A Minimalist Approach Toward the Adjunct Construction in Persian : The Position of Negative Affixes

The current paper examines adjunct construction in Persian, which is an Indo-Iranian language. Various researchers have studied adjuncts and adjunction among different languages. Although Adjuncts and adjunction are very important in Persian language, none of the researchers have examined them based on the Minimalist Program and Functional Grammar. Therefore, the present study sought to review the records of Persian and non-Persian linguistic research studies and to introduce adverbs and prepositional phrases in Persian language. Then, their syntactic position was determined based on Radford (2004). The results showed that in Persian sentences, the structural differences could be made to follow from the semantic one. It was found that the view of adverbial licensing made the overall grammar more restrictive by banning reference to different syntactic structures for different semantic classes of adjuncts.


Introduction 1.
An adjunct is an optional part of a sentence, clause, or phrase that its removal would have no effect on the remainder of the sentence.An adjunct modifies the meaning of its head.It depends on another form, word, or phrase, being an element of clause structure with adverbial function (Lyons, 1968).Affix is a kind of bound morpheme which cannot be used independently.It must be attached to another part called 'root'.Whenever it comes before the root, it is called 'prefix' (Kalbasi, 2001).There are many prefixes in Persian language.However, in this paper, the focus is just on the negative prefixes.
Different studies have examined negative elements and negation among different languages.However, there has been scant attention to this phenomenon in Persian.Some Iranian and non-Iranian linguists and grammarian have discussed this field.For instance, Anvari and Givi (1991), Hajari (1991), Kalbasi (2001) and Shaghaghi (2002) merely discussed the existence of negative prefixes and their classifications.Klima (1964), Lasnik (1972), Pollock (1989) studied negation and negative elements; however, they did not examine their position in the Minimalist Program perspective.As a result, in the present article, having reviewed the Persian and non-Persian studies, the negative Persian affixes are to be introduced.Also, their positions are to be analyzed in accordance with Radford (2004).To respond to the above query, the following research questions were posed: 1. Which stems do host negative suffixes in Persian? 2. How does minimalism analyze negative element in Persian?

Studies of non-Iranian linguists
Pollock (1989) made one the major adjustments regarding the X theory.He paid attention to Inflection phrase (IP= I ) in his study, and divided IP into two smaller parts, namely Tense phrase (T = TP) and Agreement phrase (Agr = AgrP).In other words, morphemes such as, tense, agreement, negation, etc. which are associated with the inflected verb are regarded as a distinct syntactic phrase in the tree diagram of sentence.
Dabir-Moghaddam ( 2004) reconstructed a simple transitive sentence (in English) based on Pollock's (1989) explanations and tree diagrams (Dabir-Moghaddam 2004): (1) Klima ( 1964) stated that negative sentences can be determined by negative elements, which are pre-sentence structures governed immediately by sentence (S).The effect of the preverbal negative element is reflected in specific construction of sentence: (2) a) Inside an auxiliary: Writers have not been accepted invitation.b) As a Noun Phrase subject: Not much rain fell.c) As a part of an adverb of place: They went no where.d) Inside a prepositional modifier: The writers of none of reports thought so.e) In an infinitival complement: I will force you to marry no one.This variety of negative elements does not mean that they belong to that specific constituent.Negative elements can be used optionally as a part of sentence structure with NP subject, predicate, or interrogative WH-marker.Based on this assumption, the negative element structure is in relation with the structure of WH.This relation is not arbitrary.Negative and interrogative elements behave in the same manner with respect to constituent consistency.The influence of preverbal negative elements on evoking indefinite elements in a sentence is the same as the effect of WH.Furthermore, negative (NEG) feature and WH are alike with respect to the possibility of attachment to larger constituents and both of them would result in subject-auxiliary inversion: (3) a.Who (WH + someone) will accept suggestions ?b.No one (NEG + any one) will accept suggestions.c.When (WH + some time) will he marry again ?d.Never (NEG + ever) will he marry again.Klima claims that a negative sentence is determined throughout a NEG feature on a functional head.He also emphasizes on the role of C-command.Regarding the exact position of NEG feature in a sentence, Klima stated that the exact position of negative element in a chain consisting of nominal subject and predicate is not as clear as WH.He proposed two base positions for NEG: (4) ISSN 2039-9340 (print) Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 27 Klima believes WH and NEG may cause in subject-auxiliary inversion in negative and interrogative sentences (Haegeman, 1995).Klima (1964) calls polarity expressions as affective constituent, which include negative, interrogative and conditional expressions.He adds that these constituents must c-command quantifiers and partitives.For example, 'nobody' is an affective expression that must c-command 'anything' which is a partitive, as follow: (5) a. Nobody need do anything.b.
As a matter of fact, Klima asserts that indefinite quantifiers such as any, anyone, etc. are bounded to existence of a ccommanding negative elements (Radford, 2004).He believed that affective verbs like unwilling, afraid, need, and deny are negative inherently and these verbs are opposed to factive verbs like regret (Kiparsky, 1971).While factive verbs presuppose the truth of their complements, affective verbs do not have such a property: (6) a.He denies that he has been there.b.He regrets that he has been there.As a matter of fact, affective verbs license partitives in complement clause: c.He denies / doubts that anything happened.d.He denies / doubts anything.(6d) is ungrammatical, because partitive items must be asymmetrically c-commanded by affective items.Therefore, partitives necessarily must occur in complement clause; however, in example (6d), the affective is used as a direct object that can c-command the affective item; this is mutual-command .
Lasnik (1972) elaborates on Klima's analysis of negation (1964).His analysis is based on the Generative Grammar.Whereas Klima assumes only a single source for 'not' (pre-sentence element), Lasnik postulates two positions for sentential negation: a. Pre-sentences b.Auxiliary verbs (7) Not many arrows didn't hit the target.In (7) the first 'not' comes at initial and co-occurs with the second occurrence of 'no' associated with auxiliary (Aux).The most salient characteristic of Lasnik's analysis is the intimate link he establishes between the sentential operators and the functional heads (Comp).NEG and WH are features associated with the heads of clausal projections; C is associated with the head of CP and I with the head of IP.Furthermore, the presence of NEG and WH features triggers subject -auxiliary inversion leads to I to C movement.
Lasnik believes that NEG and WH as pre-sentential constituents which are generated under Comp.The same has been offered concerning WH.The relation between complementizer C and NEG elements is not clear.According to Lasnik, it seems that I or Aux are the most natural heads to associate NEG element.
Following Klima (1964), Lasnik suggests that those negative elements which cause inversion (not often in 8a) and those which do not (not long ago in 8b) should be assigned two different structures in terms of the position of 'not' in the sentence.For example, 'not' in 'not often' (in 8a) would be generated under Comp and often moves towards the initial position and then combines with 'not'.In 'not long ago' in (8b), on the other hand, 'not' is not the pre-sentential particle, i.e. is not generated under Comp; rather, it is a part of the constituent with which it is associated at D-structure.Its scope is restricted to that constituent .
(8) a.Not often does he digress from his topic.b.Not long ago it rained.The structure of (8a) would be (9a); that is, subject-auxiliary inversion is triggered by NEG under Comp: (9) a.
The structure of ( 8b) is (9b); that is, as Comp does not dominate NEG, there is no trigger for subject-auxiliary inversion (Haegeman, 1995).
If the NEG feature is base generated at the clausal level, it takes clausal scope.If it is base generated at a constituent level, it takes local scope.At S-structure, Lasnik assumes that NEG and pre-posed AdvP in (8a) form one constituent.He proposes that some strings like 'not often' and 'not many men' are surface structure constituents; however, he does not provide any syntactic arguments; rather, he assumes that they are constituents by some stage in the derivation.He also adds that to produce such derived structures there is a late rule, perhaps an 'adjustment' rule.Through this rule which is called Not adjustment (NA), Not is incorporated in to the first constituent to its right (Lasnik, 1972, pp. 12-13).
The consequences of the proposed analysis in Klima and Lasnik's approaches are that a rather powerful 'adjustment' rule is needed to generate sentences such as ( 10): (10) a.Under no circumstance I do it.If one considers this example in the same way as the previous ones, then it would be concluded that underlying NEG feature has to be separated out from the pre-posed constituent.b.
The lowering of NEG in (10b) will have to reach into the complement of the preposition.Under an approach in which the proposition phrase (PP), under any circumstances, raises to NEG, the amalgamation gives rise to problems as well (Haegeman, 1995).

29
which cannot be used independently; they must be attached to another part which called 'root'.Whenever it comes before the root, it would be named 'prefix', and prefix comes before the root.There are many prefixes in Persian language.In the present paper, the focus is just on the negative prefixes.Anvari and Givi (1998) merely take into account four prefixes, namely bi-, na -, n -, and l -.Hajari (1998) determined negative prefixes as n , na, ma, qeir, p d, bi.Xanlari (1998) says that verbs can be presented in two poles: positive and negative.'na-' is used to negate verbs.In the case of imperative mood, it would be called prohibitive verb (negative imperative).It worth to note that 'ma-' is the allomorph of the negative prefix 'na-' in Persian: mazan, nazan (don't bit).Kalbasi (2001) mentions the following negative prefixes: na, p d, n , l .Shaghaghi (2002) presents these prefixes: n , na, zed, p d, bi, l .Here there are some samples which are formed with these prefixes: 1) bi-is a negative prefix that is used with nouns and produces adjectives: bigon h ('not guilty'), biadab (' impolite').2) na-is another negative prefix which is used with adjectives and the outcomes are negative adjectives like: nasanjideh ('unmeasured'), nashodani (' impossible').It is used with nouns to make adjectives: nasepas ('ungrateful').It is used with the verb stem to make adjectives: natars ('fearless'), nasuz ('fireproof').It is also used in compound adjectives, and it is placed before their verbal components: xoda nashnas ('irreligious'), Zaban nafahm ('not amenable to reason').
qeir-is another negative prefix in this language.It is attached to adjectives and produce negative adjectives.It should, of course, be mentioned that in this usage one additional marker (e) comes after qeir-and before adjective: qeir-e rasmi ('informal'), qeir-eqanuni ('illegal').5) zed-is added to nouns to make adjectives.Here again an additional marker (e) comes after zed-and before adjective, like: zed-e b ('waterproof'), zed-e ofuni ('antiseptic').6) l -is a loan Arabic prefix, which is expectedly used with the Arabic loan words is Persian; however, it could be accompanied with Persian words like l morovat ('ungenerous'), l sho'ur ('silly').Nowadays bi-is commonly used instead of l like bimorovat ('ungenerous'), and bisho'ur ('silly').
Classifying Verbs 3. Quirk, Green, Leech, and Svartvik (1985) divides English verbs in to two groups, namely auxiliary verbs (non-lexical) and lexical verbs.They divide auxiliary verbs into two groups of primary auxiliaries such as have, be, and do, and modal auxiliaries such as could, might, must, would, may, should, can, will, and shall (Quirk et al. 1985).Moreover, they introduce marginal modals.These verbs behave like modal verbs in some cases such as used to, ought to, need, dare.Quirk et al. calls them auxiliary modals since "these verbs can just take the role of auxiliaries, not the role of lexical verbs" (Quirk et al. 1985).
Lambton (1966) mentions eight auxiliary verbs in Persian language: šodan ,budan, tav nestan, x stan, goz štan (=ejazeh d dan), b yastan, š yastan andm nestan.He believes that x stan can be used in two different meanings; first, when it is used as the future marker, it has the role of an auxiliary verb; second, by the meaning of inclination, it would be regarded somehow as a lexical verb and it is accompanied with a lexical verb.In this case it should be inflected for all phi features in all paradigms: (11) x h-am raft .will-1sg go-1sg (I will go) (12) mi-x h-am be-rav-am.IND-Will-1sg SUBJ-go-1sg (I will go).
Since there is no agreement among Persian linguists regarding auxiliary verbs' classification, and in order not to be involved in this matter, admitting the distinction between lexical and auxiliary verbs, authors postulate six auxiliary verbs in Persian: šodan ('would'), kardan ('to do'), tav nestan ('can'), x stan ('will'), b yestan ('should/ought to'), and d štan ('be').It would be illustrated that the strength of these verbs, in being lexical or non-lexical, plays a crucial role in prefixation of negative element to the verbs.This characteristic would be represented as a continuum in following pages.
Negative Prefix in Persian Language 4.

Lexical verbs
In Persian, 'na-', as a negative prefix, applies to all simple verbs in imperative sentences except progressive structures.In progressive mood, its allomorph, 'ne-' applies as a negative prefix.Negation in this language is done by adding negative prefix to the verb stem, and, in such a condition, stress would be placed on the negative prefix.
Example (16) shows that, in existential verbs (ast = be) and all the verbs that initiate with a vowel, negative prefix is pronounced in PF as follow : (16) na-ast ni-st NEG-be-3sg NEG-be-3sg Negative prefix 'na-', as the result of vowel harmony between the initial vowel of existential verb (ast= be) and the final vowel of the negative prefix, would be pronounced as 'ni-', and the negative prefix is realized as a part of the stem of the verb, by eliminating the initial vowel: (17) u mariz ni-st .S/He sick NEG-be-3sg (S/He is not sick.) In the same way, as the result of vowel harmony with the final vowel of the negative prefix 'na-' in all the verbs initiating with a vowel, a hiatus consonant (y) is inserted between them, like madan ('to come'), vardan ('to bring'), and morzidan ('to forgive').( 18) na-na-y-NEG -come NEG -y-come-2sg-IMP ('Don't come!')

Compound verbs
In Persian language, compound verbs are made by combination of noun, adjective, adverb, and preposition with the stem of a verb.The negative prefix, in all these mentioned cases, comes between the two parts of the compound verb, and is attaches to stem of the verb as follow: (19) ISSN 2039-9340 (print) Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences (31) begu na-gu (= ma-gu ( tell-2sg-IMP NEG-tell-2sg-IMP(NEG-tell-2sg-IMP ( ('Don't tell')!
Maryam NEG-IND-can-3sg lie SUBJ-tell-3sg ('Maryam cannot lie').However, in the marked cases, stress and intonation have specific effect on negation; there is a particular collocation between negative and focal elements.This phenomenon is known in English as well.
(  (1987), quoted by Reesink (1986), points out that SOV languages generally do not allow negation of regular quantifiers.This is supported by Payne (1985) who notes that not all languages permits negations like 'not many' and 'not all'.He notes Persian (which is an Indo-Iranian language) as one of these languages (Kahrel, 1994).Therefore, in standard Persian, there is no way to use negative element with regular quantifiers like har, hame, beseyari, and xeyli .
*(61) na hame-y-e kasâni ke da'vat šodand , mad-and .NEG all-hiatus-EZA people that invite-PASS come-PAST-3pl ('Not all the people which have been invited, came.')Authors believe that, to account for this kind of restriction in Persian, one should say that auxiliaries carry strong NEG feature in the negative sentences; nevertheless, it is the main verb which carry this feature .
Negative element in unmarked negative sentences, would be presented as follow: a) na-: all simple verbs -declarative sentences b) ne-: verbs with durative mood c) ni-: existential and copula verbs d) ma-: imperative verbs and literal texts Negative Prefix Position in Persian Based on Radford 5. Radford (2004) posits that an interrogative C is filled by a null question particle Q, and that Q attracts auxiliaries; therefore, auxiliaries move from T to C to attach to it, filling the strong C position.One possibility is to follow Chomsky (1995) in supposing that Q is affixal in nature and attracts an overt head to attach to it.Since affixes generally only attach to a particular kind of word (e.g. the past-tense-d affix can attach to verbs but not nouns, prepositions or adjectives), and since only tensed auxiliaries move to C, one implementation of this idea suggested in Chomsky ( 1993) is to suppose that Q carries a strong tense feature, and, hence, attracts the head T constituent of TP to move from T to C to attach to the invisible Q affix in C) (Radford, 2004).
(65) a.Will you marry me ?b.
It should be noted that for this movement T must be c-commanded by C. Another example that Radford (2004) points out is the subject-verb agreement in absence of auxiliary; as a result, there is no overt auxiliary in T. T, in presentday English, contains a weak Tns affix (more specifically, an affix with a weak V-feature), and a weak Tns affix cannot attract a verb to move from V to T (as opposed to Elizabethan English in which verbs use to move).However, in presentday English, the main verb carries strong Aux-feature, which causes lowering of Tns affix on to the main verbs.Radford adds that in such auxiliariless clauses, the weak tens affix in T undergoes the morphological operation of Affix Hopping in the PF component (Radford, 2004) .
The interesting characteristic of this proposal is that, affix hopping occurs in the opposite direction of movements which used to be considered in minimalist program.It means that, movements in minimalist program are a kind of merging from bottom of the tree diagram toward its top.But affix hopping takes place vice versa (from upper head to lower one), lowering the affix on to the main verb in the manner shown by the arrow in (66) below: (66) a.He enjoys syntax 37 Thus, based on Radford's suggestion, particular constituents carry specific properties which attract other particular elements or cause them to move.According to the adjustment proposed by Pollock (1989), in which IP has been splited into two smaller phrases, i.e.TP and AgrP, and considering other independent syntactic nodes, i.e.NegP, which is located between TP and VP (Dabir-Moghaddam, 2004), Persian negative sentences would be presented as follow: (67) a. man qazâ-i ne-mi-xor-am I food-INDEF NEG-IND -eat-1sg ('I do not eat food.')b.
In (67) the main verb carries strong NEG feature which causes the negative prefix to attract to the verb, which is done by virtue of affix hopping.
In (68) there are both main and auxiliary verb.In unmarked cases the NEG feature on the auxiliary is stronger than this feature on the main verb, which can attract the NEG feature on to T. Hence, 'a head to head movement' occurs.
In Persian marked negative sentences, despite the presence of the auxiliary, and as a result of the main verb carrying stressed emphasis, the negative prefix is attached to the main verb through affix hopping, not to the auxiliary.In the examples below, the emphatic stress is shown by capital letters .38 In (69) the main verb is emphasized, so the negative prefix is attached to the main verb instead of the auxiliary.On the contrary, we have ( 71 In (71) both the main and auxiliary verbs are emphasized.In this case, two NEG phrases are postulated, which undergo two different processes, i.e. a head to head movement for auxiliary, and an affix hopping for the main verb.

Conclusion 6.
It can be concluded that in Persian negative sentences both auxiliary and main verbs carry strong NEG feature, which causes the negative prefix move from the head of the NegP.This lowering movement is subject to affix hopping when the main verb is involved; on the other hand, whenever the negative element has to attach to an auxiliary (in unmarked cases), the movement will be a kind of head to head movement, and the landing site for the moved negative head is the head of TP, i.e.T, which carries an overt auxiliary.In both operations, prefixation takes place.The last but not the least, Persian data analysis prove that Radford's (2004) proposal is properly applicable in Persian.
, for instance, believes that affix is a kind of bound morphemeISSN 2039-9340 (print)