasa 2005), among others). According to Tranel

(1995), in Runyambo (a Bantu language of Tanzania), long vowels are about twice as

long as short vowels, and in Luganda (a Bantu language of Uganda), long vowels are two

and a half times longer than short vowels. In a phonetic study of vowels of Sudanese,

Saudi, and Egyptian Arabic, a quantity-based language, Alghamdi (1998) notes that in

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terms of quantity, vowels pattern similarly in these dialects. In all three dialects, long

vowels are more than twice as long in duration as their short counterparts. Consider also

the reported ratio of the duration of long vowels to short vowels in the following

quantity-based languages (Lehiste 1970, Hirata 2004a, 2004b, Abramson 2001, Kozasa

2005):

(22) Ratio of long vowels to short vowels in some quantitative languages

Japanese 2.4-3.2

Thai 2.5-2.9

Finnish 2.27

Danish 1.98

Estonian 2.20

Compare these with English, a tense-based language (Hillenbrand et al 1995, Hillenbrand

2003):

(23) Ratio of tense vowels to lax vowels in American English

/i/ > /ɪ/ 1.26

/e/ > /ɛ/ 1.36

/o/ > /ʊ/ 1.23

/u/ > /ʊ/ 1.23

The mean of ratios in English is 1.27, based on the figures in (23).

As shown below, the ratio of duration of tense vowels to lax vowels in Persian is 1.385,

which is close to the ratio in English and smaller than those in the quantity-based

languages such as Arabic and Japanese. In (24)-(27), I show in detail how I calculated the

ratio in Persian. In (24), the ratio of duration of tense vowels to lax vowels as pronounced

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by the female speaker is shown. In order to clarify, I explain how the column u > o

should be read. In the CV structure, the ratio of duration of u to o is 0.81, which is

obtained by dividing 114.6 by 141.4 (the first and second rows under the back column in

(19)). In the CV.CVC structure, the ratio of duration of u to o is 1.31, which is obtained

by dividing 61.2 by 46.7 (the third and fourth rows under the back column in (19)). In the

CVC structure, the ratio of duration of u to o is 1.24, which is obtained by dividing 93.9

by 76 (the fifth and sixth rows under the back column in (19)). The mean of 0.81, 1.31,

and 1.24 is 1.12 (see the column u > o in (24)). The columns i > e and ɑ > a in (24)

should be read in the same manner.

(24) Ratio of tense vowels to lax vowels in Persian (female speaker)

(25) shows the same information for the male speaker (e.g., in the CV structure, the ratio

of duration of u to o is 0.97, which is obtained by dividing 156.59 by 161.75 (the first and

second rows under the back column in (21)).

u > o i > e ɑ > a

CV 0.81 0.92 0.99

CV.CVC 1.31 1.51 1.95

CVC 1.24 1.51 1.57

Mean 1.12 1.31 1.50

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(25) Ratio of tense vowels to lax vowels in Persian (male speaker)

Collapsing the means in (24) and (25) of each column gives (26). That is, for example,

1.185 under u > o in (26) is the sum of 1.12 (in (24)) and 1.25 (in (25)) divided by two.

(26) Ratio of tense vowels to lax vowels in Persian (pairs of vowels)

(27) shows the total ratio of tense vowels to lax vowels in Persian. Putting together the

means in (24), we get 1.31 as the ratio of duration of tense vowels to lax vowels for the

female speaker (i.e., the sum of 1.12, 1.31, and 1.50 (the means in (24)) divided by 3).

Doing the same for (25) gives 1.46 for the male speaker. Thus, as shown in (27), the ratio

of tense vowels to lax vowels in the female speaker is 1.31 and the ratio of tense vowels

to lax vowels in the male speaker is 1.46. The total ratio of tense vowels to lax vowels in

Persian is therefore 1.385 (considering 1.31 and 1.46 together).

u > o i > e ɑ > a

CV 0.97 1.04 1.22

CV.CVC 1.45 1.16 2.25

CVC 1.33 1.64 2.06

Mean 1.25 1.28 1.84

u > o i > e ɑ > a

Female and male

speakers together

1.185 1.295 1.67

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(27) Ratio of tense vowels to lax vowels in Persian (total)

So in answer to the second question raised above (whether phonetic duration of vowels in

Persian argues for tenseness or quantity), the phonetic length of Persian vowels suggests

that Persian behaves as a tense-based language rather than a quantity-based language as

the difference in vowel duration is far less than expected in a quantity system.

To sum up, the findings of the phonetic experiment support my proposal that the Persian

vowel system is a tense-based system, and that quantity is not the basis of contrast in the

system, but rather the tense vowels tend to have some phonetic duration in CV.CVC and

CVC structures, while lax vowels may be longer than tense vowels in CV structures.

I now turn to an analysis of the system based on contrast followed by a discussion of

markedness which presents more evidence for the underlying presence of [tense].

3.5. Contrasts in the Persian vowel system

In this section, I present the contrastive hierarchy of the Persian vowel system. Recall that

contrastive specification involves the ordering of features into a contrastive hierarchy

(Dresher 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2009) (see 1.2). Thus, in addition to identifying which

features are phonologically active in the system, one needs to specify the order in which

tense>lax

Female speaker 1.31

Male speaker 1.46

Total 1.385

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features enter into the system. The order is determined by phonological activity of

features in the language under study.

Let us begin by reviewing what processes need to be accounted for in Persian. The

following should be taken into consideration in deciding on the order of features in the

Persian vowel system:

(i) Tense harmony (see 3.2)

(ii) Categorization of vowels into ɑ, i, u vs. a, e, o (section 3.2; see also chapters 4, 5,

and 6)

(iii) Pre-nasal raising (i.e., ɑ → u /−m, n) (noted in 2.3.4 and discussed in 3.8) (e.g.,

bɑdɑm ~ bɑdum ‘almond’, bɑrɑn ~ bɑrun ‘rain’).

I propose that the first cut in the Persian vowels involves the feature [peripheral] or

[tense]. It does not matter which one enters the system first.

The absence of [coronal] from the underlying representation of the system was briefly

discussed in 3.1.1, and is further discussed in 3.6. Taking place as the first cut is

supported by evidence from the pre-nasal raising process. I will return to this later in this

section.

In section 3.2, I proposed an analysis of the system based on a contrast of tense/lax,

arguing that [tense] is the active feature based on harmony and that [lax] is unmarked in

the system. The result of introducing [peripheral] and [tense] (or [tense] and [peripheral])

into the system is shown in (29). For the sake of clarity, I enter [peripheral] first as shown

in (28) and then [tense] in (29). But, as noted above, the opposite is possible as well:

[tense] divides the vowels into /u, i, ɑ/ vs. /o, e, a/; then [peripheral] makes a

division between /u, ɑ/ and /i/ as well as between /o/ and /e, a/.

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(28) [peripheral]: i e a vs. u o ɑ

i u [peripheral]

e o [peripheral]

a ɑ [peripheral]

(29) [tense]: i vs. e a u ɑ vs. o

[tense] i u [peripheral], [tense]

e o [peripheral]

a ɑ [peripheral], [tense]

We still need to distinguish ɑ and u from each other as well as a and e from each other. I

divide the vowels into two height classes, low and non-low. This is supported by the

harmony patterns: low vowels do not interact in harmony processes with non-low vowels

(see 3.1.1 and 3.1.2).

(30) [low]: e vs. a u vs. ɑ

[tense] i u [peripheral], [tense]

e o [peripheral]

[low] a ɑ [peripheral], [tense], [low]

No further features are required to distinguish the vowels. The contrastive hierarchy of

Persian vowels, based on this order of cuts, is as follows (“,” shows that the ordering of

[peripheral] and [tense] is not crucial; “ >” shows that [peripheral] and [tense] are

introduced in the system prior to [low]):

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(31) [peripheral] , [tense] > [low]

(32) summarizes the feature values for the Persian vowel system. The √ shows where a

feature is present/specified.

(32) a ɑ e i o u

[peripheral] √ √ √

[tense] √ √ √

[low] √ √

(32) results from the hierarchy in (31). If [peripheral] were ordered after [tense] and

[low], as in (33), the pre-nasal raising would be difficult to account for. Under (33), for ɑ

to become u before nasal consonants, ɑ would have to lose [low] and gain [peripheral],

while under (32), the raising of ɑ to u simply involves the loss of [low]. Changes in

height (raising and lowering) due to the nasal context, as we will see in 3.8, are expected

but it is unclear why [peripheral] should be added, that is, why ɑ does not become i.

(33) [peripheral] [peripheral]

[tense] i u [tense] e o

__________________ __________________

[low] [tense] ɑ [low] a

Given the system I proposed in (31) for ɑ to become u before nasal consonants, ɑ would

only lose [low], which is not unexpected in a nasal context, as will be discussed in 3.8.

It is also worthwhile to examine why the order [peripheral] > [low] > [tense] is

inadequate. Such an order would yield the following:

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(34) [tense] i u [peripheral], [tense]

e o [peripheral]

[low] a ɑ [peripheral], [low]

This order of features accounts for tense harmony in non-low vowels (e→i and o→u). It

also accounts for peripheral harmony (e→o and a→ɑ). But the ɑ, i, u vs. a, e, o

categorization is lost. Thus it is evidence for this categorization that leads to the order in

(31).

In this section, I discussed contrasts in the Persian vowel inventory and showed that

[peripheral] , [tense] > [low] accounts for vowel patterning (i.e., the categorization of

vowels, harmony patterns, and pre-nasal raising).

In the next section, markedness in the system will be discussed.

3.6. Markedness and vowel features in Persian

In this section, I discuss markedness in the vowel system of Persian. In order to identify

which features are marked (i.e., present) and which ones are unmarked (i.e., absent) in the

underlying representation of a vowel system, it is necessary to consider what diagnostics

can be used to determine this. Various diagnostics are proposed in the literature. In

particular, unmarked elements are typically considered to result from neutralization, are

likely to be epenthetic, are target of assimilation, and are lost in coalescence and deletion

(see Rice 1999, Rice 2007 for a summary). I discuss these four diagnostics one by one.

3.6.1. Assimilation

Assimilation is a process which involves the submergence of the unmarked. The target of

assimilation is unmarked and the trigger is marked. It was already seen that in the vowel

harmony processes in Persian the lax vowels are the targets of assimilation while the

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tense vowels are triggers (see 11). If targets of assimilation are unmarked, this suggests

that lax vowels are unspecified for tenseness in Persian with [lax] absent underlyingly

(i.e., is unmarked).

3.6.2. Epenthesis

Epenthesis is a process which involves the emergence of unmarked. Recall that the lax

vowel e is the epenthetic vowel in loan words (e.g., eski ‘ski’, kelɑs ‘class’).

In both native words and loanwords, too, [e] is the epenthetic vowel. Consonant clusters

may be avoided in syllable margins when a suffix is added to a root in Persian. A strategy

to break up consonant clusters involves inserting the vowel [e], as the following example

shows. This process will be discussed in detail in chapter 4.

(35) ʃɑd ‘happy’ + mɑn → ʃɑdmɑn ~ ʃɑdemɑn ‘happy’

kɑr ‘work’ + ɡar → kɑrɡar ~ kɑreɡar ‘worker’

bɑɢ ‘garden’ + bɑn → bɑɢbɑn ~ bɑɢebɑn ‘gardener’

Epenthesis, as noted above, is thought to be a process which involves the emergence of

the unmarked. Epenthetic segments are more likely to have unmarked feature(s) since

they are not present in lexical representation (see, for instance, Rice 2007). The vowel [e]

as epenthetic segment in Persian supports the unmarked status of [lax] in this language.

Based on its patterning in epenthesis and assimilation, the vowel e can be considered to

be structurally the least complex vowel in the Persian vowel system, being unmarked for

tenseness, place, and height (see (32)). The patterning of e as the least complex vowel is

also observed in other processes in Persian, summarized in what follows.

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3.6.3. Deletion

In addition to being the target of assimilation and the epenthetic vowel, unmarked

segments are also argued to be more easily lost in deletion processes than marked

segments (see Rice 1999, Rice 2007 for references). In Persian, the vowel e deletes more

easily than the other vowels. For example, /e/-deletion is observed in the indicative mood

of verbs whose infinitives’ first vowel is [e]. Deletion does not occur with other vowels,

as the following examples show.31 The vowel in parentheses can be deleted. The prefix

mi- in (36) is the indicative marker in Persian, and –am shows agreement (1st.sg). I show

the words as they are syllabified.32

(36) i mi.xi.su.nam ‘I soak’ u mi.pu.ʃu.nam ‘I put something on somebody’

e mi.ʃ(e).ka.nam ‘I break’ o mi.so.rɑ.jam ‘I write poems’

a mi.xa.rɑ.ʃam ‘I scratch’ ɑ mi.xɑ.bu.nam ‘I get somebody to sleep’

In verbs with /e/ in the relevant position, the form without [e] is much more common than

the form with [e] in speech. For other vowels, however, the deletion of the vowel is

impossible (*mix.su.nam, *mix.rɑ.ʃam, *mip.ʃɑ.nam, *mis.rɑ.jam, *mix.bu.nam). Thus

the deletion of e but not the other vowels provides support for the claim that /e/ has a

different status from the other vowels in Persian, being the least marked vowel.

31 The number of syllables is important in conditioning deletion. In verbs with three syllables in indicative form, no deletion occurs. For example: mi.re.sam meaning ‘I reach’ does not become mir.sam. 32 The infinitives of these verbs are as follows: xisɑndan ‘to soak’ (xisundan in speech due to raising before nasals), ʃekastan ‘to break’, xarɑʃidan ‘to scratch’, puʃɑndan ‘to put something on somebody’ (puʃundan in speech), sorɑjidan ‘to write poems’, xɑbɑndan ‘to get somebody to sleep’ (xɑbundan in speech).

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3.6.4. Neutralization

Neutralization is another process which provides support for e being the least marked

vowel of the system. A general tendency of Persian in the last millennium is to change

the vowel [a] to [e] (e.g., Natel Khanlari 1987). In final position, this has happened in

almost all words. There are only two words in Modern Persian which end in a: na ‘no’

and va ‘and’. Some examples of this change in final position are given in (37). These

words underwent two changes historically: first, their final ɡ was dropped; later, their

final a became e (Natel Khanlari 1987 among others; the words are taken from

Farahvashi 1967).

(37) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. pambaɡ pambe ‘cotton’

b. mēwaɡ mive ‘fruit’

c. hamaɡ hame ‘all’

d. waʧʧaɡ baʧʧe ‘child’

These examples all show neutralization to [e]. Since the target of neutralization is

unmarked (see Avery and Rice 1989, Rice 1999, 2004, 2007), [e] is expected to have the

unmarked features.

The historical change of *a (synchronic [a]) to [e] in final position continues

synchronically. The absence of [a] in final position can explain why synchronically there

are words whose final syllable changes from CaC (the formal form) to Ce (the colloquial

form). Consider the following example:

(38) a. diɡar ~ diɡe ‘else’

b. maɡar ~ maɡe ‘unless’

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Final /r/-deletion commonly occurs in Persian. For instance, /r/ often deletes in words in

which /r/ in final position is preceded by a consonant:

(39) a. ʧeɢadr ~ ʧeɢad ‘how much’

b. fekr kon ~ fek kon ‘think!’

c. sabr dɑʃte bɑʃ ~ sab dɑʃte bɑʃ ‘have patience!’

The following examples show this process with words ending in a vowel followed by /r/.

(40) a. ʧetor ~ ʧeto ‘how’

b. ʧekɑr konam ~ ʧikɑ konam ‘what should I do?’

In these examples, /r/ is deleted but since after /r/-deletion the word ends in a vowel

which is allowed in final position ([o] and [ɑ]), no change affects the remaining vowel. In

(38), however, after the deletion of final /r/ what remains is [a]. This vowel cannot occur

in final position, and thus /a/ raises to [e].

Final [d] also tends to delete in Persian in contexts such as following when the final d is

followed by a consonant-initial word. For example:

(41) a. ɢand bexar ~ ɢan bexar ‘buy sugar cubes!’

b. band kard ~ ban kard ‘s/he insisted’

Another case in which final CaC changes to Ce is in the third person singular indicative,

in which the final /d/ is deleted and the remaining /a/ becomes [e]; as in the following

examples:

(42) a. mi-xor-ad ~ mixore ‘s/he eats’

b. mi-zan-ad ~ mizane ‘s/he hits’

c. mi-xɑb-ad ~ mixɑbe ‘s/he sleeps’

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Compare the above cases with their plural counterparts, in which [d] is deleted but due to

the presence of [n], [a] does not change.

(43) a. mi-xor-and ~ mixoran ‘they eat’

b. mi-zan-and ~ mizanan ‘they hit’

c. mi-xɑb-and ~ mixɑban ‘they sleep’

The historical change from *a to [e] is a shift from marked ([low] is specified) to

unmarked (no specified height). This outcome of the shift is expected since the historical

processes of *a becoming [e] is neutralization, resulting in the unmarked. The historical

change accounts for the synchronic change of /a/ to [e] after deletion of [d] and [r] (which

is not a case of height harmony since there is no neighboring vowel to trigger harmony)

is due to the absence of [a] in the vowel inventory of Persian in final position.

A comparison also should be made between e and o, the two non-low vowels unspecified

for tenseness. The vowel o does not pattern similarly to the vowel e in many of the

processes discussed above regarding markedness of features. This could be explained by

markedness of place: o is specified for place while e is not (e is unspecified for both place

and tenseness).

The common diagnostics of markedness in the literature (i.e., assimilation, epenthesis,

deletion, and neutralization) show that the least complex vowel in the system is the vowel

e, which is not specified for place, tenseness or height. It was shown that [tense] must be

the underlyingly present feature in the system. A comparison of the three non-tense

vowels (i.e., e, o, a) strongly supports the claim that [peripheral] and [low] are marked in

the system.

In the next two sections, I examine two processes which involve changes in vowels in the

environment of particular consonants. First, in 3.7, I discuss harmony in low vowels

across laryngeal consonants. This process was discussed in 3.1.2. from a harmony

viewpoint, and, in 3.7, I address the characteristics of laryngeals and their interaction

with low vowels. Afterwards, in 3.8, pre-nasal raising in Persian will be discussed.

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3.7. Harmony in low vowels across laryngeals

Recall the harmony pattern between the two low vowels: across a laryngeal consonant a assimilates to ɑ.

(44) a → ɑ / C−ʔɑ

a → ɑ / C−hɑ

a. bahɑ → bɑhɑ ‘price’

b. ʃahɑb → ʃɑhɑb ‘meteor’

c. maʔɑʃ → mɑʔɑʃ ‘livelihood’

d. saʔɑdat → sɑʔɑdat ‘happiness’

It was shown in 2.3.5 that the process involves only laryngeal consonants (see the Persian

consonant inventory in 2.2.2.2) and does not occur across other consonants (e.g., tabɑr →

*tɑbɑr ‘lineage’). Also, the process involves only low vowels. That is, h and ʔ are not

transparent if they are not flanked from both sides by low vowels (e.g., mahin → *mihin

‘better’).

The questions raised here are: (i) is this phenomenon related to the feature characteristics

of h and ʔ, and to those of low vowels? That is, why is this pattern of harmony (i.e.,

assimilation of a to ɑ) not observed across other consonants?; and (ii) why does the

harmony across h and ʔ not occur with non-low vowels? The consonants h and ʔ form the

class of laryngeal or glottal in the Persian consonant inventory. There are a number of

arguments in the literature for the interaction between gutturals (including laryngeals h

and ʔ) and low vowels. How to interpret this process depends on the features one assumes

for the consonants and vowels involved in the process. There are three kinds of

arguments found in this regard in the literature (e.g., Steriade 1987, McCarthy 1994,

Pickett 1999, Hume 1992, Rose 1996, Flemming et al 2008): (i) laryngeal consonants are

low; (ii) laryngeal consonants are placeless; (iii) low vowels are laryngeal (specified by

[pharyngeal]).

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I simply speculate here since a careful study of Persian laryngeals is required in order to

answer the questions raised above about the harmony process. Considering the feature

characteristics of low vowels in Persian, which are [low] and [tense] (see section 3.5), if

laryngeal consonants in Persian have the feature [low], then the observation that the

process occurs only with low vowels (and not with non-low vowels) and only across

laryngeals (and not across other consonants) might be explained. That is, from the three

possibilities which are found in the literature, the possibility given in (i), that laryngeal

consonants are low, seems to be the direction of research to follow first.

The second possibility, given in (ii), laryngeals are unspecified for a place feature (e.g.,

Steriade 1987), does not seem to offer an explanation for why the process is observed

across laryngeals and with low vowels because the assimilation of a to ɑ across

laryngeals is not a place assimilation –recall that it is a case of tense harmony with [tense]

spreading from ɑ to a. If assimilation of a to ɑ was a case of place assimilation, one could

say that since laryngeals are placeless the spreading of a place feature is possible across

them. But even under that scenario the question would be: why does place assimilation

not occur across laryngeals with other vowels if laryngeals are placeless? Here again the

reference to [low] for laryngeals seems unavoidable.

The third possibility, given in (iii), treats low vowels as laryngeal (specified by

[pharyngeal]). There is evidence that low vowels have some pharyngeal constriction

acoustically similar to the gutturals: high F1 is shared by a and the gutturals (e.g.,

McCarthy 1994), and in pharyngeal environments, F1 normally raises (e.g., Pickett 1999,

Flemming et al 2008). These along with some phonological processes mentioned below

show why [pharyngeal] is argued to be present in low vowels as well. For instance Hume

(1992) considers the low front vowel æ as both [coronal] and [pharyngeal]. Herzallah

(1990) (cited in Hume 1992) takes the low back vowel ɑ of Palestinian Arabic to be both

[dorsal] and [pharyngeal]; and a as simply [pharyngeal]. Rose (1996) assumes that low

vowels are represented as pharyngeal. In SPE, low vowels, laryngeals and pharyngeals

are characterized by [+low].

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Let us return to Persian. Considering low vowels to be laryngeals in Persian requires

adding [pharyngeal] to feature specifications of low vowels. Phonologically, this is not

necessary given that [low] and [tense] are sufficient for low vowels to be distinguished

from each other and from other vowels. On the other hand, it might be suggested that

[pharyngeal] could be used instead of [low], since the choice of [low] is somewhat

arbitrary. If low vowels and laryngeal consonants are both [pharyngeal], then the

harmony process which occurs restrictly with low vowels and laryngeal consonants and

not with other vowels and consonants can easily be explained: the process occurs due to

the common place of articulation, [pharyngeal]. However, evidence from pre-nasal

raising (ɑ → u / – nasal C) suggests that [low] is the appropriate feature because if we

replace [low] by [pharyngeal] in the Persian vowel system (see (30)), then for ɑ

becoming u before nasal consonants, ɑ needs to lose its [pharyngeal]. Changes in vowel

height, raising and lowering, in nasal contexts are attested, as will be discussed in 3.8, but

not changes in place features such as [pharyngeal].

Thus the first possibility, that laryngeal consonants are low, seems most promising. I now

briefly present some processes which involve laryngeal consonants and show their

interaction with low vowels as found in the literature.

The lowering effect of gutturals on vowels in Semitic languages provides evidence for

the relation of this class of consonants and low vowels. The consonants with [pharyngeal]

(including laryngeals) trigger a rule in Arabic which is called “Feminine Vowel

Assimilation” (Hoberman, 1995). By this rule the feminine noun and adjective suffix –i is

lowered to a or ɑ when preceded immediately by a pharyngeal consonant (see also Rose

1996 for discussion on lowering). For example:

(45) a. zɑṛɑɑf-i ‘an ostrich’

b. ћilm-i ‘a dream’

c. zarriiʕ-a ‘plants’

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d. fallaaћ-a ‘peasant woman’

e. ʃɑṭћ-ɑ ‘picnic’

Another example is from Hebrew (McCarthy 1994). Hebrew inserts schwa into

unsyllabifiable consonant clusters. The epenthetic schwa is lowered to [a] when it is

preceded by a guttural. I present some examples in (46):33

(46) a. malk → melek ‘king/my king’

b. qudʃ → qōdeʃ ‘holiness’

c. tuʔr → toʔar ‘form’

d. lahb → lahab ‘flame’

The phonetic similarity and phonological interaction of low (or non-high) vowels and

gutturals may explain why the harmony illustrated in (44) takes place in the environment

of low vowels and the laryngeal consonants in Persian. McCarthy (1994) argues that

[pharyngeal] can but need not pattern with the oral places of articulation, [labial],

[coronal] and [dorsal]; that is, there is a division between oral and [pharyngeal] place

features. In addition to presenting a phonetic-based explanation for the affinity between

pharyngeals and low vowels, he provides phonological evidence for this claim. McCarthy

says that there are vowel-to-vowel assimilation rules to which oral consonants are opaque

and pharyngeal consonants are transparent. Laryngeal transparency, in particular, is a

phenomenon which is observed cross-linguistically. Complete assimilation of vowels

across h and ʔ is observed in many languages (Steriade 1987). Whether transparency is

observed only across laryngeals or in general across gutturals varies from language to

language. Thus some languages show laryngeal transparency, or translaryngeal vowel

harmony. Some show guttural transparency or transgutteral vowel harmony. Let us look

33 For why the epenthetic schwa is represented as e in (46a) and (46b) see McCarthy (1994). The point relevant to our discussion is that vowel lowering occurs due to the guttural environment.

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at some cases of laryngeal transparency in some languages. Note that they do not

necessarily involve only low vowels.

Japanese shows a typical case of laryngeal transparency (Kawahara, 2003). Echo

epenthesis inserts a copy vowel after allophones of [h] (47a); after other consonants,

however, the default vowel [u] is epenthesized (47b). For example:

(47) a. bahha

mahha ‘Mach’

‘Bach’

kohho ‘Koch’

b. bazu ‘buzz’

kurisumasu ‘Christmas’

Mohawk (Iroquoian) is another example of a language which show laryngeal

transparency (Postal 1969; cited in Kawahara 2003). In Mohawk, leftward echo

epenthesis is observed across [ʔ]; as in the following example:

(48) ʌ+wa+atunisʔa+s+hek+ʔ → ɔwadunizaʔa

‘It will be ripening repeatedly’

shegeʔ

Across other consonants, however, the default [e] is inserted.

(49) wa+o+arʔsʌ+ʔ → yoreʔz

Arbore, a Cushitic language of Ethiopia, also shows laryngeal transparency, as in (50)

(Hayward 1984, Steriade 1987; cited in Rose 1996). The vowels occurring before and

after laryngeal consonants become identical, while when a non-laryngeal consonant

intervenes, there is no harmony.

ʌʔ ‘She is fat’

(50) a. ma beh-o → ma boho ‘he is not going out’

b. ma beʔ-i → ma biʔi ‘he did not go out’

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These examples show that assimilation across laryngeals and an interaction between

laryngeals and low vowels both are attested across languages. The important point for our

discussion of harmony is that it is not, therefore, surprising for the harmony patterns in

low vowels in Persian to occur under following conditions: (i) for a to assimilate to ɑ, the

transparent h or ʔ is needed; and (ii) for h and ʔ to be transparent, they must be flanked on

both sides by low vowels. As pointed out before, the phonetic characteristics of

laryngeals in Persian await further study.

In the next section, I study a very common process in Persian, raising of ɑ to u before

nasal consonants which can be explained by the presence of tenseness in the system.

3.8. Pre-nasal raising

Persian shows a process of vowel raising in informal speech in which ɑ is raised to u

before nasal consonants (m and n), as in (51). In formal speech the version without raising

is common.

(51) ɑ→ u/ — n

ɑ→ u/ — m

(52) provides some examples:

(52) a. bɑrɑn ~ bɑrun ‘rain’

b. ɑsemɑn ~ ɑsemun ‘sky’

c. ʤɑn ~ ʤun ‘soul’

d. ɑrɑm ~ ɑrum ‘calm’

e. tamɑm ~ tamum ‘finish’

f. davɑm ~ davum ‘persistence’

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g. ɑmad ~ umad ‘came (3sg)’

h. xɑne ~ xune ‘house’

i. lɑne ~ lune ‘nest’

Evidence for the presence of underlying ɑ in these words comes from the existence of

words in the language with Cum and Cun structures. These words are never pronounced

as Cɑm and Cɑn even in very formal speech. Some examples are in (53):

(53) a. ɢɑnun ‘law’ *ɢɑnɑn

b. halazun ‘snail’ *halazɑn

c. pune ‘spearmint’ *pɑne

d. tumɑr ‘scroll’ *tɑmɑr

e. holɢum ‘throat’ *holɢɑm

This raising is a very common process in the language, and as the data shows, this

process occurs before both tautosyllabic (52a-52f) and heterosyllabic (52g-52i) ɑ-nasal

consonant sequences.

The effect of nasal context on vowel height is a cross-linguistically observed

phenomenon both synchronically and historically (e.g., Ohala 1975, Beddor 1982, 1993,

Wright 1986, Krakow et al. 1988, Beddor and Hawkins 1990, Maeda 1993). In what

follows I present some examples of vowel raising or lowering in different languages in

nasal contexts (although the case in Persian involves only raising, in order to present a

thorough picture of nasal effects I include below cases of lowering too).

In many Southern dialects of American English, [ɛ] is raised to [ɪ] before a nasal

consonant so pen and hem become homophonous with pin and him (Kenstowicz, 1994).

In some regions of Virginia, a relic of seventeenth century colonial English is the

“exactly alike” pronunciation of e and i before m and n; which makes empty and general,

for instance, become impty and gineral (Brown 1991). The same applies to /ɛ/, written a,

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in many (Brown 1991). According to Labov (1994), the most favored environment for

raising of short /a/ in American dialects of English is provided by words that end in final

nasals: man, ham, etc. In Northern cities dialects (in particular Buffalo in Labov’s study),

a following nasal consonant has a strong effect in maximizing height, e.g. a in dance,

hand, etc. is pronounced higher than a in other environments.

Raising of vowels preceding a nasal consonant is observed in Primitive Germanic times

(Prokosch, 1939): e before a cluster with an initial nasal became i (regardless of the

vowel of the following syllable). For example (Go.=Gothic, OE=Old English, ON=Old

Norse, OS=Old Saxon):

(54) IE bhendh- > ON bindɑ, Go. OE OS bindɑn, OHG bintɑn; Go. bindis, ON bindr,

OE bindest, OS OHG bindis

In Tswana (Bantu), /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are raised to [e] and [o] respectively before syllabic nasal

consonants. Compare [tsʼɛtsʼɛ] ‘tsetse fly’ and [lɔtʃwʼa] ‘request’ with [tsʼentsha] ‘cause to

enter’ and [tɬhompha] ‘respect’ (Beddor 1982).

According to Beddor (1982), in Tewa (Kiowa-Tanoan), /e/ becomes [ɛ] before nasal

consonants; for example, [feh] ‘stick’ versus [fɛn] ‘black’. In Grand Couli (Tinrin and

Mea), /o/ becomes [ɔ] before nasal consonants. Compare oro: ‘having much soil, dirty’

with ɔmi : ‘having much grass’.34

In Slave (Athapaskan), some vowels develop to some extent differently when they

precede a tautosyllabic nasal (Rice, 1989). Compare (55) and (56) — (examples are taken

from pp.98 & 99): (PA= Proto-Athabaskan, Bl=Bearlake, Hr=Hare).

35

34 In some of these languages other vowels may show lowering, too (for these see Beddor 1982). 35 It suffices here to mention examples of two vowels. For the development of other vowels see Rice 1989.

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(55) PA Bl Hr

*a∙ a a

*u∙ u u

(56) PA Bl Hr

*a∙n ǫ, ą ǫ, ą

*u∙n ų, ǫ ų, ǫ

In particular in (56), both a and u become o in the pre-nasal position (i.e. both raising and

lowering to a mid vowel occur). The rules which change a and u to o are also observed in

Slave as synchronic rules in cases of alternations (Rice, 1989).

There are different views concerning the effect of nasalization on vowel height. Beddor

(1982) reviews several of these views and I summarize her discussion: while some

theories see lowering as the effect of nasalization (Martinet 1955, Ohala 1974, Wright

1975), for others nasalization has a raising effect on vowels (O’Rahilly 1932, Bhat 1975,

Pandey 1978). According to some approaches, the effect of nasalization on vowel height

is context-dependent (Foley 1975, Ohala 1980) while context-dependency itself is

defined in different ways. For example, a version of this approach says that vowels raise

in the context of a nasal consonant but lower if the nasal consonant is lost. In another

version, phonemic nasalized vowels lower but allophonic ones raise. In addition to

lowering, raising, and context-dependent accounts, there is also an account which sees

centralization as the effect of nasalization; that is, high and mid vowels lower and low

vowels raise (Ohala 1975, Ruhlen 1978, Wright 1980). Each of these views is supported

by examples from some languages. Not all of these approaches are in contrast with each

other. For example, the centralization view is in fact a combination of the restricted

versions of raising and lowering (i.e. high vowels need to lower and low ones need to

raise for centralization to happen).

Based on a study of 75 languages (Beddor 1982), when there is a change in height due to

nasalization, the following patterns are observed with rare exception (ignoring non-

contextual nasal vowels):

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i. high nasal vowels lower

ii. low nasal vowels raise

iii. mid back nasal vowels raise

iv. mid front nasal vowels lower, except if nasalization affects both front and

back vowel height, in which case both front and back nasal vowels raise

Given these patterns of pre-nasal raising of low vowels, the existence of raising of ɑ to u

in Persian is not too surprising. However, given the surface inventory of Persian as

presented in the literature and the commonly agreed view that height is phonologically

primary in the system, two observations are surprising and hard to explain: (i) ɑ skips o

to raise to u; and (ii) o itself does not participate in the raising process. Thus the questions

are: why does ɑ raise to u and not to o? why does o not raise to u? I repeat here the

Persian vowel system as given in the height-based accounts.

(57) Persian vowel inventory given in height-based accounts

i u

e o

a ɑ

I present here some examples of the vowel o followed by the nasal consonants. No

raising occurs, as (58) shows.

(58) a. kond *kund ‘slow’

b. bon *bun ‘root’

c. dom *dum ‘tail’

d. nomre *numre ‘number’

e. xonsɑ *xunsɑ ‘neutral’

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Historically, according to Pisowicz (1985), a tendency to raise ɑ (transcribed as ā in the

historical literature) preceding n and m in Persian was observed since the beginning the

15th century and became clearer in the 17th century. The raising at that time was to both o

and u based on transcriptions of Persian by non-native speakers. For example, in “A

wonder beyond three seas” by Athanasius Nikitian, a 15th century Russian merchant, this

tendency is seen (Pisowicz 1985). Nikitian spelled ā before n in the word kona with the

letter o. This word is the classical kān ‘mine’. Pisowicz says that “[this] points to a

tendency which would be clear in the 17th century and is continued in the modern

colloquial pronunciation like un = classical ān” (p. 79) –un (the formal form: ɑn) means

‘that’.

I leave aside the historical background of pre-nasal raising (although it would be

interesting to investigate what the active features of the system were when the raising

first began), and focus on its synchronic status. I said that in a height-based account

where o is on the way of ɑ raising to u, one needs to explain why o is skipped and why o

itself does not raise to u. I have argued that tense/lax, and not height, is the dimension of

contrast in the Persian vowel system. With the tense-based account, the inventory is

underlyingly presented as in (59), presented earlier in (12) – [tense] is present

underlyingly while [lax] is absent:

(59) [tense]

i u e o

ɑ a

Considering this system, the raising of ɑ to u can be explained in the following way: the

vowel o is not in the path of ɑ going to u. Both ɑ and u are tense and [tense] is the

marked feature, that is, the feature which is present underlyingly. Thus when ɑ undergoes

raising due to the presence of the following nasal consonant it raises to a tense vowel,

losing its height feature, [low].

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It should be noted that this process, although very common, has some exceptions. Some

of these could be idiosyncratic since no particular reason or pattern is observed for them.

For example:

(60) a. onvɑn → *onvun ‘title’

b. xɑme → *xume ‘cream’

Some names of cities may show raising although the version without raising is more

common; others do not show raising.

(61) a. tehrɑn ~ tehrun ‘the capital of Iran’

but

b. lɑhiʤɑn → *lɑhiʤun ‘a city in north of Iran’

(cf. bɑdemʤɑn ~ bɑdemʤun ‘eggplant’)

With the suffix -estɑn, a location suffix, if the word is a common noun, it shows raising

in some cases and does not show it in others, as seen in (62). When -estɑn is used in the

name of countries, it does not show raising, as in (63).

(62) a. ɢabr ‘grave’ + -estɑn → ɢabrestɑn ~ ɢabrestun ‘graveyard’

b. kudak ‘child’ + -estɑn → kudakestɑn ‘kindergarten’ *kudakestun

(63) a. tɑʤik + -estɑn → tɑʤikestɑn ‘Tajikistan’ *tɑʤikestun

b. maʤɑr + -estɑn → maʤɑrestɑn ‘Hungary’ *maʤɑrestun

In addition to these cases, there are other cases which do not undergo pre-nasal raising.

These include the names of individuals and loan words. Some examples of names which

do not show raising are given in (64).

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(64) a. farɑnak → *farunak ‘a name for girls’

b. sɑnɑz → *sunɑz ‘a name for girls’

c. behnɑm → *behnum ‘a name for boys’

d. parhɑm → *parhum ‘a name for boys’

Some examples of loanwords, which also do not show raising, are given in (65):

(65) a. kɑmpijoter *kumpijoter ‘computer’

b. depɑrtemɑn *depɑrtemun ‘department’

Foreign proper names and names of countries do not undergo raising either.

(66) a. tɑm (*tum) ‘Tom’

b. tɑjvɑn (*tɑjvun) ‘Taiwan’

What do the cases which do not undergo raising tell us? The existence of exceptions and

categories which do not show raising (e.g., proper names, etc.) suggests that this process

is not a phonetic or post-lexical change and thus provides support for the process being

phonological, which requires a phonological explanation, as shown through a rule such as

the following:

(67) [low, tense, peripheral] → [tense, peripheral] /— [nasal]

The feature [low] is lost before a nasal, as expected in the account provided.

The fact that o does not raise to u before nasal consonants in Persian (see (58)) also

supports the idea that the process is not phonetic since phonetically o is in the path of ɑ to

u and if the raising is a phonetic process, one might expect to observe raising of o to u as

well. Phonologically, however, o is not on the way of ɑ to u and this supports the process

being phonological because otherwise o would be a problem.

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It might be asked whether this process is phonologically active or whether the words

which show the raising pattern are lexicalized. The fact that the same word is used

without raising and also with raising depending on its usage suggest that it is an active

process. For instance, consider the word bɑrɑn ‘rain’ (also a girl’s name). As a name it is

never pronounced as Bɑrun; as a noun, it is commonly bɑrun. The word nɑn ‘bread’ is

commonly pronounced as nun but in the title of the book nɑn o ʃarɑb ‘Bread and wine’ raising is not found. The word zabɑn ‘language’ is pronounced as zabun but not in

zabɑnʃenɑsi ‘linguistics’. Thus the raising is an active phonological process.

In this section I examined the pre-nasal raising process in Persian, which is not a case of

harmony. I suggested that with tense/lax opposition being underlyingly active in the

system, this process, which is difficult to account for in a height-based view, can be

explained.

3.9. Summary

I have argued for a featural analysis of the Persian vowel system based on a tense/lax

distinction. I further proposed that [tense] is the underlyingly present feature. This offers

an account of the harmony processes, which indicate the presence of a feature in the

system, and at the same time allows for the maintenance of the categorization of the

vowels ɑ, i, u versus a, e, o (see section 3.2 for more discussion of these two classes). In

addition, contrast and markedness in the Persian vowel system were also discussed (in

3.5 and 3.6). I also discussed laryngeals and low vowels and their interaction in low

harmony (in 3.7) as well as a pre-nasal raising process (in 3.8). In the next section,

Persian diphthongs will be examined.

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3.10. Diphthongs

I discuss diphthongs in this section in order to present a complete picture of Persian

vowels, especially because there is controversy in the literature over the phonemic status

of some of these diphthongs.

As seen so far, it is commonly agreed that the vowel system of Persian has six

monophthongs. Persian also has six diphthongs on the surface: ɑj, uj, oj, aj, ej and ow

(e.g., Samareh 1985). (68) presents some examples:

(68) a. nɑj ‘trachea’

b. ruj ‘zinc’

c. xoj ‘name of a city, also perspiration (literary)’

d. ɢajjem ‘guardian’

e. zejtun ‘olive’

f. ɢowl ‘promise’

There is general agreement that four of these six diphthongs, ɑj, uj, oj, aj, are not

phonemic but are in fact a combination of a vowel followed by a glide. There is

controversy over the phonemic status of two of them, ej and ow, as discussed below. In

the next two subsections, I discuss non-phonemic and phonemic diphthongs. I use the

following definitions: phonemic diphthongs are tautosyllabic and occupy the syllable

nucleus (e.g., Kenstowicz 1994, Schane 1995, Landman 2003); phonetic diphthongs are

those whose glide element functions as onset or coda and is not a part of nucleus (e.g.,

Booij 1989, Schane 1995). Thus resyllabification does not affect phonemic, or ‘real’,

diphthongs because resyllabification does not affect material in a nucleus, but post-

nuclear glides are affected by resyllabification because segments in a coda can also serve

as the onset of the next syllable (e.g., Booij 1989, Booij and Rubach 1990). I will argue

that there is no phonemic diphthong in Persian.

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3.10.1. ɑj, uj, oj, and aj

As pointed out above, ɑj, uj, oj, aj are commonly agreed to be non-phonemic in the

Persian literature. There are two arguments presented in the literature for the non-

phonemic status of these diphthongs (e.g., Samareh 1985): (i) the j can be deleted in some

cases; (ii) the vowel and the following j are separable in syllabification in polysyllabic

words. First I summarize these arguments in the following discussion.

The following examples illustrate the four non-phonemic diphthongs (taken from

Samareh 1985, pp. 96-97).

(69) a. ɑj pɑj ‘foot’

b. uj muj ‘hair’

c. oj xoj ‘name of a city, also perspiration (literary)’

d. aj ɢajjem ‘guardian’

With respect to the phonemic status of these diphthongs, Samareh (1985) claims that

these sequences are not phonemes (neither are ej and ow according to him, as seen

below). He notes that in the case of pɑj ‘foot’ and muj ‘hair’, when one deletes the j no

difference in meaning occurs and in fact the version without j is the more common form.

This, according to him, establishes that the j is not a part of the vowel and is a consonant

which follows the vowel. I add that although Samareh is right about the words pɑj ‘foot’

and muj ‘hair’ being common without the j in today’s language, there are some words

containing ɑj and uj whose j cannot be deleted even in very informal speech, such as:

(70) a. ruj ‘zinc’

b. nɑj ‘trachea’

Compare these with the following words:

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(71) a. ru ‘face’ (also ruj ‘face’ literary and formal form)

b. nɑ ‘energy, mustiness’

As (70) shows, it is not the case that the j can always delete after ɑ and u. A careful study

of the lexicon might reveal why deletion is sometimes not allowed -it is possible that in

cases where the vowel-glide sequence is not in contrast with any word this is possible.

This remains for future work.

In fact, deletion of the glide may not be a good argument for uj and ɑj being a sequence

of a vowel followed by a consonant for those who argue for the non-phonemic status of ej

as well (like Samareh) because as seen below, j cannot be deleted after e in ej.

(72) a. mej ‘wine’ *me

b. pej ‘foundation’ *pe

That is, if deletion of the j in these diphthongs is an indication of the non-phonemic status

of these diphthongs, then are those cases which do not show deletion phonemic

diphthongs?

Discussing the diphthongs which are considered non-phonemic (i.e., ɑj, uj, oj, aj), Samareh notes that in the case of oj, one cannot delete the j but the fact that in suffixation

by a vowel-initial suffix the vowel and the consonant separate from each other and are

syllabified in different syllables shows that the j is not a part of the vowel.

Heterosyllabicity is also observed in the case of uj and ɑj. Samareh gives the following

examples for these (p. 99) and compares them with consonants like r and z. The words

are followed by Ezafe (see footnote 13 for Ezafe).

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(73) a. xoj + -e → xo.je36

b. pɑj + -e → pɑ.je ‘foot-Ezafe’

‘Xoj (name of a city)-Ezafe, perspiration-Ezafe’

c. muj + -e → mu.je ‘hair-Ezafe’

d. sar + -e → sa.re ‘head-Ezafe’

e. miz + -e → mi.ze ‘table-Ezafe’

In the case of aj, Samareh points out that given the environment in which this diphthong

can occur, as shown in Arabic-origin words such as ɢajjem ‘guardian, moʔajjan ‘fixed’,

sajjɑd ‘hunter’, the j after the vowel cannot be deleted nor can it be syllabified in the next

syllable. It is in fact a geminated j after the vowel a. Therefore, Samareh concludes that

in the case of aj, the j is certainly a consonant.

I should add that there are cases of occurrence of aj in medial position in Persian without

geminated j, as in (74). These are considered to fall in two different syllables; the first

syllable is Ca and the second starts with j as a consonant followed by a vowel. That is, aj here is not considered to be a diphthong.

(74) a. pa.jɑm ‘message’

b. a.jɑr ‘standard, the degree of purity of a precious metal’

c. ba.jɑn ‘expression’

d. ba.jɑt ‘stale’

e. ha.jɑ ‘shame’

f. ha.jɑt ‘life’

36 I think xo.ji ‘pertaining to xoj (the city), also a last name is Iran’ is a better example. xoj in its ‘perspiration’ meaning is very literary and formal and so is xo.je.

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It should be noted that the former final aj changed to ej over time (e.g., Najafi 2001) as in

maj ‘wine’ which is mej today. This is similar to final a which historically became e (e.g.,

xāna ‘home’ which is xɑne today –see (37)). Some of the final aj-ending words in the

language are from Arabic; for example, hajj ‘alive’ which has a geminated j and is not

pronounced with ej. Sometimes both of the ej and aj versions of Arabic-origin words are

used for a word with the aj version being more formal than the ej version, which is more

commonly used (e.g., tajj and tejj ‘during’). Regardless of the choice of vowel (a or e),

final gemination (e.g., j or jj in final position), unlike gemination in medial position, is

hard to perceive. When words such as tajj ~tejj are followed by a vowel-initial suffix, for

example Ezafe, the final j is heard as geminated (e.g., tejj-e). I will return to gemination

in 5.5.

In this section I discussed the four diphthongs which are commonly thought to have non-

phonemic status (i.e., ɑj, uj, oj, aj) and the arguments presented in the literature in this

regard. These arguments are: (i) the possibility of deletion of j; and (ii) the separation of j

from the vowel in suffixed forms. Next I discuss the two diphthongs whose phonemic

status is controversial.

3.10.2. ej and ow

As noted before, the phonemic status of two of the six diphthongs, ej and ow, is less clear

(e.g., Meshkatod Dini 1999, Najafi 2001). I start with some examples of these

diphthongs:

(75) a. ej mej ‘wine’

mejl ‘willingness’

mejmun ‘monkey’

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b. ow ʤow ‘barley’

ʤowr ‘torture’

ʤowlɑn ‘parading’

Between ej and ow, the status of ow is in particular unclear not only because of its unclear

phonemic status but also because the presence of w in ow is a topic of debate (e.g.,

Samareh 1977, 1985, Pisowicz 1985, Najafi 2001), as discussed below.

Regarding the phonemic status of ej and ow as diphthongs, there are two different views

in the literature (e.g., Samareh 1985, Meshkatod Dini 1999, Najafi 2001). Some consider

them as being phonemically diphthongs (acting as one vowel with two parts which are

not separable) and others as being a sequence of a vowel followed by a consonant.

The literature which considers ej and ow to be phonemic finds support for this position

from historical data (according to Pisowicz 1985, Najafi 2001, among others): historical

aj became present ej and also av/aw became present ow. That is, for the words which

synchronically include ej and ow, instead of presenting a synchronic analysis, a

diachronic account is presented based on the former status of these diphthongs (aj and

av/aw). The historical status of diphthongs is a topic in itself to investigate. Recall from

2.1 that Old Persian had two diphthongs ai and au which became ē and ō in Middle

Persian. So how diphthongs changed over time from Old Persian to the present time and

what historical status the literature exactly refers to in arguing for present ej and ow being

phonemic are unclear and need to be examined.

The studies which consider ej and ow to be non-phonemic consider them as a sequence of

a vowel followed by a consonant (e.g., Samareh 1985). According to Samareh, a

phonemic diphthong is a diphthong in which two parts of the diphthong act as a single

vowel, that is, the second part is not separable from the first part. As for ej, the latter

explanation (i.e., a sequence of a vowel followed by a consonant) is easy to argue for. It

is, however, problematic in the case of ow, since w is not a phoneme in the consonant

inventory of Persian. As Najafi (2001) writes this is in fact one of the reasons that ow is

considered in some studies as a diphthong phonemically (that is, one cannot consider it as

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being a vowel followed by a consonant since there is no w in the consonant inventory of

Persian). But those studies which consider ow as a vowel followed by the consonant w,

and not as a phonemic diphthong, treat ow as underlyingly ov. In this view, w after o in

ow is an allophone of v which occurs only after o, as suggested by the fact that v and w do

not contrast with each other as well as by the suffixed form of the ow-final words, such as

those in (76). Thus, under this view, the presence of w in ow is not problematic or an

indication of the phonemic status of ow. That is, w can occur only on the surface, as an

allophone of v, without being in the phonemic inventory. Regarding w being an allophone

of v, according to some studies (e.g., Hayes 1986), the labiodental fricative [v] and the

labiodental approximant [w] are in complementary distribution: [w] occurs in codas after

o; for example, pɑltow ‘overcoat’ and dowr ‘era’ and [v] occurs elsewhere.

Morphological alternations such as mi-ra[v]-am ‘I am going’ and bo-ro[w] ‘go!’ or

no[w]-ruz ‘new year’ and no[v]-in ‘new kind’ indicate that [v] and [w] are allophonically

related.

(76) a. now ‘new’ + -in → novin ‘modern’

b. ʤow ‘barley’ + -in → ʤovin ‘made of barley’

There are two processes which are referred to in some literature (e.g., Samareh 1985) as

evidence for ej and ow not being a diphthong but a vowel followed by a consonant, as

follows.

First, the first and second halves of these diphthongs are syllabified heterosyllabically

before a vowel-initial suffix in suffixation, as shown in (77). In the case of ow, the w

becomes v. Based on this, some literature considers ej and ow not to be phonemic

diphthongs because if they were, the two parts should not be separated (e.g., Samareh

1985, Pisowicz 1985).

(77) a. Rej ‘the name of a city in Iran’ + -i → re.ji ‘pertaining to Rej (the city)’

b. pejrow ‘follower’ + -i → pej.ro.vi ~ pej.ra.vi ‘following’

c. now ‘new’ + -in → no.vin ‘modern’

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Second, there is no word in Persian with CejCC or CowCC, while the language has many

CVCC words, some of which are given in (78). The maximum final cluster is CC in

Persian.

(78) a. narm ‘soft’

b. fekr ‘thought’

c. ɢors ‘pill’

d. mɑst ‘yogurt’

e. rixt ‘appearance’

f. pust ‘skin’

The fact that CejC and CowC occur, as seen in (79), but not CejCC and CowCC suggests

that j and w are consonants (w being an allophone) as some literature suggests (e.g.,

Pisowicz 1985).

(79) a. sejl ‘flood’

b. tejf ‘range’

c. xejr ‘goodness’

d. ɢejz ‘anger’

e. ʃowɢ ‘eagerness’

f. dowr ‘turn’

g. ɢowm ‘ethnic group’

h. mowz ‘banana’

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According to Pisowicz (1985), who considers ej and ow to be non-phonemic, the absence

of a phonemic contrast between long and short vowels in Persian rules out the mono-

phonemic status of ej and ow.

Pisowicz further comments on w in ow. Recall that the Persian consonant inventory does

not have w and that is why it is considered as an allophone of v, which exists in the

inventory. Pisowicz considers w to be a phoneme which is in the process of being

dropped from the system, under the pressure of the colloquial language, and probably

will remain as a non-phonemic glide. Pisowicz considers the following problems in

interpreting w as a phoneme, concluding that w is losing its phonemic status: (i) it has a

low frequency which is associated with a very restricted distribution (i.e., after –o); (ii) in

the colloquial and frequently in the literary spoken language, w does not occur due to the

shift of ow to o:. I should add a note about colloquial versus formal speech with respect

to ow. Some literature suggests that ow is not heard anymore in colloquial speech and

instead o or a phonetically longer o (shown as o:) is heard (e.g., Pisowicz 1985, Najafi

2001). Meshkatod Dini (1999) also says that o. (longer o) and ow are in free variation in

Modern Persian as in no./now ‘new’, ro.ʃan/rowʃan ‘bright’.

The case of ow needs comment. Its occurrence in final position is in particular of

importance in the minimal word requirement and in suffixation discussions. I will return

to ow in chapter 6. The point about ow which is important for the discussion of

diphthongs in Persian is that no evidence is presented for its being a phonemic diphthong.

In fact, the existence of w in ow itself is under question as reflected in the literature, as

was seen above and will be discussed in chapter 6.

To conclude the discussion of diphthongs, I follow the view that there is no phonemic

diphthong in the language as there is no convincing evidence for the language having

such diphthongs. All of the six diphthongs are syllabified heterosyllabically when a

vowel-initial suffix is present. Moreover, with none of them is the CVdiphthongCC structure

possible.

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The overall conclusion with respect to the Persian vowel inventory is that Persian does

not have long vowels or phonemic diphthongs. All vowels in Persian are phonologically

monophthongal and monomoraic.

3.11. Summary

In this chapter, I argued that tenseness is the active feature of the Persian vowel system

(not height or length) and showed that both harmony, which requires a feature to be

phonologically active in the system, and a classification of vowels into two groups a, e, o

vs. ɑ, i, u, which is observed in phonotactics, harmony, etc. are accounted for through

tenseness. I presented a phonetic experiment on the length of Perisan vowels. I further

discussed contrasts and markedness in the system. Moreover, I studied two processes

which show changes in vowels in the environment of particular consonants: harmony in

low vowels across laryngeals and pre-nasal raising. I also looked into the status of

Persian diphthongs showing that, as suggested by some literature (e.g., Samareh 1985),

there is no phonemic diphthong in Persian.

Although tenseness neatly accounts for both harmony and categorization of vowels in

Persian, there are processes in the language which potentially provide evidence for

quantity. In the next three chapters, I will discuss these potential arguments for quantity-

based analysis: epenthesis in suffixation, VC co-occurrence restrictions, and minimal

word requirements. I argue that they do not support the presence of underlying quantity.

In fact, they provide support for a tense-based account compared to both a height-based

account and a quantity-based account.

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Chapter 4

The epenthetic –e in suffixation: evidence for quantity?

In chapter 3, I argued that contrast in the Persian vowel system is based on a tense/lax

distinction with [tense] being underlyingly present, as suggested by Persian harmony

processes in which [tense] spreads. There is, however, evidence in the language which

seems to provide support for a quantitative analysis of the system. In this and the next

two chapters, I will discuss this evidence and show that it does not provide arguments for

underlying quantity. This potential evidence for a quantity-based analysis involves: (i)

epenthesis in suffixation; (ii) VCC co-occurrence restrictions; (iii) minimal word

requirements. Epenthesis in suffixation is examined in this chapter. VCC co-occurrence

restrictions and minimal word requirements will be discussed in chapter 5 and chapter 6,

respectively. I will show that these three processes/phenomena do not support underlying

quantity, and as much as they are observed in the language, they can be accounted for by

underlying tenseness. In fact, epenthesis, VCC restrictions, and minimal words provide

further support for a tense-based account. An account based on a tense/lax distinction

will be shown to have the merits of being like a featural account in certain respects (e.g.,

harmony processes), and like a quantity analysis in other respects, and the latter is what I

will show in this and the next two chapters. It will be seen that if we consider quantity as

the phonological dimension of contrast in the system, not only is harmony left

unexplained but also processes such as epenthesis, which at first appear to support

quantity, cannot be accounted for. And if we consider height to be the quality of the

system, the categorization, which is observed in harmony and, to some extent, in the

process/phenomena which I will discuss in the present and the next two chapters, is lost.

I first provide a roadmap of the steps I take in discussing epenthesis, VCC restrictions,

and minimal words. Then, I begin my discussion of epenthesis, which is the focus of this

chapter. The first step is to show why epenthesis, VCC restrictions, and minimal words

can be potentially evidence for underlying quantity. The next step is to show how a tense-

based analysis can account for these processes/phenomena to rule out the necessity of

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underlying quantity. The last step is to argue that these are not productive processes, and

are observed in the language in a limited way, which could be historical residue or a

surface effect of underlying tenseness. I will return to this at the end of chapter 6, once I

discuss all these apparent pieces of evidence for underlying quantity.

I now discuss epenthesis. Epenthesis has been argued to be driven by prosodic

requirements in general (e.g., Selkirk 1981, Itô 1989), and in Persian this analysis has

some initial appeal since epenthesis appears to be sensitive to weight. The epenthesis

under discussion occurs at a stem-suffix boundary when a CVC stem whose vowel is ɑ, i, u is followed by a consonant-initial suffix. It may also occur with stems whose vowel is

a, e, o but only when the root structure is CVCC. Epenthesis does not occur with CVC-

CV sequences when V of the stem is lax. This may suggest that epenthesis occurs when a

stem is heavy (I will return to this below) due to either the existence of ɑ, i, u, which are

bimoraic under a quantitative account, followed by a consonant, or the sequence of a, e, o

followed by two consonants. Thus the environment for epenthesis might be considered to

be an argument for ɑ, i, u to be bimoraic, and consequently an argument against a purely

qualitative analysis of the Persian vowel system. I will discuss this process in detail and

show that the process does not provide an argument for underlying quantity or against

quality if we consider tenseness as the basis of contrast (I will discuss that if height is

considered to be the basis of contrast in the system, we face a problem in accounting for

epenthesis). As I will show, the process can in fact receive a synchronic account.

However, it is not synchronically productive.

I discuss the synchronic status of the epenthesis in 4.1. Section 4.2 presents a possible

quantitative analysis and a discussion of how tenseness can in fact account for the process

without a need to refer to underlying quantity. Section 4.3 addresses a question about the

limited occurrence of epenthesis. In 4.4, I present an overview of Persian suffixes.

Section 4.5 includes discussion of cluster types, productivity of suffixes, and frequency

of suffixes and the suffixed forms. I then present the historical background of the suffixes

and the suffixed forms in 4.6. I next report on an experiment I did to study the synchronic

status of epenthesis in 4.7. Section 4.8 concludes the chapter.

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4.1. Epenthesis in suffixation: synchronically

Persian has an epenthesis process that occurs when a consonant cluster is created at a

stem-suffix boundary. An epenthetic vowel (the vowel –e, and in a few cases –o or –a) is

inserted in order to break up the morphologically derived consonant clusters. This

process occurs only in a limited number of cases and with some stem structures. In

particular with stems having the shape/ending in the shape CVlaxC epenthesis never

occurs; while with CVlaxCC, CVtenseC, CVtenseCC forms, epenthesis occurs in some cases

and not in others.

I begin the discussion with illustration of when epenthesis does and does not occur. Note

that when I talk about the category in which ‘epenthesis may occur’, I disregard any

differences within that category in terms of the frequency of epenthesis. There are some

words whose version with epenthesis is (by far) more frequent than their non-epenthesis

version and vice versa, and there are some which show similar frequency in their two

versions. The important point for our discussion now is simply that epenthesis is an

option. The data on where epenthesis is possible and where it is not is based on my

intuition, and confirmed by the transcriptions given for the words in Persian dictionaries

(e.g., Emami 2006), by at least two other native speaker of Persian, and also by an

experiment conducted with 10 native speakers of Persian, discussed in section 4.7.

(1) presents examples of stems with (or ending in) CVlaxC form followed by a consonant-

initial suffix. As the examples show, epenthesis is not an option.

(1) CVlaxC (no epenthesis)

a. dar ‘door’ + bɑn → dar.bɑn ‘doorkeeper’ *da.re.bɑn

b. ɢam ‘sadness’ + ɡin → ɢam.ɡin ‘sad’ *ɢa.me.ɡin

c. ɡol ‘flower’ + dɑn → ɡol.dɑn ‘vase’ *ɡo.le.dɑn

d. ʃen ‘gravel’+ zɑr → ʃen.zɑr ‘sandy terrain’ *ʃe.ne.zɑr

e. nam ‘dampness’+ nɑk → nam.nɑk ‘damp’ *na.me.nɑk

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f. dɑ.neʃ ‘knowledge’+ var→ dɑ.neʃ.var ‘knowledgeable’ *dɑ.ne.ʃe.var

g. ho.nar ‘art’ + mand → ho.nar.mand ‘artist’ *ho.na.re.mand

h. ʃo.tor ‘camel’+ bɑn → ʃo.tor.bɑn ‘cameleer’ *ʃo.to.re.bɑn

In (2) examples of stems with CVlaxCC form followed by consonant-initial suffixes are

presented. Epenthesis may occur.

(2) CVlaxCC (epenthesis may occur)

a. ɢahr ‘anger, wrath’ + mɑn → ɢah.re. mɑn (~ ɢah.ra.mɑn) ‘hero’ (ɢahr. mɑn

is much less common)

b. roft ‘past stem of roftan ‘to sweep’’+ɡar → rof.te.ɡar ~ roft.ɡar

‘street sweeper’

c. (ʔ)arʤ ‘value’ + mand → (ʔ)ar.ʤo.mand ~ (ʔ)arʤ.mand ‘valued’

d. mehr ‘kindness’ + bɑn → meh.ra.bɑn ~ mehr.bɑn ‘kind’

e. rast ‘past stem of rastan ‘to find relief’’+ ɡɑr → ras.te.ɡɑr ~ rast.ɡɑr

‘salvaged’

(3) presents examples of stems with CVlaxCC form followed by consonant-initial

suffixes. In these examples, epenthesis does not occur. Comparing (2) and (3) shows that

with stems with CVlaxCC form epenthesis occurs in some cases and not in others.

(3) CVlaxCC (no epenthesis)

a. xaʃm ‘anger’ + nɑk → xaʃm.nɑk ‘angry’ *xaʃ.me.nɑk

b. dard ‘pain’+ mand → dard.mand ‘painful’ *dar.de.mand

c. ʃarm ‘embarrassment’ + ɡin → ʃarm.ɡin ‘embarrasses’ *ʃar.me.ɡin

d. marz ‘border’ + bɑn → marz.bɑn ‘border guard’ *mar.ze.bɑn

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e. ɢadr ‘appreciation’+ dɑn → ɢadr.dɑn ‘appreciative’ *ɢad.re.dɑn

f. ʃahr ‘city’ + dɑr → ʃahr.dɑr ‘mayor’ *ʃah.re.dɑr

g. keʃt ‘farming’+ zɑr → keʃt.zɑr ‘farmland’ *keʃ.te.zɑr

h. toxm ‘seed, egg’ + dɑn → toxm.dɑn ‘ovary’ *tox.me.dɑn

i. xoʃk ‘dry’ + zɑr → xoʃk.zɑr ‘desert’ *xoʃ.ke.zɑr

i. to.fanɡ ‘gun’+ ʧi → to.fanɡ.ʧi ‘musketeer’ *to.fan.ɡe.ʧi

I now look at stems with tense vowels. (4) shows examples of stems with CVtenseC form.

Epenthesis may occur.

(4) CVtenseC (epenthesis may occur)

a. kɑr ‘work’ + ɡar → kɑ.re.ɡar ~ kɑr.ɡar ‘worker’

b. ruz ‘day’ + ɡɑr → ru.ze.ɡɑr ~ ruz.ɡɑr ‘days’

c. pɑs ‘watch, guard duty’ + bɑn → pɑ.se.bɑn ~ pɑs. bɑn ‘police officer’

d. bɑɢ ‘garden’+ bɑn → bɑ.ɢe.bɑn ~ bɑɢ. bɑn ‘gardener’

e. sɑz ‘present stem of sɑxtan ‘to build’+ mɑn → sɑ.ze.mɑn ~ sɑz .mɑn

‘organization’

f. ʃɑd ‘happy’ + mɑn → ʃɑ.de.mɑn ~ ʃɑd. mɑn ‘happy, joyful’

g. (ʔ)ɑ.muz ‘present stem of (ʔ)ɑmuxtan ‘to learn sth, to teach sth to sb’ + ɡɑr

→ (ʔ)ɑ.mu.ze.ɡɑr ~ (ʔ)ɑ.muz.ɡɑr ‘teacher’

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Examples in (4) and (5) share the same stem structure, CVtenseC. As seen in (4),

epenthesis may occur with this stem structure. (5) also contains examples of this stem

structure, however in these cases epenthesis is not possible.

(5) CVtenseC (no epenthesis)

a. kɑr ‘work’ + ɡɑh → kɑr.ɡɑh ‘workshop, atelier’ *kɑ.re.ɡɑh

b. pɑs ‘watch, guard duty’+ ɡɑh → pɑs.ɡɑh ‘police station’ *pɑ.se.ɡɑh

c. dɑd ‘justice’+ ɡar → dɑd.ɡar ‘just’ *dɑ.deɡar

d. pul ‘money’+ dɑr → pul.dɑr ‘rich’ *pu.le.dɑr

e. riɡ ‘pebble’ + zɑr → riɡ.zɑr ‘desert’ *ri.ɡe.zɑr

f. miz ‘table’ + bɑn → miz.bɑn ‘host/ess’ *mi.ze.bɑn

g. tup ‘gun’ + ʧi → tup.ʧi ‘gunner’ *tu.pe.ʧi

h. zur ‘force, strength’ + mand → zur.mand ‘forceful, strong’ *zu.re.mand

i. bɑɢ ‘garden’ + ʧe → bɑɢ.ʧe ‘small garden’ *bɑ.ɢe.ʧe

j. ɡo.riz ‘escape’ + ɡɑh → ɡo.riz.ɡɑh ‘hideaway’ *ɡo.ri.ze.ɡɑh

Now let us look at CVtenseCC. (6) presents examples of stems with CVtenseCC form where

epenthesis may occur.

(6) CVtenseCC (epenthesis may occur)

a. mɑnd ‘past stem of mɑndan ‘to last’’+ ɡɑr → mɑn.de.ɡɑr ‘lasting’

b. sɑxt ‘past stem of sɑxtan ‘to build’ + mɑn → sɑx.te.mɑn ‘building’

c. xɑst ‘past stem of xɑstan ‘to want’’+ ɡɑr → xɑst.ɡɑr ~ xɑs.te.ɡɑr ~ xɑs.ɡɑr

‘suitor’

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In (7), examples of stems with CVtenseCC form which do not allow epenthesis are

presented.

(7) CVtenseCC (no epenthesis)

a. ist ‘stop’ + ɡɑh → ist.ɡɑh ‘station’ *is.te.ɡɑh

b. xɑst ‘past stem of xɑstan ‘to rise’’ + ɡɑh → xɑst.ɡɑh ‘origin’

*xɑs.te.ɡɑh

c. rɑst ‘right, truth’+ ɡu → rɑst.ɡu ‘truthful’ *rɑs.te.ɡu

d. suxt ‘fuel’ + ɡir → suxt.ɡir ‘using fuel’ *sux.te.ɡir

As the examples in (1)-(7) show, epenthesis never occurs when the root has a CVlaxC

structure. It may, however, occur when the stem has one of the following structures:

CVlax CC, CVtenseC, CVtenseCC. The observation that epenthesis may occur in suffixation

following stems with the vowels ɑ, i, u but not a, e, o have led some to argue that the

environment for epenthesis is conditioned by properties of the vowels. Samareh (1977),

discussing cases like ʔɑmuz + ɡɑr → ʔɑ.muz.ɡɑr ‘teacher’, pɑj + ɡɑh → pɑj.ɡɑh

‘base’, xodɑ(j) + ɡɑn → xodɑ(j)ɡɑn ‘monarch’, says: “Sometimes in colloquial speech

when the last vowel of the base is long an intrusive /e/ intervenes between the word final

consonant and the /ɡ/, i.e. /ʔɑmuzeɡɑr/, /pɑjeɡɑh/, /xodɑjeɡɑn/” (p. 137, footnote 1).

Recall that Samareh (1977, 1985) argues that length is not the primary contrastive feature

in Persian vowels; height is distinctive rather than length in his analysis (that is, in the

account he provided for Persian vowels, he considers only height to be the active feature

and does not consider both length and height to be active in the system). Using the term

“long” for the vowels ɑ, i, u seems contradictory to his height-based analysis. I should

mention that the epenthetic e is also seen with suffixes which do not start with -ɡ

(although Samareh does not say anything about other suffixes so maybe his saying that

the intrusive /e/ occurs before /ɡ/ of the suffix is meant to be an explanation only for

those three examples he gives which all start with /ɡ/). Examples of cases with epenthetic

–e with other suffixes include: pɑs + bɑn → pɑ.se.bɑn ~ pɑs.bɑn ‘police officer’, ʃɑd + mɑn → ʃɑd.mɑn ~ ʃɑ.de.mɑn ‘happy’, etc. The point of importance is that Samareh

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relates the occurrence of epenthesis to the length of the vowel of the root. Lazard (1992)

also points out that a cluster of two consonants which follow one of the stable vowels

(recall that the stable vowels are ɑ, i, u) may be broken up by the vowel e, as observed in

alternations such as pɑsbɑn ~ pɑsebɑn ‘policeman’, ruzɡɑr ~ ruzeɡɑr ‘time’, kɑrɡar ~ kɑreɡar ‘worker’.

I should add that the insertion of an epenthetic –e is in some cases observed within stems

too, as in ɑʃnɑ ~ ɑʃenɑ ‘familiar’. I will discuss these cases again in 4.6.2. My focus at

this point is on epenthesis in suffixation, of which there are far more cases compared to

epenthesis within stems, of which few examples exists.

Epenthesis may appear to be attributable to length, thus supporting a quantity-based

rather than featural analysis of vowel contrasts. In the next subsection I discuss this in

detail.

4.2. Incorporating quantity

Epenthesis is often argued to result from syllabification demands (e.g., Selkirk 1981, Itô

1989). The Persian epenthesis process, as illustrated in section 4.1, appears to argue in

favor of a quantity-based analysis of vowels, where epenthesis may apply with long

vowels and not with short vowels. Assuming a moraic representation of vowels (Hyman

1985, Hayes 1989, McCarthy and Prince 1995, among many others), the vowels I have

identified as lax vowels would be a single mora, while those I have called tense vowels

would be two morae. Syllable structures for sample words are shown in (8).

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(8) i. Lax vowel ii. Tense vowel

PWd PWd

Φ Φ

σ σ

μ μ μ μ

d a r k ɑ r

‘door’ ‘work’

Epenthesis can be quite readily accounted for under the quantity hypothesis. While

details of prosodic structure in Persian remain to be developed, the following is an outline

of an account under a quantitative analysis of vowel contrasts. Note that although

Samareh and Lazard comment on epenthesis, they do not provide an account of the

process.

The long (tense) vowels are bimoraic (8ii) and the short (lax) vowels monomoraic (8i).

Assuming that a syllable can accommodate two morae, the postvocalic consonant

following the short vowel can receive a mora, and is thus prosodically licensed in this

way. Following the long vowel, on the other hand, the consonant is not moraic. While it

can be licensed by associating to the prosodic word when it is final, when a suffix is

present, the stem-final consonant syllabifies as an onset, with epenthesis of a vowel to

provide a nucleus.37

37 Note that we could also consider the final consonant after long vowels to receive a mora, which means that a syllable could accommodate more than two morae (see (9) below). The latter analysis of the syllable structure, which makes words such as kɑr ‘work’ trimoraic, does not change the possibility of the occurrence of epenthesis as it creates a superheavy syllable. Epenethesis may or may not occur in this environement, as shown in unsuffixed words such as ɑʃnɑ ~ ɑʃenɑ ‘familiar’, ɑʃkɑr ~ ɑʃekɑr ‘apparent’(see also 4.6.2). Thus whether one considers the final consonants in CVtenseC to be assigned a mora or to be licensed by the Prosodic Word (henceforth PWd) or directly by the syllable, epenthesis is possible to account for.

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For words of the form CVlaxCC and CVtenseCC, the structures in (9) are possible,

assuming no more than one consonant is licensed by the prosodic word. These structures

suggest that Persian syllables can be trimoraic. The trimoraicity of Persian syllables is

suggested by Hayes (1979) and adopted by Darzi (1991). This discussion is to highlight

why epenthesis is potentially a support for a quantitative analysis for Persian.

(9) i. Lax vowel ii. Tense vowel

PWd PWd

Φ Φ

σ σ

μ μ μ μ μ

(ʔ ) a r ʤ m ɑ n d

‘value’ ‘last’

Thus, assuming structures in (8) and (9) for the purposes of argument, basically

epenthesis may apply to accommodate a stray consonant. In (8i), there is no stray

consonant. In all other structures, a stray consonant is present. The reason that one can

consider final consonants in the above cases to be extraprosodic (linked directly to PWd)

is that in Persian one only finds consonant clusters morpheme-finally (e.g., Samareh

1985) with a couple of exceptions (surtme ‘sled’, jurtme ‘trot’). If these consonant

sequences were licensed within a syllable, they might be expected to occur word-

internally. Note that medial CC as in CVCCV(C) exists in Persian but it is syllabified as

CVC.CV(C) (e.g., ɢurbɑɢe ‘frog’ is syllabified as ɢur.bɑ.ɢe) –the syllabification will be

discussed in detail in 5.6.

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Adopting a quantitative view, one can thus say that in (9i), when a monomoraic vowel is

followed by a cluster of two consonants in the root, a vowel may be epenthesized when a

consonant-initial suffix is present. The final coda consonant of the root acts as the onset

of the syllable with an epenthetic vowel ((ʔ)arʤ + mand becomes (ʔ)ar.ʤo.mand).

Compare this with the structure in (8i), where the short vowel permits the only coda

consonant to be moraic, therefore there is no need for epenthesis (e.g., dar + bɑn becomes dar.bɑn). For words with the structure given in (9ii), a suffix is added to a root

with a long vowel followed by a cluster of two consonants. To avoid having four morae

in the root after suffixation, epenthesis occurs, with the remaining root trimoraic (e.g.,

mɑnd-ɡɑr becomes mɑn.de.ɡɑr). The heaviness of some structures (heavy due to the

bimoraic vowel or a monomoraic vowel followed by a consonant cluster) can lead one to

consider epenthesis to be conditioned by Persian syllable structure.

The patterning of VlaxC as opposed to VtenseC is one indication of the monomoraicity of

the lax vowels. In addition, note that the choice of e, and that if not e, then a or o, as

epenthetic vowels can be considered as further evidence for the monomoraicity of these

three vowels in a quantitative account. Since epenthesis is generally viewed as altering

structure minimally, epenthesis of a long vowel is unexpected (e.g., Steriade 1995).

We now face a dilemma. While the patterning of epenthesis might suggest a quantity-

based analysis, harmony patterns suggest a quality-based analysis. If we adopt the

quantity-based prosodic structure of vowels presented above, with paired vowels

differing by mora count but not by feature, we cannot account for the harmony processes

(see 2.3.6). The question is: can epenthesis be accounted for under the tense/lax

hypothesis? If so, how?

In order to account for epenthesis based on the tense/lax distinction, one can follow the

direction of an analysis according to which features play a role in projecting syllable

structure (see van Oostendorp 1995 for discussion). Quantity is not underlying, but

vowels with the feature [tense] project two morae, unlike lax vowels, which project a

single mora. A syllable is bimoraic only if the vowel has the feature [tense]. That is,

[tense] is underlying and tense vowels are redundantly bimoraic. Closed syllable laxing is

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a common process cross-linguistically. For example, it is found in Canadian French (e.g.,

Walker 1984, Rose and dos Santos 2008), Ngaju Dayak (Austronesian; Brunelle and

Riehl 2003); see also Hammond 1997 as well as Bermúdez-Otero and McMahon 2006

for discussion of English. Evidence from closed syllable laxing suggests that tense

vowels often pattern as two morae. Thus, the representations in (8) and (9) are possible

surface representations without the implication that quantity is underlying. This is shown

in (10). VV indicates bimoraicity and V monomoraicity. In my account of Persian

vowels, [lax] is absent, so [lax] in (10) can be in fact replaced by [ ], which shows no

specification for tenseness. For the sake of clarity, I put [lax].

(10) [tense] → VV

[lax] → V

I should note that I do not suggest that in Persian tense vowels necessarily project two

morae and lax ones one mora, that is, I do not suggest that we should see the surface

mora-projection effect all the time. What I suggest is that the process can potentially be

accounted for based on underlying tenseness and mora-projection on the surface. As I

will show, we see this surface effect only to some extent in the language considering

discussions in chapters 4, 5, and 6.

As for the choice of e (and sometimes a and o) as epenthetic vowel, I argued in 3.5 that

these three vowels are structurally less complex than the other vowels. Thus a tense-

based account can explain the choice of epenthetic vowel in Persian and there is no need

to appeal to a quantitative analysis in this respect.

4.3. A question about epenthesis

So far, I have shown that where epenthesis is possible, it could be a potential argument

for quantity, but a tense-based analysis can account for the process without an appeal to

underlying quantity.

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A question that arises is: why does only a limited number of words allow epenthesis, as

discussed in section 4.1? That is, if the occurrence of epenthesis is related to the prosodic

structure of the root, why in most cases is no epenthesis found in suffixed words whose

roots have the required structure? In fact, the number of words with CVlax CC, CVtenseC,

CVtenseCC root structure which do not show epenthesis is by far larger than the number of

those with these structures which show it. Thus, on the one hand, all the cases which

allow epenthesis have one of these structures, and, on the other hand, most of the words

which have one of these structures do not allow epenthesis.

In order to determine whether the conditions under which epenthesis occurs are

systematic I examine a variety of factors including frequency, productivity of the

suffixes, and type of clusters created at a stem-suffix boundary (4.5), and I also

investigate the historical status of the suffixes and the suffixed forms (4.6). But before

discussing these, in section 4.4. I present an overview of Persian suffixes.

4.4. An overview of Persian suffixes

Epenthesis is possible with a group of stress-bearing suffixes. This group is a part of a

large number of stress-bearing suffixes. With other stress-bearing suffixes and also with

non-stress-bearing suffixes, epenthesis does not occur no matter what vowel is present in

the stem. Thus, with stress-bearing and non-stress-bearing suffixes, no particular

difference is observed with respect to epenthesis. With the stress-bearing suffixes (see

Appendix 2 for a full list of suffixes and examples), epenthesis may occur with some

roots with some suffixes. It is worthwhile to examine the range of suffixes although the

only relevant ones for the topic under discussion are consonant-initial suffixes following

C- and CC-final stems. A list of Persian suffixes is given in (11) and (12). I consider

stress as the criterion for dividing the suffixes into two categories.37F

38

38 There is disagreement about some of these suffixes regarding their status as derivational or inflectional. For example, the nominal plural markers, and the comparative and superlative markers are considered as inflectional by Kalbasi (1992) but derivational by Kahnemuyipour (2000). Dividing them by stress, which is sufficient for my purpose, allows me to avoid discussion of controversies in this respect.

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(11) Non-stress-bearing suffixes

(i) indefinite article -i

(ii) relative particle -i

(iii) specificity marker -rɑ (in speech: -ro, -o)

(iv) Ezafe vowel -e39

(v) pronominal enclitics (e.g., genitive markers -am, -at, etc.)

(12) Stress-bearing suffixes

(i) nominal plural markers (-hɑ, -ɑn)40

(ii) comparative and superlative markers (-tar, -tarin)

(iii) definite marker -e

(iv) noun-forming suffix -i

(v) adjective-forming suffix -i

(vi) a large number of suffixes including (some of these have other functions):

- locative: -ɡɑh, -zɑr, -kade

- diminutive: -ʧe, -ak

- agentive: -bɑn, -ɡar

- attributive: -mɑn, -nɑk, -vɑr, -vaʃ

39 For Ezafe see 2.2.2.1.2 (footnote 13). 40 There are also plural markers ɑt, ʤɑt, in, un most of which are from Arabic and are not as frequently used (e.g., ɑt: hejvɑn ‘animal’ and hejvɑn-ɑt ‘animal (pl.)’, maɢɑle ‘article’ and maɢɑlɑt ‘articles’; ʤɑt: sabzi-ʤɑt ‘vegetable (pl.)’; in: mosɑfer -in ‘traveller (pl.)’; un: rohɑni -j-un ‘clergyman (pl.)’). Among these, -ɑt is the most frequent. I leave them aside.

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The suffixes in (12vi) are of interest for this discussion as suffixed forms which show

epenthesis contain one of these suffixes (e.g., kɑr-ɡar ~ kɑr-e-ɡar ‘worker’, ʃɑd-mɑn ~ ʃɑd-e-mɑn ‘happy, joyful’). Some examples were given above and more examples will be

given below (see Appendix 2 for the full list).

I present below the non-stress-bearing suffixes and some examples followed by the

stress-bearing suffixes which do not show epenthesis. Note that some of these suffixes

start with vowels and therefore no cluster is created. I include them here simply to

provide the full list of suffixes. For each suffix, I give examples of CVlaxC, CVtenseC,

CVlaxCC, CVtenseCC structures. For example, consider (13). (13a) shows two examples of

CVC, one with a tense vowel (i.e., bɑɢ ‘garden’) and the other with a lax vowel (i.e., ɡol ‘flower’); and (13b) shows two examples of CVCC, one with a tense vowel (i.e., dust ‘friend’) and the other with a lax vowel (i.e., toxm ‘seed’).

Let us first look at examples of the non-stress-bearing suffixes.

(13) -i indefinite article

a. CVC bɑɢ ‘garden’ bɑɢ-i ‘a garden’

ɡol ‘flower’ ɡol-i ‘a flower’

b. CVCC dust ‘friend’ dust-i ‘a friend’

toxm ‘seed’ toxm-i ‘a seed’

(14) -rɑ specificity marker (-ro in speech and usually -o after consonants)

a. CVC bɑɢ ‘garden’ bɑɢ rɑ ‘the garden’ ~ bɑɢ-o

ɡol ‘flower’ ɡol rɑ ‘the flower’ ~ ɡol-o

b. CVCC dust ‘friend’ dust rɑ ‘the friend’ ~ dust-o

toxm ‘seed’ toxm rɑ ‘the seed’ ~ toxm-o

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(15) -e Ezafe

a. CVC bɑɢ ‘garden’ bɑɢ-e bozorɡ ‘big garden’

ɡol ‘flower’ ɡol-e zibɑ ‘beautiful flower’

b. CVCC dust ‘friend’ dust-e xub ‘good friend’

toxm ‘seed’ toxm-e ɑftɑbɡardɑn ‘sunflower seed’

(16) -am, -et, -eʃ, -emun, -etun, -eʃun genitive markers

a. CVC bɑɢ ‘garden’ bɑɢ-eʃ ‘her garden’

ɡol ‘flower’ ɡol-etun ‘your flower’

b. CVCC dust ‘friend’ dust-emun ‘our friend’

toxm ‘seed’ toxm-eʃ ‘its seed’

Now I look at examples of the stress-bearing suffixes.

(17) -hɑ and -ɑn plural markers (note: /h/ in hɑ usually is deleted after

consonants in informal speech)

a. CVC bɑɢ ‘garden’ bɑɢ-hɑ ‘gardens’ ~ bɑɢ-ɑ

ɡol ‘flower’ ɡol-hɑ ‘flowers’ ~ ɡol-ɑ

b. CVCC dust ‘friend’ dust-hɑ / dust-ɑn ‘friends’ ~ dust-ɑ

toxm ‘seed’ toxm-hɑ ‘seeds’ ~ toxm-ɑ

Here a CC or CCC (at syllable margin) is created when /h/ is pronounced.

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(18) -tar and –tarin comparative and superlative markers

Note that I have to change the above words to be meaningful given these suffixes.

a. CVC pɑk ‘pure’ pɑk-tar ‘purer’ pɑk-tarin ‘purest’

kaʤ ‘crooked’ kaʤ-tar ‘more crooked’ kaʤ-tarin ‘most

crooked’

b. CVCC

rɑst ‘true, right (direction)’

rɑst-tar ‘more towards right’ (one of the /t/’s may not be pronounced)

rɑst-tarin ‘the most truthful, the one most towards right’

xoʃk ‘dry’ xoʃk-tar ‘drier’ xoʃk-tarin ‘driest’

Here a CC or CCC (at syllable margin) is created.

(19) -e definite marker

a. CVC bɑɢ ‘garden’ bɑɢ-e ‘the garden’

ɡol ‘flower’ ɡol-e ‘the flower’

b. CVCC dust ‘friend’ dust-e ‘the friend’

toxm ‘seed’ toxm-e ‘the seed’

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(20) -i noun-forming

I have to change some words here to be meaningful.

a. CVC pɑk ‘pure’ pɑk-i ‘purity’

kar ‘deaf’ kar-i ‘deafness’

b. CVCC dust ‘friend’ dust-i ‘friendship’

ɡarm ‘warm’ ɡarm-i ‘warmth’

(21) -i adjective-forming

a. CVC kuh ‘mountain’ kuh-i ‘pertaining to mountain’

mes ‘copper’ mes-i ‘made of copper’

b. CVCC pust ‘skin’ pust-i ‘pertaining to skin’

ʃaxs ‘person’ ʃaxs-i ‘personal’

If one classifies the suffixes in (13)-(21) in terms of their initial sound, two groups are

observed: vowel initial and consonant initial. The consonant-initial suffixes are of interest

here.41

With consonant-initial suffixes (i.e., rɑ/ro, hɑ, tar/tarin):

→ nothing happens if the root ends in a vowel

→ /r/ in ro or /h/ in hɑ (but not /t/ in tar/tarin) may be deleted

if the root ends in a consonant (in the case of /t/ in

41 With vowel-initial suffixes, an epenthetic glide or glottal stop may be inserted if the roots end in a vowel, or the hiatus is tolerated.

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tar/tarin, when the root also ends in /t/, one /t/ may be

heard)

Now let us consider the roots and suffixes to see whether some particular roots or

suffixes show epenthesis more than others. There are not particular roots which always

force epenthesis. Consider the following examples:

(22) kɑr ‘work’

epenthesis OK: kɑr + ɡar → kɑ.re.ɡar ~ kɑr.ɡar ‘worker’

no epenthesis: kɑr + ɡɑh → kɑr.ɡɑh ‘workshop, atelier’

*kɑ.re.ɡɑh

no epenthesis: kɑr + mand → kɑr.mand ‘employee’

*kɑ.re.mand

(23) bɑɢ ‘garden’

epenthesis OK: bɑɢ + bɑn → bɑ.ɢe.bɑn ~ bɑɢ.bɑn ‘gardener’

no epenthesis: bɑɢ + ʧe → bɑɢ.ʧe *bɑ.ɢe.ʧe ‘small garden’

Also, it is not the case that particular suffixes always show epenthesis. Consider the

examples in (24), which include roots of CVtenseC form followed by the suffix

-bɑn.

(24) -bɑn pɑs ‘guard duty’+ bɑn → pɑs.bɑn ~ pɑ.se.bɑn ‘police officer’

bɑɢ ‘garden’ + bɑn → bɑɢ.bɑn ~ bɑ.ɢe.bɑn ‘gardener’

Epenthesis is not found in other cases with roots of the same structure and the same

suffix:

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(25) miz ‘table’ + bɑn → miz.bɑn ‘host/hostess’ *mi.ze.bɑn

nɑv ‘naval vessel’ + bɑn → nɑv.bɑn ‘lieutenant (in the navy)’

*nɑ.ve.bɑn

Now consider the suffix -ɡar. Epenthesis may occur with roots of CVtenseC form followed

by this suffix, as (26) shows.

(26) -ɡar kɑr ‘work’+ ɡar → kɑr.ɡar ~ kɑ.re.ɡar ‘worker’

But the same root structure and the same suffix do not always allow epenthesis:

(27) dɑd ‘justice’ + ɡar → dɑd.ɡar ‘just, fair’ *dɑ.de.ɡar

There are some suffixes which seem to show more of a tendency towards epenthesis. For

example, the suffix -mɑn in (28) and -ɡɑr in (29).

(28) -mɑn ʃɑd ‘happy’ + mɑn → ʃɑd.mɑn ~ ʃɑ.de.mɑn ‘happy, joyful’

sɑz ‘present stem of sɑxtan ‘to build’ + mɑn → sɑz.mɑn ~

sɑ.ze.mɑn ‘organization’

ɢahr ‘wrath, anger’ + mɑn → ɢah.re.mɑn ‘hero’

sɑxt ‘past stem of sɑxtan ‘to build’ + mɑn → sɑx.te.mɑn

‘building’

(however, cf. ris (from risidan ‘to spin wool or cotton’)+ mɑn → ris.mɑn

‘rope, string’ *ri.se.mɑn)

(29) -ɡɑr ɑ.muz ‘present stem of ɑmuxtan ‘to learn sth, to teach sth to sb’’+ ɡɑr

→ ɑ.muz.ɡɑr ~ ɑ.mu.ze.ɡɑr ‘teacher’

jɑd ‘memory’+ ɡɑr → jɑd.ɡɑr ~ jɑ.de.ɡɑr ‘memento’

rast ‘past stem of rastan ‘to find relief’’+ ɡɑr → rast.ɡɑr ~

ras.te.ɡɑr ‘salvaged’

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mɑnd ‘past stem of mɑndan ‘to last’’+ ɡɑr → mɑn.de.ɡɑr

‘lasting’

(however, cf. par.hiz ‘avoidance’ + ɡɑr → par.hiz.ɡɑr ‘devout’ *par.hi.ze.ɡɑr)

Other suffixes show less of a tendency towards epenthesis, as shown by the suffixes in

(30) and (31):

(30) -ɡɑh xɑb ‘sleep’ + ɡɑh → xɑb.ɡɑh ‘dormitory’ *xɑ.be.ɡɑh

ist ‘stop’+ ɡɑh → ist.ɡɑh ‘station’ *is.te.ɡɑh

ɡo.riz ‘escape’+ ɡɑh → ɡo.riz.ɡɑh ‘hideaway’ *ɡo.ri.ze.ɡɑh

ɑrɑm ‘calm’ + ɡɑh → ɑ.rɑm.ɡɑh ‘grave’ *ɑ.rɑ.me.ɡɑh

part (from part kardan ‘to throw’) + ɡɑh → part.ɡɑh ‘cliff’

*par.te.ɡɑh

(however, cf. pɑ(j) ‘foot’+ ɡɑh → pɑj.ɡɑh ~ pɑ.je.ɡɑh ‘base’)

(31) -nɑk suz ‘mental anguish’+ nɑk → suz.nɑk ‘mournful, sad’

*su.ze.nɑk

bim ‘fear’ + nɑk → bim.nɑk ‘fearful’ *bi.me.nɑk

ʧasb + nɑk → ʧasb.nɑk ‘sticky’ *ʧas.be.nɑk

dard ‘pain’ + nɑk → dard.nɑk ‘painful’ *dar.de.nɑk

xaʃm ‘anger’+ nɑk → xaʃm.nɑk ‘angry’ *xaʃ.me.nɑk

(ʔ)an.duh ‘sadness’ + nɑk → (ʔ)an.duh.nɑk ‘sad’

*(ʔ)an.du.he.nɑk

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To sum up, one cannot find any particular pattern in cases where epenthesis occurs by

looking at suffixes and roots. All that can be said is that (i) there are suffixes with which

epenthesis almost never occurs regardless of the structure of the root. This set includes

most suffixes of the language, including: -bɑr, -ʧe, -ʧi, -dɑn, -dis, -zɑr, -sɑr, -sɑn, -kɑr, -kade, -ɡun, -ɡin, -nɑk, -vaʃ; (ii) with the suffixes -ɡar and -bɑn, in a few cases

epenthesis occurs and in most cases it does not; (iii) there are a few suffixes which show

epenthesis more frequently compared to other suffixes. These suffixes are -mɑn and -ɡɑr. The list of words which shows epenthesis contains other suffixes, as seen in the

examples. But the number of the epenthesis-containing cases with these four suffixes

(i.e., -mɑn, -ɡɑr, -ɡar and -bɑn) is higher.

Note that there are words like parɡɑr ‘a pair of compasses’ where the analysis is not

clear. A root par ‘feather’ exists as a word but whether parɡɑr is a suffixed form of it is a

question. A similar example is darmɑn ‘treatment’. Is it composed of dar ‘door’ and the

suffix -mɑn? I leave aside these and other shaky cases and rely on what is clearly a root

followed by a suffix.

In addition, note that in Persian, the present stems of infinitives are used as suffixes.

Epenthesis is not found in such cases. Some examples follow:

(32) ʤostan ‘to look for’ ʤu present stem

a. dɑ.neʃ ‘knowledge’ + ʤu → dɑ.neʃ.ʤu ‘student’

b. razm ‘war’ + ʤu → razm.ʤu ‘warrior’

c. par.xɑʃ ‘aggression’ + ʤu → par.xɑʃ.ʤu ‘aggressive’

d. ma.dad ‘help’ + ʤu → ma.dad.ʤu ‘someone needing help’

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(33) baxʃidan ‘to give/donate’ baxʃ present stem

a. samar ‘fruit, result’ + baxʃ → sa.mar. baxʃ ‘fruitful, effective’

b. neʤɑt ‘rescue’ + baxʃ → ne.ʤɑt.baxʃ ‘rescuer’

(34) dɑʃtan ‘to have’ dɑr present stem

a. mehmɑn ‘guest’ + dɑr → meh.mɑn.dɑr ‘hostess’

b. bɑɢ ‘garden’ + dɑr → bɑɢ.dɑr ‘owner of a garden’

c. bɑr ‘load, burden, fruit’ + dɑr → bɑr.dɑr ‘pregnant’

(35) ɡeravidan ‘to adopt a belief, faith, etc.’ ɡerɑ present stem

a. ʧap ‘left + ɡerɑ → ʧap.ɡerɑ ‘leftist’

b. din ‘religion’ + ɡerɑ → din.ɡerɑ ‘religious’

c. fard ‘individual’ + ɡerɑ → fard.ɡerɑ ‘individualist’

d. rɑst ‘right’ + ɡerɑ → rɑst.ɡerɑ ‘rightist’

In conclusion, given the list of suffixes and the large number of words which take these

suffixes, the number of cases where epenthesis is possible is very limited. There is a short

list of words with which epenthesis occurs. A much longer list exists of those which do

not show epenthesis with the same root structure. This might suggest that epenthesis does

not productively occur because if it does, more cases might be expected to show it.

In order to determine whether the conditions under which epenthesis occurs are

systematic, in section 4.5 I examine several factors, namely types of consonant clusters

created at a stem-suffix boundary when epenthesis occurs, productivity of suffixes, and

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frequency of suffixes and the suffixed forms under study, arguing that none of these

offers an account. What is systematic is that it is never found with VlaxC-C structures

while it is possible with VlaxCC-C, VtenseC-C, and VtenseCC-C structures.

4.5. Cluster types, productivity of suffixes, and frequency

In this section, I discuss the following: in 4.5.1. the cluster types created at a suffix

boundary, where the epenthesis may occur and the productivity of suffixes will be

discussed; in 4.5.2, the frequency of suffixes and suffixed forms will be examined.

4.5.1. Cluster types and productivity of suffixes

I begin the discussion with clusters which may occur at stem-suffix boundaries. It could

be the case that particular sequences of consonants force epenthesis. However, the data

shows that there is no particular tendency in terms of the clusters created in suffixation in

cases where epenthesis occurs. The following combinations, among others, are observed:

(36) With m-initial suffix, words with final: z, t, r, j, d, ʤ

With b-initial suffix, words with final: s, ɢ, r

With ɡ-initial suffix, words with final: d, z, t, r, j

It might be asked whether productivity of suffixes has a role in conditioning epenthesis.

There is no particular correlation between the productivity of a suffix and its tendency to

show the vowel in suffixation. Consider, for instance, the four suffixes with which more

cases of epenthesis are found (i.e., -ɡar, -bɑn, -ɡɑr, -mɑn). According to Kalbasi (1992),

the first three are productive, in particular -ɡar, and -bɑn are very productive. Kalbasi

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considers the suffix -mɑn to be unproductive.42

With respect to productivity of the

suffixes and its relation to epenthesis, it should be noted that there are several other

productive suffixes (again according to Kalbasi 1992) which do not show epenthesis,

such as -kade, -ɡɑh, -ʧe, -dɑn, etc. Thus, no particular pattern is seen with respect to

productivity.

4.5.2. Frequency of suffixes and the suffixed forms

It might also be asked whether the suffixed forms which show epenthesis occur more

frequently than their root on its own. In this case the dominant pattern, the non-epenthesis

pattern, would not affect them as they would have their own pattern due to their being

more frequent than their root. The frequency of these forms is worth studying because

there are sound changes which affect words of low frequency and those of high frequency

differently, as discussed in the literature (e.g., Phillips 1984, Bybee and Hopper 2001,

Antilla 2006, Kang 2003, 2005, 2007). Intuitively, it does not seem that a frequency

effect plays a role in epenthesis in Persian, but to confirm whether this intuition is

correct, I performed a Google search on the words which show epenthesis and their root

to see how frequent they are in order to compare their frequencies.

Googling in Persian turns out to be very unreliable in this regard for the following reason:

it is not possible to limit the Google search to the word under study. I give a few

examples here. When one googles a word like pɑs to be compared to pɑsbɑn ~ pɑsebɑn

‘police officer’ to see which one is more frequent, in addition to the Persian word, the

loan word pɑs ‘pass’, which has entered the language with the meanings ‘pass a ball (in

soccer, etc.)’ and ‘pass a course’, also appears. The same happens when one googles the

Persian word rast the past stem of rastan ‘to find relief’ to be compared to rastɡɑr ~

42 It seems to me that the suffix -mɑn is used in forming new words, but this needs to be investigated. In a recent dictionary, Emami 2006, (recent compared to the time Kalbasi’s book was published, 1992), the word ɡoftemɑn ‘dialogue’ (consist of ɡoft ‘past stem of ɡoftan ‘to tell’ followed by -mɑn) is considered as a new word –the dictionary shows new words with an ‘N’ in Persian script.

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rasteɡɑr ‘salvaged’. The result of googling rast also includes rost as in rost bif ‘roast

beef’. This is because in Persian the vowels a, e, o are not written (except for rare cases

mostly for beginners, as previously noted in 2.2.2.3). Similarly, the result of mehr ‘kindness’ to be compared to mehrbɑn ~ mehrabɑn ‘kind’ includes the Persian words

mohr ‘stamp’ and mahr ‘a sum of money that the bridegroom undertakes to pay the

bride’. The result of googling the word kɑr ‘work’ to be compared to kɑrɡar ~ kɑreɡar ‘worker’ includes compounds or suffixed forms which contain kɑr.

Another problem is that some of the roots are the present stem of a verb and therefore are

almost never used on their own. For example, ɑmuz in ɑmuzɡɑr ~ ɑmuzeɡɑr ‘teacher’ is

the present stem of the infinitive ɑmuxtan ‘to learn something, to teach something to

somebody’ and is always used in combination with a root or is used as a suffix (compare

ɑmuzɡɑr ~ ɑmuzeɡɑr, in which ɑmuz is the root with dɑneʃ-ɑmuz ‘student’ which

consists of dɑneʃ ‘knowledge’ and ɑmuz). There are some words with more than one

meaning such as sɑz, and the suffixed forms under study here are not attributed to all of

them. In addition, epenthetic vowels are not written. I will not belabor these cases. The

point is that finding root frequency in the Persian cases is not straightforward due to

various problems, some of which were noted above.

I present, in (37), a few examples of the results which I got through googling some words

in their Persian script (Persian google). The googling was done in fall 2009. The suffixed

forms given below all allow epenthesis. I do not include the epenthetic vowel here as it

does not appear in the Persian script. Note that different times of googling at different

days may give slightly different results in terms of numbers shown for a word, so the

numbers are approximate.

(37) The word in Persian script Google search

a. bɑɢ ‘garden’ 2,470,000

bɑɢbɑn ‘gardener’ 125,000

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b. pɑs ‘watch, guard duty’ 1,830,000

pɑsbɑn ‘policeman’ 70,000

c. jɑd ‘memory’ 8,270,000

jɑdɡɑr ‘memento’ 2,320,000

d. kɑr ‘work’ 23,700,000

kɑrɡar ‘worker’ 2,190,000

e. arʤ ‘value, appreciation’ 1,080,000

arʤmand ‘valuable, appreciated’ 887,000

f. parvard ‘created, nurtured ‘past stem’’ 22,500

parvardɡɑr ‘creator ‘used for God’’ 485,000

g. sɑz ‘a musical instrument, 6,270,000

the present stem of sɑxtan ‘to build, to structure’,

the present stem of sɑxtan ‘to be compatible with’’

sɑzmɑn ‘organization’ 10,700,000

sɑzɡɑr ‘compatible’ 692,000

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The data presented above show different patterns. In (a-e), the frequency of the root is

more than that of the suffixed form. In (f), the direction is the opposite, with the root

less frequent than the suffixed form. In (g), the root is more frequent than one of the

suffixed forms but less frequent than the other. Cases like (g) show that the suffixed

forms can have less or greater frequency than the root. The same result can be obtained

from comparing (a-e) with (f). But basically the problem is that the numbers

themselves, in particular those obtained for roots, are not reliable due to the points

discussed above. Therefore, I do not go through more details about this google search.

The fact that in Persian a, e, o are not written is also problematic. The words pɑsbɑn and

pɑsebɑn are both written the same way (no –e occurs in writing) so unless these two

words are pronounced one cannot tell which one is meant. The same is true for kɑrɡar ~ kɑreɡar ‘worker’, ʃɑdmɑn ~ ʃɑdemɑn ‘joyful’, and all other words with two versions. In

order to be able to distinguish between the two versions, I googled these words in their

so-called Pinglish (Persian-English: Persian words written in English script). Pinglish

has an advantage in this case: the –e is present in written forms so one can tell the

difference between, for example, kɑrɡar and kɑreɡar ‘worker’. The result of this test,

although more helpful than the Persian googling, was not entirely reliable either. As

when one googles, for example, ʃɑdemɑn ‘joyful’ to be compared to its without-

epenthesis counterpart ʃɑdmɑn, the English ‘shade man’ also appears in the result.

Another example is kɑrɡar which also includes cases like Kar Gar, the name of a person

on Twitter. The Pinglish googling does not show a particular pattern regarding the

frequency of the with-epenthesis versions as opposed to the without-epenthesis versions.

As seen below, there are some words for which the frequency of the without-epenthesis

version is higher than the one of their non-epenthesis counterpart and there are some

words which show the opposite direction. Compare (38) with (39). I first give each

word’s Pinglish and then the IPA transcription.

(38) a. shadman /ʃɑdmɑn/ 529,000 ‘happy, joyful’

shademan /ʃɑdemɑn/ 269,000

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b. kargar /kɑrɡar/ 128,000 ‘worker’

karegar /kɑreɡar/ 38,000

(39) a. arjmand /arʤmand/ 41,000 ‘appreciated, valued’

arjomand /arʤomand/ 67,400

b. amuzgar /ɑmuzɡɑr/ 11,500 ‘teacher’

amuzegar /ɑmuzeɡɑr/ 88,500

Note that there is a complication here about Pinglish itself. There is no standard way of

writing in Pinglish. For example, the word ‘shadman’ can also be written ‘shaadmaan’ as

ɑ is sometimes written as aa to be distinguished from a, which is written as a. The

google result for ‘shaadmaan’ is 3,170, and for ‘shaademaan’ is 45. I gave the above

examples with their most common Pinglish. Many of these words which are found in

their Pinglish forms are last names or proper names in general and therefore more seen

with one a for both a and ɑ. Similarly, u can be written as oo or ou (e.g., ruz ‘day’ can

be written as rouz or rooz).

Returning to the results of googling, the result of each of the words under study may

include words which were not meant to be counted in the googling results. The fact that

no pattern is observed in the suffixed words with two versions in terms of frequency of

one version being higher than the other version is intuitively confirmed as there are some

words whose with-epenthesis version is more frequent (e.g., ɢahremɑn is intuitively by

far more frequent in speech than ɢahrmɑn and the Pinglish google search confirms this:

‘gahrman’ 2,490, and ‘gahreman’ 21,400). But again, the google search for the Persian

data does not give us reliable results. In addition to the problems pointed out so far, it is

not clear how many of these words in the google search are based on Standard Persian

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spoken in Iran, which is the focus in my study, and how many are based on Dari and

Tajik or other related languages and dialects spoken inside or outside Iran.

Another search that I did through googling was to compare suffixed words with the same

root but different suffixes, some of which are given below, to see if a pattern in terms of

frequency is observed. That is, I consider two suffixed forms for a root. One of these

suffixed forms shows epenthesis and the other does not. This is done to see whether a

particular pattern is observed between the forms with epenthesis and the ones without it. I

did this both with google search with Persian script (that is the method I used for (37)), as

well as with the Pinglish search (as in (38) and (39)). (40) and (41) show the Persian

google search, and (42) and (43) show the Pinglish search of the same words. Note that

the suffixed form given in (a) for each word is one which can take epenthesis and the

suffixed forms given in (b), (c), etc. are those which do not show epenthesis. For the

Pinglish results, I show two numbers. The first one is the number for the form without

epenthesis and the second one is the one for the form with the epenthetic vowel.

(40) bɑɢ Google search (in Persian script)

a. bɑɢbɑn/ bɑɢebɑn ‘gardener’ 125,000

b. bɑɢdɑr ‘sb who owns a garden’ 24,500

c. bɑɢʧe ‘small garden’ 818,000

(41) kɑr Google search (in Persian script)

a. kɑrɡar/kɑreɡar ‘worker’ 2,190,000

b. kɑrmand ‘employee’ 1,550,000

c. kɑrɡɑh ‘atelier, workshop’ 2,320,000

d. kɑrdɑr ‘chargé d’affaires’ 45,800

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(42) bɑɢ Pinglish search

a. bɑɢbɑn/ bɑɢebɑn ‘gardener’ baghban/bagheban 144,000/3,810

b. bɑɢdɑr ‘sb who owns a garden’ baghdar 9,050

c. bɑɢʧe ‘small garden’ baghche/baghcheh43

48,200/29,200

(43) kɑr Pinglish search

a. kɑrɡar/kɑreɡar ‘worker’ kargar/karegar 128,000/38,000

b. kɑrmand ‘employee’ karmand 50,700

c. kɑrɡɑh ‘atelier, workshop’ kargah 38,900

d. kɑrdɑr ‘chargé d’affaires’ kardar 115,000

As the examples show, there is no correlation between the frequency of the words and the

possibility of the occurrence of epenthesis. For example, in (40), the word

bɑɢbɑn/bɑɢebɑn is more frequent than one of the words which do not show epenthesis

(i.e., bɑɢdɑr) but less frequent than the other which does not show epenthesis (i.e.,

bɑɢʧe).

I should note that I also looked at Persian corpora (e.g., Hamshahri corpus (2008),

Bijankhan corpus (2007)). None of them could be considered as a source for my search

because they were based on limited data and also on written Persian (e.g., magazines,

newspapers, etc.), which is not my main focus in this study and as discussed, written

Persian does not show the epenthetic e.

43 In Persian, the words which end in –e are written with a silent –h at the end. In Pinglish, both with-silent h and without-h versions are observed so I searched both versions for the Pinglish of the word bɑɢʧe.

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As shown, one cannot build a strong argument based on frequency obtained through a

google search and Persian corpora for epenthesis in suffixation.

So far I have discussed suffixes and the suffixed forms synchronically and shown that

types of clusters, productivity of suffixes and frequency do not provide an account for

epenthesis. Next I examine epenthesis from an historical viewpoint. I argue that historical

investigation offers an account for some suffixed forms which show epenthesis but

cannot fully explain the process.

4.6. Epenthesis in suffixation: a historical perspective

In this section I look into the historical background of the suffixed forms which show

epenthesis. Given that, as I will show below, there are present-day consonant-initial

suffixes which were historically vowel-initial, one may ask whether the suffixes with

which epenthesis may occur today had –e in their initial position in their historical forms,

and then lost their initial –e and became consonant-initial. Under this account, the –e

which is observed today is a consequence of the historical form of these suffixes. This is

a possible explanation for epenthesis and therefore is worth studying.

I argue that the occurrence of –e cannot be fully explained historically. That is, looking at

the former forms of these suffixes in Middle Persian, it is not the case that the suffixes

which show –e today had –e in their initial position in the previous stages of the

language.

4.6.1. An historical investigation of suffixes and epenthesis in suffixed forms

In this section, I discuss historical forms of suffixes based on the following sources:

Kalbasi (1992), Farahvashi’s Middle Persian to Modern Persian dictionary (1967), and

Farahvashi’s Modern Persian to Middle Persian dictionary (1973). In Middle Persian, as

in Modern Persian, the vowels a, e, o were not shown in the script. Thus we cannot be

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entirely sure about the transcriptions given for the words where these vowels are

involved. This uncertainty is observed in various versions of the same word or suffix

found in different literature on Middle Persian, as seen below. In addition, not every word

in Middle Persian has a correspondent in Modern Persian; neither does every word in

Modern Persian have a correspondent in Middle Persian. Nonetheless, I look at these

sources to see what I can find with respect to suffixation. I first examine the suffixes to

present a general picture of the status of the suffixes in Middle Persian and its correlation

with their present status. As noted above, the reason that the earlier forms of these

suffixes are worthy of study is the existence of a vowel in initial position in some

suffixes. After some general observations about the suffixes, I will discuss the specific

cases which may show epenthesis in Modern Persian to see if I find an explanation for

epenthesis by comparing these particular words with their former correspondents. As

argued below, it seems that there is no correlation between the occurrence of the vowel

before the suffix in the present time and its occurrence in the past. It suffices to give some

examples of these suffixes.

According to Kalbasi (1992), the present suffix -zɑr was formerly -ezār/-iʧār/-ēʧār. This

suffix does not show the initial vowel today, as in (44) and (45).

(44) Middle Persian Modern Persian

kār-ezār / kār-iʧār / kār-ēʧār kɑr-zɑr ‘the field for battle’

The word kɑr means ‘work’ today. Historically, it meant ‘work’ and ‘battle’. In the word

kɑr-zɑr the meaning of kɑr as ‘battle’ is retained.

However, note that in addition to the above example, the Middle Persian Farahvashi

dictionary show cases of the suffix -zɑr as former -zār.

(45) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. ɡul-zār ɡol-zɑr ‘flower field’ (ɡol ‘flower’)

b. kiʃt-zār keʃt-zɑr ‘farm’ (keʃt ‘planting’)

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With respect to the present suffix -zɑr, it seems that it had both vowel-initial and

consonant-initial versions in Middle Persian. In Modern Persian, no vowel is seen before

this suffix even in the case where there was an initial vowel in Middle Persian.

Now consider the suffix -nɑk. The present suffix -nɑk was formerly -ēnɑk but it does not

show the initial vowel today.

(46) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. tars-ēnɑk tars.nɑk ‘scary’ (tars ‘fear’)

b. bīm-ēnɑk bim.nɑk ‘fearful’ (bim ‘fear’)

Now consider the following suffixes which did not have an initial vowel in Middle

Persian but may show the –e today:

The present suffix -bɑn had the form -bān/-pān in Middle Persian but it may show an

epenthetic vowel today, as in (47):

(47) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. bāɣ-pān bɑɢ-bɑn ~ bɑɢ-e-bɑn ‘gardener’ (bɑɢ ‘garden’)

b. pās-pān pɑs.bɑn ~ pɑs-e-bɑn ‘policeman’ (pɑs ‘watch,

guard duty’)

There are cases such as the following in which the vowel occurs with -bɑn neither in its

earlier version nor in its current one.

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(48) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. myazd-pān miz-bɑn ‘host/ess’ (miz ‘table’)44

b. marz-pān marz-bɑn ‘border guard’ (marz ‘border’)

Thus, as the data in (44)-(48) show, there is not necessarily a relation between the

occurrence of the vowel before the suffix in the present time and its presence in the

earlier form. That is, there are some suffixes which were vowel initial but they do not

show the vowel today. There were some which were not vowel initial but show the vowel

today. And there are some suffixes which show the vowel neither historically nor

synchronically. This is the general case with suffixes.

Now let us examine some specific words which show epenthesis today and trace them

back to Middle Persian. Looking at the actual words found in the two dictionaries by

Farahvashi, the following cases are found. There are words with a vowel at the stem-

suffix boundary, there are cases where there is not a vowel, and there are cases where

both are found. It is possible that more variation might have existed, but was not recorded

in the sources.

There are some words which show the occurrence of epenthesis at a stem-suffix

boundary and it seems that this is a reflection of the historical situation. For example,

consider (49). I show the morphology and the epenthetic vowel for the current form of

these words in parentheses. The morphology of the historical form of these words will be

discussed shortly.

(49) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. arʤōmand arʤomand ‘valued’ (arʤ-o-mand)

b. kārīɡar/kārīkar kɑreɡar ‘worker’ (kɑr-e-ɡar)

44 The word myazd in Middle Persian meant anything edible which is put in religious ceremonies for people to eat (Farahvashi’s dictionary).

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In Modern Persian, these cases are interpreted as follows. In the case of arʤomand, it is

arʤ ‘value’ followed by the suffix mand, and therefore o is considered as an epenthetic

vowel. In Middle Persian, this suffix was in fact ōmand, which changed to mand over

time. See the following examples:

(50) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. xrat-ōmand xerad-mand ‘wise’ (xerad ‘wisdom’)

b. dard-ōmand dard-mand ‘suffered’ (dard ‘pain, suffer’)

c. hunar-ōmand honar-mand ‘artist’ (honar ‘art’)

d. sūt-ōmand sud-mand ‘beneficial’ (sud ‘benefit’)

e. hōʃ-ōmand huʃ-mand ‘intelligent’ (huʃ ‘intelligence’)

f. nijāz-ōmand nijɑz-mand ‘needy’ (nijɑz ‘need’)

g. kār-ōmand kɑr-mand ‘employee’ (kɑr ‘work’)

It seems reasonable to consider the vowel at the suffix boundary in arʤomand to be a

historical residue.

As for the case of kɑreɡar ‘worker’, it is now considered to consist of kɑr ‘work’

followed by -ɡar, and therefore e is considered to be an epenthetic vowel. As noted

above, this word was kārīɡar/kārīkar (the suffix -ɡar is also seen as -kar in Middle

Persian). But the word kɑr ‘work’ was formerly kār, so the question is: why is there a

vowel ī between kār and ɡar in kāriɡar? Did the suffix have the vowel i in its initial

position as the case was with *ōmand > mand? Middle Persian words such as following

suggest that the suffix was ɡar/kar in Middle Persian (and not īɡar/ īkar).

(51) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. dāt-kar dɑd-ɡar ‘just’ (dɑd ‘justice’)

b. āmār-kar ɑmɑr-ɡar ‘statistician’ (ɑmɑr ‘statistics’)

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c. āhan-ɡar ɑhan-ɡar ‘blacksmith’ (ɑhan ‘iron’)

d. zar-ɡar zar-ɡar ‘goldsmith’ (zar ‘gold’)

e. tuwān-ɡar tavɑn-ɡar ‘rich’ (tavɑn ‘power’)

None of these words have a vowel between the root and the suffix in Modern Persian.

According to Farahvashi’s dictionary, the structure of the word kāriɡar/kārikar was kār-īk(īɡ)-ar. Note that, īk/īɡ was the adjective-forming suffix which is –i today (e.g., bɑd ‘wind’; bɑdi ‘windy’). Middle Persian kārīk(īɡ) (kār+ īk) ‘hard working’ is kɑri (kɑr+i) today. The suffix –ar, according to Kalbasi, is an unproductive suffix today; it is

seen in the word anɡoʃt-ar ‘ring’ today (anɡoʃt ‘finger’) –she refers to Moin’s dictionary

saying that –ar was formerly -arīɡ. If these interpretations are correct, then the structure

we consider for kɑrɡar today to consist of kɑr + ɡar is different from what the word

historically is thought to be.

It is important to note that both arʤomand and kɑreɡar have forms which do not show

the vowel at the suffix boundary; that is, arʤ-mand and kɑr-ɡar. These cases where no

vowel is seen at the suffix boundary can be considered as reanalysis of the suffixation

process. That is, since the dominant pattern in Modern Persian is a tendency to not having

the vowel, the vowel, which is a historical residue in these cases, can be eliminated. Thus,

both versions are possible.

There are cases which have both versions today and, as the Middle Persian dictionaries

show, they were variable in Middle Persian too (kār ‘work, battle’). For example:

(52) Middle Persian Modern Persian

kāravān / kārvān / kāruvān kɑrvɑn / kɑrevɑn ‘caravan’

The v in this word in Middle Persian is also written with w. Kalbasi considers this suffix

to be –awān in Middle Persian, and to be unproductive today. In this case, the optional

occurrence of the vowel at the stem-suffix boundary can be related to its former forms.

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There are cases where both versions in Middle Persian existed but only one of them is

used today (ʤān ‘soul, life’).

(53) Middle Persian Modern Persian

ʤānvar / ʤānavar ʤɑnevar ‘animal’

But note that other cases of the occurrence of this suffix show the vowel at the suffix

boundary neither in Middle Persian nor in Modern Persian.

(54) Middle Persian

a. mizd-war ‘mercenary’ mizd ‘wage’

b. varz-var ‘farmer’ varz ‘farm’

c. ɡēs-var ‘having long hair’ ɡēs ‘long hair’

d. ɡanʤ-war ‘treasurer’ ɡanʤ ‘treasure’

The suffixed forms of these words are not used in Modern Persian. For mizd-war, there

exists mozdur ‘mercenary’ (*mizd ‘wage’ > mozd) today, but according to Kalbasi, -ur

is a suffix on its own as seen in ranʤ ‘torture’ and ranʤur ‘tortured’; nam ‘dampness’

namur ‘damp’. As for the roots given above, three of them are common in Modern

Persian, mozd ‘wage’ (formerly mizd), ɡis ‘long hair’(formerly ɡēs), and ɡanʤ

‘treasure’ (formerly also ɡanʤ). The root varz ‘farm’, now barz, is used only in suffixed

form.

In Modern Persian, the suffixed forms of some words with the suffix –var are as follows.

As (55) shows, no epenthesis occurs.

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(55) Modern Persian

a. soxan-var ‘fine speaker’ soxan ‘speech’

b. nɑm-var ‘famous’ nɑm ‘name, fame’

c. bɑr-var ‘fruitful’ bɑr ‘fruit’

So the presence of the vowel in the word ʤɑnevar ‘animal’ (ʤɑn ‘soul, life’+var) is best

considered to be a historical residue.45

The cases that were just discussed, including kɑrevɑn ‘caravan’, arʤomand ‘valuable’,

kɑreɡar ‘worker’, and ʤɑnevar ‘animal’, may suggest that the epenthesis cases today

can be traced back to Middle Persian and therefore they are best treated as historical

residues. More examples in favor of this hypothesis are as follows:

(56) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. mitrā-pān /mihr-bān mehr-a-bɑn ~ mehr-bɑn ‘kind’

(mehr ‘kindness’)

b. dūtak-mān dud-e-mɑn ~ dud-mɑn ‘family’

In the case of *dutak-mān > dud-e-mɑn, I need to note that final -ak/aɡ in Middle

Persian changed to –e in Modern Persian (*dutak ‘family, lineage’ > dude). The form

dude is not used on its own today (if it is used it is in poetry or literary texts).

However, there are cases with the vowel at the suffix boundary in the present time which

cannot be historically explained. First there are words which did not have the vowel in

Middle Persian and now they may show it, as (57) shows.

45 The word ʤɑn followed by var is morphologically possible. In the experiment I did on the epenthesis in suffixation (see 4.7), a speaker asked that by ʤɑn + var (to be put together to form a suffixes form) whether I meant the word for ‘animal’, ʤɑnevar , or ʤɑn + var which could potentially result in ʤɑnvar to be a last name for instance as the speaker noted.

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(57) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. rōʧ-kār ruz-ɡɑr ~ ruz-e-ɡɑr ‘times’ (ruz ‘day’)

b. āmōʒ-kār ɑmuz-ɡɑr ~ ɑmuz-e-ɡɑr ‘teacher’

c. ajāt-kār jɑd-ɡɑr ~ jɑd-e-ɡɑr ‘memento’ (jɑd ‘memory’)

d. bāɣ-pān bɑɢ-bɑn ~ bɑɢ-e-bɑn ‘gardener’ (bɑɢ ‘garden’)

e. pās-pān pɑs.bɑn ~ pɑs-e-bɑn ‘policeman’ (pɑs ‘watch,

guard duty’)

Some of the words which may show the vowel at the suffix boundary today are not found

in Middle Persian dictionaries, such as:

(58) a. ʃɑd-mɑn ~ ʃɑd-e-mɑn ‘happy’

b. bɑd-bɑn ~ bɑd-e-bɑn ‘sail’

Again, as mentioned already, there is a tendency with some suffixes to show epenthesis.

These include -mɑn and -ɡɑr and, to a lesser extent, -ɡar and -bɑn. None of these

suffixes were vowel-initial in Middle Persian. In fact, some suffixes like –ēnāk, which

was vowel-initial, do not show the vowel today. But note that one cannot argue that there

is an inverse correlation between the former form of the suffixes and their current form,

as there are suffixes which show the vowel neither historically nor synchronically, as in

(59):

(59) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. xiʃm-ɡēn / hiʃm-ɡēn xaʃm-ɡin ‘angry’ (xaʃm ‘anger’)

b. andōh-ɡēn anduh-ɡin ‘sad’ (anduh ‘sadness’)

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c. nikun-sār neɡun-sɑr ‘overthrown’46

d. dast-ɡīr dast-ɡir ‘arrested’ (dast ‘hand’)

To sum up, while considering the historical status of the suffixes is informative for some

cases where synchronically one does not expect to get the vowel at stem-suffix boundary

because the suffix is not usually preceded by the vowel (e.g., the suffix var does not show

epenthesis but there is ʤɑnevar ‘animal’), the synchronic status of epenthesis in

suffixation needs to be considered in order to account for other cases.

4.6.2. A note on epenthesis within stems

The historical insertion or deletion of a vowel where there is a consonant cluster is also

observed within stems. The focus here is not about this sort of within-stem historical

change, so I keep the discussion brief. Initial consonant clusters are forbidden in Modern

Persian, but were acceptable in Middle Persian. (60) presents some examples of the

insertion of a vowel in order to break up the former initial consonant clusters.

(60) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. frēp farib ‘deception’

b. xrat xerad ‘wisdom’

c. ʃkanʤak ʃekanʤe ‘torture’

d. spās sepɑs ‘appreciation’

46 The word neɡun is used today in compounds or suffixed forms, such as neɡun-sɑr ‘overthrown’, sar-neɡun ‘overthrown’, neɡun-baxt ‘unlucky’.

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In medial position, the situation is not as consistent as in initial position since there are

cases where a vowel has been inserted, but also there are cases, though few, where the

vowel has been deleted, creating consonant clusters, as shown below:

(61) Middle Persian Modern Persian

vahuman / vohuman bahman ‘avalanche’

Compare this with the following:

(62) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. āfrīn ɑfarin ‘bravo’

b. ārzōk ɑrezu ‘wish’

There are also cases where the medial consonant clusters are tolerated within stem in the

present time as in the past. (63) presents some examples:

(63) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. almāst almɑs ‘diamond’

b. narɡis narɡes ‘daffodil’

c. nifrīn nefrin ‘curse’

Sometimes a medial consonant cluster was created as a result of metathesis in initial

position in order to break up the initial consonant clusters which are absolutely forbidden

in the language today.

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(64) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. frahanɡ farhanɡ ‘culture’

b. framān farmɑn ‘command’

c. frazand farzand ‘offspring’

There are also cases where a stem has two pronunciations in today’s speech, one with a

vowel so the medial consonant cluster is broken up, and the other without the vowel so

the cluster is tolerated.47

(65) Middle Persian Modern Persian

See (65):

a. āʃnāk ɑʃnɑ ~ ɑʃenɑ ‘familiar’

b. āʃkrāk ɑʃkɑr ~ ɑʃekɑr ‘apparent’

Although in initial position there is a pattern from Middle Persian to Modern Persian with

respect to consonant clusters, in medial position this is not the case. In final position, both

in Middle Persian and in Modern Persian consonant clusters are allowed. Some examples

are presented in (66).

(66) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. dōst dust ‘friend’

b. narm narm ‘soft’

c. napart nabard ‘war’

d. ɡanʤ ɡanʤ ‘treasure’

47 Lazard (1992) also gives examples of synchronic variation within stems (e.g., ɑftɑb/ɑfetɑb ‘sunshine’).

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To sum up, the language permits medial consonant clusters, whether within stems or

across suffix boundaries.

The historical investigation of suffixes and suffixed forms cannot fully provide an

account for epenthesis, which occurs in some particular cases and not in others. Thus a

synchronic investigation needs to be done to explain epenthesis in suffixation.

In order to provide further insight into the synchronic status of epenthesis, I carried out an

experiment, discussed in the following section.

4.7. Epenthesis in suffixation: an experiment

In this section, I discuss an experiment on suffixation which was done in order to

determine whether epenthesis is synchronically productive. The experiment was designed

with two goals in mind. First was to test the frequency of occurrence of epenthesis in real

words. Second was to see how epenthesis applies in made-up words with the structure of

real words as the absence or presence of epenthesis in made-up words can shed light on

the structure of Persian vowels.

Let us first review the structures in which epenthesis may or may not occur. Recall that

while epenthesis is never found in the CVlaxC environment, it is possible but not required

in the other environments. Compare (67i) and (67ii):

(67) (i) a. mehr ‘kindness’+bɑn mehrabɑn ~ mehrbɑn ‘kind’ CVlaxCC

b. kɑr ‘work’+ ɡar kɑreɡar ~ kɑrɡar ‘worker’ CVtenseC

c. xɑst ‘desire’ + ɡɑr xɑsteɡɑr ~ xɑstɡɑr ‘suitor’ CVtenseCC

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(ii) a. xaʃm ‘anger’ + nɑk xaʃmnɑk ‘angry’ (*xaʃmenɑk) CVlaxCC

b. dɑd ‘justice’ + ɡar dɑdɡar ‘just’ (*dɑdeɡar) CVtenseC

c. (ʔ)ist ‘stop’+ ɡɑh (ʔ)istɡɑh ‘station’ (*(ʔ)isteɡɑh) CVtenseCC

The words in (67i) and (67ii) share the same structures (i.e., structures other than

CVlaxC), but do not pattern identically with respect to epenthesis. If the occurrence of

epenthesis is motivated by the properties of vowels and the difference in the syllable

structure is due to these properties, why does epenthesis not occur with all cases which

include roots with those vowels/syllable structures? In order to answer this question, in

section 4.5 I examined a variety of factors including frequency, productivity of the

suffixes, and type of clusters created at a stem-suffix boundary, and found that they do

not provide an account for the variations in epenthesis. I also investigated the historical

status of the suffixes and the suffixed forms involved and concluded that epenthesis

cannot fully be accounted for based on historical facts (section 4.6). As said above, in

order to determine whether epenthesis is productive in the language, I conducted an

experiment with 10 native speakers of Persian, in both production and perception. The

production part included three tasks: reading, question and answer, and wug test. The

perception part included an acceptability rating task.

The results of the experiment show that in production the absence of epenthesis under

suffixation is the dominant pattern in Persian regardless of the nature of vowels and

syllable structure. For those words which can take epenthesis, usually both the epenthetic

version and the non-epenthetic version are acceptable. The cases where epenthesis occurs

form a limited number of frozen cases. In perception, the absence of epenthesis is the

favored pattern, leaving aside the limited set of real words, which have both versions. If

the speaker accepts the version with epenthesis, this is more likely with words with

structures other than CVlaxC. I will return to this after discussing the experiment.

I will first discuss methodology. Then different tasks of the experiment will be explained

and their results will be presented. Afterwards, I will present a summary and discussion

of the experiment.

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4.7.1. Methodology

The experiment was conducted with 10 native speakers of Persian, three men and seven

women, within the age range of 23 to 61 years of age.48

The experiment consisted of four tasks, as follows:

8 of these people live in Canada;

2 of them live in Iran and were in Canada for a trip at the time I conducted the

experiment. I abstract away from socio-linguistic factors such as age and gender in

analyzing this experiment as a sociolinguistic investigation of this process is not a goal

for this study.

(i) Task 1: Production (reading) (real words)

(ii) Task 2: Production (question and answer) (real and made-up words)

(iii) Task 3: Production (wug test) (made-up words)

(iv) Task 4: Perception (acceptability rating) (real and made-up words)

I consider acceptability rating as a way of evaluating perception. Thus when I use the

term ‘perception’ for task 4 (as opposed to the first three tasks which are ‘production’

tasks), I mean acceptability rating.

See Appendix 3 for a complete version of the experiment with all the tasks and tokens.

The experiment includes testing three different processes, all related to suffixation, one of

which is discussed in this section. The other two processes will be discussed in chapters 7

and 8. In total, in the whole experiment there were 82 tokens for task 1, 137 tokens for

task 2, 96 tokens for task 3, and 182 tokens for task 4 (497 tokens in total). It took about

an hour for each participant to complete the experiment. The advantage of mixing up the

48 I am grateful to Ron Smyth for his advice and guidance on the experiment and statistics. Many thanks to my participants (in the order of participating in the experiment): Ali Esmaeili (AE), Farideh Tajik (FT), Shadi Farshadfar (SF), Vahid Danaee (VD), Shery Shahabi (SS), an anonymous participant (AA), Rana Mohammad Esmaeil (RM), Poopak Haghi (PH), Nikou ParvinNejad (NP), Lili ParvinNejad (LP). Their help and willingness to participate in my experiment are much appreciated. I will use their initials throughout.

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words which were studied for three different processes was that the speakers could not

figure out what I was looking for. In tasks 2, 3, and 4, the tokens were randomized

through random.org. As I go through each process which was tested through different

tasks, I will refer the readers to specific appendices related to the process and the task.

Appendix 10 contains all the real words used for the experiments. In this chapter, I focus

on epenthesis in suffixation.

I now return to the four tasks introduced above. In the reading task, two texts were

provided for the speakers to read. The texts contained several cases of suffixed forms.

The reading task was followed by a question and answer task. In this task, speakers saw a

word and a suffix on the screen and they were asked to put these together to make a

suffixed form, and to say the word they made in answer to a question. The next task was

wug test. Speakers were asked to make a suffixed form with a made-up word and a real

suffix and put it in a sentence to be read. These were the three production tasks. The last

task involved perception rating. Speakers were asked to rate the acceptability of a

suffixed form they heard.

For recording the speakers I used an Olympus digital voice recorder WS-500M and a

cyber acoustics microphone (CVL-1124R-CW). The sounds were recorded in WMA

format stereo with bit rate 128 Kbps.

I now elaborate on the tasks.

4.7.2 Task 1: Production (reading)

I provided two texts in Persian to be read by the speakers. See Appendix 4 for the two

texts in Persian script and their translations. The appendix also shows the suffixed words

in the two texts. One of the texts was more formal and the other more informal. The

reason to consider two texts with difference in level of formality was to see if there is a

difference in the use of epenthesis when the text is less formal and therefore includes

processes found in informal speech such as raising before nasal consonants (discussed in

section 3.8). Note that the level of formality in itself was not of interest in this study,

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which is focused on informal daily speech. I took level of formality into consideration in

preparing the reading texts because the other processes which are dependent on level of

formality may affect epenthesis. Also there are some words which have versions both

with and without epenthesis and one is used more often in daily speech and the other one

is more heard in formal speech or poetry, etc. I will show examples of this later. Both

texts had several suffixed words, including those words which can occur with epenthesis

and those which cannot. Some words were repeated more than once.

I put the reading task as the first task of the experiment because it is natural for the

speakers to read in their native language so it was a good warm-up to start the experiment

and participants read the texts without any sense of the purpose of the experiment. The

advantages of having a reading task were as follows. First, it showed me the basic pattern

for each speaker. This allowed me to determine whether a speaker tends to use the non-

epenthetic version of words in general or whether a particular word is preferred without

epenthesis. Second, the reading task showed me intra-speaker variation as some of the

words were repeated so it was possible to see whether the same word is used by the same

speaker once with and the other time without the epenthetic vowel. Third, it showed in

general how much tendency towards epenthesis exists in the language, that is, in cases

where there is optional epenthesis how much the epenthesis occurs.

Let us now discuss the results. The results for the words with which one can get

epenthesis (CVtenseC, CVtenseCC, and CVlaxCC) are given below:

(68) The result of epenthesis-possible cases (“E” stands for epenthesis; without-

epenthesis versions are shown in “No E” row and with-epenthesis versions in “With E”

row; Misc stands for miscellanous).

No E With E Misc Total

187

(47.95%)

203

(52.05%)

0 390

(100%)

177

To clarify, the ‘No E’ column should be read as: there were 390 tokens in total (Total),

out of which 187 were pronounced without epenthesis (No E), or 47.95% while 203, or

52.05%, showed epenthesis (With E). As (68) shows, there is not much difference

between the epenthesis-including version and the non-epenthesis version. Note that I

abstract away from internal differences among the structures which show epenthesis (e.g.,

if a tense vowel before a CC induce epenthesis more or a tense vowel before a CC). For

my purpose, the internal differences do not really matter. The important point is if

epenthesis can occur or not.

It is interesting to look at a few examples. Recall that there are words with both

epenthetic and non-epenthetic versions but one version is more common than the other.

In the experiment, this is seen in, for example, mehrbɑn ~ mehrabɑn ‘kind’ and sɑzmɑn ~ sɑzemɑn ‘organization’. Out of 20 repetitions of mehrbɑn ~ mehrabɑn ‘kind’ we see

mehrabɑn 18 times and mehrbɑn 2 times (this is expected because mehrbɑn is usually

used in poetry or very formal or literary speech). Also sɑzmɑn ~ sɑzemɑn ‘organization’

shows 16 cases of sɑzmɑn and 4 cases of sɑzemɑn. There are words which can have

both versions and they are used (almost) equally, for example, arʤmand ~ arʤomand

‘valued’ shows 10 occurrences of arʤmand and 10 occurrences of arʤomand out of 20

repetitions. As for intra-speaker variation, a speaker may pronounce a word once with

and another time without epenthesis, showing that a speaker can interchangeably use both

versions. For example, one of the speakers (FT) said arʤmand once and arʤomand the

other time; another speaker (SF) said sɑzmɑn and ruzɡɑr once and sɑzemɑn and ruzeɡɑr the other time; and another speaker (NP) said pɑsbɑn once and pɑsebɑn the other time.

I now move on to the non-epenthesis cases. The results for the words with which

epenthesis is not expected are as follows –note that the words with which one does not

expect to get epenthesis includes the words with CVlaxC structure as well as those with

other structures (CVlaxCC, CVtenseC, CVtenseCC –recall that many words in the language

have one of these three structures but do not take epenthesis):

178

(69) The result of non-epenthesis cases

No E With E Misc Total

409

(99.76%)

1

(0.24%)

0 410

(100%)

As (69) shows, out of 410 tokens, 409 were pronounced without any epenthesis, that is,

99.76%. Only one speaker said one word, which is considered to be among the non-

epenthetic words, with epenthesis, and that word is pɑs-ɡɑh in which the root has the

CVtenseC structure. The rest of the words were pronounced without epenthesis by all

speakers.

The results of this task, which includes only real words as it was a reading task, strongly

confirm that there is a set of words which can take epenthesis and there are words which

cannot take epenthesis although they share the same root structure. Among those words

which can take epenthesis, there is no particular tendency towards using or not using

epenthesis, considering the overall result 47.95% vs. 52.05%.

4.7.3. Task 2: Production (question and answer)

The production task includes both real and made-up words (in addition to appendix 3,

which is on the experiment in general, appendix 5 is related to this task in particular).

Participants were seated in front of a computer. They heard a question and saw a slide on

the screen which consists of ‘a root + a suffix’. They were asked to put together the root

and the suffix, and put the word they made in a blank space in a frame sentence they saw

on the screen. The question and the frame sentence are given below:

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(70) The question: ali ʧi ɡoft?

What did Ali say? (recorded from before)

The frame sentence: fekr mikonam goft…..

I think he said……… (participant’s response)

The speakers could choose to say the whole frame sentence or just the word they made.

There was training with both real and made-up words before doing this task.

An example of what participants saw on the screen is given below:

(71) kɑr + ɡɑh (‘work’ + ɡɑh) (written in Persian script)

fekr mikonam goft….. (I think he said………) (written in Persian script)

Participant’s oral response (in this case: kɑrɡɑh) fits in the blank part.

The words which were examined are categorized into three groups: (i) real words with

which epenthesis is possible; (ii) real words with which it is not expected to see

epenthesis; (iii) made-up words. I did not separate the made-up words into two groups as

with-epenthesis and non-epenthesis since, as seen below, non-epenthesis is by far the

dominant pattern regardless of the structure of the roots.

Now let us look at each of the three categories of words one by one: real words in which

epenthesis is possible, real words in which epenthesis is not possible, made-up words.

The results for the real words where epenthesis is possible are as follows:

180

(72) The result of real words where epenthesis is possible

No E With E Misc Total

159

(56.79%)

121

(43.21%)

0 280

(100%)

As (72) shows, no significant difference is observed between the epenthesis-including

versions and those without epenthesis. This confirms the results of task 1 (see (68)). Now

let us consider words for which one does not expect to see epenthesis. The result is as

follows:

(73) The result of real words with which epenthesis is not expected

No E With E Misc Total

120

(100%)

0

(0%)

0 120

(100%)

Very clearly, the result is as expected. No epenthesis is found with the words with which

it is not expected to see epenthesis.

Let us now look at the made-up words. As said above, I did not separate the made-up

words into two groups as epenthesis-expected and non-epenthesis-expected since the

non-epenthesis is by far the dominant pattern regardless of the structure of the roots. The

words were made up in a way to include the structures under study, as given in appendix

5. As the appendix shows, there are 24 words. For each of the four root structures,

CVlaxC, CVtenseC, CVlaxCC, CVtenseCC, there are 6 words, 3 words with suffixes with

which there are more cases of epenthesis in real language, and 3 words with suffixes with

which there are no or rare cases of epenthesis in real language. In terms of vowels, the lax

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vowels in CVlaxC include one example of each lax vowel, a, e, o. The same holds for the

lax vowels in CVlaxCC. The tense vowels in CVtenseC also include one example of each

tense vowel, ɑ, i, u. The same holds for the tense vowels in CVtenseCC.

Here is the result of the made-up words in this task:

(74) The result of made-up words

No E With E Misc Total

235

(97.92%)

5

(2.08%)

0 240

(100%)

The table shows that out of 240 tokens of made-up words, only 5 cases were pronounced

with epenthesis. Thus 235 tokens were pronounced without epenthesis, which strongly

confirms that non-epenthesis is the dominant pattern.

Let us look at those 5 cases which were pronounced with epenthesis. The made-up words

which were produced with epenthesis are given below –note that in total three speakers

are responsible for these five cases:

(75) a. mekr + mɑn → mekremɑn (by two speakers)

b. bɑrʧ + mɑn → bɑrʧemɑn (by one speaker)

c. fars + ɡar → farseɡar (by one speaker)

d. kaft + ɡin → kaftɑɡin (by one speaker)

All these words show the CVlaxCC or CVtenseCC structure, which are two of the expected

structures that allow epenthesis. If we look at the suffixes, we see that in (a)-(c) the

suffixes are those which tend to show more cases of epenthesis in the language. A point

must be made about the word given in (d). Persian has a suffix -ɑɡin in addition to -ɡin

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(e.g., atr ‘scent’ and atr-ɑɡin ‘scented’) so I am not sure whether the speaker intended

epenthesis or whether this vowel appeared due to the influence of or confusion with the

suffix -ɑɡin.

The result of this task strongly suggests that non-epenthesis is the dominant pattern when

speakers are given new words, and if epenthesis occurs, which is very rarely observed, it

is with one of the expected structures.

4.7.4. Task 3: Production (wug test)

This task includes only made-up words (Appendix 6 is related to this task). There was a

training period in which the speakers were given a list of pairs of sentences and a list of

suffixes. They were asked to make a suffixed form out of a word in the first sentence of

the pair using one of the suffixes and put it in the following sentence in the pair. There

was a practice period for made-up words but the list of suffixes and the list of sentences

were the same as those which were used in training with real words. There were different

sentences, one sentence for each suffix, suitable to the suffix’s meaning/function (see

Appendix 3). The idea was to remind the speakers of the way a word is made in Persian,

for example consider mes ‘copper’, from which by adding the suffix -ɡar, there is mesɡar ‘coppersmith’, which can be put in a sentence such as ‘Ali was working/dealing with

mes. Ali was mesɡar’. For a made-up word such as haf, it is possible to make hafɡar to

be put in the sentence. Note that I chose six suffixes for this process: two show more

cases of epenthesis (i.e., -ɡɑr, -mɑn), two show no epenthesis or rarely show it (i.e., -nɑk,

-ɡɑh), and two are in between (i.e., -ɡar, -bɑn). Nonsense roots included the structures

under study. For each suffix, 12 words were created, 3 words for each root structure. The

3 words for lax vowels with CVlaxC structure include one example with a, one with o, and

one with e as the vowel of the root. The same is the case for lax vowels with CVlaxCC

structure. The 3 words for tense vowels with CVtenseC structure include one example with

u, one with i, and one with ɑ. The same is the case for tense vowels with CVtenseCC

structure. See appendix 6.

183

As shown in (76), the results are categorical and clearly show the non-epenthesis pattern.

(76) The result of made-up words (wug test)

No E With E Misc Total

720

(100%)

0

(0%)

0 720

(100%)

This result, together with the results for the made-up words in the previous task (see

(74)), shows that speakers strongly tend to not use epenthesis if they are given new

words. And if one compares the results of the two tables on made-up words ((74) and

(76)) with those of the tables for real words ((72) and (73)) it is observed that in fact the

occurrence of epenthesis is limited to a set of words, and is not seen with other real

words. This leads us to think of the occurrence of epenthesis in suffixation to be limited

to some frozen cases.

The three tasks discussed so far show what the speakers did in production. Next I discuss

the perception rating task.

4.7.5. Task 4: Perception (acceptability rating)

For this part of the experiment, a list of real and made-up suffixed words was recorded.

For each word, there were two versions, one with epenthesis and the other without. The

words were randomized, so the two versions were not adjacent. The participants (8

speakers for this task) were asked to rate each word on the following scale: √ (good,

acceptable, possible); ? (so-so); X (bad, unacceptable, impossible). The list of the roots

was written on paper and the speakers were asked to put one of the three signs (√, ?, or

X) in front of each word after they heard the suffixed forms. The reason that I wrote the

roots on paper was to show the speakers what the root is in order to make sure they

184

realize whether the root has the final –e or whether its presence is due to epenthesis; in

particular this is important with the made-up words. That is, if I had not given the written

form of for example fam to have fameɡar recorded for the speakers to hear and to rate,

the speakers may not have known for sure whether the root is fam or fame since there are

many words in Persian which end in –e. The written form clarifies whether the word is

fam or fame (given that, as mentioned in footnote 43, a silent –h is written at the end of e-

final words in Persian). I also pronounced the root before the suffixed form to be sure

they know what the root is. The reason that I did not write the suffixed forms on paper

was to make sure that their judgments on the acceptability of the suffixed forms are based

on their perception and have nothing to do with the orthography, which does not show –e

and thus can be confusing. Thus the speakers heard a suffixed word while they had the

root with which the suffixed word was formed on paper in front of them, and then there

was a pause for them to rate the suffixed word they heard, and then the next word was

heard to be rated.

The words of this task are categorized into five groups: (i) real words which are expected

to show epenthesis; (ii) real words where epenthesis is not found although the word has

one of the structures with which epenthesis may occur in the language; (iii) real words

with which epenthesis is not expected (CVlaxC structure); (iv) made-up words where

epenthesis can be possible based on the structure; (v) made-up words where epenthesis is

not expected based on the structure. (See Appendix 7 for the list of made-up words in this

task). I here show the results of each of these categories.

For the real words with which epenthesis can occur, cases such as kɑrɡar ~ kɑreɡar ‘worker’, the result of perception rating is given in (77):

185

(77) The result of real words where epenthesis is possible

√ ? X Total

No E 200

(89.29%)

6

(2.68%)

18

(8.04%)

224

(100%)

With E 205

(91.52%)

2

(0.89%)

17

(7.59%)

224

(100%)

This result is consistent with the results of the previous tasks as both versions are

acceptable without much difference in terms of percentage (89.29% and 91.52%). Let

me go through the chart to explain how the results are shown. Consider the chart in (77)

and recall that the rating scale was as follows: √ (good, acceptable, possible); ? (so-so); X

(bad, unacceptable, impossible). We have the non-epenthesis version of words (i.e., No

E) for which there are three options of ranking: √, ?, X. We also have the with-epenthesis

version of words (i.e., With E) for which there are same three options of ranking. The

first row, first column, “No E (√)”, shows the result for the non-epenthesis words which

got √ from speakers. The second row, first column, “With E (√)”, shows the result for the

with-epenthesis words which got √ from speakers, that is, those with-epenthesis words

which were acceptable. The “No E (?)” and “With E (?)” cells respectively show the non-

epenthesis versions which got ? from the speakers and the with-epenthesis ones which

got ?. The “No E (X)” and “With E (X)” cells respectively show the non-epenthesis

versions which got X from the speakers and the with-epenthesis versions which got X

from the speakers. The same method of showing results is used throughout this section.

It is important to note that the total is not necessarily 100% for each No E and its With E

correspondent (e.g., the “No E (√)”and “With E (√)” cells do not add up to 100%). The

reason is that one word can get, for example, √ in both of its versions (e.g., kɑrɡar and

186

kɑreɡar ‘worker’ both can get √ because they are both accepted in the language). As

seen above in the chart, the non-epenthesis and with-epenthesis versions are both fine for

the speakers. The so-so cases (those with ?) are very few. The bad cases (the ones shown

by X) show that there are not many cases where the non-epenthesis is bad and not many

cases either where the with-epenthesis is bad. In particular, in the chart, the “No E

(√)”and “With E (√)” cells are interesting to note as they show (as shown by other tasks

discussed above) how closely acceptable the non-epenthesis and with-epenthesis cases

are when it comes to the limited set of words which may show epenthesis.

For this task, I also included some real words with which it is not expected to get

epenthesis although they have the structures which can show epenthesis (e.g., xaʃm ‘anger’ + nɑk xaʃm-nɑk ‘angry’ *xaʃmenɑk).

(78) The result of real words where epenthesis does not occur although the word has one

of the structures with which one may get epenthesis in the language

√ ? X Total

No E 24

(100%)

0

(0%)

0

(0%)

24

(100%)

With E 2

(8.33%)

1

(4.17%)

21

(87.5%)

24

(100%)

This result shows that with real words with which one does not get epenthesis although

based on their structure should be able to, the acceptability of the non-epenthesis version

is far more than the acceptability of the with-epenthesis version (compare the “No E (√)”

and “With E (√)” cells), and the unacceptability of the with-epenthesis version is also far

more than the unacceptability of the non-epenthesis version (compare the “No E (X)” and

“With E (X)” cells). Comparing the result of this table with (77) shows that it is not only

the structure which makes epenthesis possible as the words in (78) have structures similar

187

to the words in (77). The only difference between them is that the group in (77) has an

epenthesis-including version in the language whereas the group in (78) does not.

Familiarity with the epenthesis-including version is therefore very important in speakers’

judgment on acceptability in the perception task.

Now let us look at the real words with the structure with which it is not expected to get

epenthesis (the CVlaxC structure). The result is shown in (79).

(79) The result of real words with which epenthesis is not expected (CVlaxC)

√ ? X Total

No E 32

(100%)

0

(0%)

0

(0%)

32

(100%)

With E 0

(0%)

1

(3.12%)

31

(96.88%)

32

(100%)

This result is consistent with the results of the production tasks for the words with which

one does not expect to see epenthesis. Looking at the “No E (√)” and “With E (√)” cells,

the non-epenthesis version is acceptable in all cases and the with-epenthesis version is

not acceptable at all (100% vs. 0%). For the so-so cases (those with ?), there is only one

case which is a with-epenthesis version. For the bad cases (shown by X), almost all with-

epenthesis cases are, as expected, bad (the only with-epenthesis case which did not get X

got ?). To sum up, real CVlaxC roots strongly show the non-epenthesis pattern.

I have gone through the results of the perception task for the real words. Before going to

the perception rating task for made-up words, I would like to note a few points.

First, recall that in the production tasks, I gave examples of words whose epenthesis-

including versions had higher frequency compared to their non-epenthesis versions (or

vice versa), and this was either in general in the language (that is there are words which

188

are in general pronounced more often with epenthesis or vice versa although they have

both versions), or it was particular to some speakers who show a tendency towards

articulating the words with epenthesis or vice versa (although the word has two versions).

There were also words which show an (almost or exact) 50-50 distribution regarding their

two versions. In perception, too, the same pattern is observed. There are some words

which got a perfect score for both versions, for example, ruzɡɑr and ruzeɡɑr both got 8

out of 8 for acceptability (i.e., √) without having any ? or X, the same goes for jɑdɡɑr and

jɑdeɡɑr; mehrbɑn and mehrabɑn, zɑjmɑn and zɑjemɑn, etc. There were cases, however,

which showed more acceptability with one version, for example, pɑjɡɑh shows 8 out of 8

for acceptability (√) (so it shows perfect acceptability) but its epenthesis-including

counterpart, pɑjeɡɑh, shows 5 cases of acceptability (√) and 3 cases of unacceptability

(X). The opposite happens for some cases such as mɑndɡɑr, which got 5 cases of

acceptability (√) along with 1 case of so-so (?) as well as 2 cases of unacceptability (X),

while its epenthesis-including version, mɑndeɡɑr, got 8 out of 8 for acceptability (√).

This is expected as in the language some words are pronounced in one of their two

versions more often than in their other version.

Second, if we compare the results of production and perception, it is observed that

sometimes the speakers do not say the epenthesis-including version (or the other version)

themselves, as shown by their production, but in perception they find it fine giving it a

‘√’. The difference might be due to the different tasks. A speaker may not say a word in

this particular way but if they hear it they find it familiar and therefore acceptable since

other people may say the word that way. That is, a speaker can potentially have both

options in mind but have one preference in performance which is shown in production.

An extreme case is bozorɡ-vɑr and its epenthesis-including version bozorɡ-a-vɑr. The

epenthesis-including version had zero frequency in production (that is no one used the

epenthesis-including version in production tasks). In perception, it got 8 cases of √ for

the non-epenthesis version, but for its with-epenthesis version, got 6 cases of √, 1 case of

?, and 1 case of X. Sometimes this is due to the level of formality in the sense that, as

noted in 4.7.2, there are some words which have both non-epenthesis and with-epenthesis

versions but one of them is used more in very formal speech and poetry, etc. and the

other in informal daily speech.

189

For example, consider mehrabɑn ~ mehrbɑn ‘kind’. Its non-epenthesis version is usually

used in formal speech or poetry. Recall that in the reading task, out of 20 repetitions of

mehrbɑn ~ mehrabɑn we see mehrabɑn 18 times and mehrbɑn 2 times. In perception,

both mehrabɑn and mehrbɑn got perfect scores of acceptability (both got 8 out of 8).

This is because both versions are completely acceptable in the language, as the perception

results show, but production shows one version is more favorable in speech. Compare

these with cases which do not take epenthesis in the language. For example, ɡolzɑr ‘flower field’, bɑrɡɑh ‘palace, royal building’ and xaʃmnɑk ‘angry’ are pronounced by all

10 speakers as ɡolzɑr (not ɡolezɑr), bɑrɡɑh (not bɑreɡɑh) and xaʃmnɑk (not xaʃmenɑk);

and in perception, ɡolzɑr, bɑrɡɑh, and xaʃmnɑk got perfect acceptability (i.e., 8 √);

ɡolezɑr, bɑreɡɑh, and xaʃmenɑk, however, got 0 √, 0 ?, and 8 X.

Let us now move on to the made-up words. I first look at the made-up words which have

a structure other than CVlaxC and therefore with which the occurrence of epenthesis is not

unexpected. Recall that in the production tasks speakers overall produce the non-

epenthesis version for these structures.

(80) The result of made-up words where epenthesis can be possible

√ ? X Total

No E 134

(93.06%)

4

(2.77%)

6

(4.17%)

144

(100%)

With E 41

(28.47%)

7

(4.86%)

96

(66.67%)

144

(100%)

Looking at the “No E (√)” and “With E (√)” cells, the non-epenthesis is far more

acceptable. Compare these two cells with the “No E (√)” and “With E (√)” cells of the

chart in (77), where the result for real words with possible epenthesis is given. The “No E

(√)” cells of (77) and (80) are very close in terms of percentage of acceptance. But there

190

is an obvious difference between the “With E (√)” cell in (77) and the one in (80). The

with-epenthesis cases for the real words are by far more acceptable than the with-

epenthesis cases for the made-up words. This shows that if Persian speakers have not

heard the words, although these words have roots of the shape that allows epenthesis, the

form with epenthesis is generally unacceptable. This, along with the table in (78), also

suggests that the limited number of real words which allow an epenthetic vowel are

frozen or lexicalized. That is, as is the case with a large number of real words with

CVtenseC, CVtenseCC, CVlaxCC which do not take epenthesis, the made-up words with

these three structures also do not tend to show epenthesis. Epenthesis is thus seen only in

a limited list of words in the language.

Now I discuss made-up words with roots with the CVlaxC structure, or, those words with

which one does not expect to see epenthesis. See (81).

(81) The result of made-up words with which epenthesis is not expected (CVlaxC)

√ ? X Total

No E 45

(93.75%)

2

(4.17%)

1

(2.08%)

48

(100%)

With E 2

(4.17%)

4

(8.33%)

42

(87.5%)

48

(100%)

Again, the result is consistent with the results of production tasks. That is, the without-

epenthesis forms of these words received a very high percentage of acceptability and the

with-epenthesis forms of them a very high percentage of unacceptability. The result given

in (81) is close, in terms of percentages, to the result given in (79) for real words with

which epenthesis is not expected.

191

Now compare the three charts which show the results for real words. In (77), where the

result for epenthesis-possible real words is given, the non- and with-epenthesis cases are

both acceptable to a high percentage (see the “No E (√)” and “With E (√)” cells) and are

both unacceptable to a very low percentage (see the “No E (X)” and “With E (X)” cells).

In (78), where the result for non-epenthesis real words with structures other than CVlaxC

is given, the acceptability of the non-epenthesis version is far more than the acceptability

of the with-epenthesis version (compare the “No E (√)” and “With E (√)” cells), and the

unacceptability of the with-epenthesis version is also far more than the unacceptability of

the non-epenthesis version (compare the “No E (X)” and “With E (X)” cells). In (79),

where the result for non-epenthesis real words with CVlaxC structure is given, the non-

epenthesis version is acceptable to a high percentage (see the “No E (√)” and “No E (X)”

cells), and the with-epenthesis version is unacceptable to a very high percentage (see the

“With E (√)” and “With E (X)” cells). This is an expected result given the observed

pattern in the language.

Now let us compare the two charts which show the result for made-up words. Comparing

the made-up words with root structures other then CVlaxC in (80) with the result of made-

up words with CVlaxC root structure in (81), there is a difference in the percentage of

acceptability and unacceptability when one considers the epenthesis-including versions.

Compare the “With E (√)” cells of these charts and also the “With E (X)” cells in them

with each other. It is observed that, looking at the “With E (√)” cells, the words with

structures other than CVlaxC are more acceptable with epenthesis than the ones with the

CVlaxC root structure with epenthesis. This means that if speakers are going to accept

epenthesis in made-up words, it is more with the words which do not have CVlaxC as

their root structure. Now compare the “With E (X)” cells of the tables in (80) and (81).

The percentage of unacceptability of the epenthesis-including version is less when the

root has a structure other than CVlaxC. That is, made-up words with structures other than

CVlaxC have a greater chance of being perceptually acceptable with epenthesis compared

to those made-up words with the CVlaxC structure. This tells us that the epenthesis-

including versions, which are not favorable for Persian speakers, are relatively more

acceptable when they have root structures other than CVlaxC and more unacceptable

when they have CVlaxC structure.

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In this regard, in particular compare the result of the wug test (see (76)), where there is

0% epenthesis response, with the “With E (√)” cell in (80), where 28.47% of the made-up

words with epenthesis-compatible structure are considered as acceptable. This

observation, which shows that in production no epenthesis is seen with made-up words,

but in acceptability rating the made-up words with epenthesis could be acceptable to

some extent, could be due to a priming effect. That is, in production, when speakers

volunteer the forms spontaneously, the epenthesis form is never used but in the

acceptability rating task, speakers are in essence primed to consider epenthesis as a

credible option and hence they are more likely to accept the forms than otherwise and this

is more likely to happen with the structures with which we get epenthesis in the language.

Such an effect is found in other similar studies where both production and acceptability

rating tasks are conducted (see for example Albright and Hayes 2003).

To sum up, in perception, the without-epenthesis version is considered as acceptable, and

the with-epenthesis version is unacceptable except for the limited set of words which

have epenthesis-including versions in the language. In general the non-epenthesis pattern

is dominant for the speakers regardless of the words being real or made-up and regardless

of their root structure. However, if the speakers accept an epenthesis-including version of

made-up words, there is a slight tendency towards doing this with structures other than

CVlaxC.

4.7.6. Summary and discussion

I ran an experiment including made-up and real words testing Persian native speakers for

both production and perception through different tasks in order to study the synchronic

status of epenthesis in Persian and to determine the underlying generalizations in the

speakers’ minds regarding this suffixation process and epenthesis. The results are as

follows:

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(i) For made-up words, the non-epenthesis pattern is the general pattern (with a very few

exceptions).

Production:

(ii) For real words, for those words with which one can get epenthesis, the division

between the non-epenthesis version and the with-epenthesis version is close to equal

(with a difference which is not significant). For those real words with which epenthesis is

not expected, epenthesis does not occur at all (with one exception by one speaker in one

task).

(i) For made-up words, non-epenthesis is the acceptable pattern in general both for words

with CVlaxC structures and for words with other structures. If the speakers accept the

version with epenthesis, this is more likely with words with structures other than CVlaxC.

Perception:

(ii) For real words, for the words with which one can get epenthesis both versions are

fine. For those real words with which it is not expected to see epenthesis, the non-

epenthesis versions are by far more acceptable, and the epenthesis-including versions are

highly unacceptable.

Epenthesis is thus not usually seen when real and made-up words are tested and it occurs

only with a limited number of words which may show epenthesis in the language. Thus it

is not a synchronically active process in the language. The limited occurrence of

epenthesis with some structures and the tendency of speakers towards accepting

epenthesis only with those structures (structures other than CVC when V is lax) can be

accounted for by underlying tenseness. They cannot be accounted for underlying quantity

because we expect then to see the process much more consistently and productively, and

in addition, harmony remains unexplained. They cannot be accounted for by underlying

height either because height does not provide a two-way distinction among Persian

vowels to capture a distinction between CVC where V is lax and other structure to begin

with.

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4.8. Summary

In this chapter, I discussed epenthesis in suffixation, a process which can be potentially

an argument against a quality-based analysis and for a quantity-based one. In this

process, an epenthetic vowel is inserted in order to break up consonant clusters which are

created due to suffixation. Epenthesis is possible when the root has the CVtenseC,

CVlaxCC, or CVtenseCC structure but is not possible when the root has the CVlaxC

structure. Thus it is only with roots of heavier structures that epenthesis is possible. I

argued that the process does not provide evidence for underlying quantity. First, I

proposed that epenthesis can be handled by the tense-based analysis, with quantity being

derived. Second, in a study of the synchronic status of epenthesis, I argued that it is not

productive in the language and thus does not really give support to any analysis. The

number of words which show epenthesis is limited compared to the number of words

which do not show it in spite of having the same root structures. This brings up a question

as to why one does not see epenthesis with more or all cases with the roots of the

CVtenseC, CVlaxCC, or CVtenseCC structures. I examined the synchronic status (including

frequency, cluster types, productivity of suffixes) as well as the historical status of the

suffixes and the suffixed forms and showed that they cannot explain the process. I also

conducted an experiment in order to test the productivity of the epenthesis process.

Based on the results of the experiment, I conclude that epenthesis is not usually seen

when real and made-up words are tested and therefore those limited words which may

show epenthesis cannot provide support for a quantitative analysis of vowel structure and

can be accounted for by tenseness. Compare the productivity of harmony (both in native

and in loanwords), which argues for a phonologically qualitative analysis of the system,

with the limited occurrence of epenthesis. Epenthesis is thus not a synchronically

productive process.

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Chapter 5

VCC co-occurrence restrictions: evidence for quantity?

In the previous chapter, I examined epenthesis in suffixation as a potential argument for a

quantitative analysis of the Persian vowel system. In this chapter, I examine another

potential argument for underlying quantity, namely VCC co-occurrence restrictions. I

will show that there is no need for the underlying presence of quantity in the system in

order to account for VCC co-occurrence restrictions. Rather the restrictions are accounted

for by underlying tenseness from which surface quantity derives. At the same time, the

arguments that suggest an appeal to VCC# co-occurrence restrictions as an argument for

a a, e, o/ɑ, i, u division are themselves brought into question by the existence of

loanwords that do not obey the restrictions. In the first part of this chapter, I examine the

proposed restriction and how it might be accounted for. Then in 5.9 I discuss loanwords,

and propose that, in fact, there is no restriction in Modern Persian.

5.1. VCC co-occurrence restrictions: review of the literature

The literature on Persian phonotactics shows that there is a distinction between a, e, o as

opposed to ɑ, i, u with respect to the word-final consonant clusters that can follow them,

as introduced in 2.2.2.2. The literature raises two issues in this regard: (i) the consonant

clusters that can occur after /a, e, o/ and those after /ɑ, i, u/ are not identical; (ii) the

Sonority Sequencing Principle is met after /ɑ, i, u/ but need not be met after /a, e, o/ in

CVCC syllables in final position. One might argue that these differences are attributed to

a quantity distinction, with monomoraic vowels allowing a wider set of following clusters

than bimoraic vowels. However, I will argue that there is no strong argument in these

observations for underlying quantity or against underlying quality.

Before beginning the discussion, it is useful to recall the Persian vowel and consonant

inventories:

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(1) Persian vowels

e o i u

a ɑ

(2) Persian consonants

labial labio-dental alveolar palatoalveolar palatal velar uvular glottal

stops p b t d k ɡ ɢ ʔ

fricatives f v s z ʃ ʒ x h

affricates ʧ ʤ

nasals m n

trill r

lateral l

glide j

I now review the literature on the restrictions on consonants following different vowels,

focusing on word-final position as this is the only position in monomorphemic words in

which tautosyllabic clusters are found, with rare exceptions.

As discussed in 2.2.2.2, Persian vowels are divided into two groups, a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u, where evidence for this split is based on the consonant clusters that can occur

tautosyllabically after the vowel. As discussed in 2.2.2.2, Samareh (1977) identifies two

functionally different groups of simple vowels: /e, a, o/, and /i, â, u/ with respect to

possible following consonant clusters (I use his symbols here). The first group can occur

before all combinations of consonants as far as the first member of the cluster is

concerned. The only exception is /e/, which cannot occur before clusters starting with /x/.

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The vowels of the second group are of very limited occurrence preceding consonant

clusters. They cannot occur before those clusters whose first consonant is /q, ʔ, ǰ, z, h,

m/. Samareh adds /b, t, d, k, n, l, r/ which occur following the second group of vowels in

a few loan words (e.g., kâbl ‘cable’, dubl ‘double’, ritm ‘rhythm’) and only three Persian

words (i.e. bâng ‘shout’, dâng ‘share’, pârs ‘related to Persian, Persia’). Samareh

continues that the vowels of the second group /i, â, u/ can precede /s, f, x/ combinations –

the second consonant must be /t/, with a few exceptions. The consonant /š/ is permitted

after /â, u/ but not after /i/. A summary of these observations was given in 2.2.2.2 and is

repeated here for convenience in (3):

(3) a. / e, a, o/

No restriction on C1 in C1C2 (/x/ not after /e/)

b. /i, â, u/

*/q, ʔ, ǰ, z, h, m/ as C1 in C1C2

? /b, t, d, k, n, l, r/ as C1 in C1C2

√ /s, f, x/ as C1 followed by /t/ as C2 (with a few exceptions)

√ /ʃ/ but not after /i/

Zolfaghari Serish and Kambuziya (2005) note that in words with CVCC structure, the

sonority sequencing principle is met when the vowel is /ɑ, i, u/ (e.g., mɑst ‘yoghurt’, bist ‘twenty’, pust ‘skin’), but it need not be met in monosyllabic CVCC when the vowel is

/a, e, o/49

49According to Zolfaghari Serish and Kambuziya, the principle is also met with a, e, o in polysyllabic words when CVCC is final with an exception: ɡa.vazn ‘deer’. There are actually other cases of violation of sonority after a, e, o in polysyllabic words, as in: es.taxr ‘swimming pool’, and se.pehr ‘sky’, to which they do not refer. I leave the discussion on sonority in polysyllabics aside as sonority in general is not a topic of this work. The only reason I refer to sonority is that it divides the vowels into two groups: ɑ, i, u (after

(e.g., tabx ‘cooking’, zebr ‘rough’, sobh ‘morning’). They add that the sonority

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sequencing principle can be met with /a, e, o/, for instance: in monosyllabic words, it is

met if the first consonant of the coda is /r, l, j, n/ and [w] or the second consonant of the

coda is /d, ʔ, ʤ, ʃ, k, g, t/ (with a few exceptions they point out for x and ʃ). There are

also other cases of sonority being met after a, e, o, which are not pointed out by

Zolfaghari Serish and Kambuziya (e.g., a, e, or o followed by any fricative followed by a

stop as in ʧasb ‘glue’, (ʔ)eʃɢ ‘love’; or /m/ followed by a fricative as in lams ‘touch’,

ramz ‘secret’).50

Comparing Samareh’s (1985) list and Zolfaghari Serish and Kambuziya’s (2005) list

gives us largely but not exactly the same results (e.g., Samareh does not have ʃk in kuʃk

and rk in xɑrk, which Zolfaghari Serish and Kambuziya have. Samareh considers sk in

susk as an exception, and he also has sb in ɡoʃtɑsb, which Zolfaghari Serish and

Kambuziya do not have, and so on. The difference arises largely depending on whether or

not we want to include proper names like ɡoʃtɑsb ‘a name for boys’ (an ancient Persian

king), xɑrk ‘name of an island’).

Zolfaghari Serish and Kambuziya conclude that with respect to the

sonority sequencing principle two natural classes of vowels are found in CVCC in

Persian; these are /ɑ, i, u/ and /a, e, o/. Note that Zolfaghari Serish and Kambuziya look

into the sonority sequencing principle and are not concerned in particular about VC1 co-

occurrence or about vowel properties.

Nonetheless, the overall finding is clear: after ɑ, i, u only sequences of falling sonority

are allowed, while after a, e, o no such restriction exists. Thus with respect to sonority

and the consonant clusters that can follow the vowels, there is a grouping of vowels as

follows: a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u.

which sonority is met in mono- and polysyllabics) versus a, e, o (after which sonority can be violated in particular in monosyllabics). 50 Zolfaghari Serish and Kambuziya’s summary of consonant clusters with respect to sonority needs to be completed as in their data analysis some combinations of consonants which can follow a, e, o and which meet the sonority principle are missing as shown above –they have words such as nasb ‘installation, ʔeʃɢ ‘love’, and lams ‘touch’ in their list of CVCC but in their section of data analysis, they do not include fricatives followed by stops, etc. as cases where sonority is met after a, e, o.

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Based on the literature (Samareh 1977, Zolfaghari Serish and Kambuziya 2005) and

checking a Persian dictionary (Emami 2006), here is the general observation on the data:

(i) a, e, o show no particular restrictions for CC in CVCC. Note that there might

be some unattested sequences in Persian; but not in particular related to vowels.

(ii) ɑ, i, u show the following restrictions:

In native words, in the Persian consonant inventory given below, tense vowels occur

before the consonants in boxes, that is, C1 is one of these consonants (note that some

Arabic or Turkish words might be included here too; these are words which are so well

integrated into Persian and are not considered foreign words):

(4) Persian consonants (those in box: possible C1’s after tense vowels in native words)

labial labio-dental alveolar palatoalveolar palatal velar uvular glottal

stops p b t d k ɡ ɢ ʔ

fricatives f v s z ʃ ʒ x h

affricates ʧ ʤ

nasals m n

trill r

lateral l

glide j

Note that ʃ does not occur after /i/.

Now, let us look at the second consonant in CC after the tense vowels. C2 can be one of

the following:

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(5) Possible C2’s after tense vowels

Mostly t

Also a few k -not with i-

Also:

ɡ in nɡ -note none of these with i and u-

d in nd

and a few

s in rs

ʧ in rʧ

d in rd

and a case of ɢ in fɢ (Bɑfɢ ‘name of a city’)

The result of putting these restrictions together is as follows:

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(6) Possible CC combinations after tense vowels

After lax vowels, no real restriction is observed. I should add that the frequencies of these

combinations are not all the same. For instance, st is far more frequent than rʧ, of which

the language shows only a couple of cases. The same is true for rs, of which only a

couple of words exist. Also, t and k in final position are not the same in terms of

frequency – t is much more frequent than k. There are also some restrictions with tense

vowels (e.g., /i/ is less frequent before CC while /ɑ/ is more frequent).

VCC restrictions present a potential support for a quantity-based analysis, as I will

discuss in 5.4, in particular because, as I will show in 5.2, no restriction in VC co-

occurrences is observed in CVC syllable form, which suggests that the structure CVCC

imposes the restrictions. Recall that the vowels which I consider to be tense are bimoraic

under a quantitative account and those which I consider to be lax are monomoraic. The

sequence of a bimoraic vowel followed by a consonant shows no restrictions because the

result is not a too heavy or too long syllable, counting the number of morae, but when a

C2

C1

t d k ɡ s ʧ

f √

s √ √

ʃ √ √

x √

n √ √

r √ √ √ √

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bimoraic vowel is followed by two consonants restrictions occur because the syllable is

too heavy. I will return to this in 5.4. Let us then first examine CVC.

5.2. CVC forms

In this section, I examine how the vowels pattern in CVC syllables. The purpose is to see

if a distinction in the distribution of a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u exists in this syllable type. This

investigation shows whether there is a restriction in the occurrence of single consonants

after ɑ, i, u in general, or whether it is the syllable structure (CVCC) which imposes a

restriction on the consonants which can follow ɑ, i, u. For example, as Samareh notes

(see (3)), the consonant z cannot be C1 in CVC1C2 when V is ɑ, i, u. The question is

whether there is a restriction on the occurrence of z after ɑ, i, u in general, or whether

there is a restriction on the co-occurrence of ɑ, i, u with following z only in CVCC. I will

show that no restrictions between the vowels and following consonants are observed in

CVC.

Recall the list that Samareh gives for forbidden C1 after /ɑ, i, u/, that is, */q, ʔ, ǰ, z, h, m/

as C1 in C1C2, and consider (7)51

51 I do not include /a, e. o/ in (7) as the restriction that Samareh refers to is about /ɑ, i, u/ in CVCC so I want to examine /ɑ, i, u/ in CVC. To show that /a, e, o/ can occur before these consonants, I give some examples here: laɢ ‘loose’, kaʤ ‘crooked’, por ‘full’, dar ‘door’, fer ‘curl’, meh ‘fog’, nam ‘moisture’, dom ‘tail’, tab ‘fever’, xat ‘line’, bot ‘idle’, bad ‘bad’, xod ‘self’, rok ‘blunt’, bon ‘root’, ʃen ‘gravel’, xol ‘crazy’, pol ‘bridge’, del ‘heart’, mes ‘copper’, rox ‘face’, etc.

. The examples in (7) show that it is not the case that

there is a restriction on ɑ, i, u occurring before these consonants. Whatever it is, it is

related to CC after these vowels. In (7), I first give examples of the consonants that

Samareh mentions for restrictions on C1 in C1C2 (i.e., */q, ʔ, ǰ, z, h, m/) to show that these

consonants can occur in CVC where V is ɑ, i, u. These are shown in (7a)-(7f). I then

give examples of other consonants which are marked by a ‘?’ in the summary in (3) (i.e.,

?/b, t, d, k, n, l, r/). These are shown in (7g)-(7m). They are followed by examples of

those consonants which are marked by ‘√’ in (3) (i.e., √/s, f, x/ and √/ʃ/). These are given

in (7n)-(7q). In each line, I start with an example of ɑ, followed by an example of i,

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followed by an example of u. There are a few cases which the language does not have a

word with one or two of these vowels. In (7), I use IPA symbols (not those used by

Samareh).

(7) ɑ, i, u in CVC

a. bɑɢ ‘garden’, tiɢ ‘blade’, duɢ ‘yogurt drink’

b. ʤuʔ ‘hunger’

c. tɑʤ ‘crown’, ɡiʤ ‘dizzy’

d. nɑz ‘cute’, tiz ‘sharp’, ruz ‘day’,

e. rɑh ‘road’, pih ‘fat’, kuh ‘mountain’

f. nɑm ‘name’, bim ‘fear’, ʃum ‘ominous’

g. xɑb ‘sleep’, sib ‘apple’, ʧub ‘wood’

h. lɑt ‘hooligan’, xit ‘hopeless’, tut ‘berry’

i. bɑd ‘wind’, bid ‘moth’, zud ‘quick’

j. xɑk ‘soil’, nik ‘good’, xuk ‘pig’

k. nɑn ‘bread’, din ‘religion’, xun ‘blood’

l. xɑl ‘mole’, fil ‘elephant’, pul ‘money’

m. mɑr ‘snake’, dir ‘late’, dur ‘far away’

n. jɑs ‘jasmine’, lis ‘lick’, lus ‘spoiled’

o. sɑf ‘flat’, kif ‘purse’, buf ‘owl’

p. ʃɑx ‘horn’, six ‘skewer’, kux ‘hut’

q. mɑʃ ‘a kind of bean’, niʃ ‘sting’, muʃ ‘mouse’

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Thus ɑ, i, u do not show restrictions with respect to the following consonant in CVC.

In 5.1, the possible consonant clusters after vowels in Persian words were examined. It

was shown that no real restriction is found in lax vowels in CVCC form. Some

restrictions, however, are seen after tense vowels in this structure. In this section, it was

shown that no real restriction is observed in Persian words after tense vowels or lax

vowels in CVC form.

In the next section, 5.3, I will discuss VC co-occurrence restrictions in tense/lax-based

systems in order to establish that the existence of such restrictions is not limited to

quantity-based languages. Both tense-based and quantity-based languages can show VC

restrictions.

5.3. Vowel-consonant co-occurrence restrictions in tense/lax-based vowel systems

In this section, I look at examples of restrictions on the co-occurrence of vowels and

consonants in languages whose vowel systems are tense/lax based. Looking at these

languages shows that restrictions on patterning of vowels with respect to syllable

structure and co-occurrence with following consonants in these systems exist.

In English, for example, lax vowels do not occur in #CV# but tense vowels do (e.g., bee

[bi] and bit [bɪt] exist in English, but [bɪ] does not). This does not necessarily mean that

English has a quantity-based system. We will return to #CV# in chapter 6. For now, let us

focus on tense and lax vowels and the following consonants. The distribution of English

tense and lax vowels has been extensively discussed in the literature (e.g., Chomsky and

Halle 1968, Halle and Mohanan 1985, Borowsky 1989, Green 2001). In English, only lax

vowels occur before consonant clusters with a non-coronal member (tense vowels cannot

occur before CC’s consisting of a sonorant plus a consonant unless the rightmost member

is a coronal). Also only lax vowels occur before ŋ. Thus restrictions on the type of

consonants or consonant clusters are observed in languages with tense-lax distinction.

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Féry (2003) presents a study of Southern French dialects and shows that there are

restrictions on the type of consonants which can follow tense and lax vowels in Southern

French. In her study, Féry considers the vowels in “stressed syllables”, which are final

syllables in French. For example, consider ø (a tense vowel) and its lax counterpart, œ.

Only ø is allowed before a coronal obstruent (e.g., before [t] meute ‘pack’, before [z]

danseuse ‘dancer (fem.)’), and only œ before other consonants (e.g., before [f] neuf ‘new’, before [ʀ] heure ‘hour’).

In terms of number of following consonants, in Dutch, tense vowels can occur before

zero or one consonant. Lax vowels, however, can occur before one or two consonants

(van Oostendorp 2006). Compare (8a) and (8b) (a, [a:], is tense and ɑ is lax):

(8) a. r[a:] ‘yard’ r[a:]m ‘window’ r[a:]p ‘turnip’ *r[a:]mp ___

b. *rɑ ___ r[ɑ]m ‘ram’ r[ɑ]p ‘quick’ r[ɑ]mp ‘disaster’

van Oostendorp (2006) presents the following relation between tenseness and syllable

structure in Dutch: a tense vowel has to be in an open syllable, a lax vowel has to be in

a closed syllable; the syllable rhyme contains at most two positions, at the end of the

word, a syllable rhyme can be followed by one additional consonant (see van

Oostendorp 2006 for discussion). Therefore, tenseness and syllable structure can have an

interaction resulting in different patterning of tense and lax vowels in CV, CVC, or

CVCC.

Additionally, there are also other restrictions in terms of the nature of following

consonant(s) in VC and VCC in Dutch, a couple of which are presented below (van

Oostendorp 1995). In the context VFə (F = fricative), F is voiceless if and only if V is

lax. Consider a (a tense vowel) and ɑ (a lax vowel) in bl[ɑfə]n ‘bark’, *bl[afə]n, and

l[avə]n ‘refresh’. In Dutch monomorphemic VCV sequences, lax vowels are almost

always followed by voiceless fricatives and tense vowels are almost always followed by

voiced fricative. As van Oostendorp notes, there is an interaction between the features

[lax] (in vowels) and [voice] (in fricatives) in Dutch. It is interesting that in Persian, too,

we see an interaction between [tense] of vowels and [voice] of fricatives – recall that C1

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in VtenseC1C2# is generally a voiceless fricative in Persian. Furthermore, a restriction on

VCC in Dutch is that lax vowels occur before word-final consonant clusters, VlaxC1C2#,

where C2 is non-coronal - the dorsal nasal behaves like a consonant cluster in this respect.

For example, compare b[ɑŋ] ‘afraid’ with *b[aŋ], b[ɑlk] ‘beam’ with *b[alk], w[ɛlp] ‘whelp’ with *w[elp]. With respect to C2 in VC1C2, it seems that there is a tendency

towards a coronal when V is tense, as we see in English, Dutch, and also Persian (the

most common C2 in VtenseC1C2# is /t/ in Persian).

This brief review of tense and lax vowels in other languages shows that what we see in

Persian with regard to the proposed VCC co-occurrence restrictions (i) is not unusual for

a tense-based language, because other languages with a tense-lax distinction also exhibit

restrictions in terms of both the nature and the number of following consonants; (ii) is

not an indication of underlying quantity.

Having said this, given that both tense-based and quantity-based languages may show

restrictions on VC co-occurrence, we need to consider the possibility of the restrictions

being an indication of underlying quantity in Persian. In 5.4, I will discuss how VC

restrictions might support quantity in Persian.

5.4. VCC restrictions: why a support for quantity?

In 5.1 and 5.2, I discussed CVC and CVCC in Persian with respect to co-occurrence

restrictions between the vowel and following consonant(s). It was shown that no real

restrictions exist in CVC syllable form regardless of the vowel. In CVCC#, however, ɑ, i, u, unlike a, e, o, show some restrictions regarding following consonants: only CC’s with

falling sonority occur after ɑ, i, u. This observation may seem to provide an argument for

underlying quantity in the system.

Under a quantitative account, ɑ, i, u are underlyingly bimoraic, while a, e, o are

monomoraic (see 4.2). In CVC forms both bimoraic and monomoraic vowels occur. In

CVCC forms when the vowel is monomoraic (a, e, o), no restriction is seen. In CVCC

forms when the vowel is bimoraic (ɑ, i, u), there are restrictions. This suggests that the

207

status of vowels as monomoraic or bimoraic may have an effect on the CC clusters in

CVCC. That is, weight appears to play a role in the type of consonant clusters that can

follow the vowels as the restriction is seen in CVCC (and not CVC which is a less heavy

structure). Recall the presentation of Persian syllable structure suggested in 4.2, repeated

here in (9) and (10) – see 4.2 for discussion of these structures and the assumptions from

which these follow.

(9) i. Lax vowel ii. Tense vowel

PWd PWd

Φ Φ

σ σ

μ μ μ μ

d a r k ɑ r

‘door’ ‘work’

(10) i. Lax vowel ii. Tense vowel

PWd PWd

Φ Φ

σ σ

μ μ μ μ μ

(ʔ ) a r ʤ m ɑ n d

‘value’ ‘last’

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The only structure which shows vowel-consonant co-occurrence restrictions is the one in

(10ii). An analysis along the following lines might be suggested under a quantitative

approach: lax vowels, if monomoraic, would allow two following consonants of any

type; tense vowels, if bimoraic, would allow two following consonants only if the second

one is not a part of the syllable and is linked to the prosodic word. This stray consonant

could be considered to be the onset of the next syllable (in #CVCC# the onset of a

syllable with an empty nucleus; in the epenthesis cases, it is the onset of a vowel-initial

suffix). If the sonority sequencing principle is at play in Persian, the restrictions might

follow. I will return to this in 5.10.

An analysis based on weight and its effect on VCC co-occurrence in

CVCC# also seems to be confirmed by: (i) lexical #CV# being possible with ɑ, i, u, but

not with a, e, o – this will be discussed in chapter 6; (ii) patterning of vowels preceding

geminate consonants, which will be discussed next. I will return to the weight-based

analysis in section 5.10. In this section, I simply wanted to show why the VCC co-

occurrence restrictions can potentially be evidence for quantity and why they are

therefore worth studying.

5.5. Geminates

I now briefly discuss geminate consonants in Persian. Geminate consonants in Persian

and their phonemic status are not well studied and are a matter of controversy and

therefore need careful investigation, which is beyond the scope of this study. The reason

that I discuss geminates is that they show an aspect of VC(C) co-occurrence, the topic of

this chapter. Moreover, they occur more frequently after a, e, o than they do after ɑ, i, u.

The existence of a large number of Arabic-origin words which include geminate

consonants has made the distribution of geminates in Persian difficult to account for.

Mahootian (1997) considers gemination in non-Arabic native words to be often reduced,

that is, the consonants are produced as non-geminate. Hansen (2003) considers a

phonological contrast between geminates and singleton consonants in Persian, as seen in

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mɑde ‘female’ as opposed to mɑdde ‘material’. Deyhime (2000), cited in Hansen (2003),

based on an experiment with 16 Persian speakers, says that geminate stop consonants in

Arabic-origin words are pronounced as geminates by all speakers; in native words,

however, the geminate stops are pronounced by some speakers as singletons. Lazard

(1992) points out that Persian has numerous cases of geminates (he calls these

‘doubling’) which are mostly of Arabic origin, giving examples such as naɢɢɑʃ ‘painter’,

kaffɑʃ ‘shoemaker’, etc. Lazard further says that in colloquial speech sometimes

gemination is expressive in nature, as in hammiʃe for hamiʃe ‘always’.

I examine geminate consonants with respect to their occurrence after different vowels.

That is, considering geminates as CC, I would like to see if a restriction in terms of

preceding vowels is observed with final geminate consonants.

In Persian, lax vowels, a, e, o, occur preceding geminate consonants far more than tense

vowels, ɑ, i, u, do. I went through the Persian Emami (2006) dictionary looking for

words with geminate consonants to study the distribution of vowels before geminates.

Preceding geminate consonants in final position, the occurrence of vowels is as follows

(other than the parts when I say ‘and more’ at the end of the data, the list is exhaustive):

(11) ɑ, i, u before final geminate consonants

No example with i and u. Some with /ɑ/, as follows:

tɑmm ‘complete’

hɑdd ‘severe’

xɑss ‘special’

dɑll ‘indicative’

ʃɑɢɢ ‘arduous’

210

(12) a, e, o before final geminate consonants

/e/ hess ‘sense’

deɢɢ ‘grief’

serr ‘secret’

ʃeɢɢ ‘option’

zedd ‘opposite’

tebb ‘medicine’

/o/ hobb ‘love’

dorr ‘jewel’

robb ‘paste of fruits’

ɢodd ‘stubborn’

koll ‘all’

/a/ ʤadd ‘ancestor’

ʤavv ‘atmosphere’

hadd ‘limit’

hazz ‘joy’

haɢɢ ‘right’

hakk ‘engraving’

211

hall ‘solving’

xatt ‘line’

rabb ‘god’

sadd ‘obstacle’

ʃarr ‘evil’

ʃakk ‘doubt’

ʃamm ‘intuition’

zann ‘suspicion’

farr ‘spelndour’

laɢɢ ‘loose’

and more

As seen above, the lax vowels (in particular /a/) occur more frequently than the tense

vowels before final geminate consonants. It should be added that, as Lazard also says,

final geminates in Persian usually are not clear unless there is a following vowel, for

example:52

(13) a. zann ‘suspicion’ zann-e ɢavi ‘strong suspicion’

b. zan ‘woman’ zan-e ɢavi ‘strong woman’

Let us now look at medial geminates. Medial geminates are easy to distinguish, as in:

52 A note should be made about the z sound in these two words. In pronunciation, the two z’s in these words are pronounced the same. In writing, they are different due to the Perso-Arabic script.

212

(14) a. mɑde ‘female’ mɑdde ‘material’

b. farɑr ‘escape’ farrɑr ‘volatile’

c. halɑl ‘permissible (in religion)’ hallɑl ‘solvent’

d. kore ‘sphere’ korre ‘the young of some animals’

e. banɑ ‘building’ bannɑ ‘bricklayer’

The distribution of vowels before medial geminates is similar to that before final

geminates: geminates occur more with a preceding lax vowel than with a preceding tense

vowel.

(15) ɑ, i, u before medial geminate consonants

No words with u

/ɑ/ ɢɑrre ‘continent’

hɑrre ‘tropical’

ʤɑdde ‘road’

mɑdde ‘material’

ʃɑmme ‘the sense of smell’

/i/ nijjat ‘intention’

raʔijjat ‘peasant’

(ʔ)atijje ‘gift’

213

(16) a, e, o before medial geminate consonants

/e/ pelle ‘stair’

ɢesse ‘story’

ʧelle ‘bowstring’

zelle ‘pestered’

xette ‘territory’

(ʔ)ellat ‘reason’

ʃeddat ‘intensity’

reɢɢat ‘fluidity’

xeffat ‘humiliation’

/o/ korre ‘foal’

ɢolle ‘peak’

ɢosse ‘sorrow’

moddat ‘period’

torre ‘a lock of hair’

ɢodde ‘gland’

ɢovve ‘strength’

(ʔ)ommol ‘old-fashioned’

214

/a/ darre ‘valley’

barre ‘lamb’

zarre ‘particle’

(ʔ)arre ‘saw’

ɢarre ‘cocky’

lakke ‘spot’

dabbe ‘container’

dabbɑɢ ‘tanner’

ʤarrɑh ‘surgeon’

ɢassɑb ‘butcher’

bannɑ ‘bricklayer’

tarrɑh ‘designer’

baʧʧe ‘child’

(ʔ)amme ‘aunt’

hammɑl ‘porter’

raɢɢɑs ‘dancer’

lappe ‘split pea’

and more

Preceding geminate consonants, regardless of whether they occur finally or medially, lax

vowels are more common, although some words with /ɑ/ and /i/ in this position do occur.

Given the proposed syllable structure under a quantity analysis (see 5.4), a bimoraic

215

vowel followed by a geminated consonant is a predicted structure. While there are

differences in frequency, both structures occur. The distribution of vowels before

geminates thus does not provide evidence for an analysis based on underlying quantity.

5.6. On Syllabification in Persian

In this section, I provide some background on syllabification of consonants in Persian

followed by some examples to clarify the way I syllabify words. There is agreement on

syllabification in Persian (Samareh 1985, Meshkatod Dini 1999, Emami 2006 among

others).

(i) No syllable-initial consonant clusters exist in the language. Medial and final CC,

however, are permitted, syllabified as C.C medially.

(ii) Words with CVCV(C) structure are syllabified as CV.CV(C)

(iii) Words with CVCCV(C) structure are syllabified as CVC.CV(C)

(iv) Words with CVCCCV(C) structure are syllabified as CVCC.CV(C). This is not a

common pattern within a stem and there are only a very few words in Persian with this

structure.

Note that, as pointed out in section 2.2.1.1 (footnote 6), there is debate in the Persian

literature as to whether a syllable can start with a vowel or whether there is in fact a

glottal stop in initial position of seemingly vowel-initial syllables. I leave this issue aside

in this thesis. I show here structures starting with C but in fact if someone takes the

possibility of having vowel-initial syllables in Persian the initial C can be considered as

being optional (C).

I now present some examples illustrating syllabification. Since the focus of our

discussion is on medial consonant(s), I show examples of one, two, and three consonants

in a medial position to show how they are syllabified (three is the maximum number of

consonants one can get in a medial position in Persian).

216

(17) CVCV CV.CV

a. nedɑ ‘call’ ne.dɑ

b. ʒɑle ‘dew’ ʒɑ.le

c. zire ‘cumin’ zi.re

(18) CVCCV CVC.CV

a. maxfi ‘hidden’ max.fi

b. bɑtlɑɢ ‘swamp’ bɑt.lɑɢ

(19) CVCCCV CVCC.CV (a rare pattern)

a. surtme ‘sled’ surt.me

b. jurtme ‘trot’ jurt.me / jort.me

With this background on syllabification, I now consider medial consonant clusters.

5.7. On different syllable structures

Recall the VCC co-occurrence restrictions in CVtenseCC# which are met in the native

vocabulary (see 5.9 on loan vocabulary). The overall picture of CV, CVC, CVCC

monosyllabic structures in Persian with respect to the vowels is presented in (20). ‘Yes’

means the structure is possible with the particular vowels and ‘No’ means it is not. Note

that ‘No’ under a, e, o needs comments (see chapter 6), that is why I put ‘roughly’ in

front of it.

217

(20) Vowel restrictions in native Persian vocabulary (monosyllables)

ɑ, i, u a, e, o

#CV# Yes No (roughly)

#CVC# Yes Yes

#CVCC# Restricted in

native words (only

falling sonority

CC’s)

Yes

In general, considering all possibilities in CVC and CVCC, as I will show below, only

monosyllabic words with CVtenseCC structure (e.g., mɑst ‘yogurt’) and polysyllabic

words with CVtenseCC in final position (e.g., ʃe.nɑxt ‘familiarity, knowledge’) show

restrictions on the following sequencing of the consonants.

Let us first review monosyllabic CVCC words. All vowels can occur in monosyllabic

words of the shape CVCC. No restriction is seen on the consonants following a, e, o.

There are restrictions on the consonant following ɑ, i, u in native words (only consonant

clusters with falling sonority occur after tense vowels –see (6)). Recall that the most

frequent CC after tense vowels is voiceless fricatives followed by t (see (6)). Some of the

words with CVCC are nouns related to infinitives.

(21) a. bɑxt ‘failure’ bɑxt-an ‘to lose’

b. bast ‘clip’ bast-an ‘to bind’

The possible CC combinations do not change by including or excluding this class of

nouns.

One may ask about the distribution of vowels in second syllables in CV(C).CVtenseCC

and CV(C).CVlaxCC, that is, in polysyllabic words ending in CVCC. Checking the

218

Emami dictionary (2006) for words with the structure CV(C).CVtenseCC and

CV(C).CVlaxCC , I found the following results: the number of CV(C).CVlaxCC is by far

more than the number of CV(C).CVtenseCC shape words. The words of the form

CV(C).CVtenseCC are not too many and are mainly limited to those which are nouns

related to infinitives in the following way.

(22) a. ʃe.nɑxt ‘familiarity, knowledge’ ʃenɑxt-an ‘to know’

b. vi.rɑst ‘edition’ virɑst-an ‘to edit’

c. par.dɑxt ‘payment’ pardɑxt-an ‘to pay’

d. an.bɑʃt ‘accumulation’ anbɑʃt-an ‘to accumulate sth’

No additional CC in CVCC is observed for tense vowels in CV(C).CVtenseCC beyond

those found in (6). Again with lax vowels more possibilities are observed, although

clusters are more limited than with CVlaxCC (maybe this is due to the number of words

with CVCC which is more than CV(C).CVCC ones). Some examples are presented in

(23):

(23) a. ɡon.ʤeʃk ‘sparrow’

b. an.ɡoʃt ‘finger’

c. ba.nafʃ ‘purple’

d. ɡa.vazn ‘deer’

e. ve.larm ‘tepid’

f. to.fanɡ ‘gun’

g. be.renʤ ‘rice’

h. ʃe.ɡarf ‘great’

i. ɑ.za.raxʃ ‘lightening’

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With lax vowels the most common final CC in CV(C). CVlaxCC are nʤ, nɡ, nd, rd, ʃt, ʃk,

st, and then rɡ, ft, xt, and there are some xʃ, rm, nt, xr, rz, hr, br, rs, fs, fʃ, zn, rf.

So far, I discussed CC’s in final position: whether monosyllabic or polysyllabic, only

VtenseCC# shows restrictions. One possibility to account for this restriction, as noted

above, is that syllabification is as follows: VtenseC.CØ, where Ø is an empty nucleus. If

so, then one might expect medial restrictions after a tense vowel as well. I now examine

CVtenseCC in medial position to examine whether the observed restrictions exist in this

position as well.

Thus, I will examine the sonority of CC in Persian non-final CVCC sequences, in order

to present a complete picture of vowel and consonant(s) sequences in Persian, and, more

importantly, because there are languages which obey the Syllable Contact Law (SCL),

according to which, in a sequence VC1.C2V, the sonority value of C1 must be greater than

the sonority value of C2 (e.g., Vennemann 1988, Clements 1990, Beckman 2004). An

example is Tamil in which SCL is never violated (Beckman 2004).

I disregard the clusters across morpheme boundaries, as in the following words, and

focus on monomorphemic words.

(24) a. xɑr.dɑr ‘barbed’ (xɑr ‘barb’+ dɑr ‘present stem of dɑʃtan ‘to have’’)

b. bɑr.bar ‘porter’ (bɑr ‘baggage’+ bar ‘present stem of bordan ‘to carry’’)

c. pir.mard ‘old man’ (pir ‘old’ + mard ‘man’)

d. xun.sard ‘cold-blooded’ (xun ‘blood’ + sard ‘cold’)

e. xaʃm.ɡin ‘angry’ (xaʃm ‘anger’ + ɡin (a suffix))

Also, I do not consider cases such as pɑnz.dah ‘fifteen’ and ʃɑnz.dah ‘sixteen’ –dah

means ‘ten’. The language does not have pɑnz and ʃɑnz as independent morphemes

(panʤ and ʃeʃ are words for ‘five’ and ‘six’ respectively). There are very few words like

these which I disregard.

220

In (25), I summarize the possibilities of CV, CVC, and CVCC sequences as well as

CVCV and CVCCV, which show if medial C’s and CC’s show any restrictions with

respect to their preceding vowels. The summary should be read as follows. Consider, for

example, the first CV sequence in (25a). It is monomorphemic, monosyllabic. The ‘yes’

under ɑ, i, u for this structure indicates that this type of CV can occur with these vowels.

The comments under a, e, o explain how this structure behaves with respect to a, e, o.

(25) is a summary (the syllables are divided by ‘.’). ‘Yes’ indicates that the vowels in

question are possible in that environment; ‘No’ means that they are not.

221

(25) Possible consonants and consonant clusters following vowels in native vocabualry

Sequence ɑ, i, u a, e, o

a. #CV# sequence (CV#)

Monomorphemic

Monosyllabic

Yes

e.g., pɑ ‘foot’

-No i (in lexical words)

- No e (in lexical words)

- No a in final position in Persian

- o needs discussion (see chapter 6)

b. CVCV sequence

Monomorphemic

Polysyllabic

Yes

e.g., pa.tu ‘blanket’

ʤɑ.ri ‘current’

Yes

e.g., ka.re ‘butter’

c. #CVC# sequence (CVC#)

Monomorphemic

Monosyllabic

Yes

No restriction on C in coda

e.g., sud ‘benefit’

Yes

No restriction on C in coda

e.g., por ‘full’

d. CVCCV(C) sequence

Monomorphemic

Polysyllabic

Yes

No restrictions

e.g., fɑx.te ‘stock dove’

Yes

No restrictions

e.g., tar.xun ‘tarragon’

e. CVCC# sequence (CVCC#)

Monomorphemic

Monosyllabic or polysyllabic

Yes

Restrictions on CC

e.g., pust ‘skin’

vi.rɑst ‘edition’

Yes

No restrictions on CC

e.g., fekr ‘thought’

ɡa.vazn ‘deer’

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Examples for each of the structures shown in (25) along with some notes are found in the

appendix of this chapter.

Given that our focus here is on medial consonant sequences preceded by tense vowels, I

elaborate on this structure.

(26) presents cases with C.C sequences (note: syllabification breaks up medial CC’s):

(26) ɑ, i, u a, e, o

nɑr.ɡil ‘coconut’ dar.jɑ ‘sea’

bɑt.lɑɢ ‘swamp’ tar.xun ‘tarragon’

kɑs.ni ‘chicory’ ban.dar ‘port’

tus.kɑ ‘alder’ nos.xe ‘prescription’

ʃir.ʤe ‘dive’ keʃ.var ‘country’

All vowels can occur. No particular restriction is seen unlike monosyllabic CVtenseCC

words or polysyllabic words ending in CVtenseCC, which show restrictions. A summary of

combinations of consonants after tense vowels in medial position is given in (27). Note

that “?” in (27) shows cases which I am not sure if they are suffixed/compound forms or

are roots. C1’s and C2’s are organized based on sonority (stops, affricates, fricatives,

nasals, liquids, glides).

223

(27) C1 and C2 in CVtenseC1C2 (monomorphemic; polysyllabic (e.g., bɑt.lɑɢ ‘swamp’))

C2

C1

p b t d k ɡ ɢ ʧ ʤ f v ʃ z h m n r l

p √

b ? √ √ √

t √

d ? ?

k ?

ɢ √

ʧ √

f √

v √

s √ √ √ √ √ √ √

ʃ √ √ √ √ √

z √

x √

m √ ? √ √

n √

r √ √ ? √ ? √ √ √ √ √ √

l √ √ √

224

The Syllable Contact Law, therefore, is not met between syllables in Persian; it is

restricted to word final position.

5.8. VCC# restrictions: a tense-based account

The observation that the group ɑ, i, u is restricted with respect to possible clusters in

VCC# may suggest underlying bimoraicity of ɑ, i, u and monomoracity of a, e, o, as

noted above. Under this account, in native CVCC’s, where a bimoraic vowel is followed

by a consonant cluster, only clusters with falling sonority can occur.

I argue in this section that the VCC# restrictions need not be attributed to weight, but are

compatible with a quality analysis based on tenseness.

First of all, recall that restrictions on vowel-consonant(s) sequences are observed in

tense/lax-based languages and are not necessarily an indication of the existence of

underlying quantity (see 5.3).

Moreover, recall the discussion of epenthesis in suffixation in chapter 4. I argued that

even if epenthesis was a productive process (it was shown that it is not) we would not

need underlying quantity to account for it, as underlying tense vowels can project two

morae. Here, too, if the restrictions in CVCC# are taken to be systematic, there is no need

for underlying quantity: quantity is projected from tenseness. At word edge, we might

suppose an analysis along the following lines. An underlying tense vowel projects two

morae, and there can be one following consonant; any additional consonant must be

syllabified as an onset of a following syllable (in this case a syllable with an empty

nucleus; recall that in the epenthesis process, the following syllable was a vowel-initial

suffix). Lax vowels, if projecting one mora, would allow two following consonants of

any type. If the sonority sequencing principle is at play in Persian, the restrictions might

follow, as discussed below. Thus the representations given in (9) and (10) (see 5.4) show

only the surface representation of Persian vowels; underlyingly all vowels are

monomoraic, distinguished by [tense].

225

Considering medial CC sequences, we might expect similar patterns internally, with

restrictions on C.C sequences following tense vowels but not following lax vowels. We

do not see these, however, as discussed in 5.7. The question is: Why might this be?

There is a major difference between final and non-final position in Persian: final vowels

are stressed (see 2.2.1.2). Given this, the restrictions could be related to stress. Compare

(28) with (29) (stress is on the vowel in bold; tense vowels and their following CC are

underlined; a syllable boundary is shown by ‘.’). In (28), where stress is not on the tense

vowel which is followed by a CC (i.e., when the vowel is not in the final syllable), any

CC can follow the vowel. In (29), where stress is on the tense vowel (i.e., when the vowel

is in the final syllable) only falling sonority CC’s occur after the vowel.

(28) bɑt.l

ɢ

ɑɢ ‘swamp’

ɑb.l

ɡ

a.me ‘cooking pot’

us.f

t

and ‘sheep’

us.k

(29) b

ɑ ‘alder’

ɑft

d

‘texture’

ust

vi.r

‘friend’

ɑst

ʃe.n

‘edition’

ɑxt

Thus restrictions are seen in VtenseCC# but not in VtenseCCV. Considering stress and

syllable boundaries (stress is shown by the vowel in bold; a syllable boundary is shown

by ‘.’): VtenseCC in (CV.C)

‘familiarity, knowledge’

VCC# shows restrictions; VtenseCC in (C)VC.C

V(C) does not

show restrictions. This is summarized in (30):

226

(30)

Given that the restrictions occur only in final (stressed) position, it is reasonable to

assume that there is not a quantity distinction underlying, but it is projected.

In the next section I examine restrictions on clusters in loanwords in order to further

examine VCC# restrictions. However, before leaving this section, it is appropriate to

return to words of the structure CVCC.CV. While there are only a couple of these (see

(31)), it is interesting to note that the first vowel is /u/, a tense vowel. Given a

quantitative analysis with a restriction to trimoraic syllables, these forms come as a

surprise: the vowel would occupy two morae, and there is not space for two additional

consonants. Such forms are not unexpected under a qualitative analysis, however,

because the vowel would occupy one mora and there is still space for the two following

consonants.

(31) a. surt.me ‘sled’

b. jurt.me / jort.me ‘trot’

To sum up, I have examined different syllable structures with tense and lax vowels in

Persian native words, and the only structure which shows restrictions is CC in

CVtenseCC#. Let us consider the restrictions seen after tense vowels once more:

Underlying

Vowel

Structure Stress Restrictions

on CC

Vtense VCC# √ √

Vtense VCCV

X X

227

(32) Possible consonant clusters after tense vowels in CVCC in native words

C Vtense C voiceless fricative C t The most common pattern (no /ʃ/ after /i/)

C Vtense C voiceless fricative C k

C Vtense C n C d ɡ

C Vtense C r C d k s ʧ

Next I examine loanwords and the clusters seen in them after tense vowels.

5.9. Loanwords

Consonant clusters which follow tense vowels in the native Persian lexicon display

falling sonority (see (20)). With loanwords things are different. Following tense vowels:

(i) there are falling sonority clusters found in loanwords similar to those found in native

words (see (33)); (ii) there are falling sonority clusters found in loanwords, but not in

native words (see (34)); (iii) there are rising sonority clusters which are forbidden in

native words but are found in loanwords (see (35)). Thus, when loanwords are taken into

account, the distribution of clusters is not restricted, no matter whether the vowel is tense

or lax.

The lexicon of Persian includes many loanwords from a variety of languages, mostly

from Arabic and some from Turkish and other languages – such words are very much

integrated into the Persian lexicon and are not considered as loanwords.53

53 In order to make sure of the origins of the words, I checked the Emami dictionary (2006) (this dictionary indicates if a word is considered a loan) as well as the Dehkhoda encyclopedia.

The loanwords

discussed now are from English and French.

228

Some loanwords from French or English follow the combinations that were seen above

for native words, such as those in (33). The examples all involve tense vowels and the

relevant environment under study.

(33) a. burs ‘bursary’

b. rinɡ ‘ring’54

c. ʃift ‘shift’

d. pɑrkinɡ ‘parking’

e. risk ‘risk’

f. ʒimnɑst ‘gymnast’

g. estɑndɑrd ‘standard’

h. mɑrk ‘mark’

i. mɑsk ‘mask’

Various combinations including the following are also observed in loan words. Some of

these words are commonly used in the language and others are less frequently used.

Some of the very common loanwords are given below. These clusters also show falling

sonority, as expected after the vowels ɑ, i, u.

(34) a. film ‘film, movie’

b. ʃɑns ‘chance’

c. konferɑns ‘conference’

d. lisɑns ‘licence’

54 Words such as ranɡ ‘color’ are transcribed as ranɡ or ranŋɡ in the Persian literature (Samareh 1985, Meshkatod Dini 1999). I show the sequence of nɡ as nɡ throughout.

229

e. lɑmp ‘lamp’

f. bɑnk ‘bank’

In addition, there are clusters that are unexpected after ɑ, i, u, clusters with rising

sonority, given the pattern in the native lexicon. For instance, there are stops as the first

consonant in the clusters, or a fricative followed by a nasal in very common loan words,

such as the following:

(35) a. dubl ‘double’

b. luks ‘luxe’

c. pudr ‘powder’

d. ʧips ‘chips’

e. zirɑks ‘zirax’

f. kɑdr ‘cadre’

g. ritm ‘rhythm’

h. sikl ‘cycle’

i. litr ‘litre’

j. fiks ‘fix’

k. fɑks ‘fax’

l. titr ‘title’

m. kɑbl ‘cable’

n. fibr ‘fibre’

o. ɡoɑtr ‘goitre’

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p. bɑrfiks ‘barfix’

q. ɑsm ‘asthma’

r. espɑsm ‘spasm’

There are also words with –ism and –ist as suffix (note: -st after tense vowels is found in

native words), such as:

(36) a. kɑpitɑlism, kɑpitɑlist ‘capitalism, capitalist’

b. ʒurnɑlism, ʒurnɑlist ‘journalism, journalist’

c. nɑsijonɑlism, nɑsijonɑlist ‘nationalism, nationalist’

To these, some technical terms such as the following can be added. Here there are

consonant clusters like native possibilities as (37c), and some unlike them as (37b) – as

for (37a), nd after tense vowels exists in the language but not nt, but nt also meets the

requirement of falling sonority after tense vowels.

(37) a. tɑnʒɑnt ‘tangent’

b. dijɑfrɑɡm ‘diaphragm’

c. sɑrs ‘the disease SARS’

Thus, there exists a range of consonant clusters occurring after tense vowels in non-

native words. Several cases of these consonant clusters are observed in Persian (and

Arabic-origin very commonly used in Persian), but only after lax vowels, a, e, o. Some

examples are given in (38). These show that the following CC combinations (among

others) are acceptable in the language; it is just that they do not occur after tense vowels

in the native lexicon.

(38) a. zahr ‘poison’

b. mozd ‘wage’

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c. ʃemʃ ‘bullion’

d. sabk ‘style’

e. tabl ‘drum’

f. ʧatr ‘umbrella’

g. potk ‘sledge-hammer’

h. bekr ‘intact’

i. fekr ‘thought’

j. vazn ‘weight’

k. seɢl ‘gravity’

l. boɢz ‘grudge’

m. maks ‘pause’

n. sabr ‘patience’

o. hatm ‘certainty’

It is important to ask if loanwords and native words should be treated together. Some of

the loanwords are very much integrated into Persian and, for instance, are used with

Persian native words in compounds. Consider the following example:

(39) ʃɑns ‘chance’ (loan from French)

a. xoʃ ʃɑns b. bad ʃɑns c. kam ʃɑns

good chance bad chance little chance

‘lucky’ ‘unlucky’ ‘not having so much luck’

For some of the loanwords there is no native equivalent Persian item, such as:

232

(40) a. bɑnk ‘bank’

b. film ‘movie’

c. ʃɑrʒ ‘charge (battery, feelings/energy)’

d. luks ‘lux’

Including the loanwords in the study of VCC combinations, various combinations of

consonant clusters in CVCC occur following a tense V as well as with a lax V. An

investigation of possible CC’s in loanwords with CVCC structure entered Persian is

important because loanwords shed light on the underlying structure of a language. The

VCC# restrictions are limited to native words; they are not observed in VCC# loanwords.

Let us see what this suggests, comparing the behavior of harmony with the one of VCC

co-occurrence restrictions in loanwords. Harmony patterns occur in loanwords, just as in

Persian native words (recall from 2.3.3 that the epenthetic vowel undergoes harmony in

loanwords) while the types of CC’s which are seen in loanwords (both rising and falling

sonority is observed after tense vowels in loanwords) and those which are seen in native

words (only falling sonority is observed after tense vowels in native words) are not the

same. Given that the patterns which are seen in loanword adaptation often reveal aspects

of native phonology which are not necessarily apparent from native data (see Kang

2011), the similarity of harmony patterns in loanwords and native words versus the

difference in VtenseCC co-occurrence possibilities in loanwords and native words suggest

that the occurrence of harmony is a productive process but the restriction to falling

sonority of the CC’s after tense vowels is not a systematic generalization as an

asymmetry is observed between native words and loanwords with respect to possible

CC’s after tense vowels. The comparison informs us of the native phonology of Persian,

suggesting that harmony involves the underlying level ([tense] is underlyingly present)

while VCC restrictions are either on the surface (that is they are not due to an underlying

property of vowels) or are not real restrictions.

Recall the chart in (20), the overall picture of CV, CVC, and CVCC in native words with

respect to vowels. I repeat it in (41).

233

(41)

ɑ, i, u a, e, o

#CV# Yes No (roughly)

#CVC# Yes Yes

#CVCC# Restricted in

native words (only

falling sonority

CC’s)

Yes

Looking more broadly at the language and taking loanwords into account, we thus see

that even at an edge, there are not restrictions on clusters following tense vowels.

Therefore, considering the loanwords with the shape of CVtenseCC, with which we see

CC’s with rising sonority, the chart in (41) could be revised, as in (42). Basically, the gap

observed in CVCC# native words is filled by very commonly-used loanwords.

(42)

ɑ, i, u a, e, o

#CV# Yes No (roughly)

#CVC# Yes Yes

#CVCC# Yes (considering

both native words

and loanwords)

Yes

Supporting the conclusion that falling sonority in final consonant clusters is not a

systematic generalization in Persian comes from loanwords with initial consonant

clusters. Loanwords with final CC’s with rising sonority are accepted in Persian without

any adjustment as discussed in this section. Initial consonant clusters, however, are

234

absolutely forbidden in Persian as the occurrence of epenthesis shows (see 2.3.3 for

discussion on epenthesis in loanwords). (43) presents examples of loanwords with initial

consonant clusters (‘.’ shows a syllable boundary). The examples show that an epenthetic

vowel is inserted to break up initial consonant clusters.

(43) ski → es.ki

small → es.mɑl

class → ke.lɑs

press → pe.res

If having consonant clusters with falling sonority after tense vowels were truly related to

the syllable structure of Persian or properties of Persian vowels, we would expect to see

adjustments in loanwords which have final CC’s with rising sonority. But we do not see

such adjustments. They are perfectly accepted in Persian with no adjustments. Forbidding

initial consonant clusters, however, is a systematic generalization in Persian, one that has

to be met, thus adjustments are made in loanwords which deviate from this

generalization, as (43) shows.

Thus both comparing loanwords with Persian native words, and comparing how

loanwords are accepted and used (with or without adjustments) shed light on the

unsystematic status of restrictions on final CC’s following tense vowels.

In the next section, I will conclude that VCC# restrictions do not argue for underlying

quantity.

5.10. VCC co-occurrence restrictions: not a support for quantity

In 5.7-5.9, I discussed VCC# restrictions in native words and loanwords. To conclude, I

suggest that the VCC# restrictions in native words is an accidental gap, and not an

indication of bimoraicity of ɑ, i, u, for the following reasons: (i) the idea that there might

235

be an appeal to tenseness only in final position is supported by those very rare

occurrences of VCC.CV words (e.g., surt.me ‘sled’); (ii) the restrictions could be

accounted for by surface quantity derived from underlying tenseness in final (stressed)

position; (iii) the language appeals to tense/lax finally but the existence of commonly-

used loanwords of CVCC structure with rising sonority consonant clusters suggests that

the VtenseCC# restrictions are not real.

So far I have discussed the synchronic status of consonant clusters with respect to the

preceding vowels. One may ask whether the patterning of vowels and their following

consonants can be explained historically. It could be speculated that the restriction might

be a case of historical residue given that the Middle Persian vowel system is thought to

be quantitative (see 2.1). I discuss Middle Persian final CC’s and geminate consonants in

the next section. The purpose, as noted above, is to find out whether or not the synchronic

restrictions on CC in CVCC where V is a tense vowel has an historical explanation.

5.11. A note on the historical status of final CC’s and gemination

The historical investigation of final consonant clusters and the restrictions on VCC is a

topic on its own which requires careful attention. I briefly summarize what I have found

based on Middle Persian words as documented in Farahvashi’s dictionary (1967). I first

discuss historical final CC’s after long and short vowels in 5.11.1. I then discuss

geminate consonants in Middle Persian in 5.11.2.

5.11.1. Final CC’s in Middle Persian

Looking at all the words in Farahvashi’s dictionary (1967), with both former long vowels

(ō, ē, ā, ū, ī) and former short vowels (a, i, u) CC with rising sonority and CC with falling

sonority are possible –see (44) and (45). Some examples are given in (46) and (47) –in

the examples the equivalents of the words in Modern Persian are given if they exist.

Before going through the CC clusters and examples, a few points should be noted: (i)

236

there are some Modern Persian words which do not have equivalents in Middle Persian

(either because they entered Persian from Arabic or they are newer words) and vice

versa, that is, some Middle Persian words were lost and therefore do not have Modern

Persian equivalent; (ii) some words in the Middle Persian dictionary are documented in

more than one way, so depending on what version is chosen the vowel can be long or

short (e.g., Middle Persian hiʃm and hēʃm ‘anger’ (today: xaʃm)).

The clusters are given in (44) and (45) followed by some examples in (46) and (47).

237

(44) Possible final CC’s in Middle Persian after long vowels

C2

C1

p t d k ɡ s ʃ v h m n r l

t √

d √ √

f √

v √

s √ √ √

ʃ √ √ √

z √ √ √ √

ʒ √

x √ √ √ √ √

Ɣ √

h √ √ √ √ √

n √ √ √

r √ √ √ √

238

(45) Possible final CC’s in Middle Persian after short vowels

C2

C1

p b t d k ɡ s ʃ z ʒ ʧ ʤ v Ɣ h m n r l j

p √ √

t √ √

d √ √ √ √

ɡ √

f √ √ √ √

s √ √ √ √ √

ʃ √ √ √ √ √

z √ √ √ √

ʒ √ √

x √ √ √ √ √ √ √

h √ √ √ √

m √ √

n √ √ √ √ √

r √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

239

(46) Examples of final CC’s in Middle Persian after long vowels

a. Falling sonority in CC

kārt ‘knife’ (today: kɑrd)

rāst ‘right’ (today: rɑst)

mōzd ‘wage’ (today: mozd)

dōst ‘friend’ (today: dust)

ɡōʃt ‘meat’ (today: ɡuʃt)

dūzd ‘thief’ (today: dozd)

mitūxt ‘lie’

mūzɡ ‘grime’

b. Rising sonority in CC

frāʃm ‘appraisal’

hamāhl ‘similar’

dāsr ‘gift’

ēzm ‘firewood’ (today: hizom)

ʧīhr ‘face’ (today: ʧehr)

pēhn ‘wide’ (today: pahn)

zōhr ‘holy water’

240

(47) Examples of final CC’s in Middle Persian after short vowels

a. Falling sonority in CC

pazaʃk ‘doctor’ (today: pezeʃk)

buland ‘tall’ (today: boland)

marɡ ‘death’ (today: marɡ)

marz ‘border’ (today: marz)

ɡurɡ ‘wolf’ (today: ɡorɡ)

muʃt ‘fist’ (today: moʃt)

kiʃt ‘planting’ (today: keʃt)

virinʤ ‘rice’ (today: berenʤ)

b. Rising sonority in CC

ʧaʃm ‘eye’ (today: ʧaʃm/ʧeʃm)

abr ‘cloud’ (today: abr)

sahm ‘share’ (today: sahm)

razm ‘war’ (today: razm)

vafr ‘snow’ (today: barf –falling sonority)

taxl ‘bitter’ (today: talx –falling sonority)

mitr ‘kindness, sun’ (today: mehr)

kirm ‘worm’ (today: kerm)

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spihr ‘sky’ (today: sepehr)

tuxm ‘seed’ (today: toxm)

The pattern observed in the data is summarized in (48):

(48) Middle Persian

Short vowels are not of interest here as both falling and rising sonority are observed

today in CC’s after a, e, o, which are the present correspondents of former short vowels.

The case of CC’s after long vowels, however, needs to be examined as with these vowels,

clusters of falling and rising sonority both were possible in Middle Persian and now only

falling sonority clusters occur with the present correspondents of these vowels, ɑ, i, u. Some sound changes occurred which caused the changes after former long vowels, today

ɑ, i, u. Consider the examples in (49) and compare them with those in (50). In (49), when

the CC shows rising sonority, either a vowel was inserted to break up the CC (as in (49a)

– o is inserted between z and m) or the long vowel preceding the CC changed to a vowel

which does not correspond to that long vowel (as in (49b) and (49c) – ī > e, ē > a), or

both of these processes occurred (as in (49d) – a is inserted between h and r, and also ō >

o), or the word is lost (as in (49e)). Thus some productive activity with respect to CC

after long vowels occurred from Middle Persian to Modern Persian, resulting in the

restrictions we see today. In (50), however, with a falling sonority cluster in Middle

Persian after long vowels these changes did not occur (leaving aside those words with

final CC with falling sonority after long vowels which were lost).

Structure Falling

sonority

Rising

sonority

CVlongCC# √ √

CVshortCC# √ √

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(49) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. ēzm → hizom ‘firewood’

b. ʧīhr → ʧehr ‘face’

c. pēhn → pahn ‘wide’

d. ɡōhr → ɡohar ‘jewel’

e. dāsr ------- ‘gift’

(50) Middle Persian Modern Persian

a. pōst → pust ‘skin’

b. rāst → rɑst ‘right’

c. ʧāʃt → ʧɑʃt ‘a quick and light meal’

This may suggest an historical change in sonority of final CC’s following previous long

vowels (present tense vowels ɑ, i, u) because today we get the pattern shown in (51).

Compare (48) and (51) – note the difference in the rising sonority column.

(51) Modern Persian (native words)

Structure Falling

sonority

Rising

sonority

CVtenseCC# √ X

CVlaxCC# √ √

243

The suggestion noted above regarding an historical change in final CC’s needs to be

confirmed by further investigation. There might have been another linguistic period,

responsible for such changes between Middle Persian and Modern Persian. The role of

Arabic and how sonority works in that language might be worth considering as Persian

has been influenced by a large number of vocabulary entered from Arabic and that might

have had an effect on the changes in final CC’s after vowels. It could be also a change

completely independent from Arabic.

In this section, it was seen that the falling sonority clusters which occur today after ɑ, i, u

are not inherited from Middle Persian and are in fact a consequence of processes which

occurred between Middle Persian and Modern Persian.

5.11.2. Geminates in Middle Persian

In this section I present a brief discussion of geminates in Middle Persian. I leave aside

Arabic words with geminate consonants which entered Persian. Looking at Farahvashi’s

dictionary (1967), it is observed that Middle Persian had some cases of geminates. Some

examples are given below. As seen, some words are documented with both geminate and

single consonants in the dictionary.

There are cases which were geminated in Middle Persian (or have a geminated version

along with a non-geminated version) and still are geminated.

(52) Middle Persian Modern Persian

varrak/varak barre ‘lamb’

ajjār ajjɑr ‘helper’

There were cases which were documented as geminated which are not geminated today

as in (53) and vice versa as in (54).

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(53) Middle Persian Modern Persian

hannām/annām andɑm ‘body’

purr/pur por ‘full’

karr/kar kar ‘deaf’

parr/par par ‘feather’

(54) Middle Persian Modern Persian

baʧak/vaʧak baʧʧe ‘child’

Based on words in the dictionary geminate consonants occurred only after short vowels

(in particular after a) in Middle Persian with very few exceptions, where long vowels are

followed by geminate consonants. This could be accounted for based on quantity, which

is thought to be the active feature of the Middle Persian vowel system (see 2.1), as a

geminate consonant following a bimoraic vowel results in a structure that is too heavy or

too long.

(55) Middle Persian Modern Persian

hūrram/hūram xorram ‘happy, verdant’

There are also cases of gemination in Middle Persian which were lost in Modern Persian

(e.g., Middle Persian darrāk ‘ruined’, Middle Persian annāk ‘mean’).

Cases of geminates across morpheme boundaries are also observed in Middle Persian.

(56) vat ‘bad’ vattar ‘worse’ (vat-tar) vattom ‘worst’ (vat-tom)

In this section, I briefly discussed geminates in Middle Persian. It seems that the

observation that geminate consonants are mostly seen after lax vowels today can be

explained historically at least for Persian words. A more thorough investigation of

geminates in Middle Persian remains for future study. In this regard, it is important to

245

take Arabic into consideration as most geminated words which are seen in the language

today are not found in Middle Persian dictionaries and are therefore borrowed.

5.12. Summary

In this chapter, I examined VC and VCC co-occurrence restrictions and gemination in

Persian. As shown, the only restriction in vowels and following consonants is found in

the CVtenseCC# form in the native lexicon. I showed why VCC co-occurrence restrictions

can potentially support a quantity-based analysis and argued that they do not do so. If

there is a reference to quantity, it is only in final (stressed) syllables, as shown by the rare

occurrence of VCC.CV forms where the first vowel is tense (note that height fails to

categorize the vowels into two groups, thus ‘reference to quantity in final position’ when

the vowel is ɑ, i, u is impossible to be accounted for by height). I further argued that

loanwords from English and French are well integrated into the Persian lexicon, and

provide counterexamples to the claim that final clusters are restricted after tense vowels.

I also briefly discussed the historical status of final CC’s and geminates considering

Middle Persian. The VCC restrictions do not seem to be accounted for based on Middle

Persian. It is interesting though how things developed to create the current pattern. The

patterning of vowels before geminate consonants, however, seems to some extent to be

similar to what is observed in Middle Persian although given that most words which

include geminate consonants are from Arabic, one cannot be sure that the behaviour of

vowels in geminates can be an indication of some property of Persian vowels and what

constitutes the Persian lexicon. In fact, a thorough account of geminates cannot be

provided without considering Arabic and the influence it has had over Persian from

Middle Persian to the present time.

In the next chapter, another potential support for a quantity-based analysis of Persian

vowels which involves vowel-final words will be examined. I will show that vowel-final

words do not argue for underlying quantity either.

246

Appendix

Vowel-consonant sequences

This appendix includes examples and notes regarding various vowel-consonant

sequences discussed in this chapter. A summary of what follows was presented in (25) in

that chapter.

CV sequence (monomorphemic; monosyllabic)

(1)

(summarized in (25a))

ɑ, i, u a, e, o

pɑ ‘foot’ - Some function words

ʤɑ ‘place’ - o in final position needs

nɑ ‘mustiness’ comment (see chapter 6)

lɑ ‘fold, ply’ - No a in final position in

su ‘direction’ Persian

ɢu ‘swan’

mu ‘hair’

xu ‘disposition’

bu ‘smell’

ru ‘face’

+ some function words

Words with ɑ, i, u in final position are possible. No word in Persian ends in a

(exceptions: va ‘and’ and na ‘no’). Words ending in o, which are a matter of debate in the

Persian literature, will be discussed in chapter 6. There are some function words ending

247

in e. Persian vowels in final position in monosyllabic words in general will be examined

in chapter 6.

CVCV sequence (monomorphemic)

A word of CVCV structure is syllabified as CV.CV. Consider the last syllables in (2).

(summarized in (25b))

(2) ɑ, i, u a, e, o

kɑ.ʃi ‘tile’ - No a in final position

bɑ.zi ‘play’ - o needs comments

max.fi ‘hidden’ - e is possible:

ɢa.nɑ.ri ‘canary’ pa.ʃe ‘mosquito’

zɑ.nu ‘knee’ xɑ.le ‘aunt’

ta.rɑ.zu ‘scale’ sa.fi.ne ‘galleon’

si.mɑ ‘face’ ɢol.ve ‘kidney’

xor.mɑ ‘date (fruit)’ fe.reʃ.te ‘angle’

Words with ɑ, i, u in final position are possible. Polysyllabic words with final e are

possible, too.

In the same structure, now consider the first syllables.

(3) ɑ, i, u a, e, o

ɢɑ.li ‘carpet’ pa.ʃe ‘mosquito’

fɑ.nus ‘lantern’ ka.re ‘butter’

sɑ.de ‘simple’ ta.lɑ ‘gold’

kɑ.ʃi ‘tile’ ma.kɑn ‘place’

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sɑ.ɢar ‘goblet’ va.fɑ ‘fidelity’

bi.ni ‘nose’ se.dɑ ‘voice’

si.mɑ ‘face’ ʃe.nɑ ‘swimming’

zi.re ‘cumin’ ne.ɡɑh ‘look’

mi.ve ‘fruit’ fe.ʃɑr ‘pressure’

ɡi.ti ‘world’ me.lɑk ‘criterion’

pu.ne ‘spearmint’ ʃo.ʤɑʔ ‘brave’

ku.ʧe ‘alley’ ho.mɑ ‘a mythical bird’

ku.dak ‘baby’ ko.lɑh ‘hat’

zu.ze ‘howl’ bo.xɑr ‘steam’

There could be longer words, all CV: ʤa.zi.re ‘island’, kɑ.ku.ti ‘basil’ (~ kɑ.ko.ti),

zo.bɑ.le ‘garbage’, ɡo.lɑ.bi ‘pear’, se.tɑ.re ‘star’.

All vowels can occur in non-final open syllables. No particular restriction or pattern is

seen.

CVC sequence (monomorphemic; monosyllabic)

(4)

(summarized in (25c))

ɑ, i, u a, e, o

pɑk ‘pure’ tak ‘unique’

xɑr ‘thorn’ sar ‘head’

rɑz ‘secret’ xaz ‘fur’

bɑd ‘wind’ bam ‘bass’

dɑɢ ‘hot’ ʧap ‘left’

249

ʤɑn ‘soul’ raɡ ‘vein’

fɑʃ ‘revealed’ nax ‘string’

bim ‘fear’ ʃen ‘gravel’

xis ‘wet’ lis ‘lick’

bid ‘willow’ ɡel ‘mud’

ʤib ‘pocket’ deʒ ‘fortress’

sir ‘garlic’ deh ‘village’

div ‘demon’ neɢ ‘nagging’

rud ‘river’ bot ‘idol’

ʃux ‘funny’ rox ‘face’

tul ‘length’ ɡol ‘flower’

bus ‘kiss’ ros ‘clay’

tut ‘berry’ moʧ ‘wrist’

xub ‘good’ rok ‘direct’

zur ‘force’ por ‘full’

All vowels can occur. No particular restriction or pattern is seen. In terms of frequency,

counting the words in the Emami dictionary (2006), I came up with the following results.

There are more words with the tense vowels in this structure than with the lax vowels.

Among the lax vowels, the low vowel is the most frequent one, as is the low vowel

among the tense ones.

250

(5) Frequency of the occurrence of vowels in #CVC#

a ~ 80

o ~ 55

e ~ 30

ɑ ~ 145

u ~ 95

i ~ 77

Note that I did not count words with final geminates, which were examined in 5.5.

CVCCV(C) sequence (monomorphemic; polysyllabic)

Words with this structure are syllabified as CVC.CV(C). (6) presents some examples.

(summarized in (25d))

(6) ɑ, i, u a, e, o

nɑr.ɡil ‘coconut’ dar.jɑ ‘sea’

fɑx.te ‘stock dove’ max.fi ‘hidden’

ziz.fun ‘linden tree’ pes.te ‘pistachio’

ʃir.ʤe ‘dive’ keʃ.var ‘country’

ɡus.fand ‘sheep’ dor.nɑ ‘crane’

tus.kɑ ‘alder’ nos.xe ‘prescription’

No restrictions are observed either way.

251

CVCC sequence (monomorphemic; monosyllabic and final syllable of polysyllabic)

(summarized in (25e))

This is the structure which shows restrictions with tense vowels (along with CVtenseCC in

final position of polysyllabic words).

(7) ɑ, i, u a, e, o

mɑst ‘yogurt’ dast ‘hand’

kɑʃt ‘planting’ nazm ‘order’

ɢɑrʧ ‘mushroom’ nabʃ ‘corner’

zist ‘life’ zebr ‘rough’

(ʔ)ist ‘stop’ maks ‘pause’

pust ‘skin’ lotf ‘mercy’

dust ‘friend’ ɡorɡ ‘wolf’

ɡuʃt ‘meat’ toxm ‘seed’

In terms of frequency of occurrence of vowels, here is what is found in CVCC based on

Samareh (1985) (cf. (5) above for CVC).

(8) Frequency of the occurrence of vowels in #CVCC#

a 378

o 164

e 136

252

ɑ 26

u 10

i 9

The number of words with a, e, o is far more than the words with ɑ, i, u. The number of

tokens with each of the vowels ɑ, i, u are as follows: ɑ (~ 50) is much more frequent than

i (~10) and u (~10). In terms of frequency, while CVC is more common with tense

vowels, CVCC is more common with lax vowels –word finally and medially (in medial

position it is syllabified as CVC.C…).

253

Chapter 6

Minimal word requirements: evidence for quantity?

In the previous two chapters, I examined two phenomena which at first appear to present

support for an underlying quantitative account of the Persian vowel system. In chapter 4,

I argued that epenthesis in suffixation is not productive, but nonetheless, it can be

accounted for by tenseness from which quantity follows; thus, epenthesis does not require

reference to underlying quantity. In chapter 5, I discussed consonant-final words and the

restrictions observed in VCC co-occurrences and argued that they, too, do not require

reference to underlying quantity, and in fact are an accidental gap that follows from

restricting the data set to native Persian words.

In this chapter, I discuss vowel-final words. These potentially introduce support for a

quantity-based account of the system. A minimal word requirement might be considered

as an argument for quantity in Persian given the way vowels in final position of

monosyllabic words seem to pattern. I present evidence for a minimal word requirement

in Persian and argue that this evidence does not support underlying quantity in the vowel

system of the language, but derived quantity.

I first discuss a possible minimality requirement in 6.1. I introduce and discuss the data

in 6.2. In 6.3, I present an analysis based on quantity to show how the patterning of

vowels in open monosyllables suggests a minimal word requirement. In this section, I

also present an analysis based on tenseness to show that there is no need for underlying

quantity to account for the distribution of vowels in open monosyllables, and to show that

the patterning of vowels does not provide evidence for underlying moraicity. In 6.4, I

discuss an experiment I conducted on o-final monosyllables. In 6.5 I discuss minimal

words in Persian. 6.6 summarizes and concludes the chapter.

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6.1. Minimality requirement

A prosodic word, according to McCarthy and Prince (1995), consists of at least one foot.

In quantity-sensitive languages that distinguish syllable weight, a foot is usually

bimoraic; therefore, in these languages the minimal word is bimoraic (for discussion of

minimal words see Prince 1980, Wilkinson 1988, Cole 1990, McCarthy and Prince 1990,

1995, Garrett 1999, Harvey and Borowsky 1999, Cohn 2004, and Ketner 2006, among

many others). Given the assumption about a minimal word and its bimoraicity, if, in

Persian, /ɑ, i, u/ are long, or bimoraic, and /a, e, o/ are short, or monomoraic, it is

expected to see words of the form Cɑ, Ci, Cu, which meet that assumption, but not Ca, Ce, Co, which do not meet it.

Two points should be noted with regard to minimality requirements. First, a minimal

word requirement is not a necessary condition in quantity-sensitive languages. According

to Hayes (1995), ‘minimal word requirements, though widespread, are hardly universal’

(p. 88). Czech (West Slavic), Nengone (Austronesian), Piro (Arawakan), and Dehu

(Austronesian) are among languages with phonemic length and without a minimal word

requirement (examples are from Hayes 1995).

Second, the existence of a minimal word requirement does not argue for the presence of

underlying quantity in a vowel system. A language may have restrictions on the

occurrence of some vowels in final position or in monosyllabic words which may seem to

be an indication of quantity but the overall patterning of its vowels may not support the

existence of quantity in that language. For example, consider English. Lax vowels do not

occur in monosyllables, unlike tense vowels (e.g., bee [bi] and bit [bɪt] exist in English,

but [bɪ] does not) but the dimension of contrast is not generally considered to be quantity

in English, rather it is generally thought to be tenseness. It is conceivable that Persian

also went through a shift from a quantity distinction to a tense/lax distinction, with some

residue of the earlier quantity system remaining, with it being similar to English in this

regard. For discussion of English tense/lax see Hammond 1997, Green 2001; for

discussion of Persian historical background see 2.1.1.

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According to Féry, “as a general tendency, it can be safely assumed that tense vowels

appear in open syllable and lax vowels in closed syllables” (Féry 2003, p. 247 - see also

van der Hulst 1984 and Kager 1989 for Dutch (cited in Féry 2003)). Midi (Southern)

French shows the following Loi de Position (Position Law) (Féry 2003, van Oostendorp

2006):

Loi de Position: Lax (mid) vowels appear in a closed syllable (or an open syllable

followed by a schwa-headed syllable); tense vowels appear elsewhere.

For example:

(1) fête [fɛt] ‘party’ celery [sɛləʁi] ‘celery’ fêter [fete] ‘to party’

code [kɔd] ‘code’ moquerie [mɔkəʁi] ‘mockery’ coder [kode] ‘to code’

As van Oostendorp states, this distinction is not one of length. “The difference between

[ɛ] and [e], or between [ɔ] and [o] clearly corresponds to a difference between closed and

open syllables, but there is no reason to assume that Southern French distinguishes

between ‘long’ and ‘short’ vowels” (van Oostendorp, 2006, p. 8).

Thus, there are quantity-based languages which have a minimal word requirement, but

not all quantity-based languages have this requirement. Moreover, there are languages

which have a minimality requirement which might seem to be correlated to quantity, but

the overall phonological activity of those language does not support the existence of

quantity, and the requirement relates to quality. For example, consider Southern French

again. Some Southern French dialects display a process of ‘vowel harmony’ regarding

the feature [tense]: if the following vowel is high, the mid vowel is tense, if it is low, the

mid vowel is lax (van Oostendorp 2006):

(2) bête - bêtise [bɛt betiz] ‘stupid, stupidity’

dos - dossard [do dɔzaʁ] ‘back, number’

van Oostendorp (2006, p. 8) concludes: “Harmonic behavior is a clear indication that we

are dealing with a feature under standard assumptions in phonological theory; length

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cannot spread, but a feature can”. These examples show that restrictions on syllable

structure and how vowels pattern in this respect, on their own, do not provide strong

evidence for quantity because it is possible that tense-based languages show restrictions.

The overall phonological activity of the language under study should be taken into

account.

With this background on minimal word requirements, I introduce the Persian data.

6.2. Data: description and discussion

In describing constraints on the distribution of vowels, Samareh (1977) says that /a, o/ do

not occur word finally with a few exceptions, as follows (p. 118, Samareh’s

transcription):

(3) /a/ in final position

va ‘and’

na ‘no’

/o/ in final position

monosyllabic disyllabic complex a few loanword

do ‘two’ bero ‘go’ the formal form of borou55

čo ‘as’ mâyo ‘swimming costume’

râdio ‘radio’

to ‘thou’

55 It is not clear why bero/borou ‘go!’ is listed here but not, for instance, bedo/bodou ‘run!’. Both are imperative forms consisting of the imperative marker be- which undergoes place harmony due to the vowel of the stem (see 2.3.1).

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I would like to note a few points in this regard. In Persian in general, no monosyllabic

word ends in /a, o, e/, except for:

(4) Ca : na ‘no’

va ‘and’

(5) Co : to ‘you (sg)’

do ‘two’

ʧo ‘as’ (not used in speech/used only in poetry, etc.) 56

(6) Ce : be ‘to’

se ‘three’

ʧe ‘what’ (pronounced in speech as ʧi)

ke ‘that’

Looking at the words in (4)-(6), we observe that these are all function words (assuming

numbers are categorized as function words).

I now consider monosyllabic words with /ɑ/, /u/, and /i/ (the list of words is exhaustive).

(7) Cɑ: lɑ ‘fold, ply’

pɑ ‘foot’

nɑ ‘energy, mustiness’

56 The loanword ʃo ‘show’ is not included.

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ʤɑ ‘place’

bɑ ‘with’

mɑ ‘we’

tɑ ‘until’

jɑ ‘or’57

(8) Cu: ru ‘face’

bu ‘smell’

su ‘direction’

su ‘eyesight’

ʤu ‘brook’

ɢu ‘swan’

mu ‘hair’

xu ‘disposition, habit’

tu ‘inside’

ku ‘where’

(ʔ)u ‘he/she’

57 There are also:

zɑ ‘childbirth’, ‘the present stem of zɑjidan ‘to give birth’’ − which cannot be used alone

hɑ ‘the plural marker’ −it is not used alone

rɑ ‘the specificity marker’ −used following nouns and pronounced as ro or o in speech.

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(9) Ci: ʧi ‘the informal form of ʧe ‘what’’ (see (4))

ki ‘the informal form of ke ‘who’’

si ‘thirty’

bi ‘without’58

While there are some function words with these vowels, there are also lexical items.

59

The existence of lexical words with /ɑ/ and /u/ (e.g., pɑ ‘foot’, mu ‘hair’) but not with /a/,

/e/, /o/ might be taken as an argument for /ɑ/, /u/, and /i/ being phonologically long or

bimoraic, meeting a minimal word requirement, and /a/, /o/, and /e/ being short or

monomoraic, and thus unable to meet the minimal word requirement. Those

monosyllables with /a/, /o/, and /e/ are function words escaping this requirement.

However, there are several points to be noted. Let us return to (4)-(6).

First consider the absence of /a/ in monosyllables. For words ending in /a/ as in (4), this

gap is not only about monosyllabicity. No word in Persian, whether monosyllabic or

polysyllabic, ends in /a/ except those in (4). The reason is that, as discussed in 3.6.4,

historically /a/ in final position changed to /e/ in the last millennium (Natel Khanlari 1987

among others).

Monosyllabic words ending in /e/ all are function words (see (6)).

Next consider the lack of monosyllabic words with /o/. For words ending in /o/, as

discussed in 3.10, there is disagreement in the Persian literature as to whether a word

(whether monosyllabic or polysyllabic) can end in o or if in fact such words have ow in

final position. I will return to this in 6.3.

58 There are also: fi ‘price’ (which is probably borrowed from English ‘fee’)

li ‘denim’ (This word seems to be borrowed too – from the brand name Lee).

59 There are also present stems of some infinitives, such as ɡu(j), ʤu(j), ro, zi ‘the present stems of ɡoftan ‘to say’, ʤostan ‘to look for’, raftan ‘to go’, and zistan ‘to live’ respectively, but they are not used alone.

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Now let us look at (7)-(9), words with ɑ, u, i. I exclude the function words (e.g., bɑ

‘with’, tɑ ‘until’, tu ‘inside’, bi ‘without’) and two loan words (see footnote 58). The

lexical words can be categorized into two groups, those that end in uj, and ɑj in formal

and/or literary speech (and in some dictionaries both versions are documented); and those

which end in u and ɑ without having a version that ends in a glide. The first group

consists of: pɑ(j) ‘foot’, ʤɑ(j) ‘place’, bu(j) ‘smell’, ʤu(j) ‘brook’, xu(j) ‘disposition’,

ru(j) ‘face’, su(j) ‘direction’, mu(j) ‘hair’. The second group contains: lɑ ‘ply’, nɑ

‘energy’, su ‘eyesight’, ɢu ‘swan’.60

Persian monosyllabic vowel-final lexical words show that there are questions as to the

nature of the vowels in final position. Most of the words ending in ɑ and u have a version

ending in j. There are very few lexical items in any case. It is also unclear whether a word

in Persian can end in o or only ow occurs word finally.

It should be noted that words like pɑ(j) ‘foot’ and

ru(j) ‘face’ are also pronounced without the final j.

In the next section, I discuss why the patterning of vowels in monosyllabic words might

be a potential argument for underlying quantity, and how a tense-based account can

present an analysis for this patterning.

60 A few points should be noted here: (i) Persian vowels show compensatory lengthening when a following adjacent laryngeal consonant (i.e. ʔ and h) is deleted. Thus there are words like ʧɑh ‘well’ which can be pronounced as ʧɑ:, and one may say that Persian has a word like ʧɑ: with final ɑ which can be included in the list. I do not include these cases because, due to the effect of compensatory lengthening, they require different treatment. A question, for instance, is that if ɑ is bimoraic after deletion of /h/ and occurrence of compensatory lengthening, does it become trimoraic?; (ii) I exclude cases of deletion of a final consonant. This is common in Persian speech, for instance, bɑz ‘open’ can be pronounced as vɑz or vɑ. It seems that these words are not usually used alone. Again these are not included in the list since they need their own account; I did not also include ʃu(j), the short form of ʃohar ‘husband’, which is an old word used only in poetry, etc; (iii) Note that some of words given in (7) and (8) have glide-ending counterparts with a different meaning: lɑj ‘silt’, nɑj ‘the trachea’, kuj ‘neighborhood’, ruj ‘copper’ (cf. lɑ ‘fold’, nɑ ‘energy’, ku ‘where’, ru(j) ‘face’); (iv) I exclude Arabic zi and zu/zo ‘owning, having something’ which are not used alone and are seen in a few combinations in Persian.

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6.3. Analysis of patterning of Persian vowels in vowel-final monosyllables

In this section, I first discuss how the patterning of vowel-final monosyllables presents

potential support for a quantity-based analysis of Persian vowels. I then argue that

tenseness provides an account of the patterning of vowels in monosyllables.

If in Persian vowel-final monosyllabic lexical items, only ɑ, u occur, then a requirement

for a minimum bimoraic size seems to be reasonable. This requirement explains why in

open monosyllables, only tense vowels are possible: ɑ, i, u are bimoraic and thus can

occur in open mono-syllables while a, e, o, being mono-moraic, cannot occur in that

position as they do not fulfill the requirement of a minimum bimoraic size, as shown in

(10).

(10) Underlying representation of open monosyllable words under a quantity-based

account

σ σ

μ μ μ

C ɑ, i, u C a, e, o

I argued based on epenthesis that the representations in (10) are potentially possible

surface representations of tense and lax vowels. As proposed for epenthesis in suffixation

(see 4.2), the distribution of vowels in monosyllables can be accounted for if tense

vowels project two morae in #CV#, while lax vowels project a single mora.

(11) #CVtense# → VV

#CVlax# → V

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However, the question is whether the distribution of the vowels in #CV# words

differentiates tense and lax vowels. Considering only lexical items, it is clear that tense

/ɑ/ and /u/ occur in monosyllabic open syllables; /i/ and /e/ do not (leaving aside /a/ which

does nto occur in final position in general); what about /o/? This is a question that I will

address below. Let us leave /o/ aside for the moment.

6.3.1. Phonetic length

Consider the phonetic length of vowels in #CV# syllables. As discussed in chapter 3, I

conducted an experiment in order to measure the length of tense and lax vowels in

Persian (see 3.4). As we saw, lax vowels can be longer than tense vowels in a #CV#

structure. This suggests that there is a surface bimoraic requirement, and that vowels are

lengthened to satisfy this requirement with both tense and lax vowels being long in this

structure. Thus, actual phonetic length does not distinguish tense and lax vowels in this

syllable type.

6.3.2. /o/ in #CV#

The distribution of vowels in the #CV# structure does not suggest a categorization of

vowels in favor of quantity. As shown in (9), there is a gap for lexical words in CV form

where V=i. And if there are words ending in o in Persian then open stems do not provide

evidence for the vowel classes. In this section, I discuss /o/ in #CV#.

Recall from 3.10 that there is disagreement in the Persian literature as to whether a word

(whether monosyllabic or polysyllabic) can end in o or if such words have ow in final

position (e.g., Cowan and Yarmohammadi 1978, Samareh 1985, Keer 1999, Meshkatod

Dini 1999). According to some studies (e.g., Hayes 1986), the labiodental fricative [v]

and the labiodental approximant [w] are in complementary distribution: [w] occurs in

codas after short vowels; for example, pɑltow ‘overcoat’ and dowr ‘era’ and [v] occurs

elsewhere. Morphological alternations such as mi-ra[v]-am ‘I am going’ and bo-ro[w]

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‘go!’ or no[w]-ruz ‘new year’ and no[v]-in ‘new kind’ indicate that [v] and [w] are

allophonically related.

One argument for the occurrence of ow in final position of words like pejro ‘follower’

comes from the presence of [v] in words such as pejrovɑn ‘followers’, which consists of

pejro followed by the plural suffix -ɑn. However, when a word like keʃo ‘drawer’

precedes the genitive marker –am the result is not *keʃovam, it is keʃom (informal) or

keʃo-(ʔ/j)am (formal); or after adding the suffix –i to a word like kɑdo ‘gift’ the result is

kɑdoji or kɑdo-(ʔ)i ‘suitable as a gift’–and not *kɑdovi, which is an impossible form– (cf. pejrovi/pejravi ‘obedience’). Thus, it is possible that /o/ is found in final position

considering these suffixation cases. I study the status of o in final position in Persian in

this section for monosyllabic o-ending words, and in the next chapter in general for both

monosyllabic and polysyllabic o-ending words.

Focusing on monosyllabic words, if one takes the position that words in Persian can end

in o and not necessarily ow, then the following words should be added to (5). All of these

are monosyllabic lexical words and their existence argues against the view that /o/-final

monosyllabic words cannot meet the minimal word requirement if they end in [o] rather

than [ow].

(12) ʤo(w) ‘barley’

do(w) ‘running’

lo(w) ‘disclosure’

mo(w) ‘vine, grape leaves’

no(w) ‘new’

Of course, if we do not take this position, then the words in (12) should be considered as

ending in ow and thus they are excluded from (5). The latter is the position that, for

instance, Samareh (1977) seems to take since in his study all the words ending in o are

transcribed as ou (e.g., mou ‘vine’ (p. 13), ǰelou ‘front’, polou ‘cooked rice’ (p. 111)).

264

Thus the treatment of o is particularly important to clarify whether or not lexical CVlax is

possible in Persian monosyllabic vowel-final words. In this regard, I conducted an

experiment with both real and made-up monosyllabic o-ending words to see whether I

can reach a conclusion on the final o or ow through some suffixation processes. I

conclude based on the experiment that Persian words can end in /o/ and therefore the

distribution of vowels in open monosyllables does not argue for moraicity being present

phonologically. If the language had an underlying requirement disallowing a, e, o in

#CV#, and allowing only ɑ, i, u in this structure, we might expect to find Ci’s, and, more

importantly, to not find Co’s. I used ‘more importantly’, because one may suggest that

the absence of Ci’s is an accidental gap, but note that the existence of Co’s is a problem

for an analysis which suggests Persian has a minimal word requirement motivated by

quantity.

I discuss the experiment on o/ow next.

6.4. Experiment on o/ow in final position

The experiment, looking at o/ow in final position of monosyllables, was included in the

experiment on epenthesis in suffixation, discussed in 4.7. The experiment on o-final

words (made-up and real, monosyllabic and polysyllabic) will also be discussed in

chapter 7. Here, I discuss only monosyllabic o-ending words. The experiment consists of

two parts: production (question and answer) and perception (acceptability rating).

In production, a question recorded in Persian was asked, as follows: ‘What did Ali say?’.

The speakers saw a word followed by a plus sign followed by a suffix in Persian script on

the screen. They were asked to make a suffixed form of the word with the suffix shown

on the screen and to fill in the blank in ‘I think he said…..’. For example: they saw on the

screen ‘ko + in’ (in Persian script). After they heard the question ‘What did Ali say?’

they responded (kojin or kovin). Below I discuss what the choice of kojin or kovin shows.

In perception, two pronunciations of words (suffixed forms) were given (e.g., kojin and

kovin – that is, the result of ko + in once with j at the suffix boundary and the other time

265

with v at the suffix boundary) in random order. The speakers were asked to rate the word

they heard based on the following scale: √: acceptable; ? so-so; X unacceptable. They

used pen and paper in rating.

If there is an underlying v or w in words, it is expected to see it with these words in their

suffixed forms. If the words do not have underlying v or w and if the occurrence of v in

suffixation is an indication of its underlying presence, then with made-up words the

default pattern, namely the insertion of a glottal stop or j or hiatus, is expected.

With real words there are cases such as those in (13) where the presence of v is dominant

in production. The number given in front of each word shows how many speakers

produced the words (e.g., 2 in front of a word shows that out of 10 speakers, 2 of them

said the word with that pronunciation). For real words, I considered the suffixed forms

which already exist in the language (e.g., no-v-in). I also included a few suffixed forms

which do not exist in the language but make perfect sense considering the meaning of

their base (e.g., ʤo ‘barley’ out of which I made ʤoestɑn ‘the field where barley is

planted and grows’. This is parallel with mo ‘vine, grape leaf’ from which

moestɑn/movestɑn ‘vineyard’ derives).

(13) Cases where v-including versions are more frequent

a. no ‘new’ no + in ‘modern’

nojin 0

novin 10 (as expected)

b. ʤo ‘barley’ ʤo + in ‘made of barley’

ʤojin 2

ʤovin 7

1 miscellaneous

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Compare these with the cases in (14) where the same words are followed by a different

suffix (the adjective-forming –i). As seen in (14), the non-v-including version is more

dominant. Thus the same stem can show different patterns with different suffixes

(compare (13) and (14)). The miscellaneous cases reported here involve cases which did

not show one of the two expected options so I did not include them, for example, for ʤo

+ in, one of the speakers said ʤovejn (instead of ʤojin or ʤovin), which shows a change

of i to ej. I could have considered ʤovejn as a case of occurrence of v because it includes

v but in order to be sure of the results I decided to exclude it since it shows a change of

vowel. Another example of a miscellaneous case had to do with the non-stress-bearing

suffix –i (the indefinite marker), which in some cases some speakers used instead of the

stress-bearing suffix –i, so there was a change of stress.

(14) Cases where j-including versions are more frequent

a. noji 7

novi 3

b. ʤoji 9

ʤovi 1

Similarly, we get:

(15) mo ‘grape leaf’

moji 7

movi 1

2 miscellaneous

More examples of the dominance of the default pattern are presented in (16) (with the

suffix -estɑn ‘indicating the place’ (e.g., kudak ‘child’; kudakestɑn ‘kindergarten’)).

Recall that the insertion of j or the glottal stop or tolerance of hiatus is the default pattern,

and when I write the j-including/non-v-including version, a glottal stop can occur or the

267

hiatus is not resolved. Thus the j-including/non-v-including version is a representative of

the default pattern.

(16) More cases where non-v-including versions are more frequent

a. ʤoestɑn 6

ʤovestɑn 3

1 miscellaneous

b. moestɑn 8

movestɑn 2

These are cases with which one expects to get some v-including suffixed forms. An

obvious case is novin which does not have a version with j in the language, as shown by

the result above (as expected, all speakers said novin and not nojin). In other cases, j-

including versions are observed more, as seen above. Thus if suffixation is a valid

diagnostic for arguing for the existence of an underlying w, then the results given above

suggest that there is no underlying w as one does not see it consistently or more often

even. This may suggest that cases like novin are lexicalized that way. In other cases, two

strategies can be used at a suffix boundary: (i) default pattern; (ii) insertion of v in labial

environment; that is why there are two versions for some suffixed forms of o-ending

words. The same pattern, as I will show in chapter 7, is observed for polysyllabic o-

ending words and u-ending words.

Now let us look at made-up words. In production, both j-including and v-including

versions are possible, as shown below. The version with j seems to be more frequent. In

perception of made-up words, both j-including and v-including versions are acceptable,

with the version with v being more frequent than the version with j. These show that one

can easily get v in suffixation with made-up words where there is neither an underlying

ov/ow nor any historical justification.

268

Two points should be noted. First, one may ask why there are differences between

perception and production. The differences could be due to differences between the tasks.

It is not surprising if a speaker produces a word in one way and then, hearing another

version of the word, considers it as correct since it could be a version said by other

speakers and therefore sounds familiar.

Second, one may suggest that the studies which consider surface Co words to be Cow

analyze those words that way as final o is subminimal so it is analyzed as ow. But note

that this is not what the studies say. Those studies consider ow/ov to be underlying,

surfacing through suffixation and morphological alternations. In addition to monosyllabic

words, their examples include polysyllabic words (e.g., pɑltow ‘overcoat’) for which a

minimal word requirement or subminimality is not an issue.

(17) shows the results of the production task for o-ending monosyllabic made-up words.

(17) made-up words (production)

words # of occurrence

poestɑn

povestɑn

6

0

poɑn

povɑn

5

2

kojin

kovin

5

5

pojin

povin

7

3

269

koji

kovi

6

2

sojin

sovin

6

4

soji

sovi

6

0

koɑn

kovɑn

5

4

sojɑn

sovɑn

5

4

poji

povi

9

0

foestɑn

fovestɑn

10

0

fojin

fovin

7

1

foɑn

fovɑn

7

2

(18) shows the results of the perception task for o-ending monosyllabic made-up words.

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(18) made-up words (perception) (recall: the scale is: √: acceptable; ? so-so; X

unacceptable)

words √ ? X

ʒoji

ʒovi

5

7

3

1

sojɑn

sovɑn

5

6

1

1

2

1

foestɑn

fovestɑn

4

7

1

1

3

foin

fovin

5

8

1 2

sojin

sovin

5

6

1

2

2

koji

kovi

6

6

2

2

soji

sovi

5

6

1

1

2

1

ʒojɑn

ʒovɑn

4

8

2 2

kojɑn

kovɑn

5

7

1

3

271

Recall from chapter 4 that in the perception rating task, there is some overlap, with a

speaker finding both versions of a word to be acceptable.

As noted above and discussed in detail in chapter 7, the existence of both a default

pattern and a context-sensitive pattern (in the labial environment) is responsible for the

variation observed in both real words and made-up words, leaving aside cases which are

historical residue or are lexicalized in one way or the other. The v in suffixation is not

necessarily an indication of underlying presence of ov/ow, as made-up words also show

it, and some real stems show it with some suffixes and not with others. See chapter 7 for

more discussion.

6.5. Minimal words in Persian

Now I return to the discussion of a minimal word requirement in Persian. The language

has o-final words, assuming that suffixation is an appropriate diagnostic. This vowel

patterns with a and e, the vowels that would be monomoraic under a weight analysis.

Thus Persian does not have an underlying synchronic bimoraic requirement for

monosyllables.

The following tables summarize the distribution of vowels in Persian monosyllabic

words. (19) shows #CVtense# and (20) shows #CVlax#. I leave aside #Ca# because final-a

words do not exist in Modern Persian regardless of the number of syllables in a word (see

6.2).

(19)

#CVtense# Lexical items

#Cɑ# √

#Cu# √

#Ci# X

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(20)

#CVlax# Lexical items

#Co# √

#Ce# X

It should also be considered whether the distribution of vowels in monosyllables might be

the remnant of historical constraints. Based on Pisowicz (1985), short vowels would not

occur in final position in Middle Persian, while long vowels would. This may indicate

that even if there is a gap in final position for having some former short vowels in fact it

could be because of the historical status of these vowels and it is not necessarily

synchronic. That is, even if one considers o-final words to be impossible in the language,

which based on evidence from suffixation is not the case, this could be a historical

remnant. The historical investigation of vowels in final position remains for the future.61

To summarize, I have argued that there is not a phonological minimal word requirement

in Persian. Although the language roughly provides a list of lexical words ending in long

(tense) vowels versus a list of function words ending in either long or short (lax) vowels,

this distinction is not accurate under further studies, and the language does not present a

61 There are words which end in a lax vowel today but used to end in long vowels (which correspond to present tense vowels) or in consonants –many of the words under study in this discussion are not found in Farahvashi’s Middle Persian dictionary (1967) from which the former forms of the following examples are taken: Middle Persian Modern Persian

tō to ‘you (sg)’

dō do ‘two’

kē ke ‘that’

nōk no(w) ‘new’

These may suggest that the words ending in lax vowels, a, e, o, today used to end in a consonant or in vowels other than a, i, u (short vowels) in Middle Persian and that is why as Pisowicz says short vowels did not occur in final position in that era. However, in Farahvashi’s dictionary, some words are vowel-final where the vowel is a short vowel, for example, aʒ/aʒi ‘dragon’, ahu ‘universe’). Even the same word has two forms in the dictionary, one with a short vowel in final position, and the other with a long vowel in that position (e.g., the present word se ‘three’ has both si and sē versions in the dictionary). This shows that the status of lax vowels in final position in Middle Persian requires careful investigation.

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clear-cut distinction between the two groups due to the absence of Ci words and the

presence of Co words.

6.6. Summary and conclusion

In this chapter, I discussed a minimal word requirement as a potential support for a

quantity-based account of Persian vowels. I showed that there is not a phonological

minimal word requirement, and thus there is no argument for underlying quantity or

against quality because of the way vowels pattern in #CV#.

I also addressed a controversial topic in the Persian literature, the occurrence of o or ow

in final position in monosyllables. Based on an experiment I conducted, I argued that

Persian has o-final words.

In this and the two previous chapters, I studied three phenomena which might seem to

present evidence for underlying quantity in the Persian vowel system: epenthesis in

suffixation (chapter 4), VC co-occurrence restrictions (chapter 5), and minimal word

requirements. I argued that none of these provides evidence for underlying quantity. Let

us, for a moment, return to the other two potential supports for a quantity-based analysis

of Persian vowels. Epenthesis in suffixation and VtenseCC#, as discussed in chapters 4 and

5, are not supported by the distribution of vowels when we closely examine them. The

former is violated by numerous cases of stems with the structure in which epenthesis is

expected and in which it is impossible. Moreover, epenthesis does not actually argue

even for surface quantity as it is an unproductive process. The latter (VtenseCC

restrictions) is violated by VtenseCC’s in non-final position, the existence of the words

such as surt.me ‘sled’, and by loanwords. If the three observations (epenthesis in

suffixation, VCC co-occurrence restrictions, and minimal word) argue for quantity at all,

it is for surface rather than underlying quantity, and for quantity only on stressed vowels.

Compare these with the productivity of harmony which argues for the underlying

presence of quality (tenseness).

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The following tables summarize the distribution of vowels in Persian in different

structures, as discussed in chapter 5 and the present chapter. (21) and (22) demonstrate

CV, CVC, CVCC as monosyllables. (23) and (24) demonstrate these structures in non-

final position of polysyllables. ‘free’ means the structure occurs in the language without

restrictions; ‘restricted’ means there are restrictions.

(21)

Structure Occurrence

#CVtense# /ɑ, u/

#CVtenseC# free

#CVtenseCC# restricted (considering only native words)

free (considering both native words and loanwords)

(22)

Structure Occurrence

#CVlax# /o/

#CVlaxC# free

#CVlaxCC# free

(21) and (22) show that restrictions are found only in native words of the form

#CVtenseCC#: as discussed in chapter 5, only falling sonority CC’s occur after Vtense.

Now consider the following tables (‘.’ shows syllable boundary), which show CV, CVC,

and CVCC in non-final position.

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(23)

Structure Occurrence

CVtense . free

CVtenseC. free

CVtenseC.C free

(24)

Structure Occurrence

CVlax. free

CVtenseC. free

CVtenseC.C free

No restrictions are observed in any structure in non-final position, as (23) and (24) show.

Let us now return to the three views found in the literature regarding the active feature of

the Persian vowel system: (i) quantitative; (ii) qualitative; (iii) synthetic (see 2.2).

If quantity is considered to be underlyingly present, harmony patterns cannot be

accounted for, and even epenthesis in suffixation, VCC restrictions and minimal word,

which at first seem to argue for quantity, are difficult to explain as suffixation shows non-

epenthesis as the dominant pattern, VtenseCC restriction is only applicable in final position

of native words, and an apparent minimal word requirement does not hold when

investigated more carefully. With underlying tenseness and surface quantity for stressed

vowels due to tenseness all can be accounted for.

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Recall from 2.2 that height has also been considered to be the appropriate feature to

distinguish Persian vowels. If height (instead of tenseness) is considered to be underlying,

although harmony can be accounted for, the following cannot explained: (i) the

underlying categorization of vowels into ɑ, i, u vs. a, e, o (which is suggested by

harmony: ɑ, i, u are triggers and a, e, o are targets); (ii) the surface categorization of ɑ, i, u vs. a, e, o in as much as it exists in VCC restrictions (in native lexicon); (iii) the fact

that epenthesis as much as it exists in the language is observed with structures other than

CVlaxC; (iv) the result of the perception task of the experiment on epenthesis in made-up

words which shows that if the speakers accept the version with epenthesis, this is more

likely with words which have structures other than CVlaxC.

Thus neither height nor length can be the underlying dimesion of contrast in the system

based on the phonological activity of the language. Tenseness, however, can account for

the representation of Persian vowels and their activity in both underlying and surface

levels. Based on harmony, with i, u, ɑ as triggers and e, o, a as targets, I proposed that

[tense] is the underlying feature of the system. Given frequent length-like characteristics

of [tense] in tense-based langauges (see 5.3), it is not surprising to observe some length-

like properties in Persian, which were discussed in this and the previous two chapters and

are briefly summarized below:

(i) Epenthesis shows some nonproductive moraic effect (CVlaxC vs. CVlaxCC, CVtenseC,

CVtenseCC).

(ii) There are some distributional differences in native vocabulary, but restricted to

stressed vowels.

(iii) Results of my phonetic experiment on Persian are in accord with what is seen in

tense-based languages, with some minimal word effect as observed in surface minimality

requirement in #CV#.

Thus, the three processes are in fact compatible with a tense-based account.

As predicted by the framework of Modified Contrastive Specification, I have argued that

the Persian vowel system does not need both quality and quantity to be phonologically

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present. The primary distinction in the Persian vowel system is one of quality (tenseness),

and there is, perhaps, a secondary, predictable quantity difference for tense vowels.

In the next chapter, I will examine two other phenomena in Persian, both of which occur

at a suffix boundary but involve consonants as well.

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Chapter 7

More on suffixation: the case of -v

In chapters 4 and 6 I examined some phonological aspects of suffixation in Persian. In

this chapter and the next chapter, I look more into suffixation involving the occurrence of

consonants at a suffix boundary. The first case, which I examine in this chapter, is the

occurrence of a v after some o-final and some u-final words. In chapter 6 I discussed o-

final monosyllables. In this chapter I examine monosyllabic and polysyllabic o-final and

u-final words. The second case, which will be discussed in chapter 8, is the occurrence of

ɡ after e-final bases when the noun-forming suffix –i or the plural marker -ɑn is added to

the base. Thus both v and ɡ occur between a vowel-final base and a vowel-initial suffix.

In (1) and (2), I present the vowels of Persian followed by some vowel-initial suffixes to

show where v and ɡ occur. I assume that the bolded vowels in (1) and (2) are in final

position of the base. As for the vowel a, recall that no word (except for na ‘no’ and va

‘and’) ends in –a in Modern Persian. Also note that in the examples given for words

ending in vowels other than e, [j] in [j]i means the insertion of [j] before the suffix, and

“ii” which is given in “[j]i or ii” for the vowel /i/ means that the hiatus is tolerated or a

glottal stop can be present. Thus the presence of j or nothing shows the default category

as opposed to v or ɡ, which are specific to some environment.

(1) The noun-forming -i

i [j]i or ii u [j]i / ui or [v]i

e [ɡ]i (*ei) o [j]i / oi or [v]i

ɑ [j]i or ɑi

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(2) The plural marker -ɑn

i [j]ɑn u [j]ɑn or [v]ɑn

e [ɡ]ɑn o [v]ɑn

ɑ [j]ɑn

The occurrence of ɡ is limited to these two suffixes, as we will see in chapter 8. The

occurrence of v, however, is not, that is, there are other vowel-initial suffixes with which

v occurs, as we will see in 7.1.

This chapter and the next chapter, therefore, like chapter 4 and part of chapter 6, touch

upon aspects of Persian morpho-phonology, particularly processes which occur at a suffix

boundary.

In this chapter, I focus on the occurrence of v. I first present an overview of v in section

7.1. Section 7.2 presents possible analyses of the occurrence of v. I then discuss an

experiment that I conducted to test if the occurrence of v is a synchronically productive

process in section 7.3. I conclude the chapter in section 7.4.

7.1. The case of v in suffixation: overview

In this section, I examine the occurrence of –v after some o-final and some u-final words

in some suffixation processes. The source of –v has been addressed in the literature on

Persian. In chapter 6, I examined the occurrence of v in suffixation after o-final

monosyllables in a discussion of whether there is a minimal word requirement, and

concluded that there are o-final monosyllabic words in Persian. A more general and

thorough discussion of v is presented here.

The v occurs with some o-final words when a vowel-initial suffix is present but not with

all of them. It also occurs with some u-final words. This raises a set of questions. Why do

some o-final words show the v while others do not? Why do some words show v with

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one suffix and not with another suffix? Is the v an epenthetic consonant? If it is

epenthetic, what is the environment? If it is not epenthetic, how can we account for its

distribution?

The v occurs in the following cases among others.

(3) -i (adjective forming), -i (noun forming)

o/u [j]i or [v]i

(4)

o [v]ɑn u [j]ɑn or o[v]ɑn

plural marker -ɑn

(5) and (6) present examples of the occurrence of v with the suffixes given in (3), and (7)

shows examples of the suffix in (4). In (5), the bases are not roots, except for no ‘new’. I

therefore show the morphology by a hyphen. The part before the hyphen might consist of

more than one morpheme (e.g., miɑne consists of miɑn ‘middle’ + -e), which I abstract

away. In (6), the words are synchronically stems (historically there might be some

suffixes involved but they are not productive anymore). The final o may become a when

the suffix is added, as in the suffixed forms of the stems which contain –ro, in (5), shows

(e.g., piʃ-ro ‘pioneer’ → piʃra[v]i).

(5) Examples with the noun-forming -i

pej-ro ‘follower’ → pejro[v]i pejra[v]i ‘following’ (in speech

pejroi is possible)

piʃ-ro ‘pioneer’ → piʃra[v]i ‘moving forward, progress’

tak-ro ‘nonconformist’ → takra[v]i ‘nonconformity’

mijɑne-ro ‘moderate’ → mijɑnera[v]i ‘moderation’

pijɑde-ro ‘sidewalk’ → pijɑdera[v]i ‘going for a walk, hiking’

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harf-ʃeno ‘obedient’ → harfʃena[v]i (o[v]i/oi is fine too)

‘obedience’

no ‘new’ → no[j]i ‘newness’ (no[v]i is also possible)

(6) Examples with the adjective-forming -i

keʃo ‘drawer’ → keʃo[j]i or keʃo-i ‘sliding’

ʤelo ‘front’ → ʤelo[j]i or ʤelo-i ‘frontal’

xosro62

xosra[v]i ‘pertaining to xosro, used also as a last name’

‘the name of an ancient Persian king and now a boy name’ →

parto ‘beam, a ray of light’ → parto[j]i or parto-i or

parto[v]i ‘pertaining to parto, used also as a last name’

minu ‘heaven, paradise’ → mina[v]i or minu[j]i ‘heavenly,

divine; used as last name’

ʤɑdu ‘magic’ → ʤɑdu[j]i or ʤɑdui ‘magical’

62 Note that the word xosro was xosraw in Middle Persian. Here is what is found for this word in a middle Persian dictionary (MacKenzie 1971): Middle Persian husraw ‘famous, of good repute’, Early modern Persian xusraw. In the Middle Persian dictionary, there is also: husrawīh ‘fame, good repute’. Note that this –i is the Middle Persian noun-forming suffix. I put xosravi above as an example of suffixation with the adjective-forming –i, because today xosro is used as a name for boys and not as a common word with a meaning, that is, not as an adjective which gets an –i to change to a noun. Maybe only in poetry or literary texts can one find xosro as an adjective and xosravi as a noun. It does not matter for this discussion either way one interprets xosro/xosravi because the difference between the two –i suffixes is not a concern here.

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ɑlbɑlu ‘sour cherry’ → ɑlbɑlu[j]i or ɑlbɑlu ‘cherry red’

kɑʔuʧu ‘rubber’ → kɑʔuʧu[j]i or kɑʔuʧui ‘rubbery’

limu ‘lemon’ → limu[j]i or limu[j]i ‘pertaining to

lemon, light yellow’

Now let us examine some examples of the v with the plural marker -ɑn.

(7) Examples with the plural marker -ɑn

pej-ro ‘follower’ + ɑn → pejro[v]ɑn

piʃ-ro ‘pioneer’ + ɑn → piʃro[v]ɑn

banu ‘lady’ + ɑn → bano[v]ɑn

abru ‘eyebrow’ + ɑn → abro[v]ɑn

bɑzu ‘arm’ + ɑn → bɑzo[v]ɑn

ɑhu ‘deer’ + ɑn → ɑho[v]ɑn

tars-u ‘coward’ + ɑn → tarsu[j]ɑn

dɑneʃ-ʤu ‘university student’ + ɑn → dɑneʃʤu[j]ɑn

(note: dɑneʃ itself consists of dɑn ‘present stem of dɑnestan ‘to know’’ + -eʃ)

The examples in (5)-(7) show that there are cases of o- and u-final words with v in

suffixation and others without it. There are also words such as ɑhu which show two

different patterns in hiatus:

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(8) ɑhu ‘deer’ + -i → ɑhu[j]i or ɑhui ‘pertaining to deer’

*ɑho[v]i *ɑhu[v]i

ɑhu ‘deer’ + ɑn → ɑho[v]ɑn ‘deer (pl)’

The v may occur with other suffixes as well. For example, consider no ‘new’ and novin

‘modern’. Here the suffix –in is added to no, resulting in novin. I presented those suffixes

in (3) and (4) with examples in (5)-(7) in particular because there are more examples of

these and because of the variation between j and v with these suffixes. Also note that the

final u may become o before ɑn (e.g., abru ‘eyebrow’ becomes abrovɑn ‘eyebrow (pl)’).

Before discussing the possible hypotheses to account for the v, I need to note that in

addition to the o-final words that were discussed above and which show the o/av

alternation, there are words which show v in suffixation with other vowels in final

position. (9) presents some examples.

(9) musɑ ‘Moses, also used as a name for boys’

→ musa[v]i ‘Jewish, mostly used as a last name’

(the word jahudi is the common word for Jewish)

isɑ ‘Jesus, also used as a name for boys’

→ isa[v]i ‘Christian, also used as a last name’

(the word masihi is the common word for Christian)

kimiɑ ‘alchemy, also a name for girls’

→ kimiɑ[j]i / kimiɑ-i or kimiɑ[v]i

‘pertaining to kimiɑ, used a last name’

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dehli ‘Delhi’ → dehla[v]i‘used as a last name,

related to/from Delhi’

mɑni ‘Mani/Manes, the prophet’ → mɑna[v]i ‘Manichean’

nabi ‘prophet’ → naba[v]i ‘pertaining to

prophet’

farɑnse ‘France’ → farɑnsa[v]i ‘French’

rije ‘lung’ → rija[v]i ‘pulmonary’

kolje ‘kidney’ → kolja[v]i ‘renal’

xɑʤe ‘an old title for men’ → xɑʤa[v]i ‘used as a last name’

halɢe ‘ring’ → halɢa[v]i ‘ring-shaped’

Cases such as musɑ ‘Moses’ and musavi ‘Jewish’ or mɑni ‘Mani/Manes, the prophet’

and mɑna[v]i ‘Manichean’ may suggest the presence of a suffix –avi. That is, final -ɑ and

–i are deleted and -avi is added but according to Kalbasi (1991) the suffix is –i. I will

return to this shortly.

Note also when two homophonous words show different patterns in suffixation:

(10) Kore ‘Korea’ → Kore[j]i /Kore-i ‘Korean’

Kore ‘sphere’ → Kora[v]i ‘spherical’

The question that these words bring up is: given that none of these words ends in o why

does v appear here? Kalbasi (1992) considers a suffix as the geminated –i (she transcribes

it as /-iy/) which is from Arabic but Persian speakers pronounce it as non-geminated and

so the result is –i. This suffix, according to her, while used with Arabic-origin words,

sometimes may be used with non-Arabic words. Kalbasi adds that this suffix causes some

changes in the final sound of the base, as follows (the transcriptions are mine):

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- If a word ends in ɑ(ʔ)63

- /t/ in final position of some Arabic words which have entered into Persian either

remains as /t/, or /t/ deletes and /a/ becomes [e]. This /t/ or [e] is deleted when –i is added

(e.g., mellat ‘nation’ → melli ‘national’ and mɑdde ‘material’ → mɑddi ‘materialistic’).

, the suffix -i either follows without any change (e.g., samɑ(ʔ) ‘heaven, sky’ → samɑ(ʔ)i ‘celestial’) or the final glottal stop (or the epenthetic glottal)

becomes /v/ (e.g., samɑ(ʔ) → samɑvi).

- Also when words that end in -ɑ and –i are followed by this suffix their final vowels

become a followed by v (e.g., isɑ ‘Jesus’ → isavi ‘Christian’ and ali ‘a religious

leader of Muslims, also a name for boys’ → alavi ‘related to/followers of Ali’).

Kalbasi further adds that the rule for change of final sounds of the word is also observed

with some non-Arabic words and with some words which end in /e/ or end in some

consonants (e.g., farɑnse ‘France’ → farɑnsavi ‘French’; halɢe ‘ring’ → halɢavi ‘ring-shaped’; and loɢat ‘word’ → loɢavi ‘lexical’).

Looking at the Arabic dictionary, I found words like kolje ‘kidney’ and rije ‘lung’; the

words koljavi ‘renal’ and rijavi and ‘pulmonary’ are also in the Arabic dictionary. The

same is for kore ‘sphere’ and koravi ‘spherical’. Recall that there are both kore-i ‘Korean’ from kore ‘Korea’ as well as koravi ‘spherical’ from kore ‘sphere’ (see (10)).

So kore ‘sphere’ and koravi ‘spherical’ are borrowed from Arabic and it seems that kore

‘korea’ and kore-i ‘korean’ are Persian.

It is possible to have both –avi and –i in the cases which come from Arabic. That is, there

are both options for the same word. For instance, for the Arabic word halɢe ‘ring’, I

consulted two Persian dictionaries, one English-Persian, and the other Persian-English. In

the former, for the word ‘ring pull’ the translation is:

63 Kalbasi puts the glottal stop within parentheses because there are words which entered the language from Arabic which have the glottal stop at the end but Persian speakers do not pronounce it. In orthography it may or may not be present.

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(11) (bɑ) dar-e halɢe-i

(with) door-Ezafe ring-the suffix

‘(with) ring pull’

In the Persian-English dictionary, the word halɢavi (and not halɢe-i) is an entry with the

meaning ‘ring-shaped’. Both halɢe-i and halɢavi exist.

One may suggest that in some cases the word (which ends in vowels other than o and u)

before suffixation and its avi-suffixed forms both entered the language from Arabic. Then

the Persian –i (without –avi change) is used to make a Persian i-suffixed form out of it.

An example of both versions is donjɑ ‘world’ which is Arabic and is in the Arabic

dictionary along with donjavi ‘worldly’; in Persian both of these words are used and there

is also donjɑji ‘worldly’.

As I showed there are some words, mostly of Arabic origin, which end in other vowels

and take –v in suffixation. I leave these cases aside in this study and focus only on o-final

and u-final words.

Considering o-final and u-final words, one can ask why v occurs with some o-final and

u-final words but j occurs with others, and why the same word can show variation with

respect to the –v. In answer to these questions, several possibilities, which will be

discussed next, come to mind to investigate.

7.2. Possible analyses

In this section, I examine different hypotheses which may account for the occurrence the

v after o-final and u-final words.

(i) There are two groups of o- and u-final words in the language, one group has

ow or ov/av underlyingly and the other does not. Only with the former does the v occur.

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(ii) The insertion of j or glottal stop or tolerance of hiatus is the default in the

language and only some words which are lexicalized or frozen or historical residue show

the v.

(iii) Since –v occurs in o and u environments, it is an epenthetic consonant due to

the phonetic environment of labials. This accounts for why it is v (and not other

consonants) that occurs. This epenthesis is optional, with j epenthesis also being possible.

I discuss these hypotheses one by one in 7.2.1-7.2.3. In 7.2.4, I summarize the discussion

of possible analyses.

7.2.1. Different underlying representations

One possibility to account for the occurrence of v in some cases but not in others is to

suggest that the o-final words in Persian are underlyingly divided into two groups: those

which have –av or –ov underlyingly; and those with underlying –o.

As seen above, there are cases of o-final words which result in –ovi or –avi when the

suffix –i is added (why we can get –avi with some o-final words could be due to some

opaque derivation). In particular we saw ro ‘present stem of raftan ‘to go’’ which shows

this process (see (5) for several compound words with ro). In conjugated forms of the

infinitive raftan ‘to go’, the –av is observed too. Consider the infinitive raftan ‘to go’ as

in (12). The verbal prefix mi- is the indicative marker, and the verbal suffixes are as

follows: -am (1st sg), -i (2nd sg), -ad (3rd sg), -im (1st pl), -id (2nd pl), and –and (3rd pl).

(12) mi-rav-am ‘I go’ mi-rav-im ‘we go’

mi-rav-i ‘you (sg) go’ mi-rav-id ‘you (pl) go’

mi-rav-ad ‘she/he/it goes’ mi-rav-and ‘they go’

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The above forms are used in formal speech and writing. In speech, we find mi-ram, mi-ri, mi-re, mirim, mirin (d usually becomes n here), miran (final d is also deleted here). Other cases of suffixation with ro from raftan ‘to go’ are given in (13).

(13) raftan ‘to go’

ro/rav ‘present stem’ (be + ro: bero ‘go!’ due to harmony: boro –see 2.3.1)

raft ‘past stem’

ravand ‘process’ ‘present stem + and’

ravande ‘walker’ ‘present stem + ande’

ravɑl also revɑl ‘procedure’ ‘present stem + ɑl’

raveʃ ‘method’ ‘present stem + eʃ’

ravijje ‘method, procedure’ ‘present stem + ijje’

ravɑne ‘bound for’ ‘present stem + ɑne’

The same pattern is found with ʃenidan ‘to hear’, from which there is ʃenavi in the word

harfʃenavi ‘obedience’ (this word was given in (5)):

(14) mi-ʃenav-am ‘I hear’ mi-ʃenav-im ‘we hear’

mi-ʃenav-I ‘you (sg) hear’ mi-ʃenav-id ‘you (pl) hear’

mi-ʃenav-ad ‘she/he/it hears’ mi-ʃenav-and ‘they hear’

The above are the formal forms. In speech, the e after ʃ is deleted, and giving miʃnavam, miʃnavi, miʃnave, miʃnavim, miʃnavin, miʃnavan. Again with other cases of suffixation

with ʃeno ‘present stem of the infinitive ʃenidan ‘to hear’’, the same alternation is

observed. See (15).

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(15) ʃenidan ‘to hear’

ʃeno ‘present stem’ (be + ʃeno → beʃno ‘listen!’)

ʃenid ‘past stem’

ʃenavɑ ‘with a good hearing’ ‘present stem + -ɑ’

ʃenavɑji ‘hearing’ ‘present stem + -ɑji or ʃenavɑ + -i’

ʃenavande ‘listener’ ‘present stem + -ande’

Similar to raftan ‘to go’ and ʃenidan ‘to hear’ is davidan ‘to run’, as (16) shows.

(16) mi-dav-am ‘I go’ mi-dav-im ‘we go’

mi-dav-i ‘you (sg) go’ mi-dav-id ‘you (pl) go’

mi-dav-ad ‘she/he/it goes’ mi-dav-and ‘they go’

In speech, midoam, midoi, midoe, etc. (or sometimes midovam, midovi, midove, etc.) are common. The imperative is be-do ‘run!’ which is pronounced as bodo (due to

harmony –see 2.3.1). Other words built from the present stem do are given in (17):

(17) davidan ‘to run’ (in speech doidan or dovidan)

do ‘present stem’ (be + do → bedo ~ bodo ‘run!’)

david ‘past stem’ (in speech doid (sometimes dovid))

davɑn ‘running (usually used as davɑn davɑn ‘adv.’)’

(do + the adverb-forming -ɑn)

davande ‘runner’ (do + ande)

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So far, I discussed cases which seem to have av/ov underlyingly, as the suffixed forms of

these words show.

There are, however, cases which are expected to show ov/av in suffixation under the

underlying av/ov hypothesis, but they do not. (17) presents examples of words which are

formed from do ‘present stem’ from davidan ‘to run’ and show v in suffixed form.

However, for the word pɑdo (consisting of pɑ ‘foot’ and do ‘run, present stem’)

combined with the noun-forming –i, both versions, one with [j] and one with [v], are

possible. The j version is more frequent –both intuitively and based on the results of the

experiment I conducted – two thirds of the participants pronounced it as pɑdo[j]i and one

third as pɑdo[v]i.

(18) pɑdo ‘an errand boy’ → pɑdo[j]i ‘the job of an errand boy’

pɑdo[v]i

Thus in addition to cases such as no ‘new’, ɑhu ‘deer’, etc. there are related groups of

words (related in a sense that they are formed from a particular stem) which show the –v.

The occurrence of –v in suffixation after some o-final and u-final words recalls the

question of whether o or ow occurs in final position in Persian words. This question was

addressed for monosyllabic o-final words in the discussion of a minimal word

requirement (chapter 6). Recall that there is debate in the Persian literature (e.g., Samareh

1985, Meshkatod Dini 1999) about whether apparent [o]-final words are /o/ or /ow/ final.

It is argued (e.g., Cowan and Yarmohammadi 1978, Hayes 1986) that the labiodental

fricative [v] and the labiodental approximant [w] are in complementary distribution: [w]

occurs only in codas after short vowels; for example, pɑltow ‘overcoat’ and dowr ‘era’

(examples from Keer 1999). Elsewhere [v] occurs; for example: initially as in vali ‘but’,

after consonants as in keʃvar ‘country’, after former long vowels as in ɡɑv ‘bull’

(examples from Keer 1999). Morphological alternations also exist, as in cases like

mira[v]-am ‘I am going’ and bo-ro[w] ‘go!’ or no[w]-ruz ‘new year’ and no[v]-in ‘new

kind’, indicating that [v] and [w] are allophonically related (e.g., Keer 1999). A note is in

order about av/ov. As said before, alternations between av/ov with the same stem are

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possible (e.g., mira[v]-am ‘I am going’ and bo-ro[w] ‘go!’, pejro ‘follower’ and pejrovi / pejravi ‘following’).

The word pɑlto(w) ‘overcoat’ mentioned above, however, gets –i (not v) when a vowel-

initial suffix is added, as (19) shows. This is the adjective-forming –i. I put the w at the

end of the word pɑlto(w) within parentheses because it is unclear whether the word has w

at the end underlyingly or not; that is, whether the word ends in o or in ow.

(19) pɑrʧe-j-e pɑlto[j]i *pɑlto[v]i

fabric-Epenthetic-Ezafe overcoat-Epenthetic-the suffix

‘The fabric suitable/used for making an overcoat’

Another example with the adjective-forming suffix is shown in (20):

(20) polo ‘steamed rice’ → polo[j]i *polo[v]i

e.g., as in keʃmeʃ-e polo[j]i

raisin-Ezafe steamed rice-the suffix

‘the kind of raisin which is used in rice’

(ʧelo which also means ‘steamed rice’ → ʧelo[j]i *ʧelo[v]i)

With the noun-forming –i, there is:

(21) no[j]i ‘newness’ (cf. no[v]in ‘modern’)

no[v]i is possible but is much less frequent –both intuitively and based on the

result of the experiment I conducted -70% of the participants pronounced this

word as no[j]i and 30% as no[v]i.

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With some native words v occurs and with others it does not. The borrowings from

English and French also do not show av or ov, as in the following words. Given that the

number of loanwords which end in –o is limited, it is unclear whether or not we can

consider the absence of –v in suffixed loanwords as a systematic generalization in

loanwords.

(22) video ‘video’ → videoji ‘pertaining to video’ *video[v]i (one

may also here vidijo for ‘video’)

rɑdijo ‘radio’ → rɑdijoji ‘pertaining to radio’ *rɑdijo[v]i

kɑdo ‘cadeau’ (French) ‘present’ → kɑdoji ‘suitable as a gift’

*kɑdo[v]i

mɑnto ‘manteau’ (French) ‘long coat’ → mɑntoji *mɑnto[v]i

‘used for making a mɑnto/someone who wears mɑnto’

Thus the o/av alternation is observed with some items and not with others. As I suggested

above, a possible account for this is that some of these words end in –o and some in –av

or –ov underlyingly. The latter group shows the alternation in suffixation.

But note that with the same word both [v] and [j] are possible, sometimes with the same

suffix and sometimes with different suffixes. For instance, with no ‘new’ the nominal

form is no[j]i ‘newness’, with no[v]i possible, while the adjectival form is only novin

‘modern’ (*no[j]in). These cases seem to be problematic for an account which considers

two groups of o- or u-final words based on their underlying v or w. There are few cases

like this. It is possible that stems where [j] and [v] are both possible are lexicalized. For

instance, the form no[v]in might be lexically listed. The reason for this suggestion is that

the j is found regularly in other cases of suffixation with no ‘new’ and it is not clear why

only the v with the suffix –in in novin ‘modern’ is possible, that is, why no-in/no[j]in is

impossible. A similar example of inconsistency in suffixation which was given in (8) was

ɑhu[j]i ‘related to deer’ and ɑho[v]ɑn ‘deer (pl)’.

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The account which considers two groups of o-final and u-final words underlyingly thus

encounters two problems. First, in order to account for cases which show v in some cases

of suffixation and j in other cases, it is difficult to determine the underlying

representation without resorting to an account based on lexicalization. The words which

show variation in terms of the occurrence of v and j, that is, those words which do not

behave consistently across suffixes or even with one suffix, can be underlyingly either

ow/ov-including or without the final w/v. If a word which shows variation is treated as

underlyingly ending in ow/ov then the occurrence of v in suffixation is expected, but an

explanation is needed for why j occurs in some cases. And if a word which shows

variation is treated as underlyingly without w/v, for which the default pattern ([j]) is

expected to occur in suffixation, then an explanation is needed for why v occurs in some

cases. This is not impossible but requires strong arguments to be defendable.

Second, when we say for a word to be underlyingly this way or that way, what are our

diagnostics and what do we look at? If what we look at are the active phonological

processes of the language as diagnostics for the underlying form, then in the cases where

both j and v are possible we cannot reach a conclusion. If it is the historical background

of the words which we should take into consideration, then again one cannot conclude

anything as there are cases, some of which are given in (23), which historically had -ɡ/-k

in final position but show j or v synchronically.

(23) Middle Persian Modern Persian

āhuɡ ‘deer’ ɑhu ɑhuji/ɑhovɑn ‘related to deer/deer (pl.)’

brūɡ ‘eyebrow’ abru abrovɑn ‘eyebrows’

pahlūɡ ‘side’ pahlu pahluji ‘adjacent’

nōk ‘new’ no noji/novin ‘newness/modern’

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In this section I discussed the possibility of two different underlying representations, o

and ov, to account for the occurrence of the v in some cases and j in other cases with

apparent o (and u) final stems. I suggested that this analysis encounters problems arising

from the fact that with many stems both [j] and [v] are possible. Next, I look into another

possibility in accounting for the v, the occurrence of the default pattern (the insertion of

j), versus some lexicalized items, which show the v.

7.2.2. Default pattern vs. lexicalized items

Another possible account for –v in suffixation is to take the j or glottal stop or hiatus

tolerance to be default, with words with –v lexicalized. This account differs from the

previous one as this one does not consider an underlying division between o- and u-final

words. Under this account, the cases which show [v] are lexically listed with v as

opposed to other cases for which the default pattern applies. There are two problems with

this account. One is that considering some cases to be lexicalized is just speculation. In

the absence of an explanation for the presence of v in the cases which show it, we resort

to lexicalization. The other is that cases which show both [v] and [j] are difficult to

account for under this view because one needs to consider two versions for them, a

lexicalized version and a version to which the default pattern applies.

In the next subsection, I discuss the possibility that the occurrence of the v is due to the

effect of the labial environment.

7.2.3. Phonetic effect

The third possibility to account for the v involves the phonetic effect of the labial

environment. That is, the v is possible at a suffix boundary when it is a labial

environment (following the o and u). The default j can also occur in this environment.

There is one possible piece of support for this hypothesis. As the examples in (24) show,

the morpheme va ‘and’ has variant forms, va and o (informal). There is also a vo form

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which is possible only following a vowel-final stem (cf. (24) with (25)). Some consider

the v to be epenthetic (e.g., Najafi 2001). Assuming the correctness of this analysis, again

we see that the insertion of v is triggered by the labial environment.

(24) a. mɑ va

‘we and you’

ʃomɑ formal

mɑ o ʃomɑ ~ mɑ vo

ʃomɑ informal

b. se va

‘three and a half’

nim

se o nim ~ se vo

nim

c. kare va

‘butter and bread’

nɑn (taken from Lazard 1992)

kare o nun ~ kare vo

nun

d. ʤɑ va

‘place and location’

makɑn (taken from Najafi 2001)

ʤɑ o makɑn ~ ʤɑ vo

makɑn

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e. xɑne va

‘home and abode’

kɑʃɑne (taken from Najafi 2001)

xɑne o kɑʃɑne ~ xɑne vo

One might ask why we do not consider vo in (24) to be the informal version of va. In

other words, why is v considered to be epenthetic? The specificity marker rɑ shows what

at first appears to be a similar variation between ro and o (e.g., ketɑb rɑ ~ ketɑb ro ~ ketɑb-o ‘the book’). However, the environment for the consonant-initial forms vo and ro

differs: with va/vo/o, the vo form is restricted to post-vocalic position, while with rɑ/ro/o

the ro form is unrestricted (e.g., ɢazɑ ro ‘the meal’, ketɑb ro ‘the book’).

kɑʃɑne

(25) a. ketɑb va dafter ‘book and notebook’

ketɑb o dafter *ketɑb vo dafter

b. ʃir va mɑst ‘milk and yogurt’

ʃir o mɑst *ʃir vo mɑst

Cases such as those in (24) may support the position that the occurrence of v is due to

phonetic factors. However, they do not provide conclusive evidence to argue for this

position because (i) one may argue that v is not epenthetic in cases such as (24), but it is

deleted in cases such as (25), when the word before the conjunction is consonant final;

(ii) the cases in (24) do not include the suffixes under study here. Thus stronger evidence

is needed to be able to confidently argue for this position.

7.2.4. Summary

I have introduced three possible hypotheses to account for the appearance of -v in

suffixation. While each has some merit, I have suggested that each encounters some

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problems. I summarize the three views below. Let us first roughly consider three

categories of words: those which always take v, those which never takes v, those which

show variation between j and v. I said “roughly” because a precise categorization of

words is not possible, as seen in (17) and (18). Even for cases where mostly v appears in

suffixed forms (as in (17)), there is the possibility of j in another suffixed form (as in

(18)). There are also some words which do not show variation and always take v as novin

‘modern’. Now let us see how each of these categories is accounted for in the three views

I discussed in 7.2.1-7.2.3.

-The first view (different underlying representation): the words which always take

v are considered as being underlying ow/ov final; the words which never take v are

underlyingly o final; the words which show variation between j and v are problematic for

this account.

-The second view (default pattern vs. lexicalized items): the words which always

take v are considered to be lexically listed with v; the words which never take v show the

default pattern ([j]); the words which show variation between j and v are problematic for

this account.

-The third view (phonetic effect): the words which show variation and those

which take j are easy to account for as the default pattern could still apply and the labial

environment motivates the presence of v. The words like novin ‘modern’ which always

show v are lexicalized that way. The fact that with the same base it is difficult to find

consistent presence of v (as I explained above about the roughly categorization of words)

may suggest that something other than the underlying form is going on and therefore

strengthens the hypothesis that phonetics has a role here. Also, this view is the only one

which can easily account for the variation.

In order to better understand the distribution of v, I conducted an experiment to see

whether Persian speakers use v in suffixed forms of o- and u-final words, and to see in a

perception task, to what extent they rate words with [v] as acceptable compared to those

with [j].

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7.3. The experiment

I carried out an experiment to test whether the presence of v after o and u at a suffix

boundary is an active process or is limited to known cases. The experiment was done

with 10 speakers of Persian. These are the same speakers who did the experiment

discussed in chapter 4 for epenthesis in suffixation and in chapter 6 for o-final

monosyllables. As for the experiment itself, as I said in 4.7.1, I conducted one experiment

through which three processes were examined (see Appendix 3 on experiments). Three

tasks were designed for the process on v, as follows:

Task (i): Question and answer task (production) (real and made-up words)

Task (ii): Wug task (production) (made-up words)

Task (iii): Acceptability rating (perception) (real and made-up words)

I did not include the reading task for this process since the v appears in Persian script and

therefore it will be read by speakers.

Below I will go through the tasks for this process.

7.3.1. Task 1: Production (question and answer)

This task includes both real and made-up words. The same question and frame sentence

(with a blank space in which the speaker’s answer fits) which were used for the

epenthesis process in chapter 4 and for the o-final monosyllables in chapter 6 were used

for this process too. I repeat them here for convenience:

(26) The question: ali ʧi ɡoft?

What did Ali say?

The frame sentence: fekr mikon-am goft…..

I think he said……… (participant’s response)

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In addition to the stress-bearing –i’s and the plural marker -ɑn, I tested some other

suffixes as well. The occurrence of v is not restricted to only noun-forming suffixes,

adjective-forming suffixes, and the plural marker, as seen in no ‘new’, novin ‘modern’, so

I included the suffixes –in and -estɑn as well. For the list of suffixes and o-/u- final made-

up words used for this process see Appendix 8. The real words used for this process are

given in Appendix 10. Note that the o-/u- final words were mixed with the consonant-

final words which were used to study epenthesis (chapter 4) as well as with e-final words

to study the occurrence of ɡ at a suffix boundary (chapter 8). In addition, I included a few

made-up ɑ-final and i-final words to have a complete list of vowels in final position (e.g.,

timɑ, buni).

Let us now examine the results of the question and answer task for the process of v in

suffixation.

(27) The result of made-up o- and u-final words

No v With v Misc Total

191

(56.18%)

105

(30.88%)

44

(12.94%)

340

(100%)

(28) The result of real o- and u-final words

No v With v Misc Total

55

(35.71%)

92

(59.74%)

7

(4.55%)

154

(100%)

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Before going through these tables, I should note that by ‘No v’ I mean the occurrence of

the default pattern which could be j or nothing or the glottal stop, which, as I said before,

I consider as the default category. I use j as the representative of this category. I should

also add a point about miscellaneous cases. As discussed in chapter 6, the miscellaneous

cases are those cases which are different from one of the expected patterns and are not of

concern here. For example, in some cases some speakers used the non-stress-bearing

suffix –i instead of the stress-bearing suffix –i, so there was a change of stress. Such

cases were categorized as miscellaneous.

The tables in (27) and (28) suggest a preference towards using j with made-up words and

towards using v with real words. In order to formally compare the occurrence of j and v

between made-up words and real words, a two-tailed Sign test was conducted. To run this

statistical test, I needed to know the performance of each speaker individually. Below is a

table which shows the performance of each speaker, shown by his/her initial, for real and

made-up words, eliminating miscellaneous cases. The table should be read as follows:

considering the first row, the speaker AE pronounced 58.33% of the real words of this

task with j (and not v) and 74.19% of the made-up words with j (and not v). The means

are given at the end.

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(29) The result of the performance of speakers individually (question and answer)

Speakers Real % /j/ Made-up % /j/

AE 58.33 74.19

FT 36.36 78.12

SF 61.53 93.54

VD 20 86.66

SS 64.7 77.42

AA 23.53 67.74

RM 25 51.51

PH 41.18 60.87

NP 41.18 58.82

LP 5.88 12.12

Mean 37.77 66.10

The result strongly indicates that the frequency of /j/ is significantly higher in made-up

words than in real words (p-value = 0.002; highly significant).

Next I discuss a wug test for the v process.

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7.3.2. Task 2: Production (wug test)

For this task some o- and u-final made-up words were used. In this task, I tested the

noun-forming –i and the plural marker -ɑn. There were two sentences, each for one of

these suffixes. The English equivalents of the sentences are as follows: (i) for the noun-

forming –i: ‘They are looking for a …..Unfortunately Mina does not know….’ (the

blanks in this sentence could be filled for example with ‘driver’ and ‘driving’

respectively); (ii) for the plural marker -ɑn: ‘There was not only one … in that room. It

was a group of ….. there.’ (the blanks in this sentence could be filled for example with

‘teacher’ and ‘teachers’ respectively). Both sentences were practiced with real words first

so the speakers could get familiar with the sentences and afterwards some made-up words

were practiced with the sentences.

The result is as follows:

(30) The result of made-up o- and u-final words (wug test)

No v With v Misc Total

50

(62.5%)

30

(37.5%)

0

(0%)

80

(100%)

It seems that the version with [j] is more frequent. In order to test this formally, I ran a

two-tailed one sample t-test. Again speakers’ performances were looked at individually,

as given below. The table shows that there is 62.5% occurrence of /j/ and therefore 37.5%

occurrence of /v/.

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(31) The result of the performance of speakers individually (wug test)

Speakers Made-up % /j/

AE 75

FT 87.5

SF 100

VD 50

SS 100

AA 62.5

RM 62.5

PH 75

NP 12.5

LP 0

Mean 62.5

As (31) shows, some speakers use j in all cases (speakers SF and SS), some use less or no

j (speakers NP and LP), and others use j in half of the cases or more (speakers AE, FT,

VD, AA, RM, PH). The overall result does not support the frequency of /j/ being

significantly different from that of /v/ for this task, which includes only made-up words

(p-value = 0.2729; not statistically significant).

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So in the question and answer task, the frequency of /j/ was higher compared to real

words. In the wug test, also a production task, no significant difference between the

frequency of /j/ and that of /v/ in made-up words is observed. Putting these together, the

overall conclusion for production tasks is as follows: with made-up words /j/ is used

more or equally to /v/.

7.3.3. Task 3: Perception (accessibility rating)

For this part of the experiment, the participants listened to a list of recorded words and

rated them on the following scale: √ (good, acceptable, possible), ? (so-so), X (bad,

unacceptable, impossible). The pen and paper process which was explained in chapter 4

and chapter 6 was used here.

(32) The result of made-up o- and u-final words

√ ? X Total

No v 89

(67.42%)

12

(9.09%)

31

(23.48%)

132

(100%)

With v 106

(80.3%)

11

(8.33%)

15

(11.36%)

132

(100%)

The overall result does not support the frequency of /j/ being significantly different from

that of /v/ (p-value = 0.0574; not statistically significant).

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(33) The result of real o- and u-final words

√ ? X Total

No v 33

(63.46%)

6

(11.54%)

13

(25%)

52

(100%)

With v 41

(78.85%)

2

(3.85%)

9

(17.31%)

52

(100%)

The result does not support the frequency of /j/ being significantly different from that of

/v/ (p-value = 0.6875; not statistically significant).64

7.3.4. Discussion

In this section I discussed an experiment that I conducted to examine the occurrence of -v

in suffixation with real and made-up o- and u-final words. The results of the experiment

on v lead us toward the following conclusion: in comparing real and made-up words in a

production task, there are more [j] with made-up words than with real words. This might

suggest that familiarity is a factor in having [v] in suffixation. That is for made-up words

the default pattern is more frequent. However, given that in another production task there

is no significant difference between the usage of [j] and [v], it can be concluded that the

[v] is not an indication of the underlying presence of ow/ov in real words and is best

64 Note that the tables including each individual’s performance cannot be provided for the perception task, for two reasons: (i) there is overlapping in each speaker’s judgment; that is, both versions of a word could be acceptable for a speaker (as shown by the sum of some components which exceeds 100% -see, for example, “No v √” and “With v √” in (32) and (33)); (ii) there are some so-so’s (those shown by ?) therefore there is no clear-cut two-way distinction. Whereas in production, it is either one or the other (and not both or so-so); that is, in production, they said a word either with j or with v so if one deducts the percentage of usage of j, the exact percentage of usage of v is obtained. This is not the case in perception for the reasons just noted.

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explained phonetically. There might be an underlying v in some cases, and also some

frozen or lexicalized cases or some historical residues with v. But there is also an active

v-insertion process which occurs after made-up o-final and u-final words, and this

supports the phonetic effect due to labial environment. The v does not occur all the time

in this labial environment because the default rule is also active, thus yielding variation

between j and v even for the same word. The variation is seen in both real words and

made-up words (e.g., an example for real words: ɑhu, ɑhu[j]i ‘pertaining to deer’, and

ɑho[v]ɑn ‘deer (pl)’; an example of made-up words which show the variation: the word

tɑru by the same speaker gave tɑruji but tɑrovɑn). In perception, in both real and made-

up words, no significant difference is observed between the occurrence of j and v, which

again can be explained by the default rule as well as the environment-dependent v-

occurrence both being active. The observation that v does not occur when the labial

environment is not provided, as shown in (1) and (2) and as also the words with other

vowels in final position in the experiment show (see chapter 8), confirms that v occurs

due to the phonetic effect of labials.

Thus, the conclusion is that the occurrence of v vs. j is governed by rules: the default rule

which inserts j and the rule motivated by labial environment which inserts v. But, then,

there are lexical differences (e.g., some lexical items take v more frequently while others

never or rarely take v) and these should be memorized for each item. This is a good

illustration of how it is hard to draw a firm line between what is derived by rules and

what is listed in the lexicon, i.e., what Zuraw (2000) refers to as ‘patterned exceptions’

and Bybee (2001) refers to as ‘rule/list fallacy’. In other words, these are patterns that

need to be memorized for each known word but nevertheless productive and can be

applied to novel words.

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7.4. Summary

As noted in chapter 1, one of the major goals of this work is to examine some suffixation

processes in Persian in order to understand the seeming irregularities in

morphophonemics. In this chapter I discussed a suffixation process which involves the

occurrence of v following o- and u-final words at a stem-suffix boundary. I reviewed

three possible hypotheses to account for this process. One possibility is to consider two

groups of o- and u-final words in the language: one group with underlying ow/ov and the

other without having ow/ov underlyingly. A second possibility involves taking cases with

v in suffixation to be frozen or lexicalized as opposed to those cases which show the

default pattern, [j]. The third possibility rests on a phonetic effect of the labial

environment. I conducted an experiment testing the occurrence of v with real and made-

up words. With o-/u-final words, in production j and v both actively occur (in one task j is

more frequent, in the other no significant difference is seen between their occurrences).

In perception of o-/u-ending real and made-up words, the rating of j and v are not

significantly different. I concluded that the v can be phonetically explained, as follows: in

addition to the occurrence of the default pattern, there is an active v-insertion process

which occurs with made-up o-final and u-final words. Thus two patterns, one the default

pattern and the other the phonetically-driven v insertion, are synchronically active and

participate in the suffixation process. They are, therefore, responsible for the observed

variation regarding the consonant which may occur at a suffix boundary after o- and u-

final words. The process is thus best treated synchronically and phonetically.

In the next chapter, I will discuss another process which involves consonants in

suffixation. It is the occurrence of -ɡ in suffixation.

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Chapter 8

More on suffixation: the case of -ɡ

In the previous chapter, I examined a suffixation process which involves the consonant –v

in suffixation after o- and u-final words. In this chapter, another suffixation process

which also involves a consonant is discussed. In this case, the consonant -ɡ occurs after e-

final stems with two suffixes, the noun-forming suffix –i and the plural marker suffix -ɑn.

In this chapter I first discuss the synchronic status of the -ɡ in 8.1. This will be followed

by a review of the literature in 8.2. I then examine different hypotheses, both historical

and synchronic, to account for the occurrence of the -ɡ in 8.3. I conducted an experiment

on -ɡ, which I will discuss in 8.4. Arguing that the occurrence of -ɡi and -ɡɑn is a case of

phonologically controlled allomorphy with particular suffixes, I conclude the chapter in

8.5.

8.1. The synchronic status of -ɡ

In this section, I examine the occurrence of -ɡ at a suffix boundary with the noun-forming

suffix –i and the plural marker suffix -ɑn in Persian. The status of -ɡ is controversial in

the Persian literature. In the Persian literature, some (e.g., Meshkatod Dini 1999, Najafi

2001) have claimed that [ɡ] is an epenthetic consonant. Natel Khanlari (1987), on the

other hand, considers the present -ɡ to be a historical -ɡ which synchronically appears

with some suffixes.

Before discussing possible analyses for the occurrence of the -ɡ, let us see some examples

to show where -ɡ occurs.

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8.1.1. The -ɡ: overview

Consider the following examples in which the noun-forming –i (a stress-bearing suffix) is

attached to a vowel-ending base:

(1) a. ʃakibɑ ‘patient’ ʃakibɑ-i ‘patience’

b. baʧʧe ‘child’ baʧʧe-ɡ-i ‘childhood’

In (1a) the suffix is clearly of the form –i, while in (1b), the suffix appears to have the

form –ɡi. The presence of the [ɡ] raises interesting questions. Why is the [ɡ] present?

Why is it present only after the vowel [e] (without exception), as we will see? Why, when

a similar suffix is considered, is there no [ɡ] present? Compare (1) with (2) in which the

adjective-forming –i (also stress-bearing) is attached to a vowel-ending base:

(2) a. talɑ ‘gold’ talɑ-i ‘golden’

b. mantaɢe ‘region’ mantaɢe-i ‘regional’

As we see, in (1a) and (2a), when the base ends in ɑ, the suffixes pattern similarly. In (1b)

and (2b), where the base ends in –e, however, the suffixes pattern differently from each

other. (1b), in which the suffix is noun forming, shows ɡ but (2b), in which the suffix is

adjective forming, does not show ɡ; the latter patterns similarly to the words which end in

-ɑ. More examples of the bases with different vowels will be presented in (3) and (4).

In this section I study this ɡ in some depth. The ɡ is of limited distribution, occurring

between an e-final stem or suffix and two vowel-initial suffixes, the noun-forming -i and

the plural marker -ɑn. It should be noted that the plural marker -ɑn is used more in formal

speech. The plural marker -hɑ is the suffix used in informal speech.

Let us now consider the data. (3) and (4) present examples of suffixation with the noun-

forming –i and the plural marker -ɑn respectively. (3a) and (4a) contain examples of e-

final words with this suffix. (3b) and (4b) contain examples of words ending in sounds

other than e.

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(3) The noun-forming -i

a. The suffix with e-final words

farsude ‘worn-out’ farsudeɡi ‘being worn-out’

ɡorosne ‘hungry’ ɡorosneɡi ‘hunger’

teʃne ‘thirsty’ teʃneɡi ‘thirst’

xaste ‘tired’ xasteɡi ‘tiredness’

zende ‘alive’ zendeɡi ‘life’

baʧʧe ‘child’ baʧʧeɡi ‘childhood’

nevisande ‘author’ nevisandeɡi ‘authorship’

rɑnande ‘driver’ rɑnandeɡi ‘driving’

jeɡɑne ‘unique’ jeɡɑneɡi ‘uniqueness’

sɑde ‘simple’ sɑdeɡi ‘simplicity’

b. The suffix with sounds other than e in final position

tamiz ‘neat’ tamizi ‘neatness’

zibɑ ‘beautiful’ zibɑji ‘beauty’

ɡedɑ ‘poor’ ɡedɑji ‘beggary’

kamru ‘shy’ kamruji ‘shyness’

dɑneʃʤu ‘university student’ dɑneʃʤuji ‘studentship’

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(4) The plural marker -ɑn

a. The suffix with e-final words

parande ‘bird’ parandeɡɑn

xɑnande ‘singer’ xɑnandeɡɑn

divɑne ‘crazy’ divɑneɡɑn

xaste ‘tired’ xasteɡɑn

zende ‘alive’ zendeɡɑn

teʃne ‘thirsty’ teʃneɡɑn

barande ‘winner’ barandeɡɑn

b. The suffix with sounds other than e in final position

deraxt ‘tree’ deraxtɑn

dɑnɑ ‘knowledgeable’ dɑnɑjɑn

ɡedɑ ‘poor’ ɡedɑjɑn

dɑneʃʤu ‘university student’ dɑneʃʤujɑn

pari ‘fairy’ parijɑn

Note that some of these words are roots and some are suffixed forms to which one can

add –i and -ɑn. The presence of j as an epenthetic glide represents the default pattern, as

noted in chapters 6 and 7.

Also relevant here is that there are some words in Persian which may be thought to have j

as a part of the base. For instance, consider dɑneʃʤu ‘university student’ from which

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dɑneʃʤuji ‘studentship’ and dɑneʃʤujɑn ‘university students’ are formed. The word

dɑneʃʤu ‘university student’ consists of dɑn (‘the present stem of dɑnestan ‘to know’’)

followed by the suffix -eʃ, giving dɑneʃ ‘knowledge’, to which ʤu(j) (‘the present stem

of ʤostan ‘to look for’’) is added (dɑneʃʤu literally means ‘someone who is looking for

knowledge’ used for university students). Now whether the j at a suffix boundary is a part

of the present stem ʤu(j) from ʤostan ‘to look for’ or whether it is epenthetic is a

question. There are, however, cases where j is clearly epenthetic (e.g., dɑnɑ ‘knowledgeable’, ɡedɑ ‘poor’, pari ‘angel’). While these are unclear issues, what matters

in our discussion of -ɡ is that no -ɡ appears with these cases.

As shown above, a ɡ appears when an e-final base is followed by the noun-forming –i.

There are a few exceptions which show ɡ in suffixation but the result is an adjective and

not a noun. For example:

(5) xɑne ‘home’ (noun) xɑneɡi ‘homemade, pertaining to home’ (adjective)

sɑxte ‘made’ (adjective) sɑxteɡi ‘forged’ (adjective)

hafte ‘week’ (noun) hafteɡi ‘weekly’ (adjective/adverb)

Leaving aside these exceptions, the –i with which the -ɡ appears is a noun-forming

suffix.

Let us now look at words with other vowels in final position.

8.1.2. Words with other vowels in final position

As seen in the examples in (3b) and (4b) with other vowels in the final position of the

base, ɡ does not appear. With o, as discussed in the previous chapter, v may appear. The

examples in (6) show other vowels. The insertion of [j] which I include in these forms is

optional.

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(6) ʃɑkibɑ ‘patient’ ʃɑkibɑji ‘patience’

zibɑ ‘beautiful’ zibɑji ‘beauty’

piʃɡu ‘predictor’ piʃɡuji ‘prediction’

kamru ‘shy’ kamruji ‘shyness’

Words which end in –i need comment. There are i-ending words such as:

(7) pari ‘fairy’ but there is no parii

ɢɑli ‘carpet’ but there is no ɢɑlii

ɢuri ‘teapot’ but there is no ɢurii

It should be noted that sometimes the meaning does not allow the possibility of adding –i

to these words (e.g., with ɢɑli ‘carpet’ it does not seem to make sense to have a noun

with the –i).

Also, there are Arabic-origin adjectives which end in –i but they undergo a different

noun-forming process, and do not usually take the noun-forming -i. Some examples are

given in (8):

(8) ɢavi ‘strong’ → ɢovvat ‘strength’

saxi ‘generous’ → sexɑvat ‘generosity’

fɑni ‘mortal’ → fanɑ ‘destruction, death’

bɑɢi ‘immortal’ → baɢɑ ‘immortality’

In addition, some of the words which end in –i and do not take the noun-forming –i

consist of a noun followed by the adjective-forming –i —the adjective-forming –i is

another stress-bearing suffix, as noted above, and it will be discussed in 8.1.3. For

example:

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(9) xɑki ‘down to earth, dusty’ (xɑk ‘earth, dust, soil’ + -i) → *xɑkii

kɑri ‘hard-working’ (kɑr ‘work’ + -i) → *kɑrii

bɑdi ‘powered by wind’ (bɑd ‘wind’ + -i) → *bɑdii

From words like ɢavi ‘strong’, one may, however, make ɢavii or ɢavi[j]i in a sentence

like:

(10) ɑdam-i be in ɢavi[j]i na-dide boud-am.

person-indefinite marker to this strong-the suffix neg-seen was-1st.sg

‘I hadn’t seen a person this strong’

But ɢavi[j]i is not a word that one can use in many other cases. For example, one does

not say:

(11) *xorma xeili be-h-et ɢavi[j]i mi-de.

date (the fruit) very to-epenthetic-you strong-the suffix indicative-give-3rd sg

‘Dates (the fruit) give you a lot of strength/energy.’

The nominalized form ɢovvat (and not ɢavi[j]i) is used in (11) and in most cases. The

point relevant to our discussion is that when we can use these i-ending words with the

suffix –i, no ɡ is observed, and j is inserted.65

An example of the adjective-forming –i is given in (12). Consider the word mɑhi ‘fish’.

mɑhi[j]i/mɑhi-i, while not a common word (which is intended to mean ‘like a fish’ or

‘containing fish’, or ‘liking fish’), is acceptable in the following sentence, which means

that your hand has been in touch with fish and is not clean:

65 I did an experiment with 10 native speakers of Persian for some suffixation processes discussed in chapters 4, 6, 7, and this chapter. In order to have a complete list of vowels in final position, I included a couple of i-ending words (to which the suffixes –i and -ɑn be added). The words were furi and lari and the result strongly confirms what I said above about j being used after i-final words.

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(12) dast-am mɑhi[j]i bud

hand-1st sg genitive fish-the suffix was

‘My hand was dirty with fish’

This sentence can be said, for instance, in a context such as ‘My hand was dirty with fish

so I did not pick up the phone’. So the point is that again j is used with i-final words

regardless of suffix.

In addition, some i-final words take -jɑji (or maybe -ɑji, preceded by an epenthetic j) to

form an adjective. See the following examples:

(13) libi ‘Libya’ libijɑji ‘Libyan’

romɑni ‘Romania’ romɑnijɑji ‘Romanian’

ʃimi ‘chemistry’ ʃimijɑji ‘chemical’

musiɢi ‘music’ musiɢijɑji ‘musical, pertaining

to music’

I should also add a note about some e-final words followed by an –i. Some Arabic words

and their versions with the adjective-forming -i are both used in Persian.

(14) kufe ‘the name of a city in Iraq’ kufi ‘related to Kufe (the city)’

edɑre ‘office, bureau’ edɑri ‘bureaucratic, administrative’

erɑde ‘determination, will’ erɑdi ‘controlled by will’

mahalle ‘neighborhood’ mahalli ‘local’

I leave aside these cases.

Back to our discussion of ɡ, looking at the data ((3) and (4)), two questions are important:

(i) Why does ɡ appear with those two suffixes?; and (ii) Why does it occur only after –e

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and not after any other vowel? The issue is complicated by the existence of a large

number of words which end in –e followed by the adjective-forming –i (also stress-

bearing) but they do not show ɡ in suffixation. I discuss the adjective-forming –i next.

8.1.3. The adjective-forming -i

Consider the following examples (a j can be inserted in hiatus in these examples):

(15) afsɑne ‘legend, fiction’ afsɑnei ‘legendary’

kise ‘bag’ kisei ‘packed in bags’

pɑrʧe ‘fabric’ pɑrʧei ‘made of fabric’

xuʃe ‘cluster’ xuʃei ‘in cluster’ (e.g., cluster bomb)

xɑme ‘cream’ xɑmei ‘made of/containing cream’

dande ‘gear’ dandei ‘operated with a gear’

hole ‘towel’ holei ‘like a towel regarding the material’

herfe ‘profession’ herfei ‘professional’

mantaɢe ‘region’ mantaɢei ‘regional’

eʤɑre ‘rent’ eʤɑrei ‘rental’

dore ‘period’ dorei ‘periodic’

ɢahve ‘coffee’ ɢahvei ‘brown’

sorme ‘surma’ sormei ‘dark/navy blue’

firuze ‘turquoise (the stone)’ firuzei ‘turquoise (color)’

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peste ‘pistachio’ pestei ‘a kind of green as the color of

pistachio (a color) or sth made of or having

pistachio’

With the adjective-forming suffix –i, e-final words pattern similarly to words with other

vowels in final position (a j can be inserted between /u, ɑ/ and the suffix, too).

(16) ɢuti ‘can, box’ → ɢutiji ‘packed in box’

ʤɑdu ‘magic’ → ʤɑdui ‘magical’

talɑ ‘gold’ → talɑi ‘golden’

Persian has a non-stress-bearing suffix –i as well, which should not be confused with the

two stress-bearing –i suffixes discussed above. The non-stress-bearing suffix –i is the

indefinite article, which was included in the list of suffixes in section 4.4. I mention it

here because it will be referred to later. Both before and after suffixation, the stress in the

following cases is on the final syllable of the base, that is, on final -e. Some examples are

presented in (17) –the stress on final –e of the base is shown in bold:

(17) baʧʧe ‘child’ baʧʧe-i ‘a child’

parande ‘bird’ parande-i ‘a bird’

kise ‘bag’ kise-i ‘a bag’

In informal speech, usually jek ‘a(n), one’ is used to mark indefiniteness (e.g., je(k) baʧʧe ‘a child’). Sometimes in speech jek ‘a(n), one’ precedes the words which get the

indefinite article –i (e.g., je(k) baʧʧe-i ‘a child’). The point relevant to our discussion

here is that the non-stress-bearing -i does not get -ɡ.

I leave aside the non-stress-bearing –i, and focus on the two stress-bearing -i’s. It should

be noted that there is not agreement in the literature on the existence of two suffixes,

noun-forming –i and adjective-forming –i, just as there is not agreement upon the nature

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of the ɡ. Thus, before going further, I will review the literature on the ɡ in suffixation and

then continue with my discussion.

8.2. Literature review

A number of authors who have written about Persian address the question of the source

of the ɡ that occurs with the noun-forming suffix and the plural marker after the vowel e.

Some studies propose that the ɡ is epenthetic while some consider it as a form of the

suffixes –i and -ɑn which occurs only after -e. There is also an account which considers

the ɡ to be present historically in final position of some words. According to this account,

the ɡ reappears in the present time when these words are followed by certain suffixes. I

will review these accounts in 8.2.1-8.2.5. In 8.2.6, I conclude the section.

8.2.1. Natel Khanlari’s account

Natel Khanlari (1987) provides a historical account of the ɡ, arguing that it was in final

position in some words in Middle Persian and reappears in some cases of suffixation,

where it is not word-final; for example, with the plural marker -ɑn and the noun-forming

–i. Some of his examples are given in (18) (the transcriptions are mine; in the reference

only the suffixed forms are presented, I also include the unsuffixed form):

(18) Middle Persian Modern Persian Modern Persian

neʃastaɡ neʃaste ‘seated’ neʃasteɡɑn ‘seated’ (pl.)

mordaɡ morde ‘dead’ mordeɡɑn ‘dead’ (pl.)

zendaɡ zende ‘alive’ zendeɡi ‘life’

xastaɡ xaste ‘tired’ xasteɡi ‘tiredness’

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This historical account refers to a change which occurred in Persian words. The change is

as follows: words which used to end in -aɡ in Middle Persian end in –e in Modern

Persian. They underwent two changes: the deletion of -ɡ and the change of a to e. Natel

Khanlari’s account suggests that the ɡ is base final. This historical account will be

discussed in 8.3.2.1.

8.2.2. Lazard’s account

Lazard (1992) assumes that there are two stress-bearing suffixes of the shape /i/. As we

have seen, one –i forms nouns. This suffix is used very productively, attaching freely to

any noun or adjective if an appropriate meaning is possible (the transcriptions are mine):

(19) bozorɡ ‘big’ + -i: bozorɡi ‘bigness’

ɢermez ‘red’ + -i: ɢermezi ‘redness’

Lazard adds that when the base ends in –e, the derived form is in eɡi, for example:

(20) bande ‘servant, slave’ + -i: bandeɡi ‘servitude’

According to Lazard, the other -i suffix forms adjectives indicating relationship of any

kind from nouns. This suffix is extremely productive and may freely attach to any noun.

Some of his examples are as follows:

(21) irɑn ‘Iran’ + -i: irɑni ‘Iranian’

elm ‘science’ + -i: elmi ‘scientific’

Lazard then adds two notes, as follows: (i) This suffix should not be confused with its

homonym which serves to form abstract nouns; (ii) This suffix joins without change to

nouns in –e, for example:

(22) pambe ‘cotton’ + -i: pambei ‘made of cotton, resembling cotton’

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He thus proposes two –i suffixes. Only one of them, the noun-forming suffix, becomes

-ɡi after –e.

8.2.3. Kalbasi’s account

Kalbasi (1992) considers the suffix –i to have two forms: -i and -ɡi, the latter form occurs

only after –e. The –i has two historical sources, she argues: (i) One was a noun-forming

suffix: this was –īh in Middle Persian, as in tārīɡīh and wadīh (these words are tɑrik-i ‘darkness’ and bad-i ‘badness’ in Modern Persian (from tɑrik ‘dark’ and bad ‘bad’));

(ii) The other was an adjective-forming suffix: this was -īɡ in Middle Persian, as in pārsīɡ

and nāmīɡ (these words are pɑrsi or fɑrsi ‘Persian, Farsi’ and nɑmi ‘famous’ in Modern

Persian (from pɑrs or fɑrs ‘Iran, today Fars is the name of a province in Iran’ and nɑm

‘name, fame’)).66

Kalbasi further says that this suffix is one of the most productive suffixes in Persian and

gives several examples. Among them (the transcriptions and forms before suffixation are

mine), the following are found:

66 In Middle Persian dictionaries there are examples of -īh and -īɡ. I present here some examples (taken from Farahvashi’s 1967 dictionary):

(i) tuwān ‘strength, energy’ (ii) afzōn ‘exceeding’ (iii) frahanɡ ‘culture, education’

tuwān-īh ‘strength’ afzōn-īh ‘overabundance’ frahanɡ-īɡ ‘educated’

tuwān-īɡ ‘strong’ afzōn-īɡ ‘exceeding’ frahanɡ-īɡ-īh ‘education’

tuwān-īɡ-īh ‘strength’ afzōn-īɡ-īh ‘overabundance’

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(23) rustɑji ‘rural’ (rustɑ ‘village’)

hamsedɑji ‘agreement’ (hamsedɑ ‘having the same view’)

baʧʧeɡi ‘childhood’ (baʧʧe ‘child’)

zendeɡi ‘life’ (zende ‘alive’)

Kalbasi further adds that the -ɡi version, which occurs only after –e, can be used either (i)

to indicate an infinitive (or maybe gerund), as in xaste-ɡi ‘tiredness’; or (ii) to show

relationship or correspondence (connection), as in xɑne-ɡi ‘homemade, related to house’.

However, according to her, adjectives which show relationship/correspondence and

which do not follow the rule are found. Some of Kalbasi’s examples are:

(24) noɢre ‘silver (the material)’ noɢrei ‘silver (the color) or made of silver’

mɑhiʧe ‘muscle’ mɑhiʧei ‘having muscles’

ɢabile ‘tribe’ ɢabilei ‘tribal’

Kalbasi adds, in a footnote, that in some dialects of Persian such as Isfahani (Isfahan is a

city in Iran) -ɡi is used after other vowels as well, for example:

(25) porru-ɡi ‘cheekiness’ In Standard Persian it is porru-ji or purrui

(porru ‘cheeky’)

bɑbɑ-ɡi ‘fatherhood’ In Standard Persian it is bɑbɑ-ji or bɑbɑ-i

(bɑbɑ ‘dad’)

Another example from her 1991 book is as follows:

(26) bijɑberu-ɡi ‘scandal’ In Standard Persian it is bi(j)ɑberu-ji or bi(j)ɑberui

(bi-ɑberu ‘scandalous’)

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There are also words in other dialects of Persian which sometimes (not always) show -ɡi

for the adjective-forming –i. Some examples, taken from Shalchi’s dictionary (1991), are

given in (27). Shalchi’s dictionary of Khorasanian Dialect (1991) is a dictionary which,

as the author describes, includes some words used in The Great Khorasan –the area which

included the current province of Khorasan (in North East of Iran), as well as

Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Some of the words in (27) are

used in Standard Persian in their un-suffixed form but not in the suffixed form (see my

notes in (27)) although note that since the adjective-forming –i can be added to any noun

as long as the meaning is fine, one can make the following words in their suffixed forms

too. In all the examples given below, if in Standard Persian, one wants to add the

adjective-forming –i, she/he will add just –i and not -ɡi.

(27) sina ‘chest, breast’ sina-ɡi ‘a suckling baby’ (in Standard Persian: sine)

ʃanba ‘Saturday’ ʃanba-ɡi ‘pertaining to Saturday’ (in Standard Persian: ʃanbe)

ʃira ‘a kind of drug’ ʃira-ɡi ‘addicted to the drug’ (in Standard Persian: ʃire

and out of it ʃire-i)

kuʧa ‘alley’ kuʧa-ɡi ‘pertaining to alley’ (in Standard Persian: kuʧe)

and out of it kuʧe-i)

In continuation of the discussion on Khorasani dialects, I add that in Mashhad (Mashhad

is a city in Iran in Khorasan province) -ɡi is sometimes used for the e-ending words

followed by the adjective-forming suffix in particular with color words (this is my own

observation and has been confirmed by another Persian speaker). This is observed in the

speech of uneducated older people.

(28) ɢahve ‘coffee’ ɢahveɡi ‘brown’

peste ‘pistachio’ pesteɡi ‘pistachio green’

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In Standard Persian, these words are pronounced as ɢahvei and pestei.

A study of the dialectal distribution of -ɡ in different dialects of Persian is an interesting

topic that I leave for future research. Kalbasi’s observations on the Isfahani dialect show

that in different dialects, there are different synchronic interpretations of -ɡ although

historically these dialects share the same origin.

Returning to -ɡ in Standard Persian, as Kalbasi considers the suffix as synchronically

one, with a -ɡi form used specifically after –e – she considers two different historical

origins for the suffix. According to her, as discussed above, sometimes some e-final

words do not take -ɡi (the result is an adjective). It should be noted that the number of

words which end in –e and take –i (with the adjective meaning) without showing -ɡ is so

large in the language that one cannot consider them as an exceptional group which

sometimes show deviation from the -eɡi rule. In fact, with some exceptions (see (5)), all

e-ending words which take the –i to form an adjective do not show -ɡi.

8.2.4. Mahootian’s account

Mahootian (1997) introduces a list of suffixes with their function. In the list, the

following are observed (I do not include other suffixes of her list and give only those I

am dealing with here). It seems that Mahootian considers at least two –i’s and does not

consider -ɡ to be one of the epenthetic consonants in Persian. I will return to this after

reviewing her list.

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(29)

a. Nouns from nouns

These suffixes are semantically regular.

Suffix Noun Noun

-i (stressed) mard mardi Yes

Productive

abstract nom. man manliness

-ɡi barde bardeɡi limited (why limited

abstract nom. slave slavery (will be discussed below)

b. Nouns from adjectives

These are semantically regular.

Suffix Adjective Noun Productive

-i xub xubi Yes

abstract nom. good goodness

-ɡi afsorde afsordeɡi limited

sad sadness

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c. Nouns from adverbs

Adverbs are not common source of nouns. One suffix for forming nouns from adverb is:

Suffix Adverbs Noun Productive

-(ɡ)i tond tondi Yes

nominalizer fast quickness

d. Adjectives from nouns

These are semantically regular. The words form with -ɡi are also used adverbially.

USuffixU UNounU UAdjectiveU UProductiveU

-ɡi hafte hafteɡi limited

-ly week weekly

-i ɢahve ɢahvei Yes

attributive coffee brown

e. Adverbs from noun

This is typically used with time expressions to form adverbs of time and can also be used

adjectivally.

USuffixU UNounU UAdverbU

-ɡi hafte hafteɡi

Like -ly week weekly

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It seems that Mahootian considers at least two –i’s (whether there are two –i’s or two

functions of the same suffix is not clear): (i) One is an abstract nominalizer (noun-

forming from nouns and adjectives); (ii) The other is attributive (adjective-making from

nouns). The same for -ɡi: (i) One is an abstract nominalizer (noun-forming from nouns

and adjectives); (ii) The other is adjective-forming from nouns. The resulting adjectives

can be used adverbially as well. There is a –(ɡ)i as adverb-forming from nouns.

It seems that (since there is not an explanation as how these are treated, I cannot be

entirely sure that my interpretation is correct) Mahootian does not consider these suffixes

to be one suffix but to be more than two, or maybe she just points out different functions

of the same suffix, in which case one cannot tell if she takes the suffixes to be two or to

be one with various functions. It also seems that Mahootian does not consider -ɡ as

epenthetic, in particular because later when she refers to epenthesis in sequences of

vowels, she says that j or h or nothing is inserted between two vowels. Thus Mahootian

does not seem to consider -ɡ to be one of the epenthetic consonants. It is also important to

note that she considers the -ɡi to be of limited productivity compared to –i. This might be

interpreted as considering those cases which show -ɡ to be frozen or lexicalized.

8.2.5. Meshkatod Dini’s account

Meshkatod Dini (1999) considers the -ɡ to be epenthetic (along with j, the glottal stop,

etc.). He gives some examples such as:

(30) hafte-ɡ-i ‘weekly’

xɑne-ɡ-i ‘homemade, related to home’

baʧʧe-ɡ-i ‘childhood’

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Meshkatod Dini continues that the epenthetic -ɡ in the above examples distinguishes

them (as a noun or adjective) from the following cases which have the indefinite marker

–i. Recall that Persian has a non-stress-bearing –i, the indefinite marker.

(31) hafte-j-i / hafte-ʔ-i ‘a week’

xɑne-j-i / xɑne-ʔ-i ‘a house’

baʧʧe-j-i / baʧʧe-ʔ-i ‘a child’

After these, Meshkatod Dini says that it seems that the place of stress has an influence on

the occurrence of the epenthetic -ɡ. He later proposes that the insertion of -ɡ has a

phonological explanation because regardless of morphological considerations and the

syntactic category of the base, the -ɡ is found when preceded by a morpheme-final e

provided that the suffix is the stress-bearing –i. Meshkatod Dini adds that one can add the

suffix -i to a noun or an adjective and get an adjective or a noun respectively. He gives

the following rules to account for this (I show the stress in bold):

(32) ∅ → [ɡ] / e + – + i

In comparison with this, Meshkatod Dini gives the following rule for the –i which does

not carry stress, when stress is on –e:

(33) ∅ → [ʔ] / e + – + i

Meshkatod Dini concludes that ɡ is epenthesized between e and a stressed vowel i. It is

clear, he claims, that a phonological analysis is sufficient to account for the presence of ɡ,

and no morphological or syntactic considerations are necessary. However, Meshkatod

Dini does not consider the full range of facts. First, while he accounts for the presence of

ɡ following e with the noun formative, he does not account for its absence with the

adjective formative, which is also stress bearing. Second, if the segmental environment

must be specified, then it is difficult to account for the fact that the ɡ occurs not only with

a suffix of the form –i, but also one of the form –ɑn.

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Samareh (1977) also takes the ɡ to be epenthetic or, as he calls it, an intrusive consonant

which is used when the base final vowel is e and the suffix is either –i or -ɑn. Some of his

examples are: morde ‘dead’ and mordeɡɑn ‘dead (pl)’; teʃne ‘thirsty’ and teʃneɡi ‘thirst’.

Najafi (2001) also considers the ɡ to be epenthetic. Some of his examples are: setɑre

‘star’ and setɑreɡɑn ‘stars’; zende ‘alive’ and zendeɡi ‘life’.

I will return to the ɡ and epenthesis in 8.3.4.

8.2.6. Conclusion

Different accounts have been provided for the occurrence of the -ɡ at a suffix boundary

with certain vowel-initial suffixes. I present below the overall picture of the inventory

with these two suffixes. Consider in particular the difference in patterning of the suffixes

with –e, which are in bold.

(34) The vowel inventory with the two –i suffixes

-i (adjective forming) -i/-ɡi (noun forming)

i [j]i or ii i [j]i or ii

e -i e -ɡi

a ____________ a ____________

u [j]i or [v]i u [j]i or [v]i

o [j]i or [v]i o [j]i or [v]i

ɑ [j]i or ɑi ɑ [j]i or ɑi

Here are again some examples of e-final words with these two suffixes:

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(35) i (adjective forming) -i/-ɡi (noun forming)

ɢahve-i ‘brown’ zende-ɡi ‘life’

dore-i ‘periodic’ teʃne-ɡi ‘thirst’

herfe-i ‘professional’ xaste-ɡi ‘tiredness’

Note the homophonous words which take different –i’s, as follows:

(36) baste ‘package’ baste-i ‘packed in packages’

baste ‘dependant’ basteɡi ‘dependence’

(37) kufte ‘big meatballs’ kufte-i ‘pertaining to kufte/look like

kufte (round, etc.)’

kufte ‘battered, exhausted’ kufteɡi ‘the state of being battered,

severe fatigue’

In addition, there are cases such as the following, which in particular suggest that the

hypothesis of -ɡ being epenthetic due to pure phonological factors or due to phonetic

environment is not tenable. That is, either -ɡ is not epenthetic or if it is epenthetic it is due

to some morphological or morpho-phonological factors (e.g., domains, levels of

suffixation).

(38) pɑrʧe ‘fabric’ pɑrʧe-i ‘made of fabric’*pɑrʧeɡi

jek pɑrʧe ‘integrated’ jek pɑrʧeɡi ‘integrity’

(jek means ‘a(n), one’)

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(39) daste ‘group’ daste-i ‘as a group, packed in groups’ *dasteɡi

ʧand daste ‘divided’ ʧand dasteɡi ‘division, lack of unity’

(ʧand means ‘several’)

(40) dande ‘gear, rib’ dande-i ‘operated with a gear mechanism’ *dandeɡi

jek dande ‘stubborn’ jek dandeɡi ‘stubbornness’

Compare these with the following example where the suffix –i is adjective-forming:

(41) resɑne resɑne-i

‘media’ ‘pertaining to media’

ʧand resɑne-i (adj.)

multi- media-suffix

‘pertaining to multimedia’

These cases raise a question as to whether the two stress-bearing –i’s belong to the same

level of suffixation. I will now address this question as a potentially possible explanation

for -ɡ among other possibilities which will be also discussed next.

8.3. Possible analyses of -ɡ (synchronic and historical)

In this section I examine possible accounts of the occurrence of the -ɡ, as follows:

(i) The two –i’s belong to different levels of suffixation

(ii) The -ɡ is base final (synchronic and historical)

(iii) The -ɡ is suffix initial

(iv) The -ɡ is epenthetic

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I discuss these hypotheses one by one in 8.3.1-8.3.4. I summarize in 8.3.5.

8.3.1. Different levels of suffixation

In the literature on the phonology/morphology interface, there has been detailed study of

cases where affixes pattern differently with respect to their phonology. One frequent

account in the literature is that these affixes are added at different levels of word

formation or that they enter into different prosodic relationships with the stem (see, e.g.,

Bermudez-Otero and McMahon 2006 for review). It is worthwhile to investigate whether

such a proposal might account for the different patterning of vowel-initial suffixes in

Persian, with some of them having a ɡ form and others not. Among the vowel-initial

suffixes of Persian, which are listed below, only with the noun-forming –i and the plural

marker -ɑn is the ɡ observed. The vowel-initial suffixes in Persian are as follows: the

indefinite article –i, the relative particle –i, the Ezafe –e, the genitive markers (i.e., am, et, eʃ, emɑn, etɑn, eʃɑn), the plural markers -ɑn, -ɑt, -in-, and -un, the definite marker –e,

the noun-forming –i, the adjective-forming –i, and also a number of suffixes such as -ɑ

(noun and adjective forming), -ɑr (noun and adjective forming), -ɑne (noun, adjective,

and adverb forming), etc. (see Appendix 2 for the full list of suffixes).

There are, in general, phonological, morphological, and semantic reasons for proposing

different levels:

-Phonological: These depend on the language, but might involve prosodic features such

as stress, segmental features such as ability to trigger palatalization, etc.

-Morphological: The suffixes could be sensitive to the morphological structure of the

base which they attach to.

-Semantic: Word-level show semantic compositionality, usually larger productivity;

stem-level might be less productive, often are argued to combine with the base to give an

idiosyncratic, not predictable meaning.

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The specific criteria by which one can distinguish different levels of suffixation can vary

across languages. For instance, in English trisyllabic laxing, velar softening, and sonorant

syllabification are argued to distinguish stem-level vs. word level suffixes (e.g., Kaisse

2005, Bermudez-Otero and McMahon 2006); in Hebrew (Meir 2005), stem level suffixes

attract stress while word level suffixes are stress neutral; also in this language the word-

level suffixes are semantically coherent or compositionally contribute to the meaning

while the stem-level suffixes may combine idiosyncratically with the stem in terms of

meaning; in Dutch, the effect that an affix has on syllabification is the main criterion for

deciding which class a suffix falls into (Booij 1977, 1995 cited in Kaisse 2005).

Now let us discuss the two stress-bearing –i suffixes in Persian with respect to levels of

suffixation. The reason that I will focus on comparing the two –i suffixes regarding

suffixation is that they are homophonous. Thus the question is whether the suffixes are

added on two different levels; for instance, one of them may be a stem level suffix and

the other a word level suffix. In answer to this, first of all, if these two suffixes are added

on different levels and for that reason -ɡ appears with only one of them, the question will

be why a difference is observed only with the vowel –e and not with other vowels. Thus

the problem of variable ɡ is not entirely solved even if the two suffixes belong to

different levels since one still needs to find a way to explain why the process happens

only with –e. Second, it seems that the two suffixes pattern similarly in terms of levels of

suffixation, as will be discussed below. With respect to levels of suffixation, we must

also not forget about the plural marker -ɑn whose pattern is similar to the noun-forming -i

regarding -ɡ.

In the case of the two –i suffixes in Persian, the language does not suggest any systematic

differences similar to those noted above for other languages. The two –i’s both pattern

similarly regarding stress: they both carry stress. They exhibit freedom of occurrence or,

in other words, do not have restricted occurrence because as long as the meaning allows,

they can attach to a base. They both contribute compositionally to the meaning. That is,

one of them is not less coherent semantically than the other. They are productive with

respect to phonology in that they can attach to any consonant or vowel in final position

(note that the noun-forming –i/-ɡi are considered as the same suffix). They are productive

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regarding morphology as well because both can attach to a root followed by a suffix.

Thus it seems that there is no morphological selection on their part. The point is that

since they are productive and are very frequently used one can add them to different

words to make new words.

Some examples of the morphological and syntactic structures of the bases to which these

suffixes may attach are given in (42) and (43). Both of these suffixes can be added to

roots (e.g., baʧʧe ‘child’ and out of it baʧʧeɡi ‘childhood’ for the noun-forming suffix;

peste ‘pistachio’ and pestei ‘the green of pistachio as a color/having pistachio’ for the

adjective-forming suffix). Note that identifying a word as being a root is not always

straightforward given that there might be zero derivation, and some affixes are no longer

productive and therefore may not be recognizable in the word in the present time. Both of

these suffixes can attach to a root followed by a suffix or to compounds. For example,

consider the noun-forming –i in (42a). The word zan ‘woman’ is a noun to which the

suffix -ɑne can be added to make zanɑne ‘feminine, womanly’. The noun-forming –i can

be added to zanɑne to make zanɑneɡi ‘womanhood’. More examples are given below in

all of which the processes of suffixation are shown.

(42) Examples with the noun-forming -i

a. zan ‘woman’

zan + ɑne: zanɑne ‘feminine, womanly’

zanɑneɡi ‘womanhood’

b. pusid ‘past stem of the infinitive pusidan ‘to rot’’

pusid + e: puside ‘rotten, past participle of the infinitive pusidan ‘to rot’’

pusideɡi ‘rot’

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c. nevis ‘present stem of the infinitive neveʃtan ‘to write’’

nevis + ande: nevisande ‘author’

nevisandeɡi ‘authorship’

d. del ‘heart’

dɑde ‘given, past participle of dɑdan ‘to give’’

deldɑde ‘in love, lover, someone who has given his/her heart’

deldɑdeɡi ‘being in love’

It should be noted here that according to Kalbasi (1992) the present suffixes -e, -ɑne, and

-ande were -aɡ, -ɑnaɡ, and -andaɡ respectively in Middle Persian. This recalls the

historical account which was introduced in 8.2.1. and will be discussed in detail in

8.3.2.1.

Now consider the adjective-forming –i. As with the noun-forming –i, with the adjective-

forming –i, a base which is already a suffixed form is possible, as the examples in (43)

show.

(43) Examples with the adjective-forming -i

a. zanʤir ‘chain’

zanʤir + e: zanʤire ‘a chain of sth’

zanʤire + i: zanʤire-i ‘serial, linked together like a chain’

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b. kin ‘grudge’ (used usually in poetry, formal forms)

kin + e: kine ‘grudge’ (used in informal and formal speech)

kine+ i: kine-i ‘someone who has grudge frequently’

c. mɑh ‘moon’

mɑh + vɑre: mɑhvɑre ‘satellite’

mɑhvɑre + i: mɑhvɑre-i ‘via satellite’

d. ʃenɑs ‘familiar, the present stem of ʃenɑxtan ‘to know’’

nɑme ‘letter’

ʃenɑs + nɑme: ʃenɑsnɑme ‘national identity card’

ʃenɑsnɑme + i: ʃenɑsnɑme-i ‘pertaining to national identity card’

Both suffixes can also attach to syntactic units, for example:

(44) with the noun-forming -i

sɑf o sɑde

honest/clear and simple/naive

sɑf o sɑde + i : sɑf o sɑdeɡi ‘simplicity, honesty, naivety’

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As in a phrase like: sɑf o sɑdeɡi-j-e motlaɢ

naivety-Epenthetic-Ezafe67

‘absolute naivety’

absolute

Note that sɑf o sɑde is used idiomatically. But one can also use the words independently

with the noun-forming suffix as sɑfi and also sɑdeɡi.

(45) with the adjective-forming –i

ɢom o ɢabile

ethnic group and tribe

ɢom o ɢabile + i : ɢom o ɢabile-i ‘ethnic, tribal’

As in a phrase like: extelɑfɑt-e ɢom o ɢabile-i

disagreements-Ezafe tribal

‘tribal disagreements’

‘used to refer to the disagreements among nations, ethnic groups, etc.’

Note that ɢom o ɢabile is used idiomatically. The individual stems can also be used

independently with the adjective-forming suffix as ɢom-i and also ɢabile-i.

It seems, therefore, that these two suffixes do not belong to different levels, because they

behave similarly considering stress, phonological and morphological conditions on the

part of the base, and their compositional contribution to the meaning.

67 See 2.2.2.1.2 (footnote 13) for Ezafe.

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I here examined the possibility of different levels for the two –i’s, and ruled it out. Now I

examine other possible analyses for the occurrence of -ɡ.

8.3.2. The -ɡ is base final

Another possible account of ɡ is to consider -ɡ to be base final. I examine this hypothesis

from both synchronic and historical perspectives.

8.3.2.1. A synchronic investigation

Under an account which considers -ɡ to be base final, we would have bases such as

/baʧʧeɡ/ ‘child’ that end in /ɡ/ (note baʧʧeɡi ‘childhood’). Those words which do not

show ɡ would end in a vowel (e.g., rahɑ ‘free’ out of which there is rahɑ-i ‘freedom’).

What are the implications of this hypothesis? First, we might expect ɡ-final words to

always show ɡ in suffixation. However, this is not the case, as shown below. Consider

again the word baʧʧe ‘child’ out of which there is baʧʧeɡi ‘childhood’. This word does

not show ɡ with other suffixes such as the indefinite article and the Ezafe:

(46) Examples with the non-stress-bearing suffixes

with the indefinite article –i: baʧʧe-i ‘a child’ or baʧʧe-j-i

with the Ezafe –e: baʧʧe-j-e ‘the child-Epenthesis-Ezafe’

e.g., baʧʧe-j-e Minu

child-Epenthetic-Ezafe Minu

‘Minu’s child’

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(47) Example with stress-bearing suffixes

with the definite marker –e: baʧʧe-h-e ‘the child’

(h may be sometimes barely heard in fast speech)

How can one account for the deletion of ɡ in other suffixation patterns if the consonant is

considered to be a part of the base?

Note also that the language has ɡ-final words, such as:

(48) ranɡ ‘color’

farhanɡ ‘culture’

lanɡ ‘lame’

tanɡ ‘tight’

xenɡ ‘stupid’

marɡ ‘death’

bozorɡ ‘big’

bɑnɡ ‘cry, shout’

raɡ ‘blood vessel’

saɡ ‘dog’

riɡ ‘pebble’

diɡ ‘a cooking pot’

suɡ ‘mourning’

The final ɡ of these words remains in suffixation, as the following examples show:

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(49) with the noun-forming -i

bozorɡ ‘big, great’ bozorɡi ‘bigness, greatness’

xenɡ ‘stupid’ xenɡi ‘stupidity’

zeranɡ ‘clever’ zeranɡi ‘cleverness’

ɢaʃanɡ ‘beautiful’ ɢaʃanɡi ‘beauty’

(50) with the adjective-forming -i

farhanɡ ‘culture’ farhanɡi ‘cultural’

ranɡ ‘color’ ranɡi ‘colorful’

(51) with some other suffixes

with the indefinite article –i: ranɡ-i ‘a color’ as in ranɡ-i ʃɑd

color-indef. happy

‘a happy color’

with the Ezafe –e: farhanɡ-e ‘the culture-Ezafe’ as in farhanɡ-e ʃarɢi culture-Ezafe eastern

‘eastern culture’

with the definite marker –e: saɡ-e ‘the dog’

ɑhanɡ-e ‘the song’

Thus an account cannot be provided to argue for the ɡ being synchronically in final

position of the words which show it in suffixation.

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Let us now see if the ɡ can be accounted for historically.

8.3.2.2. An historical investigation

Recall that according to the historical account the ɡ which appears in suffixation today

was in final position of these words in Middle Persian (see 8.2.1). This account seems

problematic for the following reasons.

First, why do these words show their former ɡ only with a limited number of vowel-

initial suffixes and not with all of them? Recall the examples in (46) and (47). The word

baʧʧe was waʧʧaɡ in Middle Persian. It was shown that with the noun-forming –i, the ɡ

is observed (i.e., baʧʧeɡi ‘childhood’) but not with the indefinite article, Ezafe, and the

definite marker.

Second, there were words in Middle Persian which ended in ɡ but do not show their ɡ in

suffixation with –i (the Middle Persian data in this section is from Farahvashi’s

dictionary 1967, and Natel Khanlari 1987).

(52) Middle Persian Modern Persian

pambaɡ pambe ‘cotton’ pambe-i ‘made of cotton’

mēwaɡ mive ‘fruit’ mive-i ‘made of/containing fruits’

ʃīʃaɡ ʃīʃe ‘glass’ ʃīʃe-i ‘made of glass’

pistaɡ peste ‘pistachio’ peste-i ‘the color, also made

of/containing pistachio’

Third, there are words which had ɡ in final position in Middle Persian with vowels other

than e/a before ɡ. Some examples are given in (53). These words do not show their

former ɡ in suffixation. We must ask why the -ɡ comes back with some e-final words,

and not, for instance, with u-final words, if it is the reflex of the Middle Persian final ɡ.

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(53) Middle Persian Modern Persian

pahlūɡ pahlu ‘side’ *pahluɡi pahluji ‘adjacent’

āhūɡ ɑhu ‘deer’ *ɑhuɡi ɑhuji ‘pertaining to deer’

dārūɡ dɑru ‘drug’ *dɑruɡi dɑruji ‘medicinal’

ɡarmāɡ ɡarmɑ ‘warmth’ *ɡarmɑɡi ɡarmɑji ‘thermal’

Comparing the words in (52) and (53) with Middle Persian dānāɡ ‘knowledgeable’,

which is dɑnɑ ‘knowledgeable’ from which there is dɑnɑji (*dɑnɑɡi) ‘knowledge’, it

can be observed that only with the e-final words and with the noun-forming suffix does

the -ɡ occur. The historical account presented in the literature does not provide an

explanation for this. In (54), I give some examples of the Middle Persian ɡ which is

observed today in suffixation. Compare these with the words in (52). Both groups ended

in -aɡ in Middle Persian and end in –e today; one group to which the noun-forming –i is

added shows -ɡ (i.e., the examples below in (54)); the other group to which the adjective-

forming –i is added does not show -ɡ (i.e., the examples above in (52)).

(54) Middle Persian Modern Persian

ālūdaɡ ɑlude ‘polluted’ ɑludeɡi ‘pollution’

ɡuʃnaɡ ɡoʃne ‘hungry’ ɡoʃneɡi ‘hunger’

tiʃnaɡ teʃne ‘thirsty’ teʃneɡi ‘thirst’

waʧʧaɡ baʧʧe ‘child’ baʧʧeɡi ‘childhood’

zīndaɡ zende ‘alive’ zendeɡi ‘life’

In addition to these, there are some borrowed e-final words which did not exist in Middle

Persian but which show -ɡ when they are followed by the noun-forming suffix –i. For

example, the words in (55) are of Arabic origin and have -ɡ in suffixation:

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(55) hɑmele ‘pregnant’ hɑmeleɡi ‘pregnancy’

faʔale ‘worker, laborer’ faʔaleɡi ‘labor’

talabe ‘student in religious school’ talabeɡi ‘studentship in a

religious school’

noxbe ‘elite’ noxbeɡi ‘being elite’

These suggest that the presence of -ɡ is not due to its historical presence.

In this section I examined the hypothesis that the variable ɡ is a part of the base,

synchronically or historically, comparing with Middle Persian. This hypothesis is not

tenable for the reasons discussed above. See the appendix of this chapter for an historical

discussion of the ɡ considering Old Persian – the -ɡ cannot be explained based on Old

Persian either, not surprisingly, given that its presence is not accounted for by Middle

Persian.

So far, I have examined two possible hypotheses to explain -ɡ. I started with the

hypothesis that the two –i suffixes may belong to different levels of suffixation. Then I

discussed the possibility of the -ɡ to be word-final, both synchronically and historically. I

showed that these two hypotheses do not provide an account for the -ɡ. I now move on to

another possible hypothesis: the ɡ is suffix initial.

8.3.3. The -ɡ is suffix initial

I now consider another hypothesis which may explain why the ɡ occurs after –e with

those suffixes: the -ɡ is suffix initial. Under this hypothesis, there are two suffixes: the

adjective-forming –i and the noun-forming -ɡi/-i. The underlying form of the latter is -ɡi,

with the ɡ deleted after all consonants and vowels other than –e. The problem with this

account is that there is no obvious reason for ɡ to delete after all sounds but –e. In

particular the language has some ɡ-initial suffixes which do not lose their -ɡ in

suffixation. (56) and (57) present some examples:

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(56) ɡɑh dar ‘door’ → darɡɑh ‘threshold’

maxfi ‘hidden’ → maxfi ɡɑh ‘hiding-place’

ʧarɑ ‘grazing’ → ʧarɑ ɡɑh ‘pasture’

ɡelu ‘throat’ → ɡelu ɡɑh ‘pharynx, bottleneck’

se ‘three’ → se ɡɑh ‘a mode of classical Persian

music’

(57) ɡar ɑhan ‘iron’ → ɑhan ɡar ‘blacksmith’

hile ‘trick’ → hile ɡar ‘trickster’

ʃenɑ ‘swimming’ → ʃenɑ ɡar ‘swimmer’

rofu ‘darning’ → rofu ɡar ‘expert in mending the

damaged clothes’

In addition to the suffix -ɡɑn ( ~ -ɑn (plural marker)), for example: parande ‘bird’ and

parandeɡɑn ‘birds’ (more examples were given in (4a)), there is a suffix -ɡɑn which is

consistently -ɡɑn, as follows:

(58) sad ‘hundred’ → sadɡɑn ‘the hundreds’

ɡero ‘pledge’ → ɡeroɡɑn ‘hostage’

nɑv ‘naval vessel’ → nɑvɡɑn ‘fleet’

Kalbasi (1992) notes that this suffix is not that productive and some words which are

formed with it are considered to be single morphemes today; for example:

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(59) bɑzarɡɑn ‘merchant’

rɑjɡɑn ‘free’

bɑjɡɑn ‘archivist’

Regarding the productivity of the suffix, a recent Persian dictionary (Emami 2006) lists

some words with this suffix.

(60) madɑr ‘parallel of latitude’ → madɑrɡɑn ‘the Tropics’

ʃomɑl ‘north’ → ʃomɑlɡɑn ‘the Arctic’

ʤonub ‘south’ → ʤonubɡɑn ‘the Antarctic’

These appear to be technical terms which are built on common words.

There is also a suffix -ɡɑne (again not very productive according to Kalbasi), as in:

(61) ʧand ‘several’ +ɡɑne → ʧandɡɑne‘diverse’

ʤodɑ ‘separate, separately’ +ɡɑne → ʤodɑɡɑne‘separate, separately’

baʧʧe ‘child’ +ɡɑne → baʧʧeɡɑne‘childish’

Recall: baʧʧe ‘child’ → baʧʧeɡi ‘childhood’

There is also -ɑne, very productive and a very common adverb forming:

(62) dust ‘friend’ + -ɑne → dustɑne ‘friendly’

sobh ‘morning’ + -ɑne → sobhɑne‘breakfast’

zan ‘woman’ + -ɑne → zanɑne‘feminine, womanly’

Note that Kalbasi considers -ɡɑne in baʧʧeɡɑne (in (61)) a version of -ɑne; but ɡɑne in

ʤodɑɡɑne (in (61)) as another suffix. That is, she assumes two -ɡɑne’s, an invariant one

and a varying one. These suffixes can be considered to be formed from ɑn/ɡɑn followed

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by –e. However, there are cases like sobh ‘morning’ which does not have a plural form as

sobh followed by -ɑn becoming sobhɑn. Thus from sobh we directly get sobhɑne

‘breakfast’ (that is, there is no sobhɑn out of sobh ‘morning’).

Another suffix (again not productive according to Kalbasi) which also occurs only after

the vowel –e is -ɡɑni. Note that there is a suffix -ɑni, as in:

(63) ʤesm ‘body, physique’ → ʤesmɑni ‘corporal’

asab ‘nerve’ → asabɑni ‘nervous’

ɑbɑd ‘populated, developed’ → ɑbɑdɑni ‘rural/urban

development’

With e-final words:

(64) moʒde ‘good news’ → moʒdeɡɑni ‘a reward for delivering good news’

zende ‘alive’ → zendeɡɑni ‘life’ (= zendeɡi; but zendeɡɑni is

much more formal)

One can consider these suffixes as being -ɑn and -ɡɑn followed by –i. That is:

(65) zende ‘alive’ → zendeɡɑn ‘alive (pl)’ → zendeɡɑni ‘life’

But there are cases like moʒde which does not have the plural moʒdeɡɑn. So out of

moʒde, we directly get moʒdeɡɑni. Kalbasi considers cases such as moʒdeɡɑni and

ɑbɑdɑni as having the non-productive suffix -ɡɑni and -ɑni, but cases like ʤesmɑni and

asabɑni (see (63)) with an Arabic suffix -ɑni. That is, according to Kalbasi, there are two

-ɑni’s; one Arabic, the other Persian with a -ɡɑni version which comes only after –e.

I do not go further into details on these suffixes. I showed that there are some ɡ-initial

suffixes which occur after different vowels and consonants. I also showed that there are

suffixes which can be interpreted as having two versions (some of which not productive

anymore), one ɡ-initial and one vowel-initial, the former seems to occur after –e (it

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depends, of course, on whether one considers, for instance, two -ɡɑne’s as discussed

above or not). The important point for our discussion is that there are ɡ-initial suffixes

which occur after vowels and consonants and their -ɡ is not deleted.

So far I have ruled out the possibility of -ɡ being base final and suffix initial. I have also

ruled out the possibility of the occurrence of -ɡ being due to different levels to which the

suffixes belong. I previously said (in 8.2.5) that some literature considers the -ɡ to be

epenthetic and I showed the problems that this analysis faces with. I briefly review

epenthesis next.

8.3.4. The -ɡ is epenthetic

Under the epenthesis hypothesis, the ɡ is an epenthetic consonant inserted to break up

hiatus. The status of the -ɡ as an epenthetic consonant is suggested in some literature, as

discussed before (e.g., Samareh 1977, Meshkatod Dini 1999, Najafi 2001). It then needs

to be explained what the environment and conditions are for the insertion of the

consonant. That is, based on this account the underlying form of the noun-forming suffix

is –i and a ɡ is inserted only when the base ends in –e. The problem with this account is

that the environment does not force the presence of ɡ, since the same environment is

created by e-ending nouns followed by the adjective-forming -i, but no ɡ is observed

there. In addition, it should be considered that the ɡ appears with the plural marker -ɑn as

well so it appears in both e–i and e–ɑn environments. No phonetic, phonological or

morphological justification for ɡ being epenthetic is seen in the language.

8.3.5. Summary

In this section I examined four hypotheses to account for -ɡ, as follows: (i) the two –i

suffixes belong to different levels of suffixation; (ii) the -ɡ is word final (synchronically

and historically); (iii) the -ɡ is suffix initial; (iv) the -ɡ is epenthetic. I studied these

hypotheses and showed that there are problems with each of them. None of them

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provides a systematic and thorough account of the patterning of the -ɡ. Having rejected

these various hypotheses, I now consider an alternative hypothesis, allomorphy with

phonological conditioning. I therefore explore a lexically listed allomorphy account

through an experiment on -ɡ, which I discuss next.

8.4. The experiment

The experiment conducted for -ɡ was a part of the experiment discussed for epenthesis

(in chapter 4) and for -v in suffixation (in chapters 6 and 7). The experiment had three

tasks, as for -v.

Task (i): Question and answer task (production) (real and made-up words)

Task (ii): Wug task (production) (made-up words)

Task (iii): Acceptability rating (perception) (real and made-up words)

I did not include the reading task for this process since -ɡ appears in the Persian script

and therefore it will be read by speakers. In addition, the -ɡ process is not an optional

process which speakers can do either way.

Below I review the tasks for this process.

8.4.1. Task 1: Production (question and answer)

The question and answer production task includes both real and made-up words. The

same question and frame sentence which I used for epenthesis discussed in chapter 4 and

the –v process discussed in chapters 6 and 7 was used for this process too. Both the noun-

forming suffix –i and the plural marker -ɑn were tested to see whether a -ɡ appears after

these suffixes. For the list of made-up e-final words which were used for this experiment

see appendix 9. Note that the e-final words were mixed with the consonant-final words

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which were used to study epenthesis (chapter 4) as well as with o-final and u-final words

to study the occurrence of v at a suffix boundary (chapters 6 and 7).

The made-up words were the target of study because I wanted to see whether Persian

speakers would produce -ɡi and -ɡɑn if they are given a list of e-final words which they

had never heard before. However, testing the process was not as easy since there is the

adjective-forming –i (also stress-bearing) in the language too which can be used instead

of the noun-forming –i and which is used without -ɡ. That is, for speakers it is natural to

say or hear an e-final word which is followed by a stress-bearing –i. Even for the real

words which I included for control, the same point to some extent applies at least for

some speakers. For example, although there is bandeɡi ‘servitude’ out of bande ‘servant’,

one of my speakers said that bande-i is fine too as it can be, for example, a last name.

This could intuitively be true as the adjective-forming –i can be attached to any noun as

long as a meaning is possible so it is not restricted to the lexicon which one can keep

track of through dictionaries or one’s knowledge. Thus both for perception and

production of made-up words (in particular if the words are found out of a given context)

-ɡi and –i are both able to occur. Moreover, the existence of the non-stress-bearing suffix

–i (the indefinite marker) adds to the complexity of testing the process and this is

reflected in the miscellaneous pronunciations in the tables below. For this reason, the

plural marker -ɑn was to some extent easier to test. There is a complication here too,

namely the existence of the suffix -ɡɑn, shown in (58), which can occur with consonant-

final and vowel-final words (and not only with e-final ones). The wug test, which I will

discuss in 8.4.2., was a more reliable task in testing –i since the words the speakers made

were put in a sentence which can only make sense if a noun is put there and not an

adjective.

I discuss the results for the question and answer task for the appearance of ɡ in

suffixation. As discussed in chapters 6 and 7, the miscellaneous cases are those cases

which are different from one of the expected patterns and include or show something

which is not supposed to be there. They are not of concern here. For example, in some

cases some speakers used the non-stress-bearing suffix –i instead of the stress-bearing –i,

or they changed the final vowel of the word (e.g., in testing the made-up word liʃe to

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become either liʃeɡɑn or liʃejɑn, a speaker said liʃovɑn so the final e changed to o and

then v occurs and this cannot be included in the discussion of e-final words), or in some

cases the speakers used a strategy in resolving hiatus other than adding a consonant (j or

ɡ) (e.g., in testing the made-up word xɑde to become xɑdeji or xɑdeɡi a speaker said

xɑdi, that is the deletion of –e occurred). All such cases were put in miscellaneous

category.

In tables (66) and (67) the results for this task for made-up e-final words and real e-final

words are presented respectively.

(66) The result of made-up e-final words

No ɡ With ɡ Misc Total

72

(72%)

18

(18%)

10

(10%)

100

(100%)

(67) The result of real e-final words

No ɡ With ɡ Misc Total

6

(30%)

12

(60%)

2

(10%)

20

(100%)

By ‘No ɡ’ I mean the occurrence of the default pattern, which could be j or nothing or the

glottal stop, which, as noted before, I consider as the default category. I will use j

throughout my discussion here as the representative of this category.

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The results shown in (66) and (67) indicate a preference towards using j with the made-

up words68

and towards using ɡ with the real words. In order to formally compare the

occurrence of j and ɡ between the made up words and the real words, a two-tailed Sign

test was conducted. To run this statistical test, I needed to know the performance of each

speaker individually. Below is a table which shows the performance of each speaker,

shown by his/her initials, for both real words and made-up words for this task,

eliminating the miscellaneous cases. The table should be read as follows: looking at the

first row, for example, the speaker AE pronounced 50% of the real words with j (and not

with ɡ) and 88.89% of the e-final made-up words with j (and not with ɡ). At the end of

the table the mean is given for the usage of j in both real words and made-up words.

68 Note that there were a few cases of ɡ after vowels other than e in made-up words in this task. One speaker was responsible for this (e.g., siro → siroɡi and not the expected sirovi or siroji; buni → buniɡɑn and not the expected bunijɑn –in the case of -ɑn ~ -ɡɑn, there is the possibility of confusing -ɑn with the suffix -ɡɑn, which is independent of -ɑn ~ -ɡɑn (see (58)). I leave these few cases aside in my account as they were mostly done by one speaker and only in one task.

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(68) The result of the performance of speakers individually (question and answer)

Speakers Real % /j/ Made-up % /j/

AE 50 88.89

FT 0 87.5

SF 50 100

VD 0 57.14

SS 50 88.89

AA 50 100

RM 50 100

PH 0 30

NP 50 100

LP 0 42.86

Mean 30 79.53

The result strongly indicates that the occurrence of /j/ is significantly higher in made-up

words than that in real words (p-value = 0.002; highly statistically significant). So, to

sum up, speakers clearly preferred using /j/ over /ɡ/ with made-up words compared with

real words in this task as seen through the performance of all speakers, which show the

same direction (i.e., using /j/ more).

Next I discuss a wug test for the -ɡ process.

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8.4.2. Task 2: Production (wug test)

For this task some e-final made-up words were used (see appendix 9 for the list). The

task was done as for epenthesis (chapter 4) and the –v process (chapters 6 and 7). I need

to point out that I was careful about choosing the carrier sentence for the suffix –i to

make sure that the speakers would consider the noun-forming suffix –i and not the

adjective-forming –i. The carrier sentence for the plural marker -ɑn was also very clear.

As noted in chapter 7 for –v, both sentences were practiced with real words first so the

speakers could get familiar with the sentences and afterwards some made-up words were

practiced with the sentences. The English equivalents of the sentences are as follows –

these were given before in 7.3.2; for convenience I repeat them here: (i) for the noun-

forming –i: ‘They are looking for a …..Unfortunately Mina does not know….’ (the

blanks in this sentence could be filled for example with ‘driver’ and ‘driving’

respectively); (ii) for the plural marker -ɑn: ‘There was not only one … in that room. It

was a group of ….. there.’ (the blanks in this sentence could be filled for example with

‘teacher’ and ‘teachers’ respectively).

With respect to the sentence for the noun-forming –i, as seen, I write the sentence which

needs a job or skill to become complete. Thus it was very clear for Persian speakers that a

noun-forming –i needs to be added (and not an adjective-forming –i) and this is crucial

for the -ɡ process as only with the noun forming –i is the -ɡ expected to occur. Some

examples are given in (69).

(69) a. parastɑr ‘nurse’ parastɑri ‘nursing’

b. mohandes ‘engineer’ mohandesi ‘engineering’

c. bannɑ ‘construction worker’ bannɑji ‘construction work’

d. nevisande ‘author’ nevisandeɡi ‘authorship’

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The result for this task is as follows:

(70) The result of made-up words (wug test)

No ɡ With ɡ Misc Total

30

(75%)

6

(15%)

4

(10%)

40

(100%)

The result is toward using j and not ɡ. This suggests that the speakers do not use -ɡ if they

do not know the word even when the context to use the -ɡ is provided for them. In order

to formally test this, I ran a two-tailed one-sample t-test. Again I considered speakers

performances one by one as given in the following table.

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(71) The result of the performance of speakers individually (wug test)

Speakers Made-up% /j/

AE 100

FT 100

SF 100

VD 66.67

SS 75

AA 100

RM 50

PH 50

NP 100

LP 100

Mean 84.167

As seen in (71), most speakers used only [j] (speakers AE, FT, SF, AA, NP, LP), some

speakers used mostly /[j] (e.g., speakers VD, SS) and some used [j] and [ɡ] half and half

(speakers RM, PH). The table shows that the occurrence of /j/ is 84.17% and therefore the

one of [ɡ] is 15.83%. The result indicates that the frequency of /j/ is significantly higher

than that of /ɡ/ in this task, which tests only made-up words (p-value = 0.001; highly

statistically significant).

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After I did the experiment with four speakers, I decided to add a few more words which

are similar in terms of melody to some real and very common words (again jobs), given

below, to see if that might bring the -ɡ out.

(72) real words

a. xɑnande ‘singer’ xɑnandeɡi ‘singing’ xɑnandeɡɑn (pl.)

b. rɑnande ‘driver’ rɑnandeɡi ‘driving’ rɑnandeɡɑn (pl.)

In the pattern of these, I created the following words:

(73) made-up words

a. pɑnande pɑnandeɡi? pɑnandeɡɑn?

b. sɑnande sɑnandeɡi? sɑnandeɡɑn?

The “?” after the words in (73) shows that I wanted to see whether the same results are

found as with the real words based on which these words were formed.

Here is the result for these words:

(74)

No ɡ With ɡ Misc Total

8

(33.33%)

15

(62.5%)

1

(4.17%)

24

(100%)

The result seems to be toward the occurrence of -ɡ. But if we consider the results for each

individual speaker, we see that some speakers affect the result towards using -ɡ. I provide

a table in (75) which shows the performance of each speaker in terms of using j or ɡ for

the words given in (73). As the table in (75) shows, three speakers did not use j at all for

these words and used ɡ instead. One speaker used j throughout and two speakers have

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some j’s and some ɡ’s. Thus the performance of some particular speakers changes the

overall result.

(75) The result of the performance of speakers individually

Speakers Made-up % /j/

SS 100

AA 75

RM 33.33

PH 0

NP 0

LP 0

The result does not support a strong tendency towards /ɡ/ overall, although some

individual speakers do use ɡ. This is very important to note as the speakers did not

necessarily use ɡ even when the context and melody together were provided for them.

To sum up, the two production tasks (the question and answer task and also the wug task)

show ɡ is infrequently used with made-up e-final words. That is, the speakers tend to use

j with the noun-forming –i and the plural marker -ɑn when they do not know the e-final

words and have not heard their ɡ-including suffixed forms.

8.4.3. Task 3: Perception (accessibility rating)

For this part of the experiment, the participants listened to a list of recorded words and

rated them on the following scale: √ (good, acceptable, possible), ? (so-so), X (bad,

unacceptable, impossible). The same pen and paper process which was explained before

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for the epenthesis process in chapter 4 and the –v process in chapters 6 and 7 was used

here. The results of this part are shown in (76):

(76) The result of made-up e-ending words

√ ? X Total

No ɡ 22

(68.75%)

1

(3.13%)

9

(28.13%)

32

(100%)

With ɡ 32

(100%)

0

(0%)

0

(0%)

32

(100%)

The result indicates that the speakers prefer having ɡ in perception as the complete

acceptability of ɡ-including made-up words shows (see the second and sixth rows and

compare them with the first and fifth rows). Note that the ‘No ɡ’ too has a relatively high

acceptance rate.

Now let us look at the real e-ending words in perception task. Again, the result shows

stronger acceptability of ɡ.

(77) The result of real e-ending words

√ ? X Total

No ɡ 6

(37.5%)

0

(0%)

10

(62.5%)

16

(100%)

With ɡ 16

(100%)

0

(0%)

0

(0%)

16

(100%)

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To sum, in perception, the speakers prefer ɡ-including versions overall. If we compare

the first rows of (76) and (77) with each other and also with their fifth rows, we see that

‘No ɡ’ is more acceptable with made-up words than with real words, which makes sense

as they are words which are not familiar to the speakers.

8.4.4. Summary

I conducted an experiment on -ɡ on both real and made-up e-ending words. The purpose

of the experiment was to test whether the occurrence of -ɡ is observed when a made-up

word, with which speakers are not familiar, is given to them, that is to test if the process

is productive. The experiment included both production and perception tasks. In

comparison between production of real and made-up words, j is by far more frequent

with made-up words. In perception, however, ɡ is more acceptable for both real and

made-up words. The difference in production and perception results could be due to the

difference in nature of tasks (production vs. perception). Speakers do not have the

process of insertion of ɡ after e-final new words as an active process in their minds, but if

they hear some e-final words with ɡi/ɡɑn, they accept it as it is a familiar pattern to them.

That is, when they are primed to consider the occurrence of ɡ following final-e words as a

credible option, they rate it as acceptable.

8.5. Summary and discussion

In this section I discussed the ɡ, which occurs with some suffixes at a suffix boundary.

There are different analyses of the ɡ in the literature, including the ɡ is epenthetic, and

also the occurrence of the ɡ has to do with the historical status of the words which show it

today. I considered various hypotheses to account for the presence of ɡ and discussed the

problem with each of them. In order to test the productivity of the process, I conducted an

experiment. I showed that the general pattern is that the speakers do not tend to produce

the ɡ with made-up e-final words even when the context (and melody) is provided for

them. That is, the frequency of /j/ is significantly more than the one of /ɡ/ in made-up

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words compared to real words. In perception, the ɡ-including made-up words are

acceptable as it is a familiar sequence at a suffix boundary (i.e., eɡi, eɡɑn).

In the previous chapter and this chapter I examined two different suffixation processes.

Both involve the occurrence of consonants at a stem-suffix boundary. The –v (discussed

in the previous chapter) and the -ɡ (discussed in the present chapter) both occur at a

suffix boundary between some vowel-final bases and vowel-initial suffixes. Their

occurrence, therefore, touches upon Persian morpho-phonology. They, however, have

different accounts.

The -ɡ, which occurs after e-final bases with a couple of suffixes in the language, is not

productively used in unfamiliar e-final cases, as the highly frequent default j-insertion in

these cases show, and therefore is to a great extent observed with known items. This

shows that the process by which -ɡ occurs is not a productive phonological process, but

phonologically controlled allomorphy with particular suffixes. I argue below why the

occurrence of ɡ is best treated as phonologically conditioned suppletion or suppletive

allomorphy.

The occurrence of suppletive allomorphs cannot be explained by phonetic environment.

They occur in morphologically restricted environment. They show idiosyncrasy. And

they have more than one underlying form (see de Lacy 2006, Bonet et al 2007, Bye 2008,

Paster 2006, 2009, to appear, Nevins 2011). Let us now see how these apply to the ɡ. It was argued (see 8.3.4) that the occurrence of the ɡ is not motivated by phonetic

environment. The ɡ occurs with some particular suffixes so it is restricted

morphologically. However, it shows idiosyncrasy as it does not occur with these suffixes

in all environments; it only occurs after –e and it is not clear why. The -i/ɡi and -ɑn/ɡɑn

do not have a single underlying form. If the only underlying form were -i and -ɑn, the -ɡi and -ɡɑn would have to be derived by unmotivated ɡ epenthesis. If the only underlying

form were -ɡi and -ɡɑn, then -i and -ɑn, would have to be derived by unmotivated ɡ

deletion. Other possibilities such as ɡ being historical or stem-final or occurring due to

different levels of suffixation were also rejected (see 8.3.1-8.3.3). –i and -ɡi, and also -ɑn,

and -ɡɑn are allomorphs whose occurrence is conditioned by phonology: -ɡi and -ɡɑn

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occur after e-final words with two suffixes, –i and -ɑn in other cases. In fact, the

occurrence of -ɡi and -ɡɑn, which cannot be accounted for by various hypotheses, is

explained by taking them as allomorphs whose occurrence is idiosyncratically limited to

a particular vowel followed by two particular suffixes. The observation that ɡi and ɡɑn

are not actively used in made-up cases shows that they are lexically listed allomorphs.

The –v, which occurs after o-final and u-final words with a range of vowel-initial

suffixes, being motivated by the phonetic effect of labial environment is, however, a

productive process as suggested by its insertion in unfamiliar words and participates in

hiatus resolution along with the default pattern.

The contrast between v and ɡ is quite interesting. In some way, ɡ has a more systematic

well-defined context of occurrence while v is more variable. But nevertheless, speakers

are more willing to use v in novel word production than ɡ. The crucial difference seems

to be, as pointed out above, that the occurrence of ɡ is not phonetically motivated but

more morphologically conditioned compared to v. So, this seems to suggest that

statistical patterning is not the only factor that determines the productivity of a process,

but phonetic naturalness also plays a role.

In chapter 7 and the present chapter, I examined two morpho-phonological processes of

Persian, which are controversial in the Persian literature, and provided an account for

each.

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Appendix to chapter 8

The historical status of the -ɡ: Old Persian

(i) The historical status of the ɡ : Old Persian

In addition to Middle Persian, discussed in 8.3.2, I also looked at Old Persian in order to

see if there is a historical explanation for the -ɡ based on that era. The motivation behind

doing this was that, as we will see below, there are some references to the origin of

Middle Persian –k/ɡ or –ak/-aɡ in the literature. I therefore thought that it was worthwhile

to consider Old Persian to see if there is an explanation for why some -ɡ’s (i.e., those

which were -aɡ historically) re-appear today but others do not. Regarding the historical

analysis, the questions were: (i) Why do only aɡ-ending words of Middle Persian show

their -ɡ in suffixation? Words which ended in -āɡ, for instance, do not show their former -

ɡ. (ii) Why don’t those aɡ-ending words of Middle Persian which show their -ɡ in

suffixation show their -ɡ with all suffixes today?

(ii) Underlying versus derived hypothesis

In Old Persian, many words ended in vowels (the sources consulted for Old Persian are

given throughout the discussion below). In Middle Persian, based on dictionaries, the

number of words ending in vowels is much reduced –some of these words end in ē and ō

which were the Old Persian diphthongs (which became ē and ō in Middle Persian), some

end in –īhā, which was an adverb-forming suffix, some of them end in vowels but are

function words, some have more than one version (one ending in j or a consonant and one

without j or any consonant at the end), some of them end in a vowel in one dictionary and

in a consonant in another. The overall result is that not many words end in vowels in

Middle Persian (leaving aside the adverb-forming –īhā which productively formed

adverbs, giving vowel-ending words). So the question is: what happened to the vowel-

final words coming from Old Persian to Middle Persian?

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One process that created consonant-final words involves deletion of the final vowel. For

examples, consider the following words:

(1) Old Persian Middle Persian Modern Persian

aspa asp asb ‘horse’

tarsa tars tars ‘fear’

tanū tan tan ‘body’

dāta dāt dɑd ‘justice’

stūnā stūn sotun ‘pillar’

I should note that I did not have access to an Old Persian dictionary to easily compare the

words with their Middle and then Modern Persian equivalents. I have found the words in

books on Old Persian which I will refer to below. There have been many changes from

Old Persian to Modern Persian so words might differ dramatically, making it difficult to

recognize the Old Persian words and associate them with the Modern words. In addition,

Old Persian had case suffixes -these were eliminated over time- so judgments on suffixes

and endings need to be made with extra care, requiring some expertise on the language of

that time. Thus I am careful about my comments and conclusions on Old Persian. One

thing that seems to be the case is that there is a suffix –aka in Old Persian, whiles there

are no suffixes such as –āka, ūka, ōka, īka in Old Persian. Let us see what the literature

says in this regard.

(iii) The –(a)ka suffix in Old Persian

According to Natel Khanlari (1987) there was a suffix –aka in Old Persian which became

the –ak suffix of Middle Persian, which is –e in Modern Persian. Note that it seems that

the k underwent voicing, with the suffix becoming -aɡ (this final voicing process occurs

in other cases as well; for instance Old Persian aspa ‘horse’, Middle Persian asp, Modern

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Persian asb; and Old Persian dāta ‘justice’, Middle Persian dāt, Modern Persian dɑd).

Natel Khanlari gives the following example of the changes from Old Persian to Middle

Persian: banda-aka (Old Persian), bandak (Middle Persian), bande (Modern Persian).

Natel Khanlari adds that whenever this suffix is not final due to the presence of a

following noun-forming –i or plural marker -ɑn the k/ɡ has not been eliminated. This

suggests that perhaps the –ɡ which occurs today is related to the Old Persian –aka.

Kent (1961), discussing the formation of nouns and adjectives in Old Persian, says that a

noun or adjective suffix attached directly to a verbal root is called a primary suffix; one

attached to a noun or adjective stem is called a secondary suffix. Kent later says that noun

and adjective stems with the suffix –ka are adjectives which may assume substantival

meanings. This –ka may be attached directly to a stem, nominal or verbal; it may appear

as –aka or –ika (Old Persian -i might be today’s –e), in which it can often not be

determined whether the vowel belongs to the suffix or to the basic stem. Only when -ika-

is attached to an –a- stem is it clear that the i belongs to the suffix. Among his examples

are: ahri-ka ‘evil, faithless’, ban da-ka ‘servant’ , vazra-ka ‘great’ (note that in Middle

Persian, the word for ‘servant’ above is bandak and in Modern Persian it is bande (from

which there is bande-ɡi ‘servitude’, bande-ɡɑn ‘servant (pl)’). Also the word for ‘great’

in Middle Persian is vazurk and it is bozorɡ in Modern Persian).

Meillet (1915), discussing Old Persian, writes: Le suffixe –ka- qui a servi d’élargissement

à tant de mots au cours de l’histoire de l’indo-iranien, joue déjà son rôle; on a ainsi

ba(n)daka ‘serviteur’ et arik, arika (plutôt que arika) ‘ennemi’. My translation: The

suffix –ka which was used to extend many words in the history of Indo-Iranian already

plays its part, there are thus ba(n)daka ‘servant’ and arik, arika (rather than arika)

‘enemy’.

Thus it seems that there existed a suffix –(a)ka, which lost its final –a as some other

words lost their final vowels from Old to Middle Persian. But it seems that Old Persian

did not have -ūka, -āka, etc. suffixes for which we can apply the same scenario as for -aka. That is, one cannot say –āka of Old Persian became –āk in Middle Persian, and then

–ā in Modern Persian. This can explain why the ɡ occurs only after e today –it is because

364

of the historical –aka. But where did the -ɡ in -ūɡ or -āɡ, etc. come from in Middle

Persian if no such suffixes as -ūka, -āka, etc. existed in Old Persian?

I give an example of Middle Persian here: Modern Persian has the words dānā ‘wise,

knowledgeable’ and from which dānāji ‘wisdom, knowledge’ (*dānāɡi) is formed. These

words are as follows in Middle Persian: dānāɡ and dānāɡīh (with the same meanings as

Modern Persian). Recall that the present noun-forming –i was īh in Middle Persian. So

where did the -ɡ in Middle Persian dānāɡ come from? Here is what we find in the

literature in this regard.

(iv) The possible source of -ɡ

According to Natel Khanlari, a ɡ was inserted in all vowel-final roots in Middle Persian.

Here are his examples:

(2) pariɡ ‘fairy’

āhuɡ ‘deer’

dāruɡ ‘medication’

hynduɡ ‘Hindi’

kadaɡ ‘house, place of something’

Natel Khanlari then says that the consonant is deleted in Modern Persian, and whenever

the vowel before it was –a, this became –e in Modern Persian. I add that in the above list

those words which can take an –i form suffix today take the adjective-forming –i and do

not show the -ɡ (e.g., dɑru ‘medication’ and dɑruji ‘medicinal’).

Now the question is whether one can interpret Natel Khanlari’s explanation as dividing

the Middle Persian ɡ-final words into two groups:

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(i) One group had the ɡ in Middle Persian (i.e., aɡ-final words) coming from the

Old Persian suffix –aka, which became –ak in Middle Persian; for instance, as seen

above, banda-aka (Old Persian), bandak (Middle Persian), bande (Modern Persian)

‘servant’).

(ii) The other group got the -ɡ by a process of adding a ɡ at the end of vowel-final

words (i.e., so sequences of other vowels followed by inserted -ɡ were created); examples

of this group are given in (2).

Only the first group which has the consonant underlyingly from Old Persian (i.e., the

words which end in –aka in Old Persian and -aɡ/-ak in Middle Persian), shows the ɡ

today, as shown by bandeɡi ‘servitude’.

Note, however, that Natel Khanlari has the word kadak /kadaɡ ‘house, place of

something’ in the list in (2). This word is kade in Modern Persian and is used today in

compounds (e.g., dɑneʃ kade ‘faculty (as in Faculty of Arts)’: this word consists of dɑneʃ ‘science, knowledge’, followed by kade ‘a suffix which shows the place of something’ so

literally the compound means ‘the place of knowledge’). Natel Khanlari argues that Old

Persian –aka became –ak in Middle Persian and then –a and finally –e in Modern Persian.

This appears to indicate that final k in kadak should be from –ak, from the Old Persian -aka. So why does he list kadak along with words which used to end in other vowels and

which according to him originally did not have a final consonant and got it in Middle

Persian (see 2)? One can say that he did not mean that all –ak-ending words in Middle

Persian were originally –aka-ending (that is maybe he meant that all aka-ending words of

Old Persian became –ak-ending in Middle Persian as in banda-aka (Old Persian), bandak

(Middle Persian), not the other way around, that is not all –ak/-aɡ-final words of Middle

Persian came from Old Persian). If this is the case, then maybe there were two groups of

aɡ-ending words in Middle Persian:

(i) One which had the suffix –aka in Old Persian and which became ak-final in

Middle Persian shows the -ɡ in present suffixation (e.g., banda-aka (Old Persian), bandak

(Middle Persian), bande (Modern Persian) ‘servant’ and bandeɡi ‘servitude’).

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(ii) The other group, which ended in –a in Old Persian and which then got the k/ɡ

as every vowel-final word did in Middle Persian (see (2)), does not show the -ɡ in the

present processes of suffixation (e.g., kade does not result in kadeɡi).

Natel Khanlari does not say this though. This is my guess which is not obviously based

on enough information.

From what has been discussed so far, one may speculate that there were two final k/ɡ’s in

Middle Persian. Some final k/ɡ’s came from an Old Persian suffix (-aka) – I call this

underlying k/ɡ. Some final k/ɡ’s were added in Middle Persian to the end of vowel-final

words – I call this derived k/ɡ. The k in bandak (Middle Persian), which came from

banda-aka (Old Persian), is an example of the underlying k/ɡ. The k/ɡ in examples in (2),

as in kadaɡ ‘house, place of something’, represent the derived k/ɡ. The underlying k/ɡ re-

appear today in suffixation (e.g., Modern Persian bande bandeɡi ‘servitude’). The

derived k/ɡ, however, does not re-appear in suffixation today (e.g., Modern Persian kade

*kadeɡi). If this is correct, it may explain why some historical k/ɡ’s re-appear in

suffixation today and some do not. But it fails to explain why only with some suffixes

(the noun-forming –i and the plural marker -ɑn) the re-appearance of the underlying k/ɡ’s

occurs.

Based on Natel Khanlari’s description of Old Persian and Middle Persian with respect to

k/ɡ, I considered the possibility of underlying vs. derived hypothesis for the historical k/ɡ

and today’s ɡ in suffixation. I now discuss why my speculation about underlying vs.

derived k/ɡ’s is weakened based on Natel Khanlari’s other comments on k/ɡ.

(v) On the underlying vs. derived hypothesis: the problem

I showed that an underlying versus derived hypothesis might be suggested based on the

literature, mainly by Natel Khanlari’s account. I now show why this hypothesis does not

work.

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In addition to the suffixes discussed above, Natel Khanlari also considers a suffix –k in

Old Persian. He notes that this suffix is observed in only a few words, such as:

(3) bandaka ‘servant’

pairikā ‘fairy’ (this word was above among those which got the -ɡ in

Middle Persian –see pariɡ ‘fairy’ in (2))

kainikā ‘maid’

Natel Khanlari continues that this suffix changed to -ɡ in Middle Persian and is added to

all vowel-ending words. It is not clear what is meant by this part. Why does he consider it

a “k” suffix rather than –(a)ka? The word bandaka ‘servant’ was considered before as

having the –(a)ka suffix.

Natel Khanlari gives the following examples in another part of his book:

(4) dānāka (Old Persian); dānāɡ (Middle Persian); dɑnɑ (Modern Persian) ‘wise’

kāmaka (Old Persian); kāmaɡ (Middle Persian); kɑme (Modern Persian)

kɑm means ‘desire’ and kɑme is used in suffixation or compounds today as in xod kɑme

(xod ‘self’) ‘autocratic’. Why aren’t these listed with the Old Persian words with a ‘k’

suffix in (3)? In particular, the word dānāka is important if it existed with this

pronunciation in Old Persian because today we have dɑnɑji ‘wisdom’ and this shows that

the underlying/derived hypothesis that I suggested above based on change from Old

Persian to Middle Persian is not possible because there was also an –āka in Old Persian

whose final –a is dropped in Middle Persian. And if we consider the two examples in (4),

we see that one of them shows the -ɡ and the other one does not. Compare dɑnɑji ‘wisdom’ with xod kɑmeɡi ‘autocracy’ (kɑme shows -ɡ today). Thus, the examples in (4)

suggest that because of the existence of dānāka (Old Persian), which is dɑnɑ (Modern

Persian) ‘wise’ from which dɑnɑji ‘wisdom’ (*dɑnɑɡi) results in Modern Persian, one

cannot say that the underlying k/ɡ necessarily re-appears today. In fact, the question

which we are dealing with today as to why the ɡ occurs only after –e is brought up again

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with the historical data in (4). Since from the two Old Persian examples in (4), only one

of them which ends in –aka (kāmaka (Old Persian)) and which ends in –e today (kɑme)

shows ɡ today, and the one which ends in āka (dānāka (Old Persian)) and which ends in -

ɑ today (dɑnɑ) does not. Given (4), referring to Old Persian does not help us with the ɡ.

Taking Old Persian into account would have been helpful if there was an Old Persian –aka suffix, from which the Middle Persian -aɡ came, but no –āka, -ūka, etc. If Old

Persian had –āka, -ūka, etc., whose k/ɡ does not re-appear today in suffixation, and it also

had –aka, whose k/ɡ re-appears today then the puzzle remains unsolved because we are

back to where we were with Middle Persian data, which include final -āɡ, -ūɡ (whose ɡ

does not re-appear in present suffixation) as well as final -aɡ (whose ɡ re-appears in some

suffixation processes in Modern Persian).

I should note that as for adding a consonant in Middle Persian to vowel-final words

coming from Old Persian, in addition to the deletion of final vowels (recall the examples

in (1), e.g., aspa ‘horse’ becomes asp from Old to Middle Persian), insertion of a

consonant was a strategy used from Old Persian to Middle Persian (e.g., taken from Natel

Khanlari, Old Persian brū ‘eyebrow’ became brūɡ in Middle Persian and it is now

abru)69

Note that Natel Khanlari also considers the suffix -āɡ/-āk for Middle Persian. This suffix

is noun forming and is added to the present stem and today its -ɡ has been deleted. For

example, he gives dānāɡ ‘wise’ which as seen above gave dānāɡīh ‘wisdom’ in Middle

Persian. Today it is dɑnɑ and gives dɑnɑji (same meanings).

. For this reason adding a ɡ at the end of the words does not seem implausible. But

the explanation on it is not clear given that there was a suffix –aka- in Old Persian.

So far I have mainly focused on Natel Khanlari’s comments with respect to k/ɡ. Other

scholars have also commented on k/ɡ. I pointed out a couple of notes from Kent and

Meillet. I now review other literature in this respect.

69 On a different note: the word abru ‘eyebrow’ gives us today abovɑn for its plural form. But note that it had a ɡ in Middle Persian but no ɡ in Old Persian. So for underlying form of this word which gives us the v in suffixation, I have to go back to Old Persian because based on its Middle Persian form, it should be abruɡɑn under the historical account of occurrence of the ɡ. Note that in a Middle Persian dictionary, I found both brūj and brūk. The Old Persian form of this word is based on Natel Khanlari.

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Rastorgueva (1969) also considers a –k suffix in Middle Persian along with other suffixes

as follows. Listing the suffixes of Middle Persian, she says:

(5)

a. -āk (it is added to the present stem of the verbs)

e.g., dān (the present stem of dānistan ‘to know’) → dānāk ‘wise,

knowledgeable’ [today: dɑnɑ ‘wise’]

b. -k (Old Persian: -kā)

e.g., zānūk ‘knee’ [today: zɑnu]

bandak ‘servant’ [today: bande]

c. -ūk or ōk

mastūk ‘drunk’ According to the author it was masta in Old Persian

[today: mast]

nerōk ‘energy’ According to the author it was naryava in Old Persian

[today: niru]

d. -ak

hazār ‘thousand’ hazārak ‘millennium’

[today: hezɑr and hezɑre]

kām ‘desire’ kāmak ‘desire’

(according to the author: no difference in meaning)

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Salemann (1930) considers the following k-ending suffixes for Middle Persian and other

related languages: -k (ak, āk, ōk, ūk, īk). He then says: in the instance of suffixes ending

in –k the plural form is written –kān, -ɡān, and even -kɡān, most probably under the

influence of the Persian -ɡān, yān. Similarly also before the suffix of abstract nouns –īh:

bandaɡīh ‘servitude’ along with dānākīh ‘knowledge’.

Later in a section on formation of the noun, in a subsection about derivation by means of

a suffix, Salemann considers the suffix –k, Iranian –ka. This suffix, according to him, can

be authenticated in old languages only in a few cases like bandak, parīk, etc. In all

Modern Iranian languages that suffix is widely used and is joined with all the vowel-

roots, whereby the latter become transferred into the a-declension. The old root-terminal

a- is preserved in that instance. The suffix -k in these cases has a purely formal function

and does not in any way modify the original sense of the root-word. Different is the case

of the suffix -ak which had three following functions:

-forms diminutives (note that -ak (‘diminutive’) is still used in Modern Persian; it

has not become -aɡ) –I leave this aside since this is not related to our discussion.

-forms adjectives consisting of connected words (the second link can also be a

present-root) (e.g., ēvak-māhak ‘one-monthly’ [in Modern Persian jak mɑhe ]). This

suffix can further followed by the abstract suffix –īh.

-Nomina istumenti from present roots.

Salemann then says that the suffix –āk is without any doubt from –āvaka and forms

present participle. In Persian –āk forms also nomina instrumenti. Salemann also considers

-ōk or -ūk to seem to be traceable back to Old –avaka (-vaka??).

According to Pisowicz (1985), the glide /j/ appears after vowels /ɑ/, /u/, /i/ before plural

suffix –ɑn (e.g., dɑnɑ-j-ɑn ‘wise (pl)’). He then says that sometime /v/ comes after /u/ in

this suffixation processes. Pisowicz continues that the linking /j/ originally belonged to

noun stem, and now appears where it is historically justified. Then he adds that the

historical explanation of the plural ending –j-ɑn finds its indirect corroboration in the fact

that after –e, the element linking the final vowel of noun with the suffix -ɑn, is still -ɡ

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(e.g., bande-ɡɑn ‘servants’) inherited from Middle Persian, where -ɡ belonged to the stem

(cf. Middle Persian bandaɡ ‘servant’). Pisowicz adds that avoiding reference to

diachrony, one might say that before the plural suffix, /j/ appears in the surface structure

in those cases where it corresponds to the final /j/ in the deep structure. Which deep

structure does he refer to? Does he mean that all the words which do not get the -ɡ in

suffixation today have a /j/ underlyingly? This is not the case. There were cases that, as I

said before, may be thought to have a /j/ finally like dɑneʃ ʤu ‘university student’ (dɑneʃ ʤujɑn ‘university student (pl)’) because the ʤu part of it is the present stem and is

thought to be ʤuj. But not all cases which take -ɡɑn and -ɡi can be interpreted this way

as seen before.

(vi) Conclusion

The status of the Middle Persian -ɡ and its history considering Old Persian seem unclear.

Was the -ɡ inserted at the end of the vowel-final words in Middle Persian and then a

suffix like -āɡ was created? That is, did the speakers reinterpret that the suffix is -āɡ

(with its -ɡ inserted in Middle Persian) or was this Middle Persian -āɡ from a suffix like

–āka in Old Persian? Given the data and the accounts in the literature, one cannot be sure

what the correct explanation is. Some speculations can be made, as above, but one cannot

go further due to the contradictory, mixed, and insufficient information and data about

Old Persian k/ɡ and even Middle Persian k/ɡ.

372

Chapter 9

Summary

This thesis examined aspects of Persian phonology and morpho-phonology. To conclude,

I briefly summarize the findings.

After presenting an introduction to the thesis in chapter 1, I discussed the Persian vowel

system and its active feature with respect to quality/quantity in chapter 2. The active

feature of the Persian vowel inventory is a matter of debate in the literature on Persian

phonology. Some studies consider the dimension of contrast to be length and some

consider it to be height. A synthetic analysis which includes both height and length is also

suggested in the literature. I reviewed the arguments presented in the literature for these

positions and showed that they are inconclusive.

Working within the framework of Modified Contrastive Specification, I consider the

phonological activity of a language as the main diagnostic for determining the dimension

of contrast in its vowel system. The dimension of contrast in the Persian vowel system

should account for both vowel harmony, a process which requires a feature, and the

categorization of vowels into two groups: a, e, o vs. ɑ, i, u. Vowel harmony can be

accounted for by height (but not by length), and categorization of vowels into the two

groups can be achieved by length (but not by height). Thus neither length nor height can

explain both the harmony and the categorization. In addition, under the theoretical

assumptions of the adopted framework, having both length and height is untenable for the

Persian vowel system. I proposed, in chapter 3, that the feature [tense] can both account

for the Persian harmony patterns and categorize the vowels into the two groups. I

therefore showed that evidence from phonological activity of Persian vowels confirms

the prediction of the framework of Modified Contrastive Specification that in a vowel

inventory such as Persian there is no need for the underlying presence of both quality and

quantity for a given pair of vowels. A phonetic study of the duration of tense and lax

vowels in Persian confirms the duration of Persian vowels to be similar to tense-based,

373

rather than quantity-based, languages. I further discussed how contrasts are built into the

vowel system of Persian and suggested a contrastive hierarchy for the system. A

discussion of markedness in the system, considering processes such as assimilation,

deletion, neutralization, and epenthesis, was also presented in chapter 3. In addition, I

examined diphthongs, whose phonemic status is controversial in the Persian literature.

Pre-nasal raising, and harmony across laryngeals, two very common processes in Persian

speech, were also discussed in this chapter.

In a continuation of my discussion of tenseness, I showed that there are some processes

and phenomena in the language which present potential evidence for underlying quantity

in the system. These are epenthesis in suffixation, VCC co-occurrence restrictions, and

minimal word requirements. I discussed these processes in some depth and showed that

they are not in contradiction with tenseness in the system. This type of effect is in fact

compatible with an analysis based on an underlying [tense] contrast in the system.

The occurrence of epenthesis in suffixation (insertion of a vowel at a stem-suffix

boundary when a consonant cluster is created), as examined in chapter 4, suggests a

division between roots with CVlaxC structure and those with CVtenseC, CVlaxCC, and

CVtenseCC structure. This may suggest that epenthesis occurs with roots of heavier

structures, which means that the environment for epenthesis is conditioned by properties

of the vowel and by syllable structure. I proposed that an analysis of epenthesis based on

underlying tenseness is possible: tense vowels project two morae and lax vowels a single

mora. Nonetheless, I raised a question as to why epenthesis does not occur with all cases

which include roots with those vowels/syllable structures if the occurrence of epenthesis

is motivated by the properties of vowels and by the difference in the syllable structure

due to these properties. In order to determine whether the conditions under which

epenthesis occurs are systematic, I examined a variety of synchronic factors (cluster

types, frequency, productivity) and argued that they do not provide an account for

epenthesis. I also discussed suffixes and the suffixed forms from an historical viewpoint

and showed that although the historical investigation of epenthesis in suffixation offers an

account for some epenthesis-including suffixed forms, it fails to provide an account for

many of them. Given the limited number of words which have epenthesis-including

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versions and the results of an experiment I conducted for this process, I concluded that

epenthesis is not a productive synchronic process in Persian. Nevertheless, the

distribution of the epenthetic vowel is compatible with the [tense] analysis.

In chapter 5, I examined the restrictions observed in the co-occurrence of vowels and

their following consonants in VCC# form when V is tense. I showed that the restrictions

are not real considering both native and loan words, and argued that the restrictions,

which are limited to final position in native words, are accounted for by tenseness from

which surface quantity is derived where VtenseCC is in final position. Thus, the

restrictions do not provide an argument against underlying tenseness or for underlying

quantity.

A minimal word requirement, discussed in chapter 6, appears to support quantity in the

Persian vowel system. I showed that the language does not have a clear-cut list of lexical

words ending in ɑ, i, u versus a list of function words ending in a, e, o. I argued that a

minimal word requirement does not hold in Persian given the existence of o-final #CV#

words in the language based on the results of an experiment I conducted for #Co# words

– note that there is a surface minimality requirement, given the phonetic length of vowels

in #CV# words discussed in chapter 3.

The conclusion of the discussions of the vowel system and the processes (chapters 2-6),

which at first may appear to support quantity in the system, is that an analysis based on

phonological tenseness, as proposed in this thesis, accounts for all the vowel-related

processes and observations in the language. Neither a phonological height-based nor a

phonological quantity-based analysis is able to fully explain such processes and

observations.

The epenthesis in suffixation as well as minimal word requirements opened up the

discussion of morpho-phonology of the language. Since both of these involved an

experiment, which I conducted with 10 native speakers of Persian in both production and

perception with both real and made-up words, they in fact introduced the experimental

part of the thesis too. Two more morpho-phonological processes, namely v and ɡ in

375

suffixation, were other components of the morpho-phonology part of this work and of its

experimental dimension.

I argued that the occurrence of v after o- and u-final words is due to the phonetic

environment of labial. This account, as discussed in chapter 7, explains the variation

observed between the occurrence of v and the default pattern j in such words. The results

of the experiment showed that the process of occurrence of v is an active process in the

language as it is frequently seen with made-up words.

I argued that the occurrence of ɡ after e-final words with two suffixes (the noun-forming

-i and the plural marker -ɑn) is a case of phonologically conditioned allomorphy.

Considering -ɡi and -ɡɑn as allomorphs provides an account for their occurrence, which

is limited to a particular vowel followed by two particular suffixes and which cannot be

explained by other hypotheses as I showed in chapter 8. The results of the experiment

showed that ɡi and ɡɑn are not actively used with made-up words and this suggests that

the ɡ-including cases in the language are lexically listed allomorphs.

This thesis touches upon aspects of Persian phonology and morpho-phonology which are

either controversial or less-studied. Therefore, it greatly contributes to our knowledge of

the language. In addition to the theoretical aspect, it contains an experiment, which to the

best of my knowledge has never been done for those Persian processes.

Although the thesis is mainly about the synchronic status of the phonology and morpho-

phonology of the language, it has a considerable historical contribution as well, as many

processes were also examined historically. In addition to its contribution to the Persian

language, it provides discussion of the phonology of vowels and on morpho-phonology,

in particular suffixation, both of which deepen our understanding of the theory. It also

contributes to experimental work on phonological and morpho-phonological patterns.

Moreover, this work raised topics for future research on Persian phonology, morpho-

phonology, and phonetics.

376

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Appendix 1 – Vowel harmony

This appendix includes stems with a minimum of two vowels showing the vowel

sequences that are subject to harmony. The highlighted parts are those in which height

harmony within the stem is observed (as discussed in 2.3.2., the assimilation of e to o in

stems needs more investigation due to the variation in the occurrence of harmony in this

case). The glosses are given on the next page.

V2

V1

i e a u o ɑ

i bini

sili

pile

xire

sirat

zinat

niru

tihu

hizom

ʤiroft

ʃivɑ

bidɑr

e kelid

ɡelim

berenʤ

xereft

ʃekar

deraxt

nekuheʃ70

nemune

beton

setorɡ

neɡɑh

sedɑ

a farib

xasis

dale

hame

darak

xatar

balut

samur

atom

dahom71

kabɑb

talɑɢ

u ɡuni

ɢuri

pune

kuʧe

duzax

pupak

kuku

susu

kuroʃ

kuros

kulɑk

rubɑh

o morid

omid

ʃole

bone

boland

xonak

foruʃ

xorus

xonok

tonok

ɡonɑh

soʔɑl

ɑ ɢɑli

fɑni

lɑle

mɑse

kɑɢaz

јɑvar

kɑrun

zɑnu

ʧɑbok

nɑzok

sɑlɑr

vɑlɑ

70 nekuheʃ ‘blame, scolding’ consists of nekuh ‘present stem of nekuhidan ‘to scold, to blame’’ + -eʃ. 71 dahom ‘tenth’ consists of dah ‘ten’ + -om.

395

bini ‘nose’ pile ‘cocoon’ sirat ‘nature’

GLOSS

sili ‘slap’ xire ‘dazzled’ zinat ‘decoration’

niru ‘energy’ ʃivɑ ‘eloquent’ kelid ‘key’

tihu ‘partridge’ bidɑr ‘awake’ ɡelim ‘a kind of rug’

berenʤ ‘rice’ ʃekar ‘sugar’ nekuheʃ‘scolding’

xereft ‘stupid’ deraxt ‘tree’ nemune‘example’

sedɑ ‘sound’ farib ‘daception’ dale ‘gluttonous’

neɡɑh ‘look’ xasis ‘mean’ hame ‘all’

hizom ‘firewood’ darak ‘hell’ balut ‘oak’

ʤiroft ‘name of a city’ xatar ‘danger’ samur ‘marten’

kabɑb ‘a kind of food’ ɡuni ‘gunny-sack’ pune ‘spearmint’

talɑɢ ‘divorce’ ɢuri ‘teapot’ kuʧe ‘lane’

duzax ‘hell’ kuku ‘a kind of food’ kulɑk ‘blizzard’

pupak ‘hoopoe’ susu ‘glimmer’ rubɑh ‘fox’

morid ‘devotee’ ʃole ‘a kind of food’ boland ‘tall’

omid ‘hope’ bone ‘luggage’ xonak ‘cool’

foruʃ ‘sell’ xonok ‘spoiled’ ɡonɑh ‘sin’

xorus ‘rooster’ tonok ‘empty’ soʔɑl ‘question’

ɢɑli ‘carpet’ lɑle ‘tulip’ kɑɢaz ‘paper’

396

fɑni ‘mortal’ mɑse ‘fine sand’ јɑvar ‘friend’

kɑrun ‘name of a river’ ʧɑbok ‘fast’ sɑlɑr ‘tall’

zɑnu ‘knee’ nɑzok ‘thin’ vɑlɑ ‘eminent’

beton ‘concrete’ atom ‘atom’ kuroʃ ‘a name’

setorg ‘big’ dahom ‘tenth’ kuros ‘a name’

397

Appendix 2 - The list of suffixes

This appendix contains the stress-bearing suffixes of Persian (taken from Kalbasi 1992). I

present here both vowel-initial and consonant-initial suffixes in order to have a complete

list. The suffixes are bolded. The suffixes which are under study for epenthesis in

suffixation are those which start with consonants. I start with vowel-initial suffixes. They

will be followed by consonant-initial suffixes.

The vowel-initial suffixes are presented in the following order: ɑ-initial, u-initial, i-initial,

a-initial, o-initial, and e-initial.

Vowel-initial suffixes

1- ɑ

present stem + ɑ

dɑn: dɑnɑ ‘knowledgeable’ dɑnestan ‘to know’

pu(j): pujɑ ‘dynamic’ pujidan ‘to search for’

ʃeno: ʃenavɑ ‘listener’ ʃenidan ‘to hear’

zɑ(j): zɑjɑ ‘productive’ zɑjidan/zɑʔidan ‘to give birth, to produce’

2- ɑji/ɑʔi (note: whether it is one suffix or it is ɑ + ji/ʔi is a question)

ʃakib ‘patient’; ʃakibɑ ‘patient’; ʃakibɑji/ ʃakibɑʔi ‘patience’

3- (j)ɑji (note: whether the initial j is epenthetic or it is a part of the suffix

is a question)

libi ‘Libya’ libijɑji ‘Libyan’

romɑni ‘Romania’ romɑnijɑji ‘Romanian’

ʃimi ‘chemistry’ ʃimijɑji ‘chemical’

398

4- ɑd/ɑde (not productive) e.g., navɑde ‘grandchild’

5- ɑr

past stem or noun + ɑr

ɡoft (ɡoftan ‘to say’; ɡoftɑr ‘speech’)

Since this suffix is used with the past stem which end in Persian with –t or

–d, a vowel hiatus is not created. There are, though, some nouns to which

this suffix is added, for instance:

dast + ɑr: dastɑr ‘turban’.

6- ɑsɑ

barɢ ‘electricity’; barɢ ɑsɑ ‘fast (like electricity)’

moʔʤeze ‘miracle’; moʔʤeze ɑsɑ ‘miraculous’

7- ɑk

present stem + ɑk

puʃ (puʃidan ‘to wear’); puʃɑk ‘clothes’

xor (xordan ‘to eat’); xorɑk ‘food, also name of a meal’

8- ɑɡin

zahr ‘poison’; zahr ɑɡin ‘poisonous’

atr ‘good smell, perfume’; atr ɑɡin ‘perfumed, scented’

9- ɑl

ʧanɡ ‘claw’; ʧanɡɑl ‘claw, fork’

ro (present stem of raftan ‘to go’); ravɑl ‘routine’

399

10- ɑle (ɑl + e) (not productive)

keʃ ‘a piece of elastic, the act of stretching’; keʃɑle ‘extension’

11- ɑn different usages, such as:

ʃetɑb (N) ‘haste’; ʃetɑbɑn (adv.) ‘hastily’

bahɑr (N) ‘spring’; bahɑrɑn ‘the spring time, spring (not commonly used

in speech)’

12- ɑne

zan ‘woman’; zanɑne ‘womanly’

sufi ‘Sufi’; sufi-j-ɑne ‘mystic’

ro (present stem of raftan ‘to go’); ravɑne ‘bound for’

13- ɑni (note: whether it is ɑn + i or ɑni is a question)

ʤesm ‘body’; ʤesmɑni ‘physical’ (*ʤesmɑn)

ruh ‘soul’; rohɑni ‘spiritual’ (*ruhɑn/*rohɑn)

(ɡ)ɑni (after –e) (note: this one seems to be ɑn + i)

zende ‘alive’ + ɑn : zendeɡɑn ‘alive people’ + i: zendeɡɑni ‘life’

14- ɑvar

dard ‘pain’; dard ɑvar ‘painful’

marɡ ‘death’; marɡ ɑvar ‘deadly’

xande ɑvar ‘funny’ (xand ‘present stem of xandidan ‘to laugh’+ e =

xande ‘laughter)

400

15- ɑvand

xiʃ ‘self’; xiʃɑvand ‘family member’

16- u

axm ‘frown’; axmu ‘frowing’

nik ‘good; niku ‘good’

zɑ(j) (present stem of zɑjidan/zɑʔidan ‘to give birth’); zɑʔu ‘a woman

who has just had a delivery’

17- uk (not productive; nar ‘male’; naruk ‘of a masculine character’)

18- ul (not productive; e.g., ʧanɡ ‘claw’; ʧanɡul ‘claw’)

19- ule/ulu (not productive; e.g., zanɡ ‘bell’; zanɡule ‘small bells’)

20- umand (a few words; e.g., tan ‘body’; tanumand having a strong body’)

-see also –mand in consonant-initial suffixes.

21- un (not productive; e.g., ɑzmun ‘test’, afzun ‘exceeding’)

22- ur

ranʤ ‘torture’; ranʤur ‘tortured’

23- ijj (from Arabic; but is pronounced as –i in Persian)

maʤɑz ‘unreal world’; maʤɑzi ‘metaphorical’

401

24- ijɑn (note: whether it is N +i + j (epenthesis) +ɑn or N + ijɑn is a

quesion) --used as referring to a group or family, and used as

last name--

ɢarib ‘away from home’; ‘ɢaribi’ ‘being away from home’;

ɢaribijɑn

mɑni ‘Mani, the prophet’ + i: mɑnavi ‘a Manichaean’;

mɑnavijɑn

25- ijɑne (note: whether it is N + i + j (epenthesis) + ɑne or N + ijɑne is a

question)

sɑl ‘year’ + i: sɑli + ɑne: sɑlijɑne ‘annually’

mɑh ‘month’ + i: mɑhi + ɑne: mɑhijɑne ‘monthly’

26- ijjat

baʃar ‘human’; baʃarijjat ‘humanity’

asabɑni ‘angre’; asabɑnijjat ‘anger’ (asab ‘nerve’ + ɑni)

27- ir (not productive; dalir ‘brave’, dabir ‘high school teacher’)

28- ik (not productive; tajik ‘Tajik’, tarik ‘dark’)

39- in

nanɡ ‘shame’; nanɡin ‘shameful’

no ‘new’; novin

pɑ(j) ‘foot’; pɑjin/pɑʔin ‘bottom’

mu(j) ‘hair’; mujin/muʔin ‘made of hair, like hair’

402

30- ine (note: whether it is in + e or ine is a question)

piʃ ‘before’; piʃin ‘last’; piʃine ‘background’

31- ijje

nazar ‘opinion’; nazarijje ‘theory’

eʤrɑ ‘execution’; eʤrɑ(ʔ)ijje ‘court order’

32- iʧe (only in dar ‘door’; dariʧe ‘window, small door’)

33- ize (not productive; pɑk ‘clean’; pɑkize ‘clean’) (also iz, ʒe, ʒak)

34- ar (today only in anɡoʃtar ‘ring for finger’; anɡoʃt ‘finger’)

35- ak different usages, such as:

ʧeʃm ‘eye’; ʧeʃmak ‘wink’

arus ‘bride’; arusak ‘doll’

otɑɢ ‘roon’; otɑɢak ‘small room’

36- aki

pul ‘money’; pulaki ‘greedy’

dozd ‘thief’, dozdaki ‘covertly’

ɑb ‘water’; ɑbaki ‘watery’

37- ale (not productive; used in a very few words)

403

38- an (the infinitive marker: xord + an: xordan ‘to eat’; raft + an: raftan ‘to

go’)

39- an (from Arabic, used to make adverbs: telefon ‘telephone’ ; telefonan

‘over phone’). In Persian, it is sometimes pronounced as -ɑ (e.g.,

abadan/abadɑ ‘never’).

40- and

ro (present stem of raftan); ravand ‘trend’

ɑ(j) (present stem of ɑmadan ‘to come’): bar (prefix) + ɑj + and: barɑjand

‘the resultant of two or more things’

41- ande

ʃarm ‘embarrassment’; ʃarmande ‘embarrassed’

bin (present stem of didan ‘to see’); binande ‘viewer’

do (present stem of davidan ‘to run’, in speech also: dojidan/dovidan);

davande ‘runner’

ɑ(j) (present stem of ɑmadan ‘to come’, in speech umadan); ɑjande

‘future’

ʃu(j) (present stem of ʃostan ‘to wash’); ʃujande ‘detergent’

42- anɡ (not productive; e.g., tofanɡ ‘gun’)

43- ow (not productive, no trace of it is found in Middle Persian)

vel ‘loose’; velo ‘scattered’

404

44- e different usages:

sefid ‘white’; sefide ‘the white of the egg’

sad ‘hundred’; sade ‘century’

ɡoft ‘past stem of ɡoftan ‘to tell’; ɡofte ‘said (pp), dictum’

pɑ(j) ‘foot’; pɑje ‘leg of a chair, foundation’

ru(j) ‘face, surface’; ruje ‘surface’

45- estɑn

kudak ‘child’; kudakestɑn ‘kindergarten’

bu ‘smell’; bustɑn ‘garden’

Hendu ‘Indian’; Hendustɑn ‘India’

46- eʃ

xɑh ‘present stem of xɑstan ‘to want, to desire’+eʃ; xɑheʃ ‘desire,

request’

narm ‘soft’; narmeʃ ‘suppleness’

pejdɑ ‘visible, evident’; pejdɑjeʃ ‘coming into being, emergence’

ro (present stem from raftan ‘to go’); raveʃ ‘method’

pu(j) (present stem from pujidan ‘to explore’); pujeʃ ‘exploration’

405

Consonant-initial suffixes

The consonant-initial suffixes are ordered based on place and manner of articulation of

their first consonant. The order will be, therefore, as follows:

Stops: p, b, d, k, ɡ, ɢ; Fricatives: f, v, s, z, ʃ; Affricates: ʧ, ʤ

Nasals: m, n; Liquid: l; Glide: j

1- pɑd (not productive)

2- bɑr

marɡ ‘death’; marɡbɑr ‘deadly’

ɢam ‘sadness’; ɢambɑr ‘sad’

3- bɑre

ʃekam ‘stomach’; ʃekam bɑre ‘gluttonous’

4- bɑʃi (originally from Turkish)

akkas ‘photographer’; akkas bɑʃi ‘photographer’

5- bɑn

bɑɢ ‘garden’; bɑɢbɑn ‘gardener’

ʤanɡal ‘forest’; ʤanɡalbɑn ‘forester’

neɡah ‘watch’; neɡahbɑn ‘guard’

deʒ ‘fortress’; deʒbɑn ‘commander of a fortress’

nɑv ‘a naval vessel’; nɑvbɑn ‘lieutenant (in the navy)’

406

6- bad/bod (not productive)

arteʃ ‘army’; arteʃbod ‘a four-star general’

sepah ‘army’; sepahbod ‘a lieutenant general’

7- dɑn

namak ‘salt; namakdɑn ‘salt-cellar’

ɡol ‘flower’; ɡoldɑn ‘vase’

ʃamʔ ‘candle’; ʃamʔdɑn ‘candle holder’

ɢalam ‘pen’; ɢalamdɑn ‘pen case’

sorme ‘surma, kohl’, sormedɑn ‘surma container’

Also used as -dɑni: saɡ ‘dog’; saɡdɑni ‘dog’s place’

ɑʃɢɑl ‘garbage’; ɑʃɢɑldɑni ‘garbage place/can’

8- dis

tɑɢ ‘arch’; tɑɢdis ‘like an arch’

9- kɑr72

xedmat ‘service’; xedmatkɑr ‘maid’

ɡonɑh ‘sin’; ɡonɑhkɑr ‘sinner’

xarɑb ‘ruined, morally corrupt’; xarɑbkɑr ‘vandal’

72 See note at the end of this appendix for kɑr and its status as a suffix.

407

sanɡ ‘stone’; sanɡkɑr ‘stonemason’

xatɑ ‘mistake’; xatɑkɑr ‘a wrong doer’

moɢɑteʔe ‘contract’; moɢɑteʔe kɑr ‘contractor’

10- kade

ɑtaʃ ‘fire’; ɑtaʃ kade ‘fire temple’

dɑneʃ ‘knowledge’; dɑneʃ kade ‘faculty (e.g., Faculty of Letters)’

mehmɑn ‘guest’; mehmɑn kade ‘motel’

11- ɡɑr

ruz ‘day’; ruzɡɑr ‘times’

jɑd ‘memory’; jɑdɡɑr ‘memento’

ɑmuz ‘present stem of ɑmuxtan’; ɑmuzɡɑr ‘teacher’

12- ɡɑn

sad ‘hundred’; sad ɡɑn ‘the hundreds’

ɡero ‘pledge’; ɡeroɡɑn ‘hostage’

13- ɡɑne

ʤodɑ ‘separate’; ʤodɑɡɑne ‘separately’

do ‘two’; doɡɑne ‘dual’

se ‘three’ ; seɡɑne ‘sth which is made of three parts’

14- ɡɑh

dar ‘door’; dar ɡɑh ‘threshold’

408

darmɑn ‘cure’; darmɑn ɡɑh ‘medial clinique’

xɑb ‘sleep’; xɑb ɡɑh ‘dormitory’

nahɑn ‘hidden’; nahɑn ɡɑh ‘place to hide’

foruʃ ‘sell’; foruʃ ɡɑh ‘store’

ɡoriz ‘escape’; ɡoriz ɡɑh ‘hideaway’

sobh ‘morning’; sobh ɡɑh

bɑzdɑʃt ‘arrest, detention’; bɑzdɑʃt ɡɑh ‘detention centre’

maxfi ‘hidden’; maxfi ɡɑh ‘hiding-place’

ʧarɑ ‘grazing’; ʧarɑ ɡɑh ‘pasture’

ɡelu ‘throat’; ɡelu ɡɑh ‘pharynx, bottleneck’

15- ɡar

ɑhan ‘iron’; ɑhan ɡar ‘blacksmith’

ɑmɑr ‘statistics’; ɑmɑr ɡar ‘statistician’

dɑd ‘justice’; dɑd ɡar ‘just’

virɑn ‘destruction’; virɑn ɡar ‘destructive’

sofɑl ‘pottery’; sofɑl ɡar ‘potter’

eʃɢɑl ‘occupying by force’; eʃɢɑl ɡar ‘occupier by force’

sefid ‘white’; sefid ɡar ‘whitesmith’

rofu ‘darning’; rofu ɡar ‘expert in mending the damaged clothes’

hile ‘trick’; hile ɡar ‘trickster’

409

ʃenɑ ‘swimming’; ʃenɑ ɡar ‘swimmer’

Note: many of the words with ɡar can get –i: e.g., hile ɡari ‘deceit’

sofɑl ɡari ‘pottery’

16- ɡari (used only with –i ending words –leaving aside the words with ɡar,

which can get –i see the note in 15)

sufi ‘Sufi’; sufi ɡari ‘Sufism’ (*sufi ɡar)

nɑʃi ‘inexpert’; nɑʃi ɡari ‘inexpertness’ (*nɑʃi ɡar)

17- ɡun

ɡol ‘flower’; ɡol ɡun ‘rose-hued’

nil ‘indigo plant’; nil ɡun ‘indigo’

sim ‘silver’; sim ɡun ‘silvery’

ɢir ‘tar’; ɢir ɡun ‘tarred’

18- ɡin

xaʃm ‘anger’; xaʃm ɡin ‘angry’

anduh ‘sorrow’; anduh ɡin ‘sad’

ʃarm ‘embarrassment’; ʃarm ɡin ‘embarrassed’

19- ɢɑle used for the babies of animals

boz ‘goat’; boz ɢɑle ‘baby of goat’

410

20- fɑm (indicates color)

meʃkin (meʃk + in) ‘black’; meʃkin fɑm ‘black’

zarrin (zar + in) ‘golden’; zarrin fɑm ‘golden’ (zar + in)

21- vɑ (a few words)

nɑn ‘bread’; nɑnvɑ ‘baker’

piʃ ‘front’; piʃvɑ ‘leader’

22- vɑde (only in xɑne vɑde ‘family’ (xɑne ‘house’))

23- vɑr

omid ‘hope’; omid vɑr ‘hopeful’

bozorɡ ‘big, great’; bozorɡ vɑr ‘great, magnanimous’

ajɑl ‘one’s family’; ajɑl vɑr ‘having a large family’

suɡ ‘mourning’; suɡ vɑr ‘mourner’

masih ‘Jesus’; masih vɑr ‘Jesus-like’

ʃɑh ‘king, Shah’; ʃɑh vɑr ‘kingly, royal’

divɑne ‘crazy’; divɑne vɑr ‘madly’

sezɑ ‘reward’; sezɑ vɑr ‘deserving’

tuti ‘parrot’; tuti vɑr ‘parrot-like’

24- vɑre

ɡuʃ ‘ear’; ɡuʃ vɑre ‘earring’

mɑh ‘moon’; mɑh vɑre ‘satellite’

411

ʤaʃn ‘feast’; ʤaʃn vɑre ‘festival’

jɑd ‘memory’; jɑd vɑre ‘memorial gathering/event’

25- vɑn (a few words; e.g., sar ‘head’, sarvɑn ‘a captain’)

26- vɑne (a few words; e.g., poʃt ‘back’; poʃt vɑne ‘support’)

27- vand (not productive)

ʃahr ‘city’; ʃahrvand ‘citizen’

pas ‘after’; pasvand ‘suffix’

piʃ ‘before’; piʃvand ‘prefix’

28- var

nɑm ‘name’; nɑmvar ‘famous’

bɑr ‘fruit, result’; bɑr var ‘fruitful’

soxan ‘speech’; soxan var ‘someone who speaks well’

sar ‘head’; sar var ‘venerable’

honar ‘art’; honar var ‘artist’

ʃoʔle ‘flame’; ʃoʔle var ‘flaming’

ʃenɑ ‘swimming’; ʃenɑvar ‘floating’

29- vaʃ

mah ‘moon’; mahvaʃ ‘like moon’

pari ‘angel’; parivaʃ ‘like an angel’

412

30- sɑ

mah ‘moon’; mahsɑ ‘like moon’

pari ‘angel’; parisɑ ‘like an angel’

31- sɑr

ʃarm ‘embaressment’; ʃarmsɑr ‘embaressed’

sanɡ ‘stone’; sanɡsɑr ‘death by stone’

rox ‘face’; roxsɑr ‘face’

32- sɑn

mah ‘moon’; mahsɑn ‘like moon’

ɡorbe ‘cat’; ɡorbe sɑn ‘usually used with plural -ɑn: the cat-like animals’

33- sar

sanɡ ‘stone’; sanɡ sar ‘name of a place’

34- sir

sard ‘cold’; sardsir ‘a region with a cold climate’

ɡarm ‘warm’; ɡarmsir ‘a region with a warm climate’

35- zɑr

namak ‘salt’; namak zɑr ‘salt-marsh(es)’

ɡol ‘flower’; ɡol zɑr ‘flower field’

alaf ‘grass’; alaf zɑr ‘grass field’

413

keʃt ‘cultivating a land’; keʃt zɑr ‘cultivated land’

sabze ‘grass’; sabze zɑr ‘meadow’

ʃɑli ‘rice when in the field’; ʃɑlizɑr ‘rice field’

36- zi (not productive; e.g., marv ‘a city; marv zi ‘sb who is from marv’)

37- ʃan (not productive)

Only in ɡol ‘flower’; ɡolʃan ‘garden’

There is also another word with this suffix but it is not considered as a

suffixed form today. It is bonʃan ‘puleses’.

38- ʧe

bɑɢ ‘garden’; bɑɢʧe ‘small garden’

bil ‘shovel’; bilʧe ‘trowel’

daftar ‘notebook’; daftarʧe ‘small notebook’

sanduɢ ‘chest, box’; sanduɢʧe ‘small chest’

ɑlu ‘plum’; ɑluʧe ‘cherry plum’

ɢɑli ‘rug’; ɢɑliʧe ‘small rug’

no ‘new’; noʧe ‘a disciple’

-ʒe and ʒak are also versions of this suffix.

39- ʧi (originally from Turkish)

ʃekɑr ‘hunting’; ʃekɑrʧi ‘hunter’

tofanɡ ‘gun’; tofanɡʧi ‘gunner’

414

telefon ‘telephone’; telefonʧi ‘telefon operator’

ɢahve ‘coffee’; ɢahve ʧi ‘the tea-house owner’

ɡɑri ‘a horse-driven cart’; ɡɑri ʧi ‘a cart-driver’

tamɑʃɑ ‘watching’; tamɑʃɑ ʧi ‘a viewer’

40- ʤi (only in mijɑnʤi ‘mediator’)

41- mɑn

sɑxt (past stem from sɑxtan ‘to build’); sɑxtemɑn ‘building’

sɑz (present stem from sɑxtan ‘to build’); sɑzmɑn ‘organization’

zɑ(j) (present stem from zɑjidan/zɑʔidan ‘to give birth’); zɑjemɑn

‘childbirth’

ɢahr ‘wrath, anger’; ɢahremɑn ‘hero’

ʃɑd ‘happy’; ʃɑdemɑn ‘happy, joyful’73

42- mand

xerad ‘wisdom’; xerad mand ‘wise’

dard ‘pain’; dard mand ‘painful’

ɑz ‘greed’; ɑz mand ‘greedy’

anduh ‘sorrow’; anduh mand ‘sad’

73 Note that Kalbasi considers -mɑn in the words ɢahremɑn ‘hero’ and ʃɑdemɑn ‘happy, joyful’ to be different from -mɑn in sɑxtemɑn ‘building’, sɑzmɑn ‘organization’, and zɑjmɑn ‘childbirth’. The former -mɑn, according to her, was a noun but the latter a suffix. Since she does not provide a source for this etymological distinction and mɑn as a noun does not exist today (as it cannot be found in Persian dictionaries), I consider the -mɑn in ɢahremɑn ‘hero’ and ʃɑdemɑn ‘happy, joyful’ to be also a suffix.

415

bahre ‘profit’; bahre mand ‘enjoying the profits of sth’

ɑberu ‘reputation’; ɑberu mand ‘having good reputation’

43- nɑ (a few words; tanɡ ‘tight’; tanɡnɑ ‘bottleneck’)

44- nɑk

nam ‘dampness’; nam nɑk ‘damp’

tars ‘fear’; tarsnɑk ‘scary’

dard ‘pain’; dard nɑk ‘painful’

suz ‘anguish’; suz nɑk ‘mournful’

ʧasb ‘glue’; ʧasb nɑk ‘sticky’

bim ‘fear’; bim nɑk ‘fearful’

ʃarm ‘embaressment’; ʃarm nɑk ‘embaressed’

harɑs ‘fear’; harɑs nɑk ‘scary’

46- lɑx (not productive; sanɡ ‘stone’; sanɡ lɑx ‘rocky terrain’)

47- lu (not productive; originally Turkish)

xormɑ ‘date’; xormɑ lu ‘persimmon’

Used also in last names: ɢɑsem lu (ɢɑsem: a boy’s name’)

48- jɑr

dɑd ‘justice’; dɑdjɑr ‘assisstant distrcit attorney’

dast ‘hand’; dastjɑr ‘assisstant’

ostɑd ‘professor’; ostɑdjɑr ‘assisstant peofessor’

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49- jun (a few words)

e.g., homɑ ‘a mythical bird’; homɑjun ‘auspicious’

Note: some of these suffixes like -kɑr or -jɑr might seem to be nouns (because Persian

has nouns kɑr ‘work’ and jɑr ‘friend’) and so the suffixed form made with them might be

considered as compounds but Kalbasi classifies them as suffixes.

In addition to the suffixes listed here, the present stems of infinitives can be used as

suffixes with which epenthesis does not occur (some examples of these are given in the

text –see 4.4). Given the number of suffixes and the suffixed forms in Persian, some of

which were given above and in the text, it is shown that the list of words with the

possibility of epenthesis is very limited. That is, the great majority of suffixed forms do

not allow epenthesis.

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Appendix 3 - Experiments

Experiments were designed to test three different processes, all occurring at a suffix

boundary. The three processes are as follows:

(i) occurrence of epenthesis in suffixation (see chapter 4)

(ii) occurrence of –v in suffixation (see chapter 6 and chapter 7)

(iii) occurrence of -ɡ in suffixation (see chapter 8)

There were in total 10 speakers. All speakers satisfied the following criteria:

1. They should be native speakers of Persian

2. Their parents should be native speakers of Persian

3. Their home language should be Persian

4. Age of arrival to Canada should not be less than 14

5. They should have no history of speech or hearing disorders

The instructions were written in Persian script. I helped participants to go through the

instructions and training periods.

Task (i): Production (reading)

Task one was a reading task designed to test the process in (i) above. Two texts which

include several of the suffixed forms under study were given to participants and they

were asked to read them. One text had a more formal tone and the other a more informal

tone to study if level of formality affected pronunciation. See appendix 4 for more

information on this task.

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Task (ii): Production (question and answer)

In this part, a list of real and made-up words was given to participants. Participants were

instructed to add a given suffix to the root/stem they were given, and to read a frame

sentence, given below, filling in the blank with the word they have made or to say just the

word they have made.

The frame sentence: -What did Ali say? (prerecorded) علی چی گفت؟

I think he said …… (participant’s response) ...... فکر ميکنم گفت

There was a training period with some real words and some made-up words. For

example:

-real words

1. parastɑr ‘nurse’ + -ɑn

What did Ali say?

I think he said parastɑrɑn.

2. dɑneʃ ‘knowledge’ + -kade

What did Ali say?

I think he said dɑneʃkade.

-made-up words

1. xazzɑʃ + -i

What did Ali say?

I think he said xazzɑʃi.

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2. lɑf + ɡar

What did Ali say?

I think he said lɑfɡar.

The list of words:

The words consist of real words which show epenthesis, real words which do not show

epenthesis, made-up words with suffixes which show epenthesis (3 words of each

structure, that is CVtenseC, CVlaxC, CVtenseCC, CVlaxCC), and made-up words (again 3

words for each structure) with suffixes which do not show epenthesis. Note that a few

meaningful stems in combination with some suffixes with which these real words are

never used in the language are also included in the list of made-up words (both in this

task and in perception task) –they did not show a different pattern from the other made-

up words.

In addition to these, there are words ending in vowels for –i and -ɑn. These words consist

of polysyllabic o-ending, e-ending, and u-ending words, all made-up, and a few i-ending

and ɑ-ending words for control. There are also some real words ending with these

vowels. There are also some monosyllabic o-ending words, which in addition to -i and -

ɑn, are tested with -in and a few with -estɑn as well (the monosyllabic ones are

particularly examined for minimal word requirements (chapter 6)). Some real mono-

syllabic o-ending words are also included. The words were randomized by random.org.

Note that I put the words here as they were presented to participants to show how the task

was done. The categorizations of these words (real word with epenthesis, real words

without epenthesis, made-up words with expected epenthesis, etc. each have their own

appendix -see Appendix 5 and Appendices 8-10). Real words are included below with

their glosses.

1. bɑr + ɡɑh ‘palace, royal building’

2. biʃt + ɡɑr

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3. xɑde + i

4. lito + i

5. dɑf + nɑk

6. lito + ɑn

7. tiku + ɑn

8. zors + bɑn

9. bande + ɑn ‘servants’

10. abru + ɑn ‘eyebrows’

11. rik + bɑn

12. zɑj + mɑn ‘baby delivery’

13. dud + mɑn ‘lineage’

14. no + in ‘modern’

15. sɑz + mɑn ‘organization’

16. po + estɑn

17. po + ɑn

18. parvard + ɡɑr ‘creator (used for God)’

19. xefto + ɑn

20. ɡoft + mɑn ‘discourse, dialogue’

21. kaft + ɡin

22. ɡaʧ + kɑr ‘plastere’

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23. simo + i

24. zex + bɑn

25. nafu + i

26. ko + in

27. bor + mɑn

28. po + in

29. hife + ɑn

30. lime + ɑn

31. ko + i

32. ɑmorz + ɡɑr ‘forgiving (used for God)’

33. mehr + ɡɑn ‘name of a Persian celebration’

34. fars + ɡar

35. lime + i

36. fam + ɡar

37. kɑr + ɡɑh ‘atelier, workshop’

38. so + in

39. ber + ɡun

40. ɡol + zɑr ‘flower field’

41. xɑst + ɡɑh ‘origin’

42. ɑfarid + ɡɑr ‘creator (used for God)’

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43. buni + i

44. pɑj + ɡɑh ‘base as in ‘military base’’

45. dixo + i

46. pɑs + bɑn ‘police officer’

47. siro + ɑn

48. xɑst + ɡɑr ‘suitor’

49. buni + ɑn

50. so + i

51. bɑrʧ + mɑn

52. ʤo + in

53. timɑ + ɑn

54. hife + i

55. kiʃt + ɡɑh

56. sɑr + ɡar

57. no + i ‘newness’

58. arʤ + mand ‘valued’

59. dar + bɑn ‘doorman’

60. xefto + i

61. sedu + i

62. ɢahr + mɑn ‘hero’

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63. pulɑ + ɑn

64. piʃro + ɑn ‘followers’

65. sɑxt + mɑn ‘building’

66. vɑʒ + ɡun ‘upside down’

67. mɑnd + ɡɑr ‘lasting’

68. ko + ɑn

69. lari + ɑn

70. buft + vɑr

71. tɑru + ɑn

72. tɑru + i

73. bande + i ‘servitude’

74. nafu + ɑn

75. kuʃt + mɑn

76. roft + ɡar ‘street sweeper’

77. ruz + ɡɑr ‘times’

78. ɑhu + i ‘pertaining to ɑhu ‘deer’’

79. fule + ɑn

80. rɑte + ɑn

81. sɑz + ɡɑr ‘compatible’

82. simo + ɑn

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83. ʃɑd + mɑn ‘happy’

84. fule + i

85. mo + i ‘pertaining to mo ‘grape leave’’

86. ɑmuz + ɡɑr ‘teacher’

87. omid + vɑr ‘hopeful’

88. dixo + ɑn

89. so + ɑn

90. mo + estɑn ‘grave yard’

91. ist + ɡɑh ‘station’

92. xɑde + ɑn

93. ʤo + estɑn ‘barley field’

94. po + i

95. piʃro + i ‘leadership’

96. rast + ɡɑr ‘salvated’

97. zors + nɑk

98. xizu + ɑn

99. xizu + i

100. mir + mand

101. kɑr + ɡar ‘worker’

102. pɑxt + var

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103. ɡum + vɑr

104. rɑte + i

105. sedu + ɑn

106. bɑɢ + bɑn ‘gardener’

107. perz + ɡɑh

108. furi + ɑn

109. sum + ɡar

110. bɑr + var ‘fruitful’

111. ʤo + i ‘pertaining to ʤo ‘barley’’

112. fo + estɑn

113. bozorg + vɑr ‘magnanimous’

114. furat + mand

115. pɑs + dɑr ‘guard’

116. ɑhu + ɑn ‘deer (pl)’

117. mehr + bɑn ‘kind’

118. xaʃm + nɑk ‘angry’

119. pulɑ + i

120. fo + in

121. dar + ɡɑh ‘threshold’

122. bɑnu + ɑn ‘ladies’

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123. furi + i

124. fo + i

125. jɑd + ɡɑr ‘memento’

126. mekr + mɑn

127. fo + ɑn

128. farzom + vɑr

129. siro + i

130. ʤɑn + var ‘animal’

131. tiku + i

132. timɑ + i

133. lari + i

134. pɑdo + i ‘job of an errand boy’

135. pejro + ɑn ‘followers’

136. pɑdo +ɑn ‘errand boys’

137. pejro + i ‘following’

Part (iii): Production (wug test)

As for the epenthesis process, a number of suffixes including two which never or rarely

show –e (-nɑk, -ɡɑh), and two which take a vowel frequently (-mɑn, -ɡɑr), and two

suffixes which sometimes take a vowel and sometimes do not (-ɡar, -bɑn) were used. In

addition to these, -ɑn (plural marker) and -i (noun-forming suffix) are tested for o-, u-,

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and e-ending words –see Appendix 6 and Appendices 8-10 for the list of words. There

was a training period with examples of each suffix with a real word and made-up word.

The sentences (both in Persian and English), with examples of real words, are presented

below.

-ɡar گر بود. .... علی با مس سر و كار داشت .

Ali was dealing with mes. Ali was mes-ɡar.

mes ‘copper’ mes-ɡar ‘coppersmith’

-mɑn مان بود.... خيلی . مينو راضی و شاد بود.

Minu was rɑzi o ʃɑd. Minu was very ʃɑd-mɑn.

ʃɑdi ‘happiness’ ʃɑd-mɑn ‘happy’

-nɑk ناك بود.....خيلی . پروين پر از خشم بود.

Parvin was full of xaʃm. Parvin was xaʃm-nɑk.

xaʃm ‘anger’ xaʃm-nɑk ‘angry’

-bɑn بان بود. .....امير از جنگل مراقبت می كرد.

Amir took care of ʤanɡal. Amir was ʤanɡal-bɑn.

ʤanɡal ‘forest’ ʤanɡal-bɑn ‘forester’

-ɡɑr گار بود...مريم . مريم تو شغلش با تعداد زيادی كار آموز سر و كار داشت .

Maryam was dealing with many kɑr ɑmuz. Maryam was an ɑmuz-ɡɑr.

kɑr-ɑmuz ‘trainee’ ɑmuz-ɡɑr ‘trainer, teacher’

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-ɡɑh گاه می برش... مادرش داره به .اميد بايد يك آزمايش بده.

Omid needs to give an ɑzmɑjeʃ. His mother is taking him to an ɑzmɑjeʃ-ɡɑh.

ɑzmɑjeʃ ‘physical test (e.g., blood test)’ ɑzmɑjeʃ-ɡɑh ‘lab’

-ɑn ان اونجا بودن...گروهی از . توی اون اتاق، فقط يك معلم نبود .

In that room, there was not only one moʔallem. There was a group of moʔallemɑn there.

moʔallem ‘teacher’ moʔallemɑn ‘teachers’

-i ی بلد نيست....متاسفانه، مينا . اونا دنبال يك خياط می گردن .

They are looking for a xajjɑt. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know xajjɑti.

xajjɑt ‘tailor’ xajjɑti ‘sewing’

In addition to these, an example of a made-up word for each of these sentences was

practiced. Note that the sentences given above were frame sentences (each for one suffix)

which did not change later in the actual experiment as seen below.

The list of sentences is as follows:

1. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr farz. Maryam was ……….. -ɡɑr

2. Minu was full of fuk. Minu was very ……. -mɑn

3. Ali was dealing with toz. Ali was .......... -ɡar

4. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr zurʧ. Maryam was ………. -ɡɑr

5. Parvin was full of birɡ. Parvin was ………... -nɑk

6. Parvin was full of fir. Parvin was …………. -nɑk

7. Minu was rɑzi o xez. Minu was very ……….. -mɑn

8. Minu was rɑzi o ʃif. Minu was very ……. -mɑn

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9. Omid needs to give a ʃext. His mother is taking him to a ……….. -ɡɑh

10. Amir took care of taʃk. Amir was ……... -bɑn

11. Parvin was full of dɑrʃ. Parvin was ………... -nɑk

12. Amir took care of dekr. Amir was ……... -bɑn

13. In that room, there was not only one kabu. It was a group of ……...there -ɑn

14. Amir took care of tes. Amir was ………. -bɑn

15. They are looking for a talso. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

16. Parvin was full of task. Parvin was ………. -nɑk

17. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr ʃɑr. Maryam was ………... -ɡɑr

18. Omid needs to give a pax. His mother is taking him to a ……….. -ɡɑh

19. Minu was rɑzi o zoxt. Minu was very ………. -mɑn

20. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr zort. Maryam was ……….. -ɡɑr

21. In that roon, there was not only one nizi. It was a group of ………there -ɑn

22. They are looking for a difo. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

23. Amir took care of tif. Amir was ………… -bɑn

24. Amir took care of foʧ. Amir was ………. -bɑn

25. In that room, there was not only one narfi. It was a group of ………there -ɑn

26. Amir took care of jar. Amir was ………. -bɑn

27. They are looking for a bufi. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

28. Ali was dealing with bir. Ali was ……. -ɡar

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29. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr xuz. Maryam was ………... -ɡɑr

30. Minu was rɑzi o beʃk. Minu was very ………. -mɑn

31. Minu was rɑzi o dist. Minu was very ………. -mɑn

32. In that room, it was not only one pudɑ. It was a group of…….there -ɑn

33. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr nerz. Maryam was ……….. -ɡɑr

34. Minu was rɑzi o fod. Minu was very ……….. -mɑn

35. Omid needs to give a dus. His mother is taking him to a ………. -ɡɑh

36. They are looking for a mixsi. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

37. Omid needs to give a parz. His mother is taking him to a ……….. -ɡɑh

38. Parvin was full of surt. Parvin was ………... -nɑk

39. Omid needs to give a ɡɑʃ. His mother is taking him to a ………. -ɡɑh

40. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr tid. Maryam was ………... -ɡɑr

41. They are looking for a ʃalfu. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

42. Omid needs to give a birs. His mother is taking him to a …………. -ɡɑh

43. Ali was dealing with text. Ali was ……. -ɡar

44. They are looking for a zafmɑ. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

45. Parvin was full of pal. Parvin was ………... -nɑk

46. Ali was dealing with jarf. Ali was ……. -ɡar

47. Minu was rɑzi o xɑrt. Minu was very ………. -mɑn

48. Omid needs to give a kof. His mother is taking him to a ……….. -ɡɑh

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49. They are looking for a fimde. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

50. In that room, it was not only one liʃe. It was a group of ……there -ɑn

51. In that room, it was not only one tazme. It was a group of ……there -ɑn

52. Amir took care of xɑz. Amir was ………… -bɑn

53. Ali was dealing with fal. Ali was .......... -ɡar

54. They are looking for a birɑ. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

55. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr dift. Maryam was ………. -ɡɑr

56. Ali was dealing with suft. Ali was …….. -ɡar

57. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr mor. Maryam was ……….. -ɡɑr

58. Minu was rɑzi o haf. Minu was very ……….. -mɑn

59. Ali was dealing with visk. Ali was …….. -ɡar

60. Parvin was full of sux. Parvin was …………. -nɑk

61. Ali was dealing with ner. Ali was .......... -ɡar

62. Amir took care of nɑst. Amir was ………..-bɑn

63. Parvin was full of seʃ. Parvin was ………... -nɑk

64. Parvin was full of dof. Parvin was ………... -nɑk

65. In that room, it was not only one dɑso. There was a group of ………there -ɑn

66. Ali was dealing with bɑrʧ. Ali was …….. -ɡar

67. Minu was rɑzi o buʃk. Minu was very ………. -mɑn

68. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr pɑnd. Maryam was ………. -ɡɑr

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69. In that room, it was not only one ʃarkɑ. It was a group of ………there -ɑn

70. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr fas. Maryam was ……….. -ɡɑr

71. Maryam was dealing with many kɑr berd. Maryam was ……….. -ɡɑr

72. Omid needs to give a dors. His mother is taking him to a ……….. -ɡɑh

73. Amir took care of ruʧ. Amir was …………-bɑn

74. Amir took care of biʃk. Amir was ……….. -bɑn

75. Parvin was full of xɑf. Parvin was …………. -nɑk

76. Ali was dealing with tɑx. Ali was ……. -ɡar

77. Amir took care of turs. Amir was ……….. -bɑn

78. Omid needs to give a buft. His mother is taking him to a …………. -ɡɑh

79. Parvin was full of nord. Parvin was ………. -nɑk

80. Minu was rɑzi o vɑr. Minu was very ……. -mɑn

81. Omid needs to give a tɑrm. His mother is taking him to a …………. -ɡɑh

82. Omid needs to give a nif. His mother is taking him to a ………. -ɡɑh

83. Ali was dealing with sork. Ali was ……. -ɡar

84. Parvin was full of ders. Parvin was ………. -nɑk

85. Ali was dealing with zuʃ. Ali was ……. -ɡar

86. Minu was rɑzi o darɡ. Minu was very ………. -mɑn

87. In that room, it was not only one ɡesto. It was a group of ……there -ɑn

88. They are looking for a pɑme. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

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89. Amir took care of toxt. Amir was ……... -bɑn

90. They are looking for a sɑku. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

91. Omid needs to give a sed. His mother is taking him to a ……….. -ɡɑh

92. In that room, it was not only one korfu. It was a group of ………there -ɑn

93. In that room, it was not only one pɑnande. It was a group of ………there -ɑn

94. They are looking for a sɑnande. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

95. They are looking for a pɑnande. Unfortunately, Mina doesn’t know…… -i

96. In that room, it was not only one sɑnande. It was a group of ………there -ɑn

Part (iv): Perception

In this part, participants heard a pre-recorded word and then a suffixed form of the word.

They were asked to rate the suffixed form on the following scale: √ (good, acceptable,

possible); ? (so-so); X (bad, unacceptable, impossible). For each suffixed form, there

were two pronunciations (one with the epenthetic vowel –e and with /v/ and /ɡ/ in

relevant context, and one without these), but these two forms were presented to

participants in random order and not in a row. The words were randomized through

random.org. It was a pen and paper task for the speakers. They had the list of the roots in

front of them and after hearing the suffixed form they put √, or ?, or X.

There was a training period with some words (real, and made-up). For example:

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-real word

Voice: ʃarm ‘embarrassment’

Voice: ʃarmɡin ‘embarrassed’

-made-up word

Voice: tifu

Voice: tifuji

The list of words:

For this part, in addition to some real words, for -ɑn and –i, some monosyllabic o-ending

words, polysyllabic o-ending words, e-ending words, u-ending words and an ɑ-ending

word (the last one for control) are included. A few monosyllabic o-ending words for -in

and -estɑn were also included. As for epenthesis, real words which show epenthesis and

some real words which do not show it and made-up words (3 words for each structure)

for suffixes with a tendency towards epenthesis and made-up words (again 3 words for

each structure) for suffixes with no tendency towards epenthesis are examined. Note that,

as said about task 2, I put the words here as they were presented to participants in order to

show how the experiment went. The categorizations of words (real, made-up, epenthesis-

possible, etc.) are given in Appendices 7-10. Real words are shown by their glosses. For

each word there are two pronunciations. In some cases, only one of the two

pronunciations exists in the language (e.g., no ‘new’ + in novin ‘modern’ *nojin),

nonetheless, I include the gloss for the unacceptable pronunciation to show that it is a real

word whose unfamiliar pronunciation is being tested.

1. par parɡun

2. sɑz sɑzɡɑr ‘compatible’

3. vɑʒ vɑʒeɡun ‘upside down’

4. ʒo ʒovi

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5. parvard parvardeɡɑr ‘creator (used for God)’

6. bozorɡ bozorɡavɑr ‘magnanimous’

7. vɑʒ vɑʒɡun ‘upside down’

8. xefto xeftojɑn

9. buft buftkade

10. afarid afarideɡɑr ‘creator (used for God)’

11. dɑz dɑzbɑn

12. zɑj zɑjemɑn ‘baby delivery’

13. simo simovi

14. so sojɑn

15. dud dudemɑn ‘lineage’

16. xefto xeftovɑn

17. buft buftekade

18. dɑz dɑzebɑn

19. pɑs pɑsbɑn ‘police officer’

20. rast rastɡɑr ‘salvated’

21. xefto xeftoji

22. ɑhu ɑhuvɑn ‘deer (pl)’

23. bɑr bɑrɡɑh ‘palace, royal building’

24. farzom farzomvɑr

436

25. zɑl zɑlvar

26. naʃ naʃbɑn

27. zɑl zɑlevar

28. ruz ruzɡɑr ‘times’

29. ʃɑd ʃɑdmɑn ‘happy’

30. jɑd jɑdeɡɑr ‘memento’

31. tɑʃ tɑʃɡɑr

32. ʃɑd ʃɑdemɑn ‘happy’

33. sɑxt sɑxtmɑn ‘building’

34. bers bersnɑk

35. fo foestɑn

36. mehr mehrbɑn ‘kind’

37. ɑmuz ɑmuzeɡɑr ‘teacher’

38. simo simoji

39. xaʃm xaʃmenɑk ‘angry’

40. xɑst xɑstɡɑr ‘suitor’

41. fule fuleɡɑn

42. roft roftɡar ‘street sweeper’

43. tors torsebɑn

44. tɑʃ tɑʃeɡɑr

437

45. def defezɑr

46. sɑxt sɑxtemɑn ‘building’

47. puxt puxtɡin

48. fo foin

49. sɑz sɑzmɑn ‘organization’

50. ɑhu ɑhuji ‘pertaining to ɑhu ‘deer’’

51. bɑɢ bɑɢebɑn ‘gardener’

52. ɑmorz ɑmorzɡɑr ‘forgiving (used for God)’

53. so soin

54. pɑj pɑjɡɑh ‘base as in ‘military base’’

55. ɢam ɢamɡin ‘sad’

56. bozorɡ bozorɡvɑr ‘magnanimous’

57. bers bersenɑk

58. bɑr bɑreɡɑh ‘palace, royal building’

59. ko koji

60. pide pideji

61. dar darebɑn ‘doorman’

62. ɡol ɡolezɑr ‘flower field’

63. faʒ faʒmɑn

64. pɑs pɑsebɑn ‘police officer’

438

65. parvard parvardɡɑr ‘creator (used for God)’

66. zende zendejɑn ‘alive (pl)’

67. nafu nafuji

68. xɑrʧ xɑrʧɡɑr

69. pide pidejɑn

70. timɑ timɑjɑn

71. pejro pejroji ‘following’

72. ɑmorz ɑmorzeɡɑr ‘forgiving (used for God)’

73. ɑhu ɑhuvi ‘pertaining to ɑhu ‘deer’’

74. karz karzmand

75. fule fuleji

76. fule fuleɡi

77. faʒ faʒemɑn

78. bɑɢ bɑɢbɑn ‘gardener’

79. pɑj pɑjeɡɑh ‘base as in ‘military base’’

80. xɑrʧ xɑrʧeɡɑr

81. ʤɑn ʤɑnevar ‘animal’

82. ruz ruzeɡɑr ‘times’

83. ɡoft ɡoftemɑn ‘discourse, dialogue’

84. zuft zuftemɑn

439

85. ɑhu ɑhujɑn ‘deer (pl)’

86. ʃarz ʃarzeɡar

87. ʤɑn ʤɑnvar ‘animal’

88. pide pideɡɑn

89. bɑst bɑstɡin

90. mɑnd mɑndɡɑr ‘lasting’

91. karz karzemand

92. pejro pejrojɑn ‘followers’

93. ʃarz ʃarzɡar

94. fule fulejɑn

95. ɢam ɢameɡin ‘sad’

96. nafu nafuvi

97. zende zendeɡɑn ‘alive (pl)’

98. ɡol ɡolzɑr ‘flower field’

99. zende zendeji ‘life’

100. pide pideɡi

101. tɑru tɑrujɑn

102. ko kovi

103. ɢahr ɢahremɑn ‘hero’

104. zende zendeɡi ‘life’

440

105. kɑr kɑrɡar ‘worker’

106. so soji

107. rast rasteɡɑr ‘salvated’

108. so sovɑn

109. bot botekade ‘a kind of temple’

110. naʃ naʃebɑn

111. beft befteɡɑr

112. xaʃm xaʃmnɑk ‘frustrated’

113. timɑ timɑɡɑn

114. mɑnd mɑndeɡɑr ‘lasting’

115. mehr mehrɡɑn ‘name of a Persian celebration’

116. arʤ arʤmand ‘valued’

117. bɑst bɑsteɡin

118. farzom farzomevɑr

119. arʤ arʤomand ‘valued’

120. ɡim ɡimvɑr

121. sɑz sɑzeɡɑr ‘compatible’

122. ɡoft ɡoftmɑn ‘discourse, dialogue’

123. jɑd jɑdɡɑr ‘memento’

124. so sovin

441

125. par pareɡun

126. ɢahr ɢahrmɑn ‘hero’

127. ʒo ʒovɑn

128. nafu nafujɑn

129. tors torsɡɑh

130. zɑj zɑjmɑn ‘baby delivery’

131. mo moestɑn ‘grave yard’

132. suɡ suɡevɑr ‘mourner’

133. dud dudmɑn ‘lineage’

134. dɑx dɑxmɑn

135. roft rofteɡar ‘street sweeper’

136. kɑr kɑreɡar ‘worker’

137. tist tisteɡar

138. ɡim ɡimevɑr

139. tist tistɡar

140. ʒo ʒoji

141. xefto xeftovi

142. afarid afaridɡɑr ‘creator (used for God)’

143. tors torseɡɑh

144. fo fovin

442

145. nuj nujeɡɑh

146. suɡ suɡvɑr ‘mourner’

147. zuft zuftmɑn

148. sɑz sɑzemɑn ‘organization’

149. puxt puxteɡin

150. pejro pejrovɑn ‘followers’

151. dɑx dɑxemɑn

152. nafu nafuvɑn

153. mo movestɑn ‘grape yard’

154. pejro pejrovi ‘following’

155. bot botkade ‘a kind of temple’

156. dar darbɑn ‘doorman’

157. mehr mehreɡɑn ‘name of a Persian celebration’

158. tɑru tɑruvɑn

159. ʒo ʒojɑn

160. timɑ timɑɡi

161. ɑmuz ɑmuzɡɑr ‘teacher’

162. so sovi

163. fam famɡar

164. timɑ timɑji

443

165. beft beftɡɑr

166. fam fameɡar

167. ko kovɑn

168. fo fovestɑn

169. nuj nujɡɑh

170. xɑst xɑsteɡɑr ‘suitor’

171. ko kojɑn

172. tors torsbɑn

173. mehr mehrabɑn ‘kind’

174. def defzɑr

175. bɑnu bɑnovɑn ‘ladies’

176. pɑdo pɑdoji ‘job of an errand boy’

177. simo simojɑn

178. bɑnu bɑnujɑn ‘ladies’

179. tɑru tɑruji

180. simo simovɑn

181. pɑdo pɑdovi ‘job of an errand boy’

182. tɑru tɑrovi

444

Appendix 4 - Readings (Task 1 - experiment on epenthesis)

The goal of this task is to test the usage of epenthesis in Persian suffixed forms, to find

out each speaker’s basic pattern, intra speakers variation, and the degree of tendency

towards using epenthesis in cases where epenthesis is possible.

This appendix consists of the following:

-The two texts in Persian and their translation

-The list of the suffixed words in the two texts

متن اول

همگی به دستگيری حميد . سحرگاه ديروز جمع كثيری از مردم جلوی در بازداشتگاه قديم واقع در ميدان سازمان آب جمع شده بودند

در بين اعتراض كنندگان ، كه بسيار خشمگين و اندوهناك بودند ، از همه طبقات ديده . سازگار ، رفتگر قهرمان جنوبی ، اعتراض داشتند

پس از ساعتها ، سر انجام ، رئيس . نرمند ، پرستار ، آ موزگار ، كارگر ، پاسبان ، دانشجو ، باغبان ، پستچي و غيرهه: می شد

ملت ارجمند و بزرگوار ، از شما می : "بازداشتگاه ، كريم شادمان ، به جلوی در بازداشتگاه آمد و خطاب به اعتراض كنندگان گفت

اينجا پايگاه عدالت است و حقی . به شما قول می دهيم كه به پرونده متهم خيلی زود رسيدگی شود. ه دهيدخواهيم كه به اعتراض خود خاتم

شيرين مهربان، كارمند دانشكده پزشكی ، به نمايندگی ." از پروردگار ، رستگاری شما را خواستاريم. اميد وار باشيد. ضايع نخواهد شد

ما در اينجا . شما بايد از رفتار خود شرمگين باشيد: " نزديكتر می شدند ، به كريم شادمان گفت از مردم غضبناك كه به ساختمان نزديك و

."ماند گار هستيم تا زمانی كه حميد سازگار آزاد شود

445

متن دوم

هميشه برای ما از خاطرات قديم می گفت و از اينكه چقدر روزگار . اين جمله ورد زبون مادر بزرگ بود." روزگار غريبی است"

عاشق . اون صندوقچه چوبی لب طاقچه و اين آلبوم قديمی ازش به يادگار مونده. خيلی مهربون و پرهيزگار بود. ادش بخيري. عوض شده

پدر بزرگ سالها خواستگار مادر بزرگ . می گفت پدربزرگ خردمندترين و ساز گار ترين انسانی بوده كه می شناخته. پدر بزرگ بود

خيلی قدرتمند و . پدر مادر بزرگ ، پاسبان بود و تو يك پاسگاه كار می كرد. ن رضايت نمی دادبود ولی پدرمادر بزرگ به ازدواجشو

. سخت گير بود و دلش می خواست دخترش با يكی از آشنايانش كه گروهبان ثروتمندی از خانواده نامدار ارجمند بود ازدواج كنه

با عموش زندگی می كرد و تو كارگاه . بود در كودكی از دست داده بودپدربزرگ يك كار گر ساده بود و پدرش را كه باغبون مستمندی

كارگاهشون كنار اون گندم زار قديمی بود كه اآلن . قلمدون و شمعدون و از اين جور چيزا می ساختند. مسگری عموش هم كار می كرد

چندين ساختمان جديد مثل سازمان برق و . بود" مسگری شادمان"اسمش . از كارگاه ديگه اثری نيست. خوابگاه آموزگاران اونجاست

اولين بچه شون كه پدر منه يكسال . مادر بزرگ و پدر بزرگ باال خره بهم می رسند. بگذريم. آرايشگاه زنونه و غيره اونجا ساخته شده

ر بزرگ بعد از تولد بچه از اين گوشواره ها روماد. مادر بزرگ می گفت كه خيلی زايمان سختی بوده. بعد از ازدواجشون به دنيا می ياد

هر . بعد از در گذشت پدر بزرگ، هميشه سوگوار و غمگين بود. ياد گار اولين زايمان. هميشه به گوشش بود. پدر بزرگ هديه می گيره

واده وصيت كرده بود اموالش رو بجز همين چند قطعه يادگاری به خان. جمعه به آرامگاه پدر بزرگ می رفت تا روزی كه از دنيا رفت

.روحش شاد. يادش هميشه موندگار خواهد بود. های فقيرعيالوار بديم

Text 1 - Translation

Yesterday early morning, a large group of people gathered in front of the old detention

centre located in Sazman Ab roundabout. They protested against arresting a hero, Hamid

Sazgar, the southern street sweeper. The protestors, who were very angry and upset, were

from all social classes: artists, nurses, teachers, workers, police officers, university

students, gardeners, postmen, etc. After hours, finally, Karim Shadman, the head of the

detention centre, came to the entrance of the centre and said to the protestors: “Dear

people, we ask you to end your protest. We promise to investigate the accused person’s

file very soon. This is the place of justice and no rights will be ignored here. Be hopeful.

God bless you.” Shirin Mehrban, an employer of Medicine Faculty, on behalf of the

446

frustrated people who were getting close and closer to the building said to Karim

Shadman: “You should be embarrassed of your behavior. We will be here until Hamid

Sazgar gets released.

Text 2 - Translation

“It’s a strange time”. Grandma kept repeating this. She would talk about old memories all

the time and about how things have changed. May her memory be eternal. She was very

kind and devout. That wooden small chest on the shelf and this old photo album remained

from her. She was in love with grandpa. She kept saying that grandpa was the wisest and

most compatible person she had ever known. Grandpa was grandma’s suitor for years but

grandma’s dad would not give them permission to get married. Grandma’s dad was a

policeman and used to work in a police station. He was very powerful and rigid, and

wanted his daughter to marry one of his friends who was a wealthy sergeant from the

well-known Arjmand family. Grandpa was a worker and had lost his dad who was a poor

gardener in childhood. Grandfather used to live with his uncle and to work in his uncle’s

coppersmith’s workshop. They would build copper candleholders, penholders and

similar. The workshop was next to the old wheat field which is now the teachers’

dormitory. There is no trace of the workshop today. It was called ‘Shadman Mesgari’. A

number of new buildings such as a power station, a hair salon, etc. have been built there.

Well. Grandpa and grandma eventually got married. Their first child, who is my dad, was

born a year after their marriage. Grandpa said it was a very difficult delivery. These

earrings were grandpa’s present to grandma for the childbirth. She used to wear them all

the time. They were the memory of her first childbirth. After grandpa’s passing away, she

was always mourning and was sad. Every Friday, she would go to his grave until she

passed away. She asked to donate all her belongings, except for these few pieces, to poor

large families. May God bless her soul.

447

Text #1

The suffixed forms in text 1 are shown here. Those which can take epenthesis are in bold.

The words are written below based on the order of their occurrence in the text.

saharɡɑh ‘early morning’……………bɑzdɑʃtɡɑh ‘detention centre’ ……….

sɑzmɑn ‘organization’……….dastɡir ‘arrested’ ..……

sɑzɡɑr ‘compatible’………roftɡar ‘street sweeper’…….

ɢahrmɑn ‘hero’…….eʔterɑzkonnande ‘protestor’…..

xaʃmɡin ‘angry’……….anduhnɑk ‘upset’………..honarmand ‘artist’………

parastɑr ‘nurse’……ɑmuzɡɑr ‘teacher’…..kɑrɡar ‘worker’…….

pɑsbɑn ‘police man’….dɑneʃʤu ‘university student’….bɑɢbɑn …‘gardener’

postʧi ‘postman’……bɑzdɑʃtɡɑh ‘detention centre’ ……….

ʃɑdmɑn ‘happy’………. bɑzdɑʃtɡɑh ‘detention centre’ ……..

eʔterɑzkonnande ‘protestor’….arʤmand ‘valued’………bozorɡvɑr ‘generous’…….

pɑjɡɑh ‘military base’………omidvɑr ‘hopeful’…….

parvardɡɑr ‘creator (used for God)’…….rastɡɑr ‘salvated’…….……

mehrbɑn ‘kind’……kɑrmand ‘employee’……daneʃkade ‘college’…..

ɢazabnɑk ‘frustrated’……sɑxtmɑn ‘building’……ʃɑdmɑn ‘happy’……

ʃarmɡin ‘ashamed’…….mɑndɡɑr ‘lasting’……sɑzɡɑr ‘compatible’……

448

Text #2

The suffixed forms in text 2 are shown here. Those which can take epenthesis are in bold.

The words are written below based on the order they appear in.

ruzɡɑr ‘times’……………ruzɡɑr ‘times’……..mehrabun ‘kind’……..

parhizɡɑr ‘devout’ ……..sanduɢʧe ‘small chest’……tɑɢʧe ‘shelf’……

jɑdɡɑr ‘memento’…xeradmand ‘wise’……sɑzɡɑr ‘compatible’……….xɑstɡɑr ‘suitor’…

pɑsbɑn ‘police man’…….pɑsɡɑh ‘military base’…….ɢodratmand ‘powerful’…..

saxtɡir ‘rigid’……ɡoruhbɑn ‘sergeant’….servatmand ‘rich’…..

nɑmdɑr ‘famous’……arʤmand ‘valued’……kɑrɡar ‘worker’……

bɑɢbun ‘gradener’….mostmand ‘poor’…..kɑrɡɑh ‘atelier’……mesɡar ‘coppersmith’…..

ɢalamdun ‘pen holder’….ʃamʔdun ‘candle holder’……kɑrɡɑh ‘atelier’……

ɡandomzɑr ‘wheat field’……xɑbɡɑh ‘dormitory’……ɑmuzɡɑr ‘teacher’……

kɑrɡɑh ‘atelier’……mesɡar ‘coppersmith’…..ʃɑdmɑn ‘happy’…..

sɑxtmɑn ‘building’…..sɑzmɑn ‘organization’……ɑrɑjeʃɡɑh ‘hair salon’…..

zɑjmɑn ‘delivery (baby)’…..ɡuʃvɑre ‘earring’ ….jɑdɡɑr ‘memento’……

zɑjmɑn ‘delivery (baby)’…suɡvɑr ‘mourning’……ɢamɡin ‘sad’……

ɑrɑmɡɑh ‘grave’….jɑdɡɑr ‘memento’…..xɑnevɑde ‘family’….

ɑjɑlvɑr ‘large (for family)’……mundeɡɑr ‘lasting’…..

449

Appendix 5 - Question and answer (Task 2 - experiment on epenthesis)

The goal of this task is to examine when and to what extent epenthesis is used with real

and made up words when speakers are asked a question in answer to which they need to

put a given word and a suffix together to make a suffixed form.

This appendix consists of the following:

-The list of the made-up words used in the question and answer task

The list of the 24 made-up words for this task is given below. For each of the four root

structures, CVlaxC, CVtenseC, CVlaxCC, CVtenseCC, there are 6 words, 3 words with

suffixes with frequent epenthesis in real words, and 3 words with suffixes with no or rare

epenthesis in real words. The lax vowels in CVlaxC include one example of each lax

vowel, a, e, o. The same holds for the lax vowels in CVlaxCC. The tense vowels in

CVtenseC also include one example of each tense vowel, ɑ, i, u. The same holds for the

tense vowels in CVtenseCC.

UFrequent epenthesis

CVlaxC CVtenseC CVlaxCC CVtenseCC

zex-bɑn rik-bɑn zors-bɑn biʃt-ɡɑr

bor-mɑn sum-ɡar fars-ɡar bɑrʧ-mɑn

fam-ɡar sɑr-ɡar mekr-mɑn kuʃt-mɑn

URare or no epenthesis

CVlaxC CVtenseC CVlaxCC CVtenseCC

ber-ɡun dɑf-nɑk kaft-ɡin kiʃt-ɡɑh

furat-mand mir-mand zors-nɑk buft-vɑr

farzom-vɑr ɡum-vɑr perz-ɡɑh pɑxt-var

450

Appendix 6 - Wug test (Task 3 - experiment on epenthesis)

The goal of this task is to examine when and to what extent epenthesis is used with made-

up words.

This appendix consists of the following:

-The list of the made-up words used in the wug test

The list of the made-up words is given below. Two of the suffixes which show frequent

epenthesis (-ɡɑr and -mɑn), two of those suffixes which show rare or no epenthesis (-nɑk

and -ɡɑh) and two of those in between were chosen (-ɡar and -bɑn). For each suffix, 12

words are made, 3 words for each root structure. The 3 words for lax vowels for CVlaxC

include one example of a, one of o, and one of e. The same is the case for lax vowels with

CVlaxCC. The 3 words for tense vowels for CVtenseC include one example of u, one of i,

and one of ɑ. The same is the case for tense vowels with CVtenseCC.

CVlaxC CVtenseC CVlaxCC CVtenseCC

-ɡɑr

nez ʃɑr farz zurʧ

mor xuz zort dift

fas tid berd pɑnd

-mɑn xez fuk zoxt dist

fod ʃif beʃk xɑrt

haf vɑr darɡ buʃk

451

-ɡar toz bir text suft

fal tɑx jarf visk

ner zuʃ sork bɑrʧ

-bɑn tes tif taʃk nɑst

foʧ xɑz dekr biʃk

jar ruʧ toxt turs

-nɑk pal fir task birɡ

seʃ sux nord dɑrʃ

dof xɑf ders surt

-ɡɑh pax dus ʃext birs

kof ɡɑʃ parz buft

sed nif dors tɑrm

452

Appendix 7 - Acceptability rating (Task 4 - experiment on epenthesis)

The goal of this task is to examine how speakers rate the versions with epenthesis and the

versions without epenthesis of real and made-up words in a perception test.

This appendix consists of the following:

-The list of the made-up words used for the perception task

The 24 made-up words for this task, yielding 48 pronunciations (since each word was

pronounced once with and the other time without epenthesis (in random order, not in a

row)) for the speakers to rate, are given below. I show below only the version without

epenthesis. For each of the four root structures, CVlaxC, CVtenseC, CVlaxCC, CVtenseCC,

there are 6 words, 3 words with suffixes with which we see more cases of epenthesis in

real language, and 3 words with suffixes with which we see no or rare cases of epenthesis

in real language.

CVlaxC CVtenseC CVlaxCC CVtenseCC

Frequent epenthesis

naʃ-bɑn dɑʒ-bɑn tors-bɑn zuft-mɑn

fam-ɡar tɑʃ-ɡɑr beft-ɡɑr xɑrʧ-ɡɑr

faʒ-mɑn dɑx-mɑn ʃarz-ɡar tist-ɡar

CVlaxC CVtenseC CVlaxCC CVtenseCC

Rare or no epenthesis

par-ɡun zɑl-vɑr bers-nɑk buft-kade

def-zɑr nuj-ɡɑh tors-ɡɑh puxt-ɡin

farzom-vɑr ɡim-vɑr karz-mand bɑst-ɡin

453

Appendix 8 – The list of o- and u-final made-up words used in the experiment

The goal of this experiment is to examine the occurrence of v in suffixation after o- and

u-final made-up words.

Task (i): Question and answer

lito + -i lito + -ɑn

simo + -i simo + -ɑn

xefto + -i xefto + -ɑn

dixo + -i dixo + -ɑn

siro + -i siro + -ɑn

nafu + -i nafu + -ɑn

sedu + -i sedu + -ɑn

tɑru + -i tɑru + -ɑn

xizu + -i xizu + -ɑn

tiku + -i tiku + -ɑn

In addition to these, there are the following monosyllablic o-ending made-up words

which were also tested for a minimal word requirement.

454

ko + -i ko + -ɑn

po + -i po + -ɑn

so + -i so + -ɑn

fo + -i fo + -ɑn

ko + -in

po + -in

so + -in

fo + -in

po + -estɑn

fo + -estɑn

----------------------------------------------

Task (ii): Wug test

talso + -i dɑso + -ɑn

difo + -i ɡesto + -ɑn

ʃalfu + -i kabu + -ɑn

sɑku + -i korfu + -ɑn

455

----------------------------------------------

Task (iii): Perception

For this part, each of the following words were pronounced twice in random order, once

with o-i/u-i, o-ɑn/u-ɑn and the other time with -ovi/-ovɑn ending so the speakers can

rate both versions (e.g., simo-i and simo-v-i).

simo + -i simo + -ɑn

xefto + -i xefto + -ɑn

nafu + -i nafu + -ɑn

tɑru + -i tɑru + -ɑn

The following monosyllablic o-ending made-up words were used for this task.

ʒo + -i ʒo + -ɑn

ko + -i ko + -ɑn

so + -i so + -ɑn

fo + -in

so + -in

fo + -estɑn

456

Appendix 9 – The list of e-final made-up words used in the experiment

The goal of this experiment is to examine the occurrence of ɡ in suffixation after e-final

made-up words.

Task (i): Question and answer

xɑde + -i xɑde + -ɑn

hife + -i hife + -ɑn

lime + -i lime + -ɑn

fule + -i fule + -ɑn

rɑte + -i rɑte + -ɑn

------------------------------

Task (ii): Wug test

pɑme + -i

fimde + -i

liʃe + -ɑn

tazme + -ɑn

Plus the following additions for 6 speakers:

sɑnande + -i

pɑnande + -i

sɑnande + -ɑn

pɑnande + -ɑn

457

-----------------------------------

Task (iii): Perception

For this part, each of the following words were pronounced twice in random order, once

with e-i/e-ɑn and the other time with -eɡi/-eɡɑn ending so the speakers can rate both

versions (e.g., fule-i and fuleɡi).

fule + -i

pide + -i

fule + -ɑn

pide + -ɑn

458

Appendix 10 – The list of real words used in the experiment for all three processes

In this appendix the list of real words used in the experiment is presented.

Epenthesis-possible words –I write here only the version without epenthesis; I put a dash

to show the suffix boundary. The list is organized as follows. First vowel-initial words

and then consonant-initial words are given. The consonant-initial suffixes are ordered

based on place of articulation of their first consonant. The order will be, therefore, as

follows: stops, fricatives, affricates, nasals, liquid, glide.

Real words used in the experiment on epenthesis in suffixation

The suffixed form

arʤ-mand ‘valued’ arʤ ‘value’

The stem/root

ɑfarid-ɡɑr ‘creator (used for God)’ ɑfarid ‘past stem of ɑfaridan ‘to create’

ɑmorz-ɡɑr ‘forgiving (used for God)’ ɑmorz ‘present stem of ɑmorzidan ‘to

forgive’’

ɑmuz-ɡɑr ‘teacher’ ɑmuz ‘present stem of ɑmuxtan ‘to learn sth,

to teach sth to sb’’

parvard-ɡɑr ‘creator’( used for God)’ parvard ‘past stem of parvardan ‘to raise’’

pɑj-ɡɑh ‘base as in ‘military base’’ pɑ(j) ‘foot’

pɑs-bɑn ‘policeman’ pɑs ‘watch, guard duty’

bɑɢ-bɑn ‘gardener’ bɑɢ ‘garden’

bozorɡ-vɑr ‘magnanimous’ bozorɡ ‘big, great’

459

dud-mɑn ‘lineage’74

kɑr-ɡar ‘worker’ kɑr ‘work’

(see the footnote)

ɡoft-mɑn ‘discourse, dialog’ ɡoft ‘past stem of ɡoftan ‘to say’’

ɢahr-mɑn ‘hero’ ɢahr ‘wrath, anger’

vɑʒ-ɡun ‘upside down’ vɑʒ ‘upside down’75

sɑxt-mɑn ‘building’ sɑxt ‘past stem of sɑxtan ‘to build’’

sɑz-mɑn ‘organization’ sɑz ‘present stem of sɑxtan ‘to build’’

sɑz-ɡɑr ‘compatible’ sɑz ‘present stem of sɑxtan ‘to get along

with sth/sb’’76

zɑj-mɑn ‘baby delivery’ zɑj ‘present stem of zɑjidan ‘to give birth’’

ʃɑd-mɑn ‘happy, joyful’ ʃɑd ‘happy’

xɑst-ɡɑr ‘suitor’ xɑst ‘past stem of xɑstan ‘to want’’

ʤɑn-var ‘animal’ ʤɑn ‘soul, body’

mehr-bɑn ‘kind’ mehr ‘kindness’

mehr-ɡɑn ‘name of a Persian celebration’ mehr ‘kindness’

mɑnd-ɡɑr ‘lasting’ mɑnd ‘past stem of mɑndan ‘to last’’

74 This word seems to be dude + -mɑn, which means that it has lost its –e in its dudmɑn version. This word formerly was dūt-ak-mān and given the historical change of –ak to –e, it is reasonable to consider dudemɑn as the original form and dudmɑn as its more recent form. This is one of those cases which I considered as historical residue (see (56) in 4.6.1). The Dehkhoda Persian dictionary considers dude ‘family’ as dud + e (http://www.loghatnaameh.com/). 75 This word is not usually used alone –the meaning given above is based on the Dehkhoda dictionary (http://www.loghatnaameh.com/). 76 sɑxtan has two meaning: ‘to build’ and ‘to get along with sth/sb’.

460

most-mand ‘poor’ most ‘complain’77

roft-ɡar ‘street sweeper’ roft ‘past stem of roftan ‘to sweep’’

rast-ɡɑr ‘salvaged’ rast ‘past stem of rastan ‘to find relief’

ruz-ɡɑr ‘times’ ruz ‘day’

jɑd-ɡɑr ‘memento’ jɑd ‘memory’

No-epenthesis words – the list is organized as the list of the epenthesis-possible words,

that is vowel-initial words followed by consonant-initial words, which are organized

based on the place of articulation of their first consonant.

The suffixed form

anduh-nɑk ‘sad’ anduh ‘sadness’

The stem/root

ajɑl-vɑr ‘burdened with a large family’ ajɑl ‘one’s wife and children’

omid-vɑr ‘hopeful’ omid ‘hope’

ɑrɑjeʃ-ɡɑh ‘hair salon’ ɑrɑjeʃ ‘make-up’ (ɑrɑj + eʃ)

ɑrɑm-ɡɑh ‘grave’ ɑrɑm ‘calm’

ist-ɡɑh ‘station’ ist ‘stop’

eʔterɑz-konande ‘protestor’ eʔterɑz ‘protest’

parhiz-ɡɑr ‘devout’ parhiz ‘avoidance’

post-ʧi ‘postman’ post ‘post, mail’

pɑs-ɡɑh ‘police kiosk’ pɑs ‘watch, guard duty’

77 most is not used alone -the meaning given above is based on the Dehkhoda dictionary, which considers mostmand/mostamand to be made from most (http://www.loghatnaameh.com/).

461

pɑs-dɑr ‘guard’ pɑs ‘watch, guard duty’

bot-kade ‘a kind of temple’ bot ‘idol’

bɑr-ɡɑh ‘palace, royal building’ bɑr ‘levee’

bɑr-var ‘fruitful’ bɑr ‘fruit, load’

bɑzdɑʃt-ɡɑh ‘detention centre’ bɑzdɑʃt

tɑɢ-ʧe ‘niche’ tɑɢ ‘arch, an arched roof, vault’

dar-bɑn ‘doorman’ dar ‘door’

dar-ɡɑh ‘threshold’ dar ‘door’

dast-ɡir ‘arrested’ dast ‘hand’

dɑneʃ-ʤu ‘university student’ dɑneʃ ‘knowledge’ (dɑn + eʃ)

dɑneʃ-kade ‘faculty as in ‘faculty of arts’’ dɑneʃ ‘knowledge’ (dɑn + eʃ)

kɑr-ɡɑh ‘atelier, workshop’ kɑr ‘work’

kɑr-mand ‘employee’ kɑr ‘work’

ɡandom-zɑr ‘wheat field’ ɡandom ‘wheat’

ɡaʧ-kɑr ‘plasterer’ ɡaʧ ‘plaster’

ɡol-zɑr ‘flower field’ ɡol ‘flower’

ɡoruh-bɑn ‘sergeant’ ɡoruh ‘group’

ɡuʃ-vɑre ‘earrings’ ɡuʃ ‘ear’

ɢalam-dun ‘pen-case’ ɢalam ‘pen’

ɢam-ɡin ‘sad’ ɢam ‘sadness’

462

ɢazab-nɑk ‘frustrated’ ɢazab ‘frustration’

ɢodrat-mand ‘powerful’ ɢodrat ‘power’

sahar-ɡɑh ‘early morning’ sahar ‘early morning’

sanduɢ-ʧe ‘small chest’ sanduɢ ‘chest, box’

saxt-ɡir ‘strict’ saxt ‘difficult, severe’

servat-mand ‘rich’ servat ‘wealth’

suɡ-vɑr ‘mourner’ suɡ ‘mourning’

ʃamʔ-dun ‘candle holder’ ʃamʔ ‘candel’

ʃarm-ɡin ‘embarrassed’ ʃarm ‘embarrassment’

xerad-mand ‘wise’ xerad ‘wisdom’

xaʃm-ɡin ‘angry’ xaʃm ‘anger’

xaʃm-nɑk ‘angry’ xaʃm ‘anger’

xɑb-ɡɑh ‘dormitory’ xɑb ‘sleep’

xɑst-ɡɑh ‘origin’ xɑst ‘past stem of xɑstan ‘to rise’’78

honar-mand ‘artist’ honar ‘art’

mes-ɡar ‘coppersmith’ mes ‘copper’

nɑm-dɑr ‘famous’ nɑm ‘name’

78 xɑstan ‘to rise from which xɑstɡɑh ‘origin’ is formed has a different spelling from xɑstan ‘to want, to desire’ from which xɑstɡɑr ‘suitor’ is formed.

463

Followed by the suffix -i

Real words used in the experiment on the occurrence of -v in suffixation

no ‘new’

mo ‘grape leaf’

ʤo ‘barley’

piʃro ‘leader’

pejro ‘follower’

pɑdo ‘errand boy’

ɑhu ‘deer’

Followed by the suffix -ɑn

abru ‘eyebrow’

piʃro ‘leader’

pejro ‘follower’

pɑdo ‘errand boy’

ɑhu ‘deer’

bɑnu ‘lady’

464

Followed by other suffixes

no ‘new’ + in

ʤo ‘barley’ + in

mo ‘grape leaf’ + estɑn

ʤo ‘barley’ + estɑn

Followed by the suffix -i

Real words used in the experiment on the occurrence of -ɡ in suffixation

bande ‘servant’

zende ‘alive’

Followed by the suffix -ɑn

bande ‘servant’

zende ‘alive’