This paper investigates effects of language contact on a previously undocumented variety of Turkic (Southern West Oghuz) spoken by sedentarized nomads in the city of Boldaji, Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province, south-west Iran. Located in an area of high linguistic diversity including the Iranic language Bakhtiari and the Charmahali variety of Persian, Boldaji Turkic exhibits numerous contact-induced features. Here, drawing on data collected using the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) questionnaire, we focus on variation in five primarily morphosyntactic features, several of which have not figured prominently in the literature on contact-induced change in Turkic: (i) restructuring of vowel harmony; (ii) the postposed emphatic definiteness marker ǰoġɑz; (iii) an additional oblique pronominal stem based on bela- + possessive suffix; (iv) ‘can/be able’ expressions; and (v) a reduplicated progressive verbal form. In line with well-established criteria from contact linguistics, we assess the probability of contact-induced change for these five features by considering differences with other West Oghuz languages outside the area, namely Turkish and Azeri, to rule out an internal explanation. Unlike previous studies, which use
standard-type Persian as the contact language, we show the importance of considering model structures in geographically contiguous languages, with a focus on Bakhtiari and the local Persian variety, to account for areal convergence. Finally, we consider the plausibility of various contact-based explanations in the light of our knowledge of related Turkic varieties in the area. Our data bring into question the common view that contactinduced change is preferentially associated with simplification; rather, we find a mix of structural changes involving both loss and gain of morphological matter, and patterns.