Retour sur le parfait périphrastique du vieux perse

The periphrastic perfect of transitive verbs in Old Persian has long been a matter of study. Facing a turn based on a passive past participle with a genitive-dative agent, which turn, in some Iranian languages, resulted in an active preterite with ergative alignment, various scholars showed diverging views regarding the voice which this construct was supposed to express. This article begins by reminding the limits of our knowledge of the Achaemenid monarchs’ language and by listing the various occurrence types of said periphrastic turn. Then it puts under scrutiny about ten approaches which are likely to deliver arguments in favour of the active or passive character of the turn, all of which arguments are made use of to some extent and for various aims by renown scholars. This study shows that most of the arguments are not convincing per se, but the vast overview which it provides when analysing them enables to bring out several firm conclusions and directions for future research.