Accentual reduction and ellipsis in constituent and non-constituent coordination in Persian: A Cognitive Grammar Approach

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ph.D. in Linguistics, Department of English Language and Literature, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran

2 Assistant Professor in Linguistics, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran

3 Department of English Language and Linguistics, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran.

Abstract

The syntactic process of coordination, commonly attributed to both constituent and non-constituent constructions, has long been a focus of linguistic inquiry. The objective of this descriptive-analytical study is to investigate reduction and ellipsis phenomena in various coordinate constructions from a Langackerian cognitive grammar perspective. The data examined in this research were gathered from two standard and colloquial varieties of Persian. The findings of this study demonstrate that within cognitive grammar, during the combination of two coordinate constructions, elements present in the second construction that conceptually overlap with their counterparts in the first one either undergo reduction or are entirely deleted from the second construction, resulting in no phonetic representation; conversely, lexical elements and structures lacking conceptual overlap with those in the first constructon become more salient. The notion of differential in data analysis holds considerable importance, indicating that content expressed in one clausal window does not manifest in the preceding window. A crucial observation is that in the second window of ellipsis and coordination constructions an expression which is not considered as a clause would be interpreted as quasi-clausal in contrast to a clause itself. Furthermore, the examinations conducted in this research reveal the significance of the placement of the differential, when it interrupts the baseline clause. Put simply, differential directly follows the anti-differential.

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Linguistic Studies: Theory and Practice
Volume 3, Issue 4 - Serial Number 8
Winter 2025
December 2025
Pages 101-127

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History

  • Receive Date: 19 April 2024
  • Revise Date: 23 July 2024
  • Accept Date: 23 September 2024

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