Analyzing the Infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] construction in Khanikian Dialect

Khanik is a historical village in south part of the Kakhk rural district, Gonabad city in Razavi Khorasan Province. Its people use different constructions of infinitive such as [mæ:jstæ:] (shahkoorzadeh, 1984: 599) and [mæstæ] (Rezaei, 1994: 429) in their speech. This verb has different meaning such as “to want”, “to like” and “to desire”. Due to the fact that different constructions of infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] are prevalent in Khanikian dialect, it is one of the most applied verb in this dialect. This verb is mostly used as an auxiliary, while it is also used as an independent or main verb, it has a memorial history to speaker and listener. Some verbs of infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] are seen in Persian texts of 4^th and 5^th century. This infinitive, verb or a construction of it aren’t present in great and valid dictionaries such as Borhan-e Ghate or Dehkhoda dictionary. In addition, there isn’t any trace of it in Old Persian languages. Different verbs of this infinitive have basic differences with standard Persian language such as having two stems.

The main questions of this research is about the way of constructing the rare infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] and its nature.

Research questions:


Are the past and present stems of the infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] different in Khanikian dialect?
What are the tenses, constructions and species of this infinitive in the past, future and imperative?
Is there a verb or a construction which is not in standard Persian?

Hypotheses:


Difference in past and present stems is prevalent in this infinitive, which is remained since ancient Iranian languages.
There are vast variety in present stems too.
Building method of verbs of this infinitive is different from standard Persian and other verbs of Khanikian dialect.

Methodology:

The method of this research was based on traditional dialectology, in which researcher talked with speakers and records their voices. Then the questionnaire which had been filled by people, were analyzed.

In this research which is the first one in its kind, different constructions of rare infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] in the past, present, future, interrogative forms, negative forms and imperative forms are described and analyzed. There are several differences among verbs of this infinitive with standard Persian. The most important point of infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] is its high frequency and diversity in present and past form.

There aren’t such diversities in other verbs of Khanikian dialect, especially in present form. In addition to current tenses in standard Persian, this infinitive has some other tenses which are not in Persian or other dialects (Ekhtiari, 2015: 36–45). A) Past tenses of infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] are included:


Simple past: with [x] and

with [bæ]


Past progressive: with [x]
Present perfect: with [xæ] and

with [bæ]


Present perfect progressive: with [xæ] and

with [bæ] (it rarely applies except than in first person)


Past subjunctive: with [xæ] and

with [bæ]

in special case (due to the replacement of identifier) with [xæ]

Past progressive subjunctive: with [bæ]

in special case with [xæ] (due to the replacement of identifier)


Past perfect: with [x]
Past perfect (in future form): (past in future), it isn’t in old or current Persian such as [ma:yesta m boda bo bor om] (Ekhtiari, 2016: 34-36)
Past perfect progressive: with [x], Past perfect and past perfect progressive hasn’t heard with [bæ]
Ab?ad (in past present perfect form): with [x]
Ab?ad (in progressive form): with [xæ]



B) Present and future tenses:

Simple present in Khanikian dialect has 12 different constructions such as simple future, future progressive and interrogative form. Some important differences of infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] and four constructions with standard Persian language are as follows:

Lack of infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] and its different constructions in standard Persian language. For example past progressive subjunctive, future progressive and present perfect in future are not in standard Persian.
Infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] has some present stems or roots which are in contrast with present stems in standard Persian.
There are some tenses of [mæ:jstæ:] in Khanikian dialect which standard Persian doesn’t have them.
Present and past intensifiers are different in construction of infinitive

[mæ:jstæ:], while in standard Persian six intensifiers in past and present are used alike.

Making negative form of this infinitive, is in contrast with most verbs of the dialect. Sharifi (2011) believes in respect that “when there is negative element in verb construction, it is just after verbal prefix.” (Sharifi: 2011, 10), but in opposite of what is prevalent in most verbs of Khanikian dialect, verbs of infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] don’t have prefix and its negative form is in contrary with rules of other verbs in this dialect. For example positive form from a regular verb [var guftan] (to say) in this dialect is [vær gujʊ m] (I say) which its negative is [vær næ gujʊ m] (I don’t say), but when it comes with auxiliary verb from infinitive [mæ:jstæ:] negative mark is added at the beginning of auxiliary verb and it does not replace the place of identifier: [næ mæ m værgu: jʊm] (I don’t want to say).

Introducing and reviving of this infinitive will help reconstruct about 500 verbs of Persian language (its past, present, future, negative, imperative and interrogative forms) which some of them are used in old text of Persian. In addition, its different method of verb construction will help Persian language ministration in word making.