Gilaki Clitics: A Typological Study

To consider significant variation of dialects of Gilaki Language and different approaches on the classification of clitics and different usage of this element in the Iranian dialects and languages, writer purposes to determine variation of clitics in Gilaki language, various features of clitics and their position in this language. There are two questions here: 1-how is typological verity of clitic and its feature in Gilaki language? 2- where is the position of clitic in the sentences of this language? it seems that there is same varity of clitic in three dialect divisions of Gilaki and clitic occupy second position into the sentences of this language. linguistic data of Gilaki has been investigated on the basis of a questionnaire of Max Plank written on typological investigations of clitics on which It has been analyzed in 5 separable parts including general features of the language, categories, specific features, place of clitics in the phrases and its movement. Collected data from three branches including west, east and Galeshi has been analyzed on basis of descriptive- analytical- comparative method. The results will express that there is sameness of clitics among three mentioned branches of Gilaki. Generally we can observe pronoun pre-clitics connected to objective symbol, Objective symbol post-clitics /ǝ/, emphasis clitics and post- clitics of the symbol of conjunction /O/ in Gilaki language.There aren’t Post-clitics of personal pronouns connected to nouns, verbs, adverb and adjectives in this language. It isn't possible to move clitics to the prior position. Indeed considering the investigations, Wackernagel’s law about second position is verifiable for Gilaki language.



1. Introduction

Gilaki is one of Iranian northwest languages and a member of Caspian seaboard languages. It has many differences with Persian and many similarities to Medes, Parthian and Avestan languages (Stilo, 2001). In this article, we will present a typological analysis on clitics in three geographical divisions of Gilaki language. We intend to utilize some of typological devices from Max Planck linguistics institute to determine the varieties of clitics, its feature and the position of this element in Gilaki language. Generally, distribution and operation of clitics as a significant concept of morpho-phonemic studies are investigated in this project and our main theoretical approach is linguistic typology.

There are two questions here:

1-how about typological variety of clitics and its features in Gilaki language?

2- where is the position of clitics in the sentences of this language?



2. Literature

2.1. This is level 2

Zwicky (1977) has analyzed the clitics and Sportich (1992) has focused on the structure of clitics. Condoravdi and Kiparsky (2004) in their article entitled “ Clitics and Clause structure” have investigated the clitics variety in the middle and contemporary Greek language. They believe that some of clitics in some of dialects of this language find their roots in a projection of inflectional clause and they belong to a verbal head in other dialects. Anderson (2005) expresses that pronouns are so common to be as clitics and pronominal clitics have their specific features which some of them are relevant to being clitics and some of them are not.

Moreover, there are many Iranian researches on clitics. Shaghaghi (2006) has presented a definition of clitics and its features. Rasekh Mahand (2010) believes that all of pronominl clitics in the languages all around the world are located in two positions: 1- Wackernagel’s position. It means after the first words of sentences or constitutions. 2- before or after the verbs of sentences or constitutions located before the verbs. Sarahi and Alinejad (2014) have investigated clitics in Persian language typologically. Alinejad and Mohammadi (2015) have analyzed clitics in Surani dialects of Kurdish language and its collaboration with prepositions. Mazinani, alizade and Sharifi (2017) have shown that evolution of clitics in Persian language presents a good explanation of inconsistence of this language with Dryer’s vigesimal standards and Greenberg’s No. 20 universal. SabzAlipour and Vaezi (2019) have discovered the function of clitics in agreement system instead of verbal pronoun and lack of doubling clitics in Dorvi dialect of Tati language.



3. Methodology

Throughout the current research , linguistic data of Gilaki has been gathered via field research on native speakers of some villages and towns of Guilan province. Then the data has been investigated on the basis of a questionnaire of Max Plank written on typological investigations of clitics on which it has been analyzed in 5 separable parts including general features of the language, categories, specific features, place of clitics in the phrases and its movement. Collected data from three branches including west, east and Galeshi has been analyzed on basis of descriptive- analytical- comparative method.



4.Results

The results will express that there is sameness of clitics among three mentioned branches of Gilaki. Generally we can observe pronominal pre-clitics connected to objective symbol, Objective symbol post-clitics /ǝ/, emphasis clitics and post- clitics of the symbol of conjunction /O/ in Gilaki language. There aren’t Post-clitics of personal pronouns connected to nouns, verbs, adverb and adjectives in this language. It isn't possible to move clitics to the prior position. Indeed considering the investigations, Wackernagel’s law about second position is verifiable for Gilaki language.



Table of results





Linguistic Features (+/-)
B pish B pas
Galeshi




SOV order
+ +
+


post position and GN
+ +
+


prodrop
+ +
+


objective clitics
+ +
+


pronominal clitics of verb


-


-


pronominal clitics of adverb


-









pronominal clitics of adjective
- -
-


pronominal clitics of noun


-


-


pronominal clitics of preposition
+ +
+


interrogative and negative clitics


-


-


emphasis clitics
+ +
+


conjunction clitics
+ +
+


genitive specifier clitics
+ +
+


NPs order
+ +
+


enclitics and postclitics
+ +
+


first position of clitics


-









second position of clitics
+ +
+


stress of clitics


-


-


double clitics


-


-


junction of clitics


-


-


movement to the end of phrase
+ +
+