Number in the Gilaki language

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ph.D. student in general linguistics, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Literature, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant professor, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Literature, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

This paper aims to address the representation of number in the Gilaki language,Lahijani dialect.Number, in this language, interacts with various facets of linguistics, pragmatics and sociology.The data has been collected from the daily speech of the native speakers and the linguistic intuition of one of the authors. Pronouns have different forms in terms of number and in nominative, accusative and genitive cases.In noun phrases, the presence of the plural marker along with the classifier results in ill-formed structures whereas, the plural morpheme is obligatorily realized in definite noun phrases for the construction to be grammatical. Reduplication is a process that interacts with number;The reduplicant along with the base is used to refer to a certain category in some contexts.In coordination constructions, despite the fact that both elements are considered plural, if both of them belong to the same category(e.g., stationeries), the plural marker can also appear only on the second element. Concerning politeness, the second person plural pronoun and the plural personal ending of the verb are used to address a person, which indicates inconsistency between the form and meaning of plural.In certain contexts, there are formal or notional inconsistencies regarding number agreement due to politeness measures, genericity or animacy.

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