Crossing Dependencies in Persian

• Main Author: Dehdari, Jonathan M.
• Format: Others
• Published: BYU ScholarsArchive 2006
• Subjects: Persian; Farsi; crossing dependencies; cross-serial dependencies; context-free grammar; planarity; split headedness; syntax; linguistics; BYU; Linguistics
• Online Access: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/732; https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1731&context=etd

Languages occasionally have syntactic constructions that are difficult, if not impossible, to describe using a context-free grammar. One such construction is a crossing dependency. Crossing dependencies have been well studied for Dutch and Swiss German (Huybregts, 1976; Shieber, 1985), and recently for Tagalog (Maclachlan and Rambow, 2003). In this paper I propose that Persian exhibits crossing dependencies. In this SOV language, a light verb construction in the future tense becomes interrupted by a future auxiliary verb, which agrees with its subject in person and number. The future auxiliary also splits passive constructions in a similar manner. These forms present interesting challenges for computational models of language. I will discuss implications of this phenomenon within current formal and linguistic theories.