Order and Strategy in the Construction of Noun Phrases in the Linguistic Varieties of Shemiranat مقالة

خلاصة:

Introduction Shemiranat, a county in the northern part of Tehran Province, consists of three rural districts of Rudbar-e Qasran, Lavasan-e Kuchak, and Lavasan-e Bozorg, located in western, central, and eastern parts of this county, respectively. The language varieties spoken in this region are considered a combination of Persian and Mazandarani and are expected to represent morphosyntactic variations in their constructions. The present study explores the internal structure of attributive and genitive noun phrases and their formalization in language varieties of Shemiranat, spoken in the rural districts of this county, from an areal typology perspective. It investigates the areal distribution of their patterns and the dominant tendency (Persian or Mazandarani) in their formation. Research Methodology and Approach: This study is a descriptive-analytical exploration, with data collected through fieldwork conducted for the Iran Linguistic Atlas (ILA) project in 41 rural areas of Shemiranat County. For this study, the dialectal equivalent of 8 noun phrases with singular nominal head (5 with attributive modifiers and 3 with genitive modifiers) were extracted from the ILA questionnaire. Three hundred and twenty-eight tokens of noun phrases were analyzed based on Croft’s typological framework (2003) at two levels: order and strategy. Results and Discussion Of the 328 noun phrases extracted, 205 tokens were attributive noun phrases. Based on order and strategy, these phrases were formalized in four patterns: noun-linker-modifier (N-LNK-M) , modifier-linker-noun (M-LNK-N) , noun-modifier (N-M) , and modifier-noun (M-N). The dominant order was ‘noun-modifier,’ and the basic strategy for their formalization was linker – that is, N-LNK-M (157 tokens). A total of 123 tokens had genitive construction, with their modifiers being nominal. These phrases were formalized in 7 patterns. Six of these patterns corresponded to patterns discussed by Croft (2003) , while the last pattern represented the projection of the noun phrase with an eventive nominal head as a complement or a relative clause. These patterns are: N-LNK-M, M-LNK-N, N-M, M-N, M-TNS (concatenation) , M-ø (fusion) , and V-SBJ (the eventive nominal head as a verb and its modifier as the subject of the clause). As with attributive noun phrases, the dominant order in genitive noun phrases was ‘noun-modifier,’ and the basic strategy for their formalization was linker – that is, N-LNK-M (85 tokens). In all tokens, the linker was accommodated by the first element of the noun phrase. In other words, in Shemiranat language varieties, whether the order is ‘noun-modifier’ or ‘modifier-noun’ the first syntactic element is the host of the linker. Therefore, in these varieties, a linker can function either as a head-marker or a dependent-marker. It some cases, it can also have a zero projection. Overall, with respect to the features Croft (2003, p. 40) suggests for the typology of the relation between the elements of the noun phrase in the world’s languages, a considerable variation in the internal structure of these phrases was found: Table 1. Typological features of the relation between elements of the noun phrases typological features forms in the word’s languages forms in Shemiranat language varieties salient forms in Shemiranat language varieties additional morpheme none, relational, indexical, linker none, relational, indexical, linker linker degree of fusion of elements none, concatenation, fusion none, concatenation, fusion none order of elements noun-modifier modifier-noun noun-modifier modifier-noun noun-modifier The main difference between Persian and Mazandarani lies in the order and strategy they apply in noun phrase construction. The dominant order in Persian attributive and genitive noun phrases is ‘noun-modifier,’ and the basic strategy in their structure is the use of a linker. In Mazandarani, however, the basic order is ‘modifier-noun’, constructed through two strategies: linker and juxtaposition: Figure 1. Tendency of Shemiranat language varieties to Persian and Mazandarani languages As illustrated in Figure 2, the dominant pattern in the formalization of attributive and genitive noun phrases in Shemiranat dialects is N-LNK-M, corresponding to the Persian language pattern. Nevertheless, due to the absence of a linker, we observed a sort of divergence from the Persian pattern in some areas, represented as N-M. The two remaining patterns, M-LNK-N and M-N, which had approximately similar distribution, are those found in the internal structure of Mazandarani’s noun phrases. The locations are shown in Figure 2: Figure 2. local status of Mazandarani patterns in Shemiranat rural districts Among the 21 rural areas of Rudbar-e Qasran District, in the 4 western parts of Shemiranat, the application of ‘modifier-noun’ order with juxtaposition and linker strategies is current in 13 areas. In contrast, in Lavasan-e Bozorg, the eastern part of this region, only one area, Ira, employs the dominant order for noun phrase formation in Mazandarani. Ira, the last village of Shemiranat, is located in the vicinity of Damavand’s Mazandarani-speaking rural areas. It’s zonal position, coterminous with the Mazandarani-speaking district of Damavand, has allowed it to get less influenced by areal contact and keeping linguistic features of Mazandarani in the internal structure of noun phrases. In the central part of Shemiranat, Lavasan-e Kuchak District, the employed pattern is uniformly N-LNK-M, the dominant pattern in Persian. Therefore, language varieties in this central region, as well as in the eastern part, show stronger influence from Persian, converging into its pattern of order and strategy for noun phrase formation. Areal typology of the noun phrase tokens indicates that, except for Ira, the usage of ‘modifier-noun’ order has declined in attributive/genitive constructions in central and eastern parts of Shemiranat, while the employment of ‘noun-modifier’ order has been reinforced. Conclusion Our findings indicate that language varieties of Shemiranat County, based on patterns of order and strategy for noun phrase formation, mostly resemble Persian (78%) and can be classified within the branch of West southern Iranian languages. A few varieties share the same order as Persian but use the same strategy as Mazandarani (3%). A limited number of varieties apply the same patterns of order and strategy as Mazandarani in forming attributive and genitive noun phrases (19%) and, with respect to noun phrase formation, can be classified in the branch of Caspian languages. The areal distribution of patterns in the noun phrases examined in this study reveals that more than half of the western part of Shemiranat, Rudbar-e Qasran District, tends to use Mazandarani patterns of order and strategy. In contrast, in the central and eastern parts of this county, Lavasan-e Kuchak and Lavasan-e Bozorg districts, the dominant tendency is to employ Persian patterns of order and strategy for noun phrase formation.