The Progressive Tenses with the Verb “To Have” as a Peculiar and Exclusive Feature of Western Iranian Dialects Spoken in Modern Iran

The article considers the verb forms with the auxiliary verb “to have” used in Persian and other western Iranian dialects of modern Iran to express a continuous action taking place at the moment of speech in the present or at a certain moment in the past. Drawing upon an extensive material collected from a large number of dialects, the author proves that the geographic area within which these forms are found is limited to the territory of modern Iran, which makes them a distinguishing and exclusive feature of western Iranian (Persian and non-Persian alike) dialects spoken in modern Iran. The author supports the idea that these verb forms are completely “native” to the linguistic area they are found in and, therefore, despite the view-point of some scholars, could not have originated under the influence of western or any other foreign languages.