Grammaticalization of the Verb "gereftan: to take" and its Modal Functions

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Ph. D. Graduate in Ancient Culture and Languages, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Abstract
There are linguistic forms in New Persian derived from the verb “gereftan: to take” which play a modal role in sentences and indicate hypothetical actions and irrealis modality. In this article, after a review of the literature and theoretical foundations regarding modality and grammaticalization, different functions of the verb “gereftan: to take” are discussed based on a diachronic approach. More specifically, here, evidence extracted from texts written in Old Persian, Middle Persian and New Persian is analyzed to clarify the process of grammaticalization of the verb “gereftan: to take” and its modal functions in the contexts. The results suggest that following a metaphorical extension, in specific contexts, the verb shifted to the beginning of the clause so that the noun phrase object was replaced by a subordinate clause. Thereby, due to mechanisms such as reanalysis and analogy, the first person singular verb in past tense (gereftam), first person singular and plural verb in present tense (giram, girim) and the imperative form of the verb (begir) have gradually lost their lexical characteristics and gone further in the path of grammaticalization to indicate hypothetical actions and irrealis modality.

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References

 
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