Passivization in Taleshi dialect (of Sehsar)

This article surveys passivization in Taleshi dialect. This dialect is common in some areas of the Guilan  province. This dialect, i.e Taleshi dialect, is  divided into three different branches which are  called central, northern and southern Taleshi dialects. The methodology which  is used  in this research is field and library research. Because the language data  are driven through a field  study and the author goes into the people and selects thirty native speakers of Sehsar village. These native speakers mostly are forty years old or more; construing that they are not affected by the neighboring dialects which are spoken around them. The author interviews these thirty native speakers of Sehsar, who  mostly reside in the village of Sehsar. He records their speech and selects the items which are applicable for the purpose of this research. It should be mentioned here that, the framework and the literature of this article take  great advantages of other written works which have appeared before. The dialect which is surveyed here, is of southern type which is spoken in Sehsar village. This dialect is the only means of communication among the people of this village. From linguistic perspective, this dialect has two different case systems which are called nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive case systems. Nominative-accusative case system is the one in which the subjects of the intransitive and transitive verbs behave similarly and these two subjects are not differentiated by any case marker; hence, the object of the transitive verb is different. In an ergative-absolutive case system, it is the reverse, that is, the subject of a transitive verb behaves differently from both the subject of intransitive verb and the object of the transitive verb. In other words, in this case system, the object of a transitive verb and the subject of an intransitive verb behave similarly. This case is shown by case marker in ergative languages. In Taleshi dialect, ergative case is shown by the case marker  <– i >. Regarding  these two case systems, this article focuses mainly on how passivization is done in these different systems which are called nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive and both exist in this dialect. Afterwards, based on the evidence gathered in a field study, it is tried to answer these questions as well: Does passivization exist in this dialect which is of southern type? And how it is done in these two different case systems? Do these different case systems apply different methods of passivization, or they apply the same method? Do passivization and ergativity coincide in the same structure? The results of this research, which are obtained after analyzing the language data gathered through a field study, show that passivization exists in this dialect and it is commonly done by omitting the agent from the sentence while the object of the verb moves to the position of the omitted subject and the verb agrees with this dummy subject. In instances of passivization, by omitting the subject, the morpheme which means follows the object which occurs in the subject position. The author believes that in this kind of passivization , the emphasis is on the object with which the verb is accomplished and as different morphemes are in action in this process of passivization, he calls this process a complex passivization; but in some cases, the agent is kept, but its position is changed and it attaches the object. Although the subject is kept and it comes after the object, it goes through some changes and represents a third singular or plural pronoun. That is the subject appears as or <– šun>. The choice depends on the context in which they occur. These two morphemes need a past tense and perfect aspect to occur and this context is a prerequisite for occurring the ergative case. Based on what is said, it can be concluded that this type of passivization along with ergativity requires a similar context to occur. The other point is , only in such cases passivization can coincide with ergative-absolutive construction, where the agent is present in the sentence. This finding contradicts thast of Atlamaz (2012) which claims ergativity does not occur in a passive structure, in other words, these two structures do not coincide in a structure. Hence, in cases where the agent is absent, ergative construction is absent too.