Study of thematic roles of Persian Complex Predicates: based on Proto-role Hypothesis

Abstract

Complex Predicates (CPr)s are one of the most controversial concepts among linguists focused on Iranian languages. One of the topics which have gathered the attention of many scholars considers the thematic role of the constructions and the different components of the complex predicate, namely, the non-verbal element (NV) and the light verb (LV). In this research, we review the literature on Persian complex predicates and discuss their different elements. In addition, we will focus on how these theories, model the role of NVs and LVs in the assignment of the thematic roles.

In continue, we review the approaches towards thematic roles from theoretical aspects and psycholinguistic points of view. Finally, we explain why we have chosen the approach of Dowty (1991) for this research. In this research, by using White et al. (2016)’s dataset, we made a list of entities that have the lexical properties of the proto-roles of Dowty. These entities were used as choices in a questionnaire, which was made of Persian CPr constructions, including constructions with meaningful and nonce NVs.

At the end of this research by deriving empirical data, we propose a model, which can give us a prediction, on how different LVs can assign one of the proto-roles to the subject of the construction, and how the presence or absence of the NV element can change affect the reading of the speakers.