37.2755, Diss: Iranian; Iranian Persian; Applied Linguistics, General Linguistics, Language Documentation, Syntax, Typology: Shahram Gerami: "Typology of Word Order and Alignment System in Behbahani"

Wed Aug 26 19:05:02 UTC 2026

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2755. Wed Aug 26 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2755, Diss: Iranian; Iranian Persian; Applied Linguistics, General Linguistics, Language Documentation, Syntax, Typology: Shahram Gerami: "Typology of Word Order and Alignment System in Behbahani"

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Date: 25-Aug-2026
From: Shahram Gerami [shahramgr21 at gmail.com]
Subject: Typology of Word Order and Alignment System in Behbahani

Institution: Allameh Tabatabaei University
Program: Linguistics
Degree Date: 2019
Level: PhD

Author: Shahram Gerami

Dissertation Title: Typology of Word Order and Alignment System in
Behbahani

Dissertation URL:
https://ganj.irandoc.ac.ir/#/search?keywords=%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%AA%DB%8C%D8%A8%20%D9%88%D8%A7%DA%98%D9%87%20%D9%88%20%D9%86%D8%B8%D8%A7%D9%85%20%D9%85%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%82%D9%87%20%D8%AF%D8%B1%20%D8%A8%D9%87%D8%A8%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C&basicscope=1

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
                     General Linguistics
                     Language Documentation
                     Syntax
                     Typology

Subject Language(s): Iranian Persian (pes, west2369)

Language Family(ies): Iranian (iran1269)

Dissertation Director(s): Dr. DABIR MOGHADDAM

Dissertation Abstract:

Behbahani is a South-Western Iranian language spoken in Behbahan, a
city located in the south east of Khoozestan Province in Iran. This
dissertation investigated the typological status of word order
parameters, and the agreement system in Behbahan within the framework
of Dryer (1992), and Comrie (1978) respectively. Analysis of the data
showed that out of twenty four word order parameters to distinguish OV
languages from VO languages, Behbahani is dominantly of VO type. Also,
the agreement system can be classified into two types: (i)
Nominative-Accusative system and (ii) Non-Nominative-Accusative
system. The sentences containing the intransitive verbs as well as the
transitive verbs formed with the present stem manifest a
Nominative-Accusative system in which only S and A are identically
expressed as agreement suffixes in the verb. P can either be realized
by nouns and independent personal pronouns or be cross-referenced by
an oblique enclitic.
The sentences which contain transitive verbs formed with the past
stems manifest Non-Nominative-Accusative system which illustrates
three possible alignment types: (i) Tripartite, when P is realized by
a noun, a noun phrase or by an independent personal pronoun and is not
crossreferenced by an agreement suffix or oblique enclitic, (ii)
Ergative-Absolutive, when P is not realized by a noun, a noun phrase
or an independent personal pronoun but is cross-referenced by the
verbal agreement suffixes and (iii) Bi-partite or Oblique-Oblique
agreement system, when P and A are both expressed via oblique
enclitics. In regard to the agreement system in Behbahani, the
following points are worth noting: (1) S is always cross-referenced by
agreement suffixes in the verb, (2) A is obligatorily cross-referenced
with an oblique enclitic in the three alignment types of
Non-Nominative-Accusative system, (3) the inflectional suffixes
representing A or S in Nominative-Accusative system are identical to
the inflectional suffixes exhibiting P in Ergative-Absolutive type,
(4) the oblique enclitics encoding P in Nominative-Accusative system
are identical to the oblique enclitics manifesting A in
Non-Nominative-Accusative system and p in Bi-partite alignment type,
(5) in Behbahani agreement system, nouns and independent personal
pronouns have zero case-marking for S, A and P functions, (6)
Behbahani obeys the Wackernagel’s Law.
Keywords: Behbahani language, word order, agreement system, branching,
direction Theory, alignment system, pronominal clitics

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