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Description:
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This monograph presents a morpho-syntactic investigation on modality,
aspect, and negation by concentrating on Persian, and is designed to
contribute to theoretical linguistics and the study of Iranian languages.
The analysis is based on the Minimalist program. This research challenges
the idea that the syntactic structure maps on the semantic interpretation
or vice versa. The discussion presented in this monograph shows that the
syntactic structure of Persian modals is uniform no matter if the modals
are interpreted as having root or epistemic readings. Although it is
claimed that modals are raising constructions in different languages,
modals in Persian, which does not have subject-raising constructions, show
a different syntactic behavior. Furthermore, the structural analysis of the
interaction of Persian modals and negation shows that because of the scope
interaction of negation and modals, the syntactic structure of modals with
respect to negation mostly corresponds to the semantic interpretation of
modals.
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