Possessives as source of definite articles? Diachronic evidence from Persian
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21462992 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Zahra Etabari (0000-0002-8175-6226, Uppsala University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue | s46-s1 |
| Pages | 43-69 |
| Publication date | 2025-11-25 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Folia Linguistica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0165-4004 • E-ISSN: 1614-7308 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/flin-2025-2015 |
| OpenAlex | W4410882640 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 33 |
This article discusses a distinct function of the third person singular pronominal clitic =eš in Persian: to denote definiteness. In certain possessive constructions, =eš does not refer to an external possessor but serves to make its host identifiable – whether through association with another item in the linguistic or situational context or as an anaphoric definite marker without any association. The use of possessive markers for definiteness has been observed in Uralic, Trans-Eurasian, Austronesian, Semitic, and Mayan language families; this study presents evidence of a similar development in Persian, an Indo-European language of the southwestern Iranian branch. The present article examines various definite uses of =eš through colloquial examples from social media and historical examples from a New Persian corpus. The findings trace the development of =eš , illustrating how its associative link to external entities weakens over time until it functions as an anaphoric definite marker. A tentative grammaticalization path is proposed in which the abstraction of the possessive meanings leads to the eventual loss of possessive semantics in =eš , resulting in the loss of person and number features in anaphoric uses. Additionally, the article discusses how increasing frequency of =eš has contributed to its development across stages of New Persian
Linguistics · Persian · Possessive · History · Lexicography and Language Studies · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
Demonstratives
Grammaticalization
Demonstratives in Narrative Discourse
Uniqueness in Definite Noun Phrases
Possessive Agreement Turned into a Derivational Suffix
Definitely Not Possessed? Possessive Suffixes with Definiteness Marking Function
The Uralic Languages
Ritualization and the development of language
Definites
Development of contrastive-partitive in colloquial Persian
Definite Possessives and Discourse Novelty
Two pathways to identifiability in Cerebon Javanese
From possessor agreement to object marking in the evolution of the Udmurt -jez suffix
Diachronic Development of the K-suffixes
Cross-linguistic quantification
The Evolution of Grammatical Categories
| Highly cited | No |
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