Abstract
This paper is an attempt to determine relative clause formation in three Iranian languages including Naini, Delvari, and Talyshi based on the " noun phrase accessibility hierarchy " and universals constraints on relative clause formation proposed by Keenan and Comrie(1977), as well as strategies in marking the relativized position introduced in Keenan(1985), and also Koteva and Comrie(2005). Considering the relativized grammatical relations, these Iranian languages exhibit relativizability of all NP positions on the accessibility hierarchy and concerning the expression mode of the relativized noun phrases, these languages use two different strategies with respect to the relativized syntactic role: gap strategy and pronoun retention strategy. The gap strategy corresponds to subject, direct object, indirect object, and oblique relativization, except that in Talyshi, the pronoun retention strategy corresponds to oblique relativization. In addition, the pronoun retention is used in direct object, indirect object, oblique, and genitive relativization, except that in Naini, direct object is relativized just by means of a gap. The data from these Iranian languages suggest that relativization is in accordance with Keenan and Comrieʼs proposal in the sense that both the subject of intransitive verb(S) and the subject of transitive verb(A) are treated alike. In fact, the subject of transitive verb(A) is not less relativizable than the subject of intransitive verb and the object of transitive verb (P).
)