Complex Predicates in Focus

Persian and Turkish exhibit a number of striking similarities: (a) many verbal concepts are expressed by complex predicates (CPr), consisting of a non-verbal (NV) element and a light verb (LV) (Foli et al 2005, Megerdoomian 2002, Kornfilt 2003), (b) both languages exhibit scrambling, and (c) they both mark direct objects for specificity (Karimi 2005, Enc 1991). However, there are also some important differences between these two languages: while nonspecific objects can be scrambled in Persian, they must be adjacent to the verb in Turkish. Similarly, the Persian NV element can be separated by various elements, but not in Turkish, with the exception of the focus markers. Finally, the LV may alternate between do/make and become only in the case of unaccusative CPr types in Turkish, while this is possible in both unaccusative and transitive CPr types in Persian.