Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-npj9w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-09T13:42:45.238Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Negation in Persian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Saera Kwak
Saera Kwak*
Affiliation:
department of Persian at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Seoul, Korea)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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

Information

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

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

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

3 Chomsky, N., “Minimalist Inquiries: The Framework,” in Step by Step: Essays on Minimalist Syntax in Honour of Howard Lasnik, ed. by Martin, R., Michaels, D. and Uriagereka, J. (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 89–155Google Scholar; Chomsky, N., “Derivation by Phase,” in Ken Hale: A Life in Language, ed. by Kenstowicz, M. (Cambridge, MA, 2001), 1–52.Google Scholar

4 Halle, M. and Marantz, A., “Distributed Morphology and the Pieces of Inflection,” in The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Brornberger, ed. by Hale, K. and Keyser, S. J. (Cambridge, MA, 1993), 111–176Google Scholar.

5 Kwak, S., “The Syntactic Structures of Negation in Persian,” paper presented at the Second International Conference on Iranian Linguistics (Hamburg, 2007)Google Scholar.

6 Payne, J., “Negation,” in Language Typology and Syntactic Description Vol. 1, ed. by Shopen, T. (Bath, 1985), 240.Google Scholar

7 Mahootian, S., Persian (London, 1997), 90.Google Scholar

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

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

e.g.) Nessuno ha letto niente.

Nobody has read nothing.

Nobody read anything.

10 Progovac, L., Negative and Positive Polarity: A Binding Approach (Cambridge, UK, 1994), 62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Giannakidou, A., “Negative…Concord?,” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 18 (2000): 458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Vallduv, E.í, “Polarity Items, n-words and Minimizes, in Catalan and Spanish,” Probus, 6 (1994): 263–294CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Giannakidou, “Negative…Concord?”

13 Watanabe, “The Genesis of Negative Concord,” 562.

15 The Greek example from Giannakidou, “Negative…Concord?”

14 Laka, M., “Negation in Syntax: On the Nature of Functional Categories and Projections” (PhD diss., Cambridge, MA, 1990)Google Scholar; Giannakidou, “Negative…Concord?”; Watanabe, “The Genesis of Negative Concord.”

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

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

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

19 This is not an exhaustive list of NSIs.

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

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

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

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

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

25 Baker, C. L., “The Syntax of English Not: The Limits of Core Grammer,” Linguistic Inquiry, 22 (1991): 387–429Google Scholar; Pollock, J. Y., “Verb Movement, Universal Grammar, and the Structure of IP,” Linguistic Inquiry, 20 (1989): 365–424Google Scholar; Taleghani, A., “The Interaction of Modality, Aspect and Negation in Persian” (PhD diss., Arizona, 2006)Google Scholar; Kwak, “Sāxt-e jomalāt-e manfi dar zabān-e fārsi.”

26 Kwak, “Sāxt-e jomalāt-e manfi dar zabān-e fārsi”, 99.

28 Karimi, A Minimalist Approach to Scrambling, 146.

27 Karimi, S., A Minimalist Approach to Scarambling (Berlin, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Minimal Link Condition (MLC). K attracts α only if there is no β, β closer to K than α such that K attracts β. (Chomsky, N., The Minimalist Program (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 311Google Scholar).

29 Kwak, “Sāxt-e jomalāt-e manfi dar zabān-e fārsi,” 101.

30 Potsdam, E., “NegP and Subjunctive Complements in English,” Linguistic Inquiry, 28 (1997): 534Google Scholar; Bresnan, J., “On the Form and Functioning of Transformations” Linguistic Inquiry, 7 (1976): 3–40Google Scholar

31 Kwak, “Sāxt-e jomalāt-e manfi dar zabān-e fārsi,” 102.

32 Laka, “Negation in Syntax”; Taleghani, “The Interaction of Modality.”

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

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

34 Ouhalla, J., Functional Categories and Parametric Variation: Theoretical Linguistics Series (London, 1991).Google Scholar

36 Chomsky, The Minimalist Program.

37 Haegeman, L., The Syntax of Negation (Cambridge, 1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar