مثنی و معدود در ایرانی میانه و نو

Nicholas Sims- Willams
Translated to Persian:
 Poorchista Goshtasbi Ardakany
 
The survival of certain Old Iranian dual forms in the function of a“numerative”, a special form of the noun used only after numerals,is clearly attested in Sogdian, as I showed in 1979 in an article entitled“On the plural and dual in Sogdian”. In that paper I made only a few remarks in passing on the possible existence of numerative forms in someother Iranian languages such as Pashto and Ossetic. During the years which have passed since its publication, however, I and others have noticed that forms which could be described as numeratives can also be found in Choresmian, as well as in a number of New Iranian languages, both Eastern and Western. The historical phonology and morphology of most of these languages is little known. Consequently, if one views these forms in isolation, it is difficult to reach any definite conclusion about their origin. The primary purpose of this paper, therefore, apart from a desire to pay tribute to a dear and distinguished colleague, is to collect all the relevant material in one place so that it can be viewed as a whole.
 
[1] PhD student in Ancient Iranian Languages, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies       poorandoxt.m@gmail.com