جنبه‌هاي صوري و معنايي "ساخت جاري‌" در فارسي امروزي‌

Formal and Semantic Aspects of ʹProgressive Constructionʹ in Modern Persian

Introduction An overview of most traditional as well as modem syntactic studies regarding Persian progressive, including l.ambton (1961), Elwell (1963), Gholamalizadeh (1995), Mahutian (1997), Mesbkat-o-dini (2000), Rabimian (\ 995), Rafiee C~OOI) and Mace (2003), shows that formal and semanticpragmatic sides of this structure remain to be investigated, The three basic grammatical concepts, ʹtenseʹ, ʹtimeʹ and ʹaspectʹ, and the ways they Interact with one another in expressing formal categories and their corresponding semantic-pragmatic categories in Modern Persian need a serious reconsideration, A considerable number of syntactic studies discuss over ten different tenses for Persian while this language contains only three ones: past, present and future, Such unrealistic accounts and classifications have their roots in mixing formal and semantic categories. Tense and aspect are Iorrnal categories, whereas time and aspectuality are semantic concepts, Making a clear distinction between the above-mentioned categories, the present study primarily aims at investigating formal and semantic-pragmatic dimensions of the progressive in modern Persian. Except in a certain use, no one-to-one correspondence is expected between formal and semantic uses of the progressive in Modern Persian. Analyzing a good number of sentences as our data, we expect to reveal such distinctions as between ʹtenseʹ and ʹaspectʹ as formal categories as opposed to ʹtimeʹ and ʹaspectualityʹ as semantic-pragmatic concepts. Persian progressive is mainly used in formal and spoken Persian which can be a reason why almost all traditional studies deny its identity as a distinct formal category. Research questions Among the questions to be answered by the research. the following ones seem to be more significant: I. Ts there any direct relationship between progressive as a formal category and progressive events as semantic-pragmatic categories? 2. What are the most frequent uses of Persian progressive structures? 3. How does Persian progressive treat so called punctual and durative verbs" 4. Are there any further means of expressing progressive events besides the progressive? Research method The theoretical framework within which this research is conducted will be Huddleston and Pullum (2002) which is the most comprehensive grammatical study in English during the past 60 years. First, the three concepts tense, time and aspect will be discussed on theoretical terms and it is clearly shown what is meant by these three items. Next, Persian progressive as a formal category will be elaborated. Afterward, using the data taken from authentic Persian sources, we will set out on discussing all possible uses of Persian progressive. Tn discussing different uses of this structure, we especially will show how formal categories differ from their corresponding semantic-pragmatic categories. In this context, the attention of the readers will be drawn to the fact that in the majority of the uses, one cannot find a one-to-one correspondence between formal and semanticpragmatic categories. Results Unlike notional views towards syntactic structures, this study shows that in Modem Persian. the progressive is recognized as a Iormal category distinguished from any other structures, including the Imperfective. However. as far as semantic-pragmatic dimensions are concerned, this structure has many common uses with the imperfective. though they are heavily context dependent. According to this study, lack of one-to-one correspondence between progressive as a formal category and progressive as a semantic-pragmatic can be seen in a considerable number of uses. Besides, expressing events in progress, the progressive is frequently used in expressing events about to happen. This study reveals striking semanticpragmatic differences between progressive structures carrying punctual verbs compared to those containing durative verbs. Tn Persian. unlike languages such as English. stative and action verbs both are used with the progressive though they are of quite different aspectual features. Discussion and Conclusion In this paper I had a comprehensive analysis of the progressive In Modern Persian and defended its autonomous formal and semantic identity. The results show that the only case where the formal and semantic sides of the progressive correspond to each other is with events in progress. The study, however, discovered and discussed many instances where there is no one-to-one correspondence between formal and semantic-pragmatic categories. This lack of correspondence can be shown in terms of ʹtenseʹ, ʹtimeʹ and ʹaspectʹ of the events. As far as the relationship between tense and time of the events are concerned, a large amount of the data shuwed lack of correspondence between the two. For instance, the tense of the sentence was frequently present while its time was future. As far as aspectuality is concerned, according to the data the formal aspect of the events frequently differs from its semantic aspect. For example, in many sentences while the formal aspect of the event was progressive, their semantic aspect was either perfective or imperfective. Finally, one should note that the progressive is not the only means of expressing events in progress. Rather, progression can be expressed through certain lexical items along with budan (ʹbeʹ) as well as other infinitives. Even certain prepositional phrase has a desirable capacity in conveying progressive situations and events.