Prototypical Transitivity and Object Omission in Persian

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of prototypical transitivity components presented by Hopper and Thompson (1980) on object omission construction in Persian. Object omission is a valency-reduction process in which a verb which is transitive in nature, appears without its object but the construction makes sense for the hearer.As this construction reduces the valency of the verb, it can be considered as a transitivity reduction phenomenon as well. Accordingly, the existence of more transitivity components with low degree in the aforementioned construction is expected. To examine this hypothesis, a data set including 435 cases of object omission was discovered and examined. The analysis revealed that unexpectedly, there are some transitivity increasing components such as kinesis (action) and mode (irrealis) in this construction. On the other hand, although some of the components have no impact on object omission, some of them including participants, aspect, punctuality and affectedness of the object, seem to be the most important factors which facilitates object omission. The impact of ten prototypical transitivity components on object omission and the reasons behind that, is what has been investigated and justified in this research. © 2024, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.