This article investigates the use and frequency of what I refer to as the K-suffixes -ō/-ū/-o in the Shirazi dialects, namely, Old and Modern Shirazi. It shows that the use of K-suffixes as definiteness markers is more highly developed in Modern Shirazi than in Old Shirazi. In Old Shirazi, the K-suffix, with its original evaluative meaning, demonstrated some degree of multi-functionality. This has mostly been lost in Modern Shirazi, and the suffix is now used to express definiteness. The high frequency of use of the K-suffix appears to be independent of genre, speaker, and speech setting. Data from a corpus of written texts in Old Shirazi, mainly comprised of poems, are quantitatively analysed, along with data from a corpus of spoken Shirazi narratives and data from a questionnaire answered by ten speakers. The results show that an evaluative suffix can develop into a definiteness marker by passing through a stage of combination with deictic markers, which paves the way for extending the use of the K-suffix to include non-deictic anaphoric tracking. This article concludes that the development of definiteness marking can proceed down a pathway that is distinct from the one normally assumed for demonstrative-based definiteness marking, even if the endpoint may be similar. The detailed documentation of this process presented here is a further contribution to Iranian studies, and augments the small group of well-documented cases of a non-demonstrative origin of definiteness marking cross-linguistically.

This paper aims to investigate the usage and frequency of what we refer to as K-suffixes in Classical New Persian of the ninth to thirteenth centuries, Contemporary Written Persian of the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, and Contemporary Spoken Persian. It shows that K-suffixes are most likely to be the reflexes of earlier evaluative morphemes, traditionally called “diminutives,” and are characterized by a high degree of multifunctionality. While evaluative functions continue to dominate in the Classical New Persian works, they have largely been lost in contemporary spoken Persian, and the suffix is now systematically used to express definiteness. The development of the K-suffix as a definiteness marker in contemporary colloquial Persian appears to be innovative, and is mainly dependent on genre, speaker, and speech situation.

Data for Classical New Persian is taken from critical editions of works from the ninth to thirteenth centuries. The data for Contemporary Written Persian comes from comprehensive books of fiction from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, and for Contemporary Spoken Persian from an extensive corpus of spoken Persian narratives and a questionnaire answered by fifteen speakers. The results suggest that evaluative morphology can develop into definiteness marking, with the development passing through a stage of combination with a deictic marker.

This paper concludes that the development of definiteness marking can proceed down a new pathway that is different from the one normally assumed for demonstrative-based definite marking, though the endpoint may be similar. The study contributes the second detailed documentation of this process for any Iranian language, and one of the few well-documented cases of a non-demonstrative origin of definiteness marking worldwide.

This paper investigates the usage and frequency of what is referred to as K-suffixes in three Balochi dialects, namely Koroshi, Coastal and Sistani Balochi. It shows that K-suffixes are most likely the reflexes of earlier evaluative morphology, traditionally termed “diminutives,” and are characterized by a high degree of multi-functionality. While in Coastal and Sistani Balochi evaluative functions continue to dominate, they have been largely lost in Koroshi Balochi, and the suffix is now used to indicate definiteness. The development appears to have been spearheaded by female speakers, and its frequency is also dependent on genre and speech situation. Data is taken from an extensive corpus of spoken Balochi narratives and from a questionnaire with thirty-six speakers. The results suggest that evaluative morphology can develop into definiteness marking, with the development passing over a stage of combination with deictic markers. The paper concludes that the development of definiteness marking can proceed down a pathway that is distinct from the one normally assumed for demonstrative-based definite marking, though the endpoint may be similar. This is the first detailed documentation of this process for any Iranian language, and one of the few well-documented cases of a non-demonstrative origin of definiteness marking worldwide.