A Grammar of Iranian Azari
including comparisons with Persian
Yavar Dehghani
This study intends to develop a grammar of Iranian Azari which is spoken mainly in the north western parts of Iran: it consists of phonology, morphology, and the syntax of simple and complex clauses. Since Persian has a prominent influence on this language, the phonology, morphology and syntax of borrowed words are also discussed and when appropriate, the constructions in the language are compared to that of Persian.
Table of Contents: Chapter 1 contains a description of the situation of the language, the language family, the speakers, informants, different dialects, and previous works on the language. Chapter 2 introduces the phonological system of Azari, which includes the discussion of the phonemic inventory, phonological processes, including vowel harmony with an attempt to explain it based on autosegmental theory. Chapter 3 deals with the morphology of the language, trying to distinguish the derivational and inflectional suffixes, and discussing the underlying forms of inflectional suffixes. In this chapter, compounding and reduplication are also discussed. Chapter 4 discusses the syntax of simple clauses including the case system, constituent order, imperatives, copular, interrogative, and passive constructions. In this chapter, the distinction between complements and adjuncts is explored. At the end of this chapter, morphosyntactic borrowings from Persian are discussed. Chapter 5 illustrates the syntax of complex clauses including causative constructions, complement clauses, relative clauses and adverbial clauses. Azari minimal pairs and texts are provided in the Appendix.
LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 30. 280pp. 2000.
ISBN 9783895869914 (print).
ISBN 9783862900015 (e-book, graphic pdf).
