Mohsen Mahdavi Mazdeh

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Journals/Publications

• Mahdavi Mazdeh, M. (2025). Word order and stress reconstruction in Persian. Glossa, 10(Issue). doi:10.16995/glossa.11592
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  This paper offers a new theory of nuclear stress assignment, focusing on data from Persian (an SOV language) and English (an SVO language). The proposed theory bypasses phrases and assigns nuclear stress to the last element of the sentence by default. Deviations from this pattern (which are abundant in Persian) are explained through “stress reconstruction” effects; even non-final elements that receive nuclear stress are base-generated at the lowermost position. Relying on the theory of antisymmetry, it is argued that the syntactic movements that are responsible for the SOV surface order are also responsible for non-final nuclear stress. In this manner, a combination of three assumptions already existing in the literature (antisymmetry, stress reconstruction, and rightmost prominence) is used to account for the Persian stress facts. The argument involves new data that challenge existing accounts of the language. Most importantly, it is shown that Persian acc-marked objects behave in the same way as other objects in terms of stress assignment. Second, a range of sentence types with nuclear stress on post-verbal elements in Persian are discussed, challenging Kahnemuyipour’s (2004; 2009) phase-based theory, which places nuclear accent on the highest element in the vP phase. Third, it is shown that the stress patterns in Persian scrambled sentences are most easily accounted for through stress reconstruction.
• Mahdavi Mazdeh, M. (2023). Metrical strength in Persian poetic metres. Journal of Linguistics, 59(Issue 4). doi:10.1017/s0022226722000482
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  In determining the metrical structure of quantitative poetic metres, heavy (i.e. long) syllables are usually associated with metrically strong positions. In this study, examining the case of Persian metres, I argue that the metres must be treated as temporal patterns in music, where research on rhythm perception has shown that the metrical strength of an event is not directly determined by the inter-onset interval following it but sensitive to the overall arrangement of the attack points. To identify metrically strong positions, I introduce a different method based on the performance practices of participants in the poetic tradition. The strength hierarchy is then used to offer constituency trees for the metrical forms and classify them. The structures identified for metrical forms are different from those suggested in previous accounts of Persian metres, in that they allow incomplete constituents at the left edges of metres. Building upon this general framework, a set of constraints chiefly based on well-known universal rhythmic tendencies is introduced and the Persian metre inventory is accounted for as emerging from the interaction of these constraints.
• Mazdeh, M. M. (2021). Linguistic Change and the Future of Metrical Persian Poetry. Iranian Studies, 54(Issue 5-6). doi:10.1080/00210862.2020.1777391
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  The metrical requirements of Persian poetry are highly restrictive. Traditionally, the rigidity of the metrical system was compensated for by a high degree of flexibility in the poetic language in terms of lexicon, phonology, and morpho-syntax. Using statistical data from different periods of Persian poetry, this paper argues that the degree of flexibility of the language used in metrical Persian poetry has been in constant decrease, moving towards what may potentially be a language crisis for metrical Persian poetry. This study traces the linguistic and meta-linguistic origins of the initial flexibility of the poetic language and its subsequent change, suggesting that some of the recent trends in Persian poetry may be viewed in part as reactions to this potential crisis.

Proceedings Publications

• Harley, H. B., Karimi, S., Mahdavi Mazdeh, M., Nabors, R. N., & Smith, R. W. (2017, February). Parallelism and specificity in Persian Non-Verbal Element ellipsis. In GLOW in Asia XI, Proceedings of GLOW in Asia XI, 195-204.