Abstract

Abstract In the Persian grammar and linguistic studies books, the structure of the Persian verb in perfect tenses is introduced as the combination of ‘participle adjective’ + ‘auxiliary verb’ or ‘copula verb’, which is not plausible for different reasons. The present study analyzes the morphological structure of Persian perfect verbs based on different linguistic evidence. In the contemporary Persian, the personal clitics (personal endings) are an indispensible part of the verb, and in perfect tenses one inflectional morpheme is required to represent the concept of the perfect aspect and in addition every verb phrase is supposed to have one verb in itself. Therefore, the following morphological structures are introduced for the present perfect and past perfect tenses respectively in this study: present perfect = ‘past stem of verb + /-e/ (inflectional morpheme of perfect aspect) + personal clitics; past perfect = ‘past stem of verb + /-e/ (inflectional morpheme of perfect aspect) + bud (past form of “to be”) + personal clitics. Based on linguistic analyses, especially in coordinating the linguistic units, we came across with some similarities between the perfect verbs and adjectives which demonstrate the historical development of the language. Based on the present evidence, the structure of verb in the present perfect tense is modified in the way: present perfect = ‘past stem of verb + /-e/ (inflectional morpheme of perfect aspect) + portmanteau morph (personal clitics and auxiliary verb “to be”). Keywords: Perfect Tense, Past Stem, Perfect Aspect, Clitic, Persian Language.