Separability of Light Verb Constructions in Persian*

As it was attested in (3), LVCs with predicative PVs are separable, but those with
predicative VNs (4) and non-predicative nouns (5) are inseparable. The comparison
between the separable LVCs in (3) and the inseparable ones in (4) and 5) may persuade
us to conclude that only PVs which carry a-structure and [N] feature can be separated in
the syntax as in (3). To find out more about the linguistic reasons behind the separability
of LVCs, we are led to the next section attempting to explain the separability of these
compound forms.
4. Light Verb Constructions and their Separability
Before concentrating on the separable and inseparable LVCs (3-5), we will focus
on the issue of breaking LVCs by some morphosyntactic elements illustrated in (1-2). In
such cases, the negation particle, the imperfective particle mi-, the pronominal clitics, the
future auxiliary xa:stan 'will' and the progressive auxiliary da:štan 'to have' appear
between the PVs and the LVs. In the following sections, we will account for the
separability of LVCs by the aforementioned linguistic elements before explaining the
(in)separablility of LVCs in cases like (3-5).
In contrast to some other languages, in Persian the negation morpheme is
obligatorily prefixed to LVs as well as heavy verbs. Grimshaw (1991: 44-46) argues that
there is a close relationship between verbness properties, especially tense features, and
negation. It follows from our explanation that LVs have sufficient verbness properties,
including tense features, to carry the negation morpheme or to be selected by the NegP
independently and the internal structures of LVCs, being visible to syntactic and
morphological rules, allow the insertion of the negation particle (head) ne ‘not’ as in (1).
The imperfective morpheme mi is prefixed to LVs or heavy verbs and forms
imperfective versions of LVCs or heavy verbs. We believe that although LVs are
semantically defective, they have enough verbness properties to function exactly like
heavy verbs in some cases like carrying the imperfective morpheme mi in (1).
Pronominal clitics such as -eš ‘it’ are attested, as in (2c), to intervene between
PVs and LVs. We assume Goldberg’s (1995: 18-20) analysis of clitic placement in LVCs
in which she finds a relation between clitic placement and stress facts. It is generally
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