Syntax and semantics of subjunctive clauses in Persian

On subjunctive clauses and irrealis mood in Persian

“…(Darzi and Kwak 2015: 4, (11 Second, Darzi and Kwak (2015: 4) believe that the subjunctive complement to causative predicates, such as vɑdɑr = kaerdaen 'to force', involves a performed action, and hence is interpreted as realis. There are two major problems with Darzi and Kwak's (2015) account. The first problem is a conceptual one; Darzi and Kwak do not explicate factivity and merely consider taevɑnestaen 'to manage' and movaeffaeq ʃodaen 'to succeed/to become successful' to be factive predicates.…”

“…From these, they conclude that ta is seemingly another complementizer in Persian. The observation inDarzi and Kwak (2015) is not correct though: ta and ke may co-occur as can be seen in (i) below (cf. example (6) in Darzi and Kwak 2015).…”

“…Moreover, many authors suggest that the indicative/subjunctive distinction is a reflection of the realis/irrealis distinction (for arguments for and against this idea, see Farkas 1992Farkas , 2003Portner 1997Portner , 2009Portner , 2011Palmer 2001;Cornilescu 2004;Giannakidou 2009;Siegel 2009; de Hann 2012; and references therein). 2 Two pieces of evidence suggest that in Persian the indicative form does not necessarily represent the realis value of Mood irrealis P (see also Darzi and Kwak 2015). First, as shown in (7), the indicative can be employed in the clausal complement of the speculative predicate haeds = zaedaen 'to guess'.…”

“…It is not in the scope of the present paper to classify the predicates that take subjunctive complements (for an overview seeNoonan 2007;Giannakidou 2009;Becker 2010;Godard 2012; and references therein).4 The adverbial clause in (10b) is a purpose clause Darzi and Kwak (2015:. 3) mention that ta can replace the complementizer ke in Persian purpose clauses and that ta and ke are in complementary distribution.…”

“…The second problem with Darzi and Kwak (2015) is an empirical one; their account is not consistent within Persian. In (16), the complement clause is identical to the complement clause in (14).…”