Determinants of event type in Persian complex predicates

In this paper we analyse the interdependence of Persian nonverbal (NV) element and the light verb (LV) in determining the syntactic properties, the event structure, and the alternation possibilities of the entire complex predicate (CP) and we argue that these properties provide strong evidence against a Lexicalist approach to such phenomena. Further we show how these facts may be naturally accommodated within a constructionalist position such as Hale and Keyser (1993, 2002), and argue that the combination of compositionality and syntactic independence effects observed in these constructions, are difficult, if not impossible, to deal with in a projectionist approach.