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Quantification in Persian

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Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language: Volume II

Part of the book series: Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy ((SLAP,volume 97))

Abstract

Persian is a member of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It has three main dialects: Dari, a national language of Afghanistan; Farsi, the national language of Iran; and, Tajiki, the national language of Tajikistan. This article covers only the Iranian variety, specifically the standard dialect of Tehran. The informal, spoken register of Persian diverges substantially from its more formal, written register, both because of standardization and influence from earlier forms of the language attested in its long written history.

We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer and the editors, whose questions and comments greatly contributed to an improved survey of quantification in Persian.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://forum.ubuntu.ir/index.php?action=recent;start=40, August 6, 2014.

  2. 2.

    http://goo.gl/VpEudv, August 6, 2014.

  3. 3.

    http://goo.gl/1fsfnv, August 6, 2014.

  4. 4.

    There may be some variation in how acceptable the indefinite enclitic is in the subject position of questions. A reviewer finds 21b perfectly acceptable, but 21a awkward at best.

  5. 5.

    A reviewer reports difficulty in interpreting dotâ moallem ‘two teachers’ as definite in 38a. We suspect this is because these written examples may be prosodically ambiguous and prosody helps to disambiguate the indefinite and definite interpretations for the subject.

    1. (i)

      Do-tâ moallem un ketâb=o xaríd-an.

      two- CL teacher that book=PL buy.PST-3PL

      ‘Two teachers bought that book.’

    2. (ii)

      Do-tâ moallém un ketâb=o xarid-an.

      two- CL teacher that book=PL buy.PST-3PL

      ‘The two teachers bought that book.’

    When the nuclear stress falls on the verb, the subject is interpreted as indefinite (i). When the nuclear stress instead falls on the subject, it is interpreted as definite (ii). No doubt there are other patterns of stress and intonation, which also contribute to the interpretation of the subject.

  6. 6.

    A mass noun can, however, be coerced into a kind reading.

    1. (iii)

      Har yax=i birun=e ferizer âb mi-sh-e.

      every ice= IND outside=EZ freezer water IMPF-become.PRS-3SG

      ‘Any ice melts outside of the freezer.’

  7. 7.

    While 58b is clearly ungrammatical, there is more variability in judgements when hame ‘all’ occurs in sentence final position. For some speakers, 58d is only somewhat degraded, while for others, including a reviewer, it is ungrammatical.

  8. 8.

    There is one proportional D-quantifier – chandin ‘many’ – that we have not included here because it is part of the formal language. It is a determiner, since it never takes the classifier suffix -tâ.

    1. (iv)

      Chandin(*-tâ) doxtar unjâ istâd=an.

      many- CL girl there stand.PTCP=be.PRS.3PL

      ‘Many girls are standing there.’

    Given its translation, it is reasonable to suspect that chandin ‘many’ might be an existential quantifier. But it is not intersective; the two sentences in v are not equivalent (see Keenan 1996: 56).

    1. (v)

      Context: An international conference in Turkey where most speakers are American.

      1. a.

        Chandin soxanrân Âmrikâyi hastan.

        many speaker American be.PRS.3PL

        ‘Many speakers are American.’

      2. b.

        Chandin nafar soxanrân=EZ Âmrikâyi hastan.

        many individual speaker=EZ American be.PRS.3PL

        ‘Many people are American speakers.’

    In the context provided, va is true, but vb is false, because many people at a conference are not speakers.

    Interestingly, chandin ‘many’ can be conjoined with chand ‘several, a couple, a few, a number’.

    1. (vi)

      Chandin=o chand maqâle harruz be dast=e mâ mi-res-e.

      many=and several article every.day to hand=EZ us IMPF-arrive.PRS-3SG

      ‘We receive many articles every day.’

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics, University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA

    Maziar Toosarvandani

  2. Department of English, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Yassemi Street, Vali Asr Avenue, Tehran, Iran

    Hayedeh Nasser

Authors
  1. Maziar Toosarvandani
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  2. Hayedeh Nasser
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Correspondence to Maziar Toosarvandani .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. LORIA (UMR 7503), CNRS, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Denis Paperno

  2. Dept. of Linguistics 3125 Campbell Hall, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Edward L. Keenan

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Toosarvandani, M., Nasser, H. (2017). Quantification in Persian. In: Paperno, D., Keenan, E. (eds) Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language: Volume II. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 97. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44330-0_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44330-0_13

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