Separability of Light Verb Constructions in Persian*

illustrated in sections {3.2.1} and {3.2.2}, the predicative nouns and VNs, referring to
actions or events, bear a-structure while non-predicative nouns, referring to things or
objects, do not bear a-structure. In addition, VN preverbs, unlike predicative and nonpredicative
nouns, lack N features. In (18), we show some LVCs containing these three
types of preverbs. The PVs in (18a) are VNs, those in (18b) are predicative nouns, and
those in (18c) are non-predicative nouns.
(18) a. Predicative Verbal Nouns:
ʔanja:m da:dan (performance + to give) ‘to perform, to do’
baya:n kardan (expressing + to do) ‘to express, to say’
ʔezha:r kardan (stating + to do) ‘to state, to say’
ʔa:xa:z kardan (beginning + to do) ‘to begin’
tahye kardan (providing + to do) ‘to provide’
b. Predicative Nouns:
komak kardan (help + to do) ‘to help’
gerye kardan (cry + to do) ‘to cry’
lotf kardan (favor + to do) ‘to do sb a favor’
latme zadan (damage + to beat) ‘to damage’
ra:hnema:ʔi kardan (advice + to do) ‘to advise’
daʔvat Kardan (invitation + to do) 'to invite'
c. Non-predicative Nouns:
gush kardan (ear + to do) ‘to listen’
ʔarre kardan (saw + to do) ‘to saw’
mashin kardan (machine + to do) ‘to machine’
ʔatash zadan (fire + to beat) ‘to fire, to set to fire’
qofl kardan (lock + to do) ‘to lock’
Karimi-Doostan (2008a: 189-192), based on semantic and morphosyntactic grounds,
claims that predicative VNs (18a) are different from nouns and they cannot be classified
as any of the Persian lexical categories, i.e. V, N, P or Adj/Adv. In the rest of this
section, different types of nominal preverbs are focused on.
3.2.1. Predication and Nominal Preverbs
The PVs may either refer to things or objects in the universe (18c) or to actions
and events (18a-b). Consequently, the nominal PVs are of two types, non-predicative and
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