Int. j. econ. manag. soc. sci., Vol(3), No (7), July, 2014. pp.

377-381

TI Journals

International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences

www.tijournals.com

ISSN:
2306-7276

Copyright 2014. All rights reserved for TI Journals.

The linguistic study of macro role and participant role assignment in

causative constructions of Persian: A Role and Reference Grammar
Analysis
Safa Abedi
MA in General Linguistics from Islamic Azad University (Science and Research Branch) *

*Corresponding author:
safa_abedi@yahoo.com

Keywords

Abstract

Causative construction
Persian Language
Role and Reference Grammar
Animacy

In this article we aim to study the causative construction in Persian within Role and Reference Grammar
(RRG) (VanValin, 2007); the main objective of this article is to study the relation between macro role and
participant role assignment in this functional approach of grammar. The data have been collected
accidentally from 50 causative sentences of Persian from various types of lexical, syntactic and semantic
ones. The findings show that the macro role and participant role assignment process is meaningfully
different in causative and non-causative constructions of Persian. In non-causative constructions, "Actor" is
the doer of the action and
"Undergoer" is a person/thing which undergoes an action; however in causative
constructions the "Undergoer" is the doer of the actions. It worth mentioning that the "Animacy" features
plays a crucial role in participant role assignment in causative constructions especially in those constructions
in which the action is done by an animate undergoer [+ animate]. Consequently it is questionable to accept
the classic definition of "patient" thematic role for this type of undergoers and our suggestion is to suppose
"cause" thematic role for the actor and the "agent" role for the doer of the action.

1.

Introduction
This article is dedicated to the memory of late Iranian linguist Dr.Keyvan Zahedi

The causative construction as one of the most linguistically studied constructions has been studied widely from different perspectives. In this
research we study the causative construction of Persian within RRG theoretical framework. The main objective of this research is to study the
relation between macro roles and participant roles assignment in this approach. In RRG literature the concept of two Macro roles of "Actor" and
"Undergoer" are the central notions; and studying the relation between these macro roles and the participant assignment process can be
worthwhile from both syntactic and semantic perspective.
Although an outstanding number of researches have been done around the subject of "causative construction" in different languages, the
literature of studies within RRG framework is not so mentioning. Van Valin [22,30] outlines RRG as a "structural-functionalist" theory of
grammar which falls in between extreme formalist perspectives at one end and radical functionalist views at the other.
Van Valin [22] writes: "In contrast to the Chomskyan view, RRG takes language to be a system of communicative social action, and
accordingly, analyzing the communicative functions of grammatical structures plays a vital role in grammatical description and theory from this
perspective. It is in this sense that RRG is functionalist, but it is not radical functionalist like the emergent grammar view. Language is a system,
and grammar is a system in the traditional structuralist sense: what distinguishes the RRG conception from the standard formalist one is the
conviction that grammatical structure can only be understood and explained with reference to its semantic and communicative functions. Syntax
is not autonomous. In terms of the abstract paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations that define a structural system, RRG is concerned not only
with relations of co-occurrence and combination in strictly formal terms but also with semantic and pragmatic co-occurrence and combinatory
relations. Hence RRG may be accurately characterized as a structuralist-functionalist theory, rather than purely formalist or purely functionalist."
Van Valin [30] demarcates the main question of the development of RRG as the following: "how can the interaction of syntax, semantics and
discourse-pragmatics in different grammatical systems best be captured and explained? Early work in RRG concentrated on the analysis of
Lakhota, Tagalog and Dyirbal, and because of this cross-linguistic point of departure, many of the analyses proposed in RRG are strikingly
different from those put forth in the other three theories. The first starting point can be seen clearly in the way RRG represents syntactic
structure. RRG maintains that a theory of clause structure should capture all of the universal features of clauses without imposing features on
languages in which there is no evidence for them. "
Yang [36] in his PhD dissertation titled studies some important linguistic features of Korean language within RRG framework. He also mentions
other studies on Korean language within RRG.

Safa Abedi *

378

International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences Vol(3), No (7), July, 2014.

Yang [36] lists three types of causative constructions in Korean and mentions:
"In the criteria proposed by Van Valin [22], the feature [causative] distinguishes Accomplishments from the other verb classes.
Accomplishments are [+ causative] , while the rest are [-causative]. One can determine whether a verb has causative semantics or not through a
paraphrase test, in which the meaning of a verb, such as kill or give, can paraphrased as 'cause to die or cause to receive respectively.
In Korean, causatives can be expressed in three morphological ways. In two of these the causative is signaled with overt morphological marker.
In the third the causative meaning is implicit, and the form bears no additional morpheme. These three kinds of causatives have been well
studied in Patterson [20], which proposes that there are three types of Korean causatives: phrasal causatives, which are morphologically
expressed with a connective -key and the verb -ha do, cause, make; suffixal causatives, which are derived from suffixation of -i, -hi, -li, or-ki
38on an active verb stem; and lexical causatives, which can be semantically analyzed as causatives but do not carry any overt morphological
form , similar to English kill, give"
Paris [19] gives a RRG definition of Causative construction in Spanish constructions of HACER-INFINITIVE among studies done within
RRG framework on Persian language, Rezai [18] in his mater thesis titled "A Role and Reference Grammar Analysis of Simple Sentences in
Farsi" presented the first and pioneering definitions of Persian simple sentences within RRG view point.
Moezzipour [16] studied Persian cleft constructions within the Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) framework and concluded his research as
saying:" In Persian clefts, despite the fact that the clefted constituent is the semantic argument of the predicator of the relative clause, it bears the
role of pragmatic predicate assigned by the matrix predicator and also the optional presence of the cleft pronoun (in case of clefted constituent
being an NP). This fact originates from the non-isomorphic property of the cleft construction which expresses a single proposition via biclausal
syntax. The agreement feature of copula with the clefted constituent and the focalizing function of matrix grammatical elements give rise to the
consideration of the so-called demonstrative as emphatic pronoun which is projected in the PERIPHERYN."
Rezai and Neisani [17] studies clause structure in Persian within RRG and write:" This theory uses a concept of the layered structure of the
clause that is different from the other syntactic approaches in that it is based on two fundamental contrasts: the contrast between the predicate
and its arguments, and the contrast between arguments and non-arguments. The functional elements or operators have separate projection in this
theory. Information structure is also explored for the clauses. The interpretation of information structure in RRG, to a large extent, originates
from Lambrecht (1994). There are two aspects for information structure which are related to one another. Eventually, the semantic to syntax and
the syntax to semantic linking are shown in the linking part of this grammar. In fact the relationship between the three modules of syntax,
semantics and pragmatics are formally indicated in this component of RRG. This paper explores the layered structure of simple sentences in
Persian. It was demonstrated that the layered structure of the clause proposed in RRG works for Persian as well."

2.

Methodology

One point of difference between RRG and some other theories is the fact that in RRG, the lexical entry for a verb does not contain a list of
thematic relations and uses a system of lexical decomposition for representing aspects of the meaning of verbs and other predicates. The
following sentences are exemplified in van Valin (2004) to show this system:
Lexical representations for some English verbs in RRG
a. broken
broken (y)
[e.g. the glass is broken]
a. break
BECOME broken (y)
[e.g. the glass broke]
a. break
[do (x, )] CAUSE
[e.g. the boy broke the glass]
[BECOME broken (y)]
b. dead
dead (y)
b. die
BECOME dead (y)
b. kill
[do (x, )] CAUSE
[BECOME dead (y)]
c. cool
cool (y)
[e.g. the soup is cool]
c. cool
BECOME cool (y)
[e.g. the soup cooled ]
c. cool [do (x, )] CAUSE
[e.g. the breeze cooled the soup]
[BECOME cool (y)]
d. sing
do (x, [sing (x, y)])
e. run
do (x, [run (x)])
The predicates in the (a), (b) and (c) examples are all stative, i.e. they depict states rather than actions. The verbs in the (a), (b) and (c)
examples all signal changes of state, while those in (a), (b) and (c) refer to caused changes of state. Change-of-state verbs are called
accomplishment verbs in RRG, and caused change-of-state verbs are termed causative accomplishment verbs. The verbs in (d) and (e) are
activity verbs, since they denote actions which lack an inherent endpoint. To the right of each verb or predicate is its lexical representation or
logical structure. A plain pred indicates a stative predicate, while do is a part of the logical structure of all activity predicates; do (x, ) is
an unspecified activity. BECOME indicates change over time, hence change of state when combined with a stative predicate. CAUSE signals
a causative relation between two predicates. The logical structure in (a) forms the basis of the semantic representation of a sentence like the boy
broke the glass; the representation that is the input to the linking algorithm for the mapping from semantics to syntax is given in (6.24).
(6.24) [do (the boy, )] CAUSE [BECOME broken (the glass)]
(van Valin, 2004:210-11)
Mahootian (1997:227) summarizes the process of making causative constructions in Persian as the following:
Verb valency may be increased through the formation of a causative construction. There are two ways to form causatives. First, a causative
construction is made by adding the suffix -undan or unidan
to the present stem of some transitive and intransitive verbs to form causative infinitives:

379

The linguistic study of macro role and participant role assignment in causative constructions of Persian: A Role and Reference Grammar Analysis
International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences Vol(3), No (7), July, 2014.

Present stem
res- 'arrive'
suzun- 'burn'

Causative infinitive
resundan 'to cause to arrive'
suzundan 'to cause to burn'

The second way to make causatives is by using ba'es odn 'to cause' to introduce a subordinate clause in the subjunctive. odn is inflected to
agree with the subject and may appear in any tense.
ba'es + odn (ke) +SUBORDINATE CLAUSE
(404) hsn ba'es--od (ke) ma dir be-res-im
Hasan cause--became (that) we late SBJN-arrive-IP
'Hasan caused us to arrive late.'
(405) hsn to ba'es--mi-s-i (ke)
Hasan, you cause--DUR-become-2S (that) ma dir be-res-im
we late SBJN-arrive-IP
'Hasan, you're going to make us late.'
The causative construction works the same for transitive and ditransitive verbs.
In coming part, the relevant data gathered from the causative sentences of Persian will be analyzed within RRG framework.

3.

Data Analysis:

The data of the research is gathered from 50 causative sentences of Persian from all three types of lexical, syntactic and morphological
causatives. In the following, for the sake of brevity, we represented some of the sentences to show the process of causative making in Persian
and the way macro roles are assigned.
1a.Maryam was afraid.
maryam
tarsid.
Undergoer
1b. Hasan caused Maryam to be frightened.
hasan
maryam r
tarsnd

Actor
undergoer
[ do (hasan, ) ] CAUSE [feel (maryam [afraid])]
The verb in 1b is a morphologycal type of tarsidan (to be frightened) as it is clear this is a mono clausal sentence. As we quoted from Mahutiyan
in Persian there is another alternative for sentence 1b ( the bi clausal syntactic form : Hasan baes shod ke Maryam berasad
2a.Baby is eating the food.
Bae
qaz r
mixorad.
Actor
undergoer
2b. Mom is feeding the baby.
Mdar
qaz r
be bae mixornad.
Actor
undergoer
[do(Madar,)]CAUSE[do(bae,[eat(bae,qaz)]) & BECOME eaten (qaza)]
2c. Mom caused baby to be fed by the nany.
mdar dd
dye
qaz r
be bae
xornd.
Actor
actor
undergoer
[do(mdar,)]CAUSE[do(daye,)]CAUSE[do(bae,[eat(bae,qaz)]) & BECOME eaten (qaz)]
The key point of sentence 2b is that Mom is the cause and the agent at the same time, however in 2c Mom is the cause but the nany is the agent.
Another point of difference between 2b and 2c is that b is a mono clausal causative construction while 2c is a bi clausal one. In all three forms of
sentence 2 the action of EAT is done by the baby and agent, patient and cause of the relevant sentence are[ + animate]
3a. Ali died.
ali
mord.
Undergoer
3b. Hasan killed Ali.
Hasan
ali r

kot.

Actor
undergoer
[do (Hasan, )] CAUSE [INGR dead (Ali)]
3c. Hasan casued Ali to be killed.
hasan dd
ali r
bekosh-and.
Actor
undergoer
actor
[do (Hasan, )]CAUSE [do (they, )] CAUSE [INGR dead (Ali)]

Safa Abedi *

380

International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences Vol(3), No (7), July, 2014.

In sentence 3 the verb "mordan" (to die) is intransitive and when the sentence changes to causative the verb converted in to transitive form "
kot" which is a lexical case of causative form. Again the example in 3b is a mono clausal causative in which Hasan is both agent and cause
simultaneously .In 3c Hasan is solely the cause of the sentence and 3c is another alternative for baes odan type. In the sentence 3c the actual
doer of the verb (the real person who killed Ali) is unknown.
4a. The sport man ran.
varzekr
david.
Actor
4b. The coach caused the soprt man to run.
morabi
varzekr r
davnd.
Actor
undergoer
[do(morabi , )] CAUSE [do (varzekr, [ run (varzekr)])]
In 4a we face the interansitive form of the verb " davidan" ,in sentence 4d "davnd"is a morphological form of causative of the same verb/ In 4b
morabi (coach)causes the sport man to run ,consequently the participant role of cause assigned to it. And the sport man is the doer of the action
as a result it should be assigned the role agent. This is the top of the iceberg, to adhere to the classic definition of participant roles morabi should
be considered agent and varzeshkar as patient an important difference which should be taken into account while speaking about Persian
causatives .The reason for this discrepancy is the [ + animate] feature of patient.
5a. The snow melted.
barf h
b odand.
Undergoer
5b. The heat caused the snow to be melted.
garmye hav
barf h r
b kard.
cause
In sentence 5, we do not face the problem in pervious example for two reasons: 1- garma (heat) is a potential agent .2- barf (snow) as the patient
of the sentence is a [ - animate] entity.
6a. The window is broken.
ie
ekast.
Undergoer
6b. Reza caused the window to be broken
Rez
ie r
ekast.
Actor
undergoer
[do (Reza, )] CAUSE [BECOME broken (ie)]
In sentences 6a and b , in both cases of transitive and intransitive forms of the verb we do have only an identical lexical form ekast.

4.

Conclusion

As previously mentioned, there are three types of causative constructions in Persian: Lexical (example 6b), morphological (examples 1b, 2b, 4b)
and syntactic (examples 2c, 3c) ones. In number 6 causative and non- causative forms are identical, however there is an alternative form eknd
which is not frequently used in modern Persian. (for the relevant analysis of this type of causatives in Persian, see Mahootian ,1997)
Sentence number 2b is a mono-clausal sample of causative in Persian and sentence number 2c is a sample of a bi-clausal one.
The interesting point of this research is the fact that in the RRG framework we do have two macro roles and by definition the Actor acts on the
undergoer (by verbal or nonverbal means), consequently the undergoer does an action. To exemplify, in sentence number 2 "mom" has actor
macro role and "baby" is assigned the undergoer macro role. While considering the thematic roles "mom" is the "agent" and "baby" is the
"patient" of the sentence, now keeping in mind that "baby" is the doer of the action and this fact does not conform with our definition from the
concept of "patient" which is supposed to be under the action described by verb and done by the agent. This is the case when the undergoer is
animate only and when the doer of the action is an animate one (such as the example of "breaking the window" the undergoer is patient of the
sentence at the same time due to the fact that the action is done on it.

References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]

Comrie. Bernard. .1981. Language Universals and linguistic typology: syntax and morphology, Chicago university of Chicago press.158-177
Crystal. David. 1992An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages, Black Well publishers Oxford UK& Cambridge U.S.A
Dabir-Moghaddam, Mohammad.1982. Syntax and Semantics of Causative
Constructions in Persian. PhD Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
__________________________.1990. On Postposition r in Persian. Iranian Journal
of Linguistics. 7, 2-60.
_________________________.2005b. Studies in Persian Linguistics: Selected Articles.
Iran University Press.
_________________________.2008. Theoretical Linguistics: Emergence and
Development of Generative Grammar, 2nd ed. Tehran: Samt.
Foley, William A and Robert D. Van Valin, Jr.1984. Functional Syntax and Universal

381

The linguistic study of macro role and participant role assignment in causative constructions of Persian: A Role and Reference Grammar Analysis
International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences Vol(3), No (7), July, 2014.

Grammar. Cambridge Uiniversity press.

[9] Imai. Shingo.Logical structure case in Japenese .1998. State university of New York at Buffalo.
[10] Jey Wu. Jimg lan.Verb classification,case marking and grammatical relations in Amis,2006.State university of New York at Buffalo.
[11] Karimi, Simin.2001. Persian Complex DPs: How Mysterious They Are. Canadian
Journal of Linguistics 46(1/2), 63-96.
[12] ____________.2005. A Minimalist Approach to Scrambling: Evidence from Persian.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
[13] Lambrecht, Knud.1986. Topic. Focus and the Grammar of Spoken French. PhD
dissertation. University of California Berkeley.
[14] _______________.2001. A Framework for the Analysis of Cleft Constructions.
Linguistics 39(3), 463-516.
[15] Lewis .G.L, Turkish. 1973, published by McKay company U.S.A
[16] Moezipour. Farhad. Cleft Construction in Persian a Role & Reference grammar analysis. 2010. Tehran University
[17] Rezaei ,Vali and M. Neisani.2013. Clause structure in Persian: a role and reference grammar analysis, research in linguistics, Volume 4, Number 2 (122013)
[18] Rezai. Vali. A Role & Reference Grammar Analysis of simple sentences in Farsi (Modern Persian). 2003. Isfahan University
[19] Paris, Luis A. "The Spanish Causative Construction Hacer-Infinitive. A Role and Reference Grammar Description." Qualifying Paper University at
Buffalo http://linguistics. buffalo. edu/people/students/ma thesis/paris/parismasters. pdf (1999).
[20] Patterson, B. Soon Ju. 1974. A Study of Korean Causatives. Working Papers in
Linguistics 6:4: 1-51.
[21] Van Valin, Robert D., Jr.1991. Functionalist Linguistic Theory and Language
Acquisition. First Language 11, 7-40.
[22] ----------1993a. A Synopsis of Role and Reference Grammar. in Van Valin (ed.) 1993b:
1-164.
[23] ----------. (ed.) 1993b. Advances in Role and Reference Grammar. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
[24] ----------. 1993c. Role and Reference Grammar. to be appear in the Instrumentarium
volume of the Handbook of Pragmatics ed. by International Pragmatics Association. 65-75.
[25] ----------.1995. Role and Reference Grammar. In Verschueren,
stman & Blommaert Eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics: Manual, 461469, Amsterdam and
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
[26] ----------.1996. Role and Reference Grammar In K. Brown and J.
Miller, (eds.), The Concise Encyclopedia of Syntactic Theories, 281-94, oxford:Pergamon.
[27] ----------.1999a. Cross-Linguistic Patterns of Linking. Proceeding of
the 1999 Texas Linguistics Society meeting.
[28] ----------1999b. A Typology of the Interaction of Focus Structure and
Syntax In E. Raxilina and J. Testelec, (eds.), Typology a linguistic theory: from
description to explanation, 511-24, Languages of Russian Culture: Moscow.
[29] ----------.2000. Functional Linguistics. In
M. Aronoff & J. Rees-Miller, (Eds.), The Handbook of Linguistics, 319-36, Oxford:
Blackwell.
[30] ----------.2004. An introduction to Syntax. Cambridge University Press.
[31] ----------.2005a. Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Cambridge
University Press.
[32] ----------.2005b. A summary of Role and Reference Grammar.
[Available on RRG Website]
[33] ----------ed., 2008. Investigations of Syntax-semantics-Pragmatics
Interface. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
[34] ----------and William. A. Foley.1980. Role and Reference Grammar In E.
Moravcsik & J.R. Wirth, (Eds.), Current Approaches to Syntax, 329-52, New York:
Academic Press.
[35] ----------and Randy J. LaPolla. 1997. Syntax: structure, meaning and
function. Cambridge University Press.
[36] Yang, Byong-Seon. 1994. Morphosyntacitc Phenomena of Korean in Role and
Reference Grammar. Ph.D. dissertation. SUNY at Buffalo.
Please save your Paper ID and Trace code for the next steps of publishing process: