AN ASSESSMENT OF SUBJECT POSITION IN PERSIAN LANGUAGE

The position of subject in SPEC/VP and its movement to SPEC/IP is one of the topics carried out within the Government and Binding theory. According to this hypothesis, subject receives theta role in SPEC/VP and then moves to SPEC/IP to receive case. Some Persian linguists believe that this hypothesis cannot be applied in Persian language. They claim that in their language subject is in the SPEC/IP, and this position is not the result of subject movement from SPEC/VP. Generally in sentences which contain floating quantifiers, subject movement from SPEC/VP to SPEC/ IP is necessary, but Alizadeh (2008) rejects this rule and he believes that in this sort of sentences only a kind of topicalization happens, i.e. subject moves from SPEC/IP to SPEC/CP. It seems that his claim in government and binding theory doesn’t have any admitted explanation. In this paper, different reasons are stated for rejecting subject position in SPEC/IP and its movement to SPEC/CP. According to the results of this paper, in Persian language, subject at first is in the SPEC/VP and then moves to SPEC/IP, and all principles mentioned in government and binding theory are observed. So, in Persian language, subject receives theta role in SPEC/VP and then moves to SPEC/ IP to receive case, like many other languages in the world.