SEPARABILITY OF LIGHT VERB CONSTRUCTIONS IN PERSIAN* Gholamhossein Karimi-Doostan Abstract. Persian Light Verb Constructions (LVCs), consisting of a light verb and a preverb, fall into two groups: separable and inseparable. The nominal preverbs in the former, unlike those in the latter, can function as direct object DP argument, can be modified by an adjective, and can be relativized, scrambled and focused on by Wh-interrogatives. In this paper, it is argued that the (in)sepa- rability of LVCs cannot necessarily be an indication of the fact that LVCs are formed at two levels of representation. It is shown that (in)separability of LVCs follows from the semantic and morphosyntactic properties of preverbs and light verbs in the language. 1. Introduction After the seminal article of Grimshaw and Mester (1988) on the Japanese light verb suru Ôto doÕ, many researchers have focused on light verbs and complex forms of verbs in different languages (Ahn 1991; Sato 1993; Kim 1994; Mohanan 1994; Rosen 1989; Butt 1995, 2003; Diesing 1998, 2000; Choi & Wechsler 2002; Butt & Ramchand 2005; among many others). Persian complex verbs have also attracted some researchers (Mohammad & Karimi 1992; Vahedi-Langroudi 1996; Karimi 1997; Karimi Doostan 1997; Megerdoomian 2001 and Folli, Harley & Karimi 2004; among others). In fact, most of the Persian verbs are in complex forms consisting of a light verb and a preverb (PV). 1 The preverbs (PVs) are nouns, adjectives, adverbs or prepositions (Karimi 1987; Folli, Harley & Karimi 2004) and the light verbs lack sufficient semantic force to function as independent predicates (Vahedi-Langroudi 1996; Karimi-Doostan 1997, 2005). Any Persian complex verb, referred to as Light Verb Construc- tions (LVCs) henceforth, can be broken by the Negation Particle (neg), the imperfective morpheme mi as in (1), modals and auxiliaries such as ba:yad Ôshould, mustÕ, future auxiliary xa:stan ÔwillÕ and progressive auxiliary da:sˇtan Ôto haveÕ, as well as clitic pronouns like –esˇ ÔitÕ as in (2b–c). S T U L 1 1 7 8 B Dispatch: 1.2.11 Journal: STUL CE: Vinoth Kumar Journal Name Manuscript No. Author Received: No. of pages: 26 PE: Indumathi - * I would like to thank the unanimous reviewers of Studia Linguistica for their enlightening comments. I am also grateful to Mrs. Lamiah Hashemi, Mr. Thaher Sarhadi and Mr. Salman Ashabi for reading and correcting some of the grammatical and spelling errors in the earlier version of this paper. 1 The following abbreviations are used in this article: def = definite article; dom = direct object marker; DP = determiner phrase; ez = Ezafe particle; fut aux = future auxiliary; impf = imperfective; indef = indefinite article; neg = negation particle; NegP = negation phrase; PV = preverb; prog aux = progressive auxiliary; pst = past tense; VN = verbal noun. Where necessary the terms are defined in the text. Studia Linguistica ••(•) 2011, pp. 1–26. Ó The author 2011. Ó The Editorial Board of Studia Linguistica 2011. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45