Towards a grammar of the Semnāni language

Semnāni is a North-Western Iranian language according to the traditional subdivision of Iranian languages, spoken by 21,099 people in Semnān Province and its counties. Semnāni can be considered one of the most conservative New Western Iranian languages. It has preserved various grammatical features that are no longer attested in Middle Iranian languages, such as Parthian. Semnāni is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking Persian, the official language of Iran. Previous studies on Semnāni indicate that many questions regarding the case and gender systems and alignment patterns of the monotransitive and ditransitive constructions in Semnāni remain unresolved. Thus, this study attempts to fill this research gap by focusing on some crucial aspects of Semnāni based on the functional-typological approach. Our study demonstrates that the form of the direct (masculine: ‑Ø, feminine: ‑ā,) and oblique (masculine: ‑i, feminine: ‑in) exist in the nouns. In this respect, the direct noun exhibits the subject of the intransitive construction in the present and past tense, the agent of the monotransitive construction in the past tense, the inanimate theme of the ditransitive construction, and the locative in the present and past tense. Inherited oblique nouns indicate the agent of the monotransitive construction in the past tense, patient of the monotransitive construction in the present and past tenses, recipient of the ditransitive construction, and temporal. On the other hand, the six terms of the speech act participant pronouns indicate three forms: direct, and inherited oblique. In this respect, the singular speech act participant pronouns (SAP) indicate the subject of the present and past tense in the intransitive construction and the agent of the monotransitive construction in the present tense. The inherited oblique pronouns show five functions, including singular agent of the monotransitive construction in the past tense, singular patient of the monotransitive construction in the present and past tenses, possessor, theme of the ditransitive construction in the present and past tenses, and recipient of the ditransitive construction. Our research also reveals that there are two gender values in Semnāni, masculine and feminine. The gender distinction is observed in the nouns, indefinite articles (masculine: i, feminine: iya), demonstrative pronouns (masculine: en, un/feminine: ena, una), demonstrative adjectives (masculine: en, un, feminine: ena, una), possessor suffixes (masculine: ‑i, feminine: ‑in), the third person singular oblique pronouns (masculine: žö, feminine: žin), the third person singular simple past tense of intransitive verbs (masculine: ‑Ø, feminine: ‑ā), the third person singular of the imperfect tense of intransitive verbs (masculine: ‑a, feminine: -ā), the third person singular of the past perfect tense (masculine: ‑a, feminine: -ā), and the copula (masculine: ‑a, feminine: ‑e). Our data also suggest a hierarchy in which the feminine demonstrative pronouns are the least stable, while the feminine possessor suffix is the most stable. It seems that sociolinguistic factors such as gender, age, and social class have an impact on the stability or instability of feminine agreement in Semnāni. On the other hand, Semnāni shows two assignment rules such as (1) Formal rules, which can be divided into a phonological rule whereby the last phoneme of the word demonstrates the gender value (masculine and feminine), and a morphological rule whereby inflectional and derivational suffixes determine the gender value. (2) Semantic rules whereby certain nouns belong to a specific lexical subfield. Furthermore, our study reveals that there is a consistent nominative–accusative alignment in the present tense of the monotransitive construction, in which the patient is in the oblique, whereas agent and subject are in the direct case. Ergative alignment is found on nouns in the past tense, in which the agent is marked in the oblique case, while the subject and patient are marked in the direct case and indexed by inflectional verbal suffixes. Our data also suggest that different pronouns represent different alignment patterns in the present and past tenses, in which nominative-accusative alignment appears in the singular pronouns in the present tense and double oblique alignment is applied to the singular pronouns in the past tense. However, neutral alignment is applied to the plural speech act participant pronouns in the present and past tenses.