passive structure in persian: a minimalist approach

whether or not there is a verbal passive construction in persian has been ‎highly controversial. traditional grammarians and most linguists have ‎argued that there is a structural passive construction in persian, similar to ‎that observed in english. within the framework of the minimalist ‎program, but more in the spirit of emonds’s (2006) division of analytic ‎passives into verbal and adjectival, it will be argued that the persian ‎so-called verbal passive construction is just an instance of adjectival ‎passive, or indeed, unaccusative cpr with a past participle serving as ‎its nv element. in line with what holds for verb movement in simplex ‎and complex predicates, it will be discussed in detail that modern ‎persian lacks verbal passive constructions and hence passive ‎projections, and in contrast to the grammatical verb budan ‘to be’ ‎which can be used either as a light verb in complex predicates or as a ‎perfect auxiliary in present/past perfect tenses, the grammatical verb ‎šodan ‘to become’, which is traditionally considered as a passive ‎auxiliary, is indeed a light verb hosted by an nv element. according ‎to this line of analysis, in persian adjectival passives, the head [a-en] is ‎present in both lf and pf and the past participle is obligatorily ‎interpreted as an adjective.