زهرا عباسی

The purpose of this article is to contribute to studies on counterfactuals by exploring counterfactual conditions in Persian. Here, counterfactual sentences in Persian have been studied based on typological findings of the same in different languages. In order to study the typology, two main parameters are examined: symmetrical and asymmetrical morphological patterns of counterfactual conditional sentences and the range of TAM (Tense Aspect Mood) values in protasis and apodosis. The main concepts of counterfactual conditionals, including the construction of complex sentences, imagined conditions that have not occurred, false events, and the two above parameters were taken into account. This is a library-based research and the required data was extracted from the Persian Linguistic Database (PLDB). Findings show that the counterfactual conditions in Persian have a complex sentence construction and protasis acts as a subordinate clause and in typological classifications, Persian has counterfactual conditionals for past, present and future and counterfactual conditionals have both symmetrical and asymmetrical patterns. Also in the TAM spectrum, counterfactual conditions have both symmetrical and asymmetric morphological patterns. In these patterns, both protasis and apodosis are used in the past continuous and past perfect tenses. In all three types of counterfactual conditions, the past tense is used, with either perfective or imperfective appearance.

Motivation for learning a new language does not have an all-or-none impact. It is gradually ‎formed and fluctuated over time and on each timescale has varying levels of influence on a ‎person’s endeavor to learn a language. At the present time, scholars claim that throughout the ‎Second Language Development (SLD) different timescales interact with each other and this ‎interaction is nonlinear, complex and dynamic in nature (de Bot 2015). The present study ‎attempted to investigate the motivational dynamics of a group of Persian learners in longer ‎timescales composed of a number of tasks performed on shorter timescales. Ten participants were ‎interviewed at the onset, while performing tasks and at the end of the course to better picture the ‎interplay of different motivational themes over time. The findings confirmed temporal variation ‎in participants’ motivation. Although some individual specific variation was observed, the ‎average group motivation was increasingly tending toward an overall stable state. Moreover, the ‎data revealed the fact that motivational themes were not equally effective over the course and ‎during task performance. It was shown, for example, that factors influencing learners’ initial ‎motivation were less influential during the task completion. Finally, L2 motivation was found to ‎contain an interrelationship of a number of dynamic and complex factors which varied over ‎different timescales and had different motivational intensity in each specific stage. Finally, some ‎implications were driven from the findings of the study.‎