ترتیب واژه‌ها، مطابقه و حالت‌نمایی درگویش‌ افتری

This article presents a typological analysis of Aftari, a North western Iranian language, focusing on its word order, agreement and case marking system. The analysis, framed by the work of Dryer (1992), Comrie (1978) and Dabir-Moghaddam (1402), identifies Aftari as a predominantly head-final (OV) language, despite some minor VO characteristics. The dialect's primary feature is a split agreement system conditioned by tense and transitivity. A nominative-accusative pattern is used for intransitive verbs (past and present) and present-tense transitive verbs. In contrast, past-tense transitive verbs exhibit a tripartite system, distinctly marking the intransitive subject, transitive agent, and transitive patient. This complexity is enhanced by the use of pronominal clitics for person marking in specific constructions, notably with the verbs "xâstæn" (to want) (past and present), "tævânestæn" (to be able) (past intransitive and transitive), and transitive light verb like "kærdæn" and "zædæn" in intransitive compounds, (past). This dialect also benefits from case marking. Since the subject of intransitive verbs (past and present) and the subject of transitive verbs (past and present) have a direct case, while the object of transitive verbs (past and present) has an oblique case, this dialect exhibits a nominative-accusative case system.
 
Extended Abstract
1.Introduction
Language typology is a branch of linguistics which studies the systematic similarities and differences between the different languages of the world and compares the morphological and syntactic structures between different languages without considering their background. The analysis, framed by the work of Dryer (1992), Comrie (1978) and Dabir-Moghaddam (1402), examined word order, agreement system and case marking in Aftari. Aftari is a North western Iranian language spoken in Aftar, a village located in Semnan Province in Iran. This village has a population of nearly 1,222 people, according to the 2016 census. Three tribes, Esteqâqi, Bâʔi, and Ziyâri, reside in Aftar. With the expansion of urbanization and the migration of the people of this village to cities and other regions, and the influence of Persian as the standard language, this dialect is considered as an endangered language. In this article, we aim to answer the following questions: a) According to Dryer's (1992) branching direction theory, which typological pattern of word order does Aftari correspond to, that is, verb-final or verb-medial? b) What is the typological status of Aftari in the Eurasia region and the world as a whole? c) How does the system of agreement and case marking in Aftari align with the five patterns presented in Comrie's (1978) article?
2.Theoretical Framework
Dryer (1992) introduced the branching direction theory as an alternative to the head-dependent theory (HDT). In the branching direction theory, non-group categories are considered the verb patterner and group categories are considered object patterner. In this theory, languages ​​belong to one of two patterns: right-branching, (VO) languages, in which group categories come after non-group categories, and left-branching (OV) languages, in which group categories come before non-group categories. Dabir-Moghaddam (1402) has chosen Dryer's (1992) article to determine the typological pattern of word order in Persian and other Iranian languages. In order to examine correlation pairs according to the order of verb and object, Dryer divides the 625 languages in his database into six major geographical regions based on language groups: Africa, Europe-Asia excluding Southeast Asia and Oceania, Australia and New Guinea, North America, and South America. For each geographical region, he shows the correlation statistics between the desired component and the order of "object + verb" and "verb + object" separately. Another topic discussed in this article is agreement system and case marking. Comrie (1978, 1989) proposes five possible systems for assigning case to the main sentence structures. Comrie’s (1978) article, ergativity, is actually considered a standard approach in typological studies. In this article, he categorizes languages into five categories based on, transitive agent (A), intransitive subject (S), and object (P). The first one is the nominative - accusative case, in which the object of the transitive verb is marked differently from the subject of the intransitive verb and the agent of the transitive verb (S=A#O). The second one is the ergative - absolutive, where the transitive agent is marked differently from the intransitive subject and the object (S=O#A). The third one is neutral, where the three grammatical functions have the same marking (S=A=O). The fourth one is a tripartite one, with the three grammatical functions each having their own marking (S#A#O). Comrie has also raised another possibility, in which the subject of the intransitive verb, ​​is marked differently from the agent of the transitive verb and the object of the transitive verb (S#A=O), which he did not name. In his article, when referring to the case marking in an Iranian language, Roshani (a Pamiri language), he called this type horizontal alignment. Dabir- Moghaddam (1402) called this type bipartite.
3.Methodology
The research data was collected in the field, through semi-structured interviews. The linguistic corpus used in this article was prepared based on the questionnaire of the book Typology of Iranian Languages, written by Dabir- Moghadam (1402) and by referring to the native speakers of the Aftari language, both illiterate and literate. First, it was phonetically transcribed, then morphologically, syntactically, and semantically dissected and analyzed using linguistic criteria.
4.Results & Discussion
The results of data analysis indicate that Aftari compared with the world languages, has17 parameters of the strong verb-final languages and 13 parameters of the strong verb- medial languages and in comparison, with Eurasian languages, it has 15 parameters of the strong verb-final languages and 14 parameters of the strong verb-medial languages. The analysis, identifies Aftari as a predominantly head-final (OV) language, despite some minor VO characteristics. After analyzing the case-marking and agreement system, the data indicate that Aftari has a split agreement system based on the characteristics of transitivity and tense, which is represented as nominative-accusative system and tripartite system. The subject of the intransitive verb (S) (past and present) and the agent of the transitive verb (A) (present) have a + direct agreement while the object (P/O) has no agreement, indicating a nominative-accusative agreement system. In contrast, past-tense transitive verbs exhibit a tripartite system, distinctly marking the intransitive subject, transitive agent, and transitive patient. Some cases do not follow the above rule, such as "xâstæn" (past and present) and "tævânestæn" in the past tense (intransitive and transitive) which use pronominal clitics. Transitive light verbs like "kærdæn" and "zædæn" in the intransitive compound verb (past), host pronominal clitics. This dialect also benefits from case marking. Since the subject of intransitive verbs (past and present) and the agent of transitive verbs (past and present) have a + direct case, while the object of transitive verbs (past and present) has an oblique case, this dialect exhibits a nominative -accusative case system.
5.Conclusions & Suggestions
Based on the linguistic evidence presented in this study, it can be concluded that Aftari belongs to verb-final languages ​​in terms of typological features of word order. After analyzing the case-marking and agreement system, the data indicate that Aftari has a split agreement system based on the characteristics of transitivity and tense, which is represented as nominative-accusative system and tripartite system. Aftari also benefits from case marking. This dialect exhibits a nominative accusative case system.
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