The Study of Raising of Subject and its Association with the Phase theory in Persian

The movement of the subject from the embedded clause to the matrix clause has fanned the flames for more and more arguments among Persian linguists. In this article, two main questions are discussed: (1) is that the aforementioned movement A-movement or A-bar movement? and (2) what is the association of the movement with phase theory. The method adopted to answer these questions is analytic-descriptive. The first question is dealt with on the basis of freezing principle and successive movement which show that the embedded subject undergoes a-bar movement regardless of the kind of the matrix verb. On the one hand, on the basis of the freezing principle, the subject case feature is checked in the embedded clause, so, it can undergo A-bar movement. On the other hand, successive movement also shows that the subject undergoes A-bar movement to the matrix clauses having so-called raising predicates on the grounds that A-movement leads to improper movement. However, whether the verb is transitive or the so-called raising or passive restricts the movement. If the verb is transitive the displaced subject must appear with ‘ra’, if the matrix verb is so-called raising, it must appear without ‘ra’ and if the matrix verb is passive, it cannot appear in the matrix clause with or without ‘ra’. The appearance of ‘ra’ shows that not only the subject undergoes A-bar movement, but also v is a phase head in Persian, because the moved subject must go to the specifier of the transitive matrix vP and receives ‘ra’, then moves to a functional node, which can be either focus phrase or topic phrase. The passive matrix vP doesn’t allow the subject to move through its specifier and on the basis of induction, it can be claimed that the subject moves through the specifier of the so-called raising predicates. As a result, it seems that vP is a phase phrase in Persian.