Publication Date: 2020
Language Related Research (23223081)11(2)pp. 257-285
Being a descriptive-analytic research in Persian language, the present study deals with morphophonological processes to examine the performance of Stratal Optimality Theory for the first time. Stratal OT is a hybrid model of OT in which the insights of Lexical Phonology and Morphology are broadly combined with parallel OT. Stratal OT posits constraint evaluation at three distinct levels or strata: stem, word and phrase level and as such it can show the intermediate levels showing the formation of the optimal option. This multi-level variation of the original OT model may provide more economical and elegant explanations of problems involving opacity, derived environment effects than other Parallel OT theories that have been developed to address these issues. The data in this research have been collected through databases and written phonological resources. This paper studies deletion, insertion and compensatory lengthening processes within Stratal OT. The relevant constraints and their interactions in each level have been represented through different tablues. The results showed that Stratal OT has more explanatory power than Parallel OT to explain the mentioned processes. Interestingly, Constraints at each level follow a consistent ranking pattern. © 2020, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2024
Journal of Pragmatics (03782166)225pp. 87-104
By examining the employment of personal deictic terms in Persian interactions, this study focuses on the dynamic and emerging uses of them in order to shed some light on how to interpret the construction of interpersonal relations of Persian speakers. More importantly, it aims to account for the alternation mechanism between paradigmatic pronouns of lowering and elevating one's status within a single interaction. A cognitive-dialogic analysis of approximately 20 h of everyday conversations and videotaped broadcasts reveals that interlocutors' use of personal deictic terms is a fluid, emergent, and contingent practice, governed by at least six possible interactional factors: i) the speaker's emotions, ii) the speaker's situational intentions, iii) the prior speaker's turn, iv) the shift of discourse topic, v) bystander(s), and vi) the message content. Interlocutors' emergent shift from lowering into elevating terms and vice versa brings about a fluctuation of interpersonal relationships in the course of interaction. By taking these factors into account, this study shows that each usage of lowering and elevating terms conveys multiple, but distinct referential and indexical meanings about the interactants and the context in which it occurs. It also reveals that Persian speakers are aware of the potential indexical meanings of these terms, and that they use them (un)consciously and strategically to define, negotiate, or reshape their social relationships. Above all, this study argues that interlocutors' (inter)subjectivity essentially regulates the alternation of using lowering- and elevating-deictic forms. © 2024 Elsevier B.V.
Publication Date: 2024
Pragmatics and Society (18789714)16pp. 748-771
This study investigates the challenges of translating English demonstratives into Persian, with a focus on deictic shifts and their discourse-pragmatic implications. It aims to outline the recontextualization that deictic terms undergo during translation and the role of discourse-pragmatic factors in this process. Utilizing a parallel database of literary and academic texts in English and Persian, all instances of English demonstratives and their Persian counterparts have been identified and compared based on type, form, and quantity. An analysis of 1,849 instances of demonstrative discrepancies reveals two primary types of deictic shifts: (1) genuine shifts, which involve a change in the deictic center due to the translator’s (inter)subjectivity, leading to the re-contextualization of discourse, and (2) non-genuine shifts, where there is no change in the origo. The findings indicate a tendency for genuine shifts to alternate between distal-to-proximal and proximal-to-distal, with a marked preference for distal-to-proximal shifts, attributed to the unmarked nature of proximal deixis in Persian. Furthermore, translators frequently replace pure deictics with impure forms or add deictic terms for clarity, reflecting broader translation strategies aimed at ensuring the definiteness and explicitness of referents. © John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Publication Date: 2023
Medical Teacher (0142159X)45(12)pp. 1419-1424
Purpose: To explore and describe the highly cited articles’ themes of research in medical education and to provide an insight into and reflection on which the elites of medical education society invested their energies from 2009 to 2018. Methods: An in-depth content analysis as a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication was used to quantitatively assess subject interests, methods, and other characteristics associated with citation of published studies in medical education research. Meaning units were compacted and coded with labels and categories in two phases. Results: Among a variety of topics, methods, and strategies, 764 codes, 24 descriptive themes, and seven categories were extracted from the content analysis as the most prominent. Categories of medical education research were: modern technologies updating in medical education; learner performance improvement; sociological aspects of medical education; clinical reasoning; research methodology concerns of medical education; instructional design educational models; and professional aspects of medical education. Conclusions: Commitment to continuous revision of educational emphasis and concerns on technological, sociological, and methodological concerns were the most repeated components of the highly cited articles that were ascertained through increased structure course designs and instructional strategies of the flipped classrooms to realize clinical reasoning and performance improvement. Practice points It becomes increasingly urgent to understand how various educational processes and technology-enhanced innovations affect each other and do or could influence learning outcomes, clinical reasoning, and performance improvement. Modern technologies as techniques to administer the changing educational and social environment, can supply and support the infrastructure and basis for operating many of the challenges in preparing the medical education community for the future. Research in the medical education context in the future should be focused on the inter-relationships of prominent and marginalized educational themes and categories. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Publication Date: 2022
Pragmatics (10182101)32(4)pp. 588-619
This study investigates the functions of væ ('and') as a discourse marker in Persian. More specifically, this study accounts for certain aspects of væ co-occurrences and their linearization order. Fraser's model (forthcoming) was mainly employed to classify the multiple functions conveyed by væ. A corpus-based approach was taken to provide an overview of væ co-occurrences with other discourse markers. The data were collected from both written and spoken corpora. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to examine the frequency and the functional differences in the use of væ in the data - namely, elaboration, inferential, contrast, and alternation. The results of the study indicate the mobile nature of væ in its co-occurrences with other DMs. The findings also show that some modifications to Fraser's (forthcoming) DM co-occurrence principles are required to handle certain cases of language-specific behavior of væ in Persian. The configuration suggested for væ uses and its multi-functionality will also shed some lights on cross-linguistic studies of its counterparts in other languages. © International Pragmatics Association.
Publication Date: 2022
Language Sciences (03880001)92
This study examines the use of proximal and distal deictic terms in Persian interactions to determine the cause of their paradoxical behavior in certain contexts of situations. It adopts an integrative (i.e., cognitive-interactive) approach to investigate both interactional and (inter)subjective aspects of deictic practice. The analysis of 184 different Persian interactions reveals that although the relative congruity and egocentricity can account for many canonical uses of proximal and distal terms, such an egocentric approach cannot handle the paradoxical uses of such deictic terms. We then propose that based on the ongoing interaction, any deictic act is governed by three main interactional factors, namely the focus of interaction, the information status of the object of reference (e.g. the speaker's mind, the addressee's consciousness, and the unfolding discourse), and the speaker's attitude towards the referent. In addition, it is argued that interactional factors themselves are regulated by the speaker's (inter)subjective thought/belief state. This indicates that interaction and (inter)subjectivity – as key concepts – satisfactorily explain paradoxical uses of proximal and distal terms in Persian. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
Publication Date: 2022
Lodz Papers in Pragmatics (18956106)18(1)pp. 131-150
This paper examines a number of proverbs in English and Persian to shed light on certain pragmatic issues involved in translation. By analyzing three sets of data within the pragmatic framework, we found that the translatability of proverbs should be characterized as a continuum, rather a clear-cut dichotomy. Depending on the universality or culture-specificity of background cultural information associated with proverbs, three main categories, namely translatables, semi-translatables, and untranslatables are proposed. These categories fall along different points on a postulated continuum of translatability. Our study also shows that implicatures and presuppositions, when applicable to translatability, influence it in an incontrovertible manner. On top of this, the indubitable role of metaphor in the conceptualization of proverbs, and as a result, on the translatability of them is acknowledged. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.
Publication Date: 2021
Studia Linguistica (00393193)75(3)pp. 623-658
This paper examines the different functions of bale (‘yes’) in Persian by identifying its positions in the syntagmatic chain. As such, it reveals a significant correlation exists between the function types, various positions, and the frequency of bale, which appears on the left periphery (LP), on the right periphery (RP), and in the medial, detached or free-standing mode at a rate of 20.5%, 9.5, 2.1%, and 67.9%, respectively. On LP, it can function for all the three types (e.g. propositional, textual, and interpersonal) involved in it. Besides, on LP it is generally associated with textual and subjective usages, but its position on RP can be explained in terms of intersubjectivity. The function of bale as a detached thetical is argued to be predominant in an intersubjective phenomenon motivated by paying attention to/from the addressee. Furthermore, a diachronic survey of the bale development suggests that it has started as a connective, a confirmative, or an emphatic response markers on LP; then, it has moved to RP to fulfill more intersubjective usages. © 2021 The Editorial Board of Studia Linguistica
Publication Date: 2020
Review of Cognitive Linguistics (18779751)18(2)pp. 397-427
This paper investigates the synaesthetic constructions in Persian with the aim of finding out what motivates them despite their incongruous syntactic-semantic assignments. It is argued that these paradoxical elements require a metaphoric/metonymic frame to assign appropriate lexical units (LUs) to their corresponding syntactic categories (NP+ra+VPand NP+AP). The discrepancy derives from the semantic aspects for which frame semantics provides two types of explanations: internal and external frame factors. Internal factors deal with the metaphoric/metonymic compatibility or similarity between frames, while external factors underline the use of lexical items from one subframe to fill the vocabulary gap of a different subframe. The argument is that this gap owes much to the indirect contact between the Phenomenon (e.g., an odorous substance) and the Body-part (e.g., nose) that perceives it. In short, the analysis of our data reveals that synaesthesia is not only an economical strategy for modifying the senses, but also a natural mental strategy for interpreting vague experiences. A configuration of the incongruent construction of 'smell' and 'hearing' will be proposed to generalize such an analysis. © 2020 John Benjamins Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2020
International Review of Pragmatics (18773095)12(1)pp. 135-163
This paper sets out to investigate the ways in which some of the Discourse Markers (DM s) in Persian are used by looking at a corpus of 475 million words. By adopting Fraser's notion of DM (2009), it will analyse all possible combinations of thirty DMs categorized into three groups: contrastive, elaborative, and inferential. This categorization will be based on the types of semantic relationship they signal between the propositions of the discourse segments preceding and following them. Their deployment in the attested data demonstrates that the ordering of these DM s is by no means arbitrary. The result of our investigation also reveals that Persian contrastive DM s show a strong tendency to combine with the members of their own category, while elaborative DM s tend to combine with inferential DM s. Inferential DM s, too, have a tendency for intra-category combinations; however, such combinations are much less frequent than those of contrastive DM s. Contrastive DM s have the lowest predisposition for combining with inferential DM s. In short, by exploring the frequency of all sequences of DM s under investigation, a hierarchy of DM combinations in Persian will be proposed, which can be argued to predict certain possible configurations of DM sequences in Persian, and such empirical findings will build up some basis for future typological research as well as for the theorization of DM sequences in general. © 2020 Brill Academic Publishers. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2019
Pragmatics and Society (18789714)10(4)pp. 512-537
The present study sets out to investigate an important aspect of gendered performance, namely, the presence of interactional metadiscourse in conference presentations delivered in Persian. The study pursues two primary objectives: firstly, to compare the quantity and quality of interactional metadiscourse markers as expressed by male and female academics; secondly, to investigate some other factors influencing the phenomenon under investigation. The data include twenty-four conference presentations by twelve males and twelve females. The quantitative analysis showed a statistically significant difference in the use of interactional metadiscourse by male and female presenters. However, the qualitative analysis helped the authors to identify more similarities than differences. In point of fact, such factors as academic status and nativeness had caused the speakers to use different metadiscourse strategies. © John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Publication Date: 2017
Language Related Research (23223081)8(4)pp. 239-262
This paper sets out to investigate the feasibility of replacement of restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses at discourse level in Persian. Givon (2001) believes that proper names, pronouns and unique definite nouns cannot be modified by restrictive relatives. On the other hand, it is usually stated that the modification of indefinite nouns by non-restrictive relatives would result in ungrammatical sentences. This study, however, provides examples from the Persian language arguing against such propositions. Furthermore, there are also evidences in Persian showing that the emotive and expositive information, which are usually expressed by non-restrictive relatives, may also be expressed by restrictive relative clauses. The main inquiry will, then, be how such discourse possibilities would be accounted. To this end, the current paper aims to study and analyze the above-mentioned discourse situations within Discourse Grammar (DG) framework, as introduced by Heine and et al (2013). For the analysis, the empirical data are gathered from the different spoken and written sources in Persian as well as some other instances based on the authors’ own observations and their intuitions. In short, on the basis of Discourse Grammar, this paper argues that the discourse situations allowing such possibilities can be explained in terms of Cooptation mechanism, an important notion in Discourse Grammar which explain the interaction between sentence grammar and thetical grammar. Furthermore, unlike Heine and et al (2013), it is shown that Cooptation may be a bidirectional operation. In a sense, the paper provides some examples and explanation for the non-unidirectionality of cooptation mechanism such as appositive phrases and Ezafe constructions in Persian. © 2017, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2017
Language Related Research (23223081)8(8TOME37)pp. 149-170
The process of compound predicates (CPr) formation in Persian has got little attention on behalf of linguists. This paper aims to situate the components of Persian light verb constructions in contexts that can be justifiably invoked as a motivation for CPr formation. The authors believe that CPrs can be considered as direct or indirect products of incorporation process. We hold here a broad concept of incorporation, namely X incorporation (XI), in which X indicates categories including nominals, adjectives and prepositional phrases. This process, explicated by means of some concepts from Cognitive Grammar, involves CPrs originating from complete clauses, and then passing through a compositional path where a nonverbal and a verbal element are selected out of a clause and end up in a complex predicate. In such a hypothetical path, a verb argument is occasionally omitted and the verb complement or adjunct, having a higher cognitive salience, is incorporated to it. The investigation will continue with focusing on the LVCs constructed with LV kardan ‘do, make’, as the most frequently used light verb in Persian. The paper will also explore how different paths could be associated with different ‘heavy’ meanings of kardan. Moreover, each CPr may further provide speakers with constructional schemas upon which other LVCs formed with a given LV can be sanctioned. Considering different kinds of LVCs explained in this paper, we can say that the semantic contribution of LVs falls into one of the two following possibilities depending on how the LVC in question is formed: i. Compositional path is directly conceivable. When this is the case, the semantics of LV is equivalent to, or derived from, a main or extended sense of its non-light counterpart, as in emtehân dâdan ‘to take an exam’ (lit. to exam-give), xâb raftan ‘to fall asleep’ (lit. to sleepN-go), and lâne kardan ‘to nest’ (lit. to nestN-do). ii. Compositional path is indirectly accessible through a constructional schema. In this case, the LV’s semantic contribution can be thought of as dissolved in the constructional meaning of the relevant schema, as in imeyl zadan ‘to email’ (lit. to emailN-hit) whose LV has nothing to do with ‘hit’, but imports a sense of ‘communication’ immanent in the constructional schema X + zadan which is in turn inherited from telegrâf zadan ‘to telegraph’ (lit. to telegraphN-hit). iii. The compound verb is a denominal verb in which the light verb serves to verbalize a non-verbal element. In this case the semantic contribution of the light verb is to add processual meaning to the predicate. © 2017, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2015
Language Related Research (23223081)5(4)pp. 149-170
This paper aims to investigate the ways in which socio-linguistic parameters such as gender contribute into the turn organization of defense sessions. Interruption plays an important role in the organization of turn taking in the interactions of defense sessions. The current paper is then primarily focused on the description and analysis of interruptions in the interactions of dissertation defense sessions of Persian speakers using the “community of practice” approach. A number of discourse and pragmatic functions (e.g. defense, directiveness, cooperation, competition, etc.) have been identified for interruptions in relation to the power relations of interlocutors in the interactions. Apart from qualitative analysis, some quantitative findings have been provided for further clarification. The analysis of data shows that it is mainly the social status of a speaker that influences the types and frequency of interruption rather than his/her gender. In other words, the social variable does not play an important role in the interruption for turn organization in the defense sessions of Persian speakers. © 2015, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
This paper will investigate a number of issues related to the contact situations between Mazandarani and the standard Persian in Iran. It aims to explore the ways in which Mazandarani, a variety spoken in northern Iran, has been, over the last few decades, converging towards modern standard Persian. The changes induced in the recipient dialect as a result of this convergence involve the phonological, lexical, and grammatical levels. Nonetheless, the current paper will mainly describe and analyze the lexical borrowings, noun phrase, and ablative post-position of Mazandarani. © 2013 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2013
Language Related Research (23223081)3(4)pp. 169-191
Some studies of complex predicates suggest that light verbs are bleached semantically and are unable to bear the role of an autonomous predicate (Jespersen, 1965; Cattell, 1984; Grimshaw & Mester, 1988). Although it is accepted that the semantic content of light verbs is deficient, we address the issue that such a claim ignores the semantic relation between light verbs and the corresponding main verbs. The claim in this paper is that light verbs preserve the force-dynamic schemata of the corresponding main verbs totally systematically but the concept area is transferred from physical to abstractpsychological domain. Indeed, it is claimed that, although light verbs do not have totally predictable meaning, their contribution to the meaning of the predicate is completely systematic and to some extent clear. The present study focuses on two light verbs “ KARDAN” (to do) and “ DASHTAN” (to have) to indicate somewhat this systematization. © 2013, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 0
Studies in Pragmatics (1750368X)10pp. 247-266
Publication Date: 2011
Asian EFL Journal (17381460)13(3)pp. 153-183
The current study sets out 1) to investigate the strategic needs of participants in reading literary and non-literary texts; and 2) to shed light on the differences of reading literary and non-literary texts. To achieve this aim, thirty participants read three literary and two non-literary texts and wrote down the questions for which they could not find any answer.Next, these questions were categorized in five groups: Scripturally implicit, textually implicit, textually explicit, linguistic and miscomprehension. The findings suggest that the dominant problem of participants lies in textually implicit aspects of the text. Finally, a Kruskal-Wallis test was applied in order to compare the frequency of question types across literary and non-literary texts. The difference of all question types proved to be statistically significant across both literary and non-literary texts.
Publication Date: 2010
Languages in Contrast (15699897)10(1)pp. 54-75
This paper investigates how English influences the Persian scientific language. By analyzing parallel corpora of English and Persian texts from the areas of education and psychology, the paper seeks to reveal that translation as a language contact phenomenon influences not only the grammatical and semantic categories of the target language, it also leaves some traces of the impact of the source language on the discourse-pragmatics of the target language. This in turn leads to a kind of stylistic variation triggered by the source language. One of the main arguments adduced is that such a replication is based on the cultural filters operating in the replica language. In other words, the borrowed elements show a kind of innovative adaptation to the new environment to resolve their clashes with the target language. Thus the paper primarily focuses on the influence on Persian, through translation, of the English passive construction, as well as its deictic terms of first personal pronouns. © John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Publication Date: 2009
Language Sciences (03880001)31(6)pp. 853-873
The present paper sets out to focus on an aspect of the modal system of Persian which, despite its crucial role in interactive discourse, has not received the treatment it deserves. More precisely, the paper seeks to investigate how the simple past is deployed to express subjective epistemic and deontic modality within a future-oriented framework. This apparent clash between tense and time can be explained in terms of a set of recognition criteria: tense-distinction, interrogation, conditionality and modal harmony. The clash is also explicable pragmatically in that it is heavily context-dependent. In both cases, the underlying assumption is that the modality under consideration is invariably construed as indicating certainty, disbelief, challenge, nonchalance or obligation with respect to a particular state of affairs. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2008
Journal of Language and Politics (15692159)7(1)pp. 53-70
This paper aims to investigate the language used by newspapers in post-revolutionary Iran. More precisely, the paper sets out to analyze how such a language is deployed to represent relevant hegemonic ideologies. The approach adopted for this purpose draws inspiration mainly from critical linguistics, where it is hypothesized that, as far as the pertinent metadiscourse goes, media genres serve to activate and perpetuate social power relations. In keeping with this theoretical stance, the paper argues that socially constructed texts can be said to perform two complementary functions; on the one hand, they shed light on the realities experienced in social life; on the other, they reveal such aspects of those realities as are constructed through the use of language. It is thus in this context that the media language used in the post-revolutionary Iran lends itself to analytical investigation, where the available data reveal the co-existence of three competing discourse processes of 'Islamization', 'Iranian Nationalism' and 'Western liberalism', relating to the third stage development of post-revolutionary Iran. © John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Publication Date: 2006
Studia Linguistica (14679582)60(1)pp. 97-120
The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways in which the Persian past tense form is projected into the future to designate events, states, and processes. While it must be admitted that the phenomenon under consideration is by no means confined to Persian, its examination in this language will reveal certain characteristics which are likely to contribute to a better understanding of how temporal deixis, together with aspectual and modal meanings, interact with contextual factors to yield socio-culturally relevant utterances. Of special theoretical interest in this respect are the semantic-pragmatic constraints levied, in varying degrees, on the projected tense in terms of negation, pronominal choice, speech act assignment, aspectual character, modal status, and pitch contour. Fundamental to the present study are three assumptions. First, the deictic projection at issue has pragmatic motivations, and, in addition, stems largely from the ontological asymmetry between pastness and futurity. Second, it has an indisputable edge over the other future-indicating devices available to Persian speakers in that it denotes factivity with respect to the occurrence of a situation. And third, it is stylistically marked as it digresses from the normal function of the past tense. © The Editorial Board of Studia Linguistica 2006.
Publication Date: 2004
International Journal of Cultural Studies (13678779)7(2)pp. 147-174
This article focuses primarily on pictorial metaphors used by advertising firms in pre-and post-revolutionary Iran. By comparing the two sets of data, it argues that one of the main functions of pictorial metaphor in the post-revolutionary period is to reconcile two types of competing and conflicting ideologies: one based on advertising and the other inspired by Islamic values. Advertisers are not allowed, in post-revolutionary times, to manipulate the picture of women for their intended publicity of commercial products. However, they do employ some pictorial metaphors to redress the balance. The article also addresses other issues related to cultural and social aspects of contemporary Iran as reflected in Persian commercial advertisements. © 2004, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.
Eslami, A.,
Ketabi, S.,
Yadollahi, B.,
Mesdaghinia, A.,
Alinezhad, B.,
Nabizadeh, R. Publication Date: 2009
Iranian Journal Of Public Health (22516085)38(2)pp. 18-26
Background: Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) has been commercially used as an octane enhancer to replace tetraethyl lead in gasoline since 1979. The high mobility, water solubility, and resistance to natural attenuation associated with MTBE may result in contamination of ground and surface waters. In this investigation the degradation of aqueous MTBE at relatively high concentrations was studied by UV-vis/TiO2/O2 photocatalytic process. The effect of important operational parameters such as pH, oxygen flow, catalyst loading, and irradiation time were also studied. Methods: Concentration of MTBE and intermediates such as tert-butyl formate (TBF) and tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) were measured using a gas chromatograph equipped with flam ionization detector and combined with headspace sampler. Results: The time required for complete degradation increased from 15 to 150 min, when the initial concentration was increased from 10 to 500 mg/L. The first order rate constant for degradation of MTBE from the hydroxyl radical was estimated to be 0.266 to 0.033 min-1 as the concentration increased from 10 to 500 mg/L. Study on the overall mineralization monitored by total organic carbon (TOC) analysis showed that in the initial concentration of 100 mg/L MTBE, complete mineralization was obtained after 110 min under UV-vis/TiO2/O2 photocatalytic process. Conclusion: The data presented in this paper clearly indicate that UV/TiO2/O2 advanced oxidation process provides an efficient treatment alternative for the remediation of MTBE contaminated water.
Publication Date: 2025
Language Related Research (23223081)16(2)pp. 253-277
An alternation is a pair of sentences with identical structures and meaning. Transitivity alternation, on the other hand, is a type of grammatical alternations in which the verb is used with a different number of arguments without a significant change in meaning. Participating in specific alternations is considered as a criterion for categorizing verbs in semantic classes. For investigating this hypothesis, and in order to obtain more accurate information about the syntactic behavior and semantic properties of the verbs which can omit their objects, 435 cases of context independent object omission extracted from different sources such as books, magazines, movies, series, and everyday conversations were studied. The findings show that the verbs which participate in specific alternations, have identical semantic properties and can be categorized in one semantic class. Accordingly, the semantic behavior of the verb can be predictable based on its syntactic behavior. An interesting fact about the verbs which participate in same alternations and belong to same semantic class is that, the kind of objects these verbs take, have common features as well. The syntactic behavior and semantic characteristics of the investigated verbs and their objects reveal that, a verb can omit its object, when the object is general, indefinite, unspecific, and its meaning is predictable for the hearer. © 2025, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
