An Analysis of the Efficiency of Constituency Tests in Persian; a Minimalist Analysis (original) (raw)

2022, Language-Related Research

Detecting constituents as independent syntactic units having syntactic and semantic coherence on which the structure of the sentences is based is vital both for the prevention of ambiguity and for a correct reading and analysis of syntactic processes. To this end, some tests have been introduced in syntax which help the linguist in diagnosing the boundaries of constituents. Within a Minimalist framework, this study aimed to analyze the efficiency of eight constituency tests, namely: coordination, ellipsis, question formation, sentence fragment, replacement, clefting, pseudo-clefting and topicalization. These had the highest frequency in important syntactic sources as means for diagnosing seven selected important constituents of the sentences, i.e., VP, DP, PP, AP, AdvP, CP and TP. We applied the tests to these categories in Persian to see which ones are most efficient and can cover a wider range of constituents. The results suggested that pseudo-clefting and topicalization are more effective and have the capability of identifying more constituents in English than in Persian. It was also concluded that, given the large number of exceptions, in general, the tests mentioned above cannot be considered as absolute tools in identifying constituents.