‘TO BE ABLE TO’ IN MODERN WEST IRANIAN LANGUAGES: INTRODUCING A MODAL CLAUSE

Abstract

In investigating modal concept ‘to be able to’ in 104 modern west Iranian varieties, we found four main lexical sources for the verbs meaning ‘to be able to’: i) * xšāya; ii) tav -; iii) zan; and iv) šaw/šiyaw . Therewith the above sources, in some of the language varieties in Central of Iran, the idiomatic clause ti G = clitic vontemon meaning ‘someone’s razor cuts’ has the same semantic roles which are predominately on auxiliary verbs meaning ‘to be able to/can’ in other languages. At the same time, in each variety, there is an auxiliary with (almost) the same semantic domain in the field of modality. This paper studies these constructions in one of these language varieties (Kahangi) and shows how the mentioned clause is competing with and winning over an auxiliary meaning ‘can’ (be - ʃ) in this variety. en una de estas variedades lingüísticas (Kahangi) y muestra cómo la cláusula mencionada compite y se impone a un significado auxiliar ‘can’ (be-ʃ) en esta variedad. 1) 2) Southwest Iranian; 3) Perside Groups, Southern and 4) Non-Perside Groups, Larestan, and 5) Northwest Iranian, Tier two; 6) Easter Afghanistan, Pakistan; 7) Caspian Dialects, and 8) Semnan