Linguistics
Azam Alijani; Masood Ghayoomi; Maryam MesgarKhoyi; Houriyeh Ahadi; Yalda Delgoshaei
Volume 16, Issue 1 , August 2024, , Pages 31-53
Abstract
The present study aimed to study the preposition /az/ (i.e., from) in primary school textbooks. Polysemy of prepositions is one of the sources of many students’ perception. A text corpus developed for this study from Farsi, Practical Science, Heavenly Gifts, and Social Studies of elementary school ...
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The present study aimed to study the preposition /az/ (i.e., from) in primary school textbooks. Polysemy of prepositions is one of the sources of many students’ perception. A text corpus developed for this study from Farsi, Practical Science, Heavenly Gifts, and Social Studies of elementary school textbooks grades 1 to 6. To analyze the data, Rosch’s (1975) prototype theory and Tyler and Evans’ (2003) systematic prepositions polysemy approaches in the cognitive semantics framework were used. At first, the sample sentences which contained the preposition /az/ (from) were extracted to form the sub-corpus. The set of senses that are obtained from the sub-corpus are “Type”, “Whole Part”, “Tense, Source”, “Comparation”, “with the help of, By, With”, “About”, “Orientation”, “Motion”, “Metaphor”, and “Complement”. Statistical distribution of meanings in the whole sub-corpus (general domain) was “Whole Part”. The senses of the proposition among lessons and grades (domain restricted) are not similar to the prototype sense. This research showed that the sense “Complement” is the prototype for grades 1 to 3, and the sense “Whole Part” is more frequent in grade 4 to 6. Different forms of this preposition are used at the beginning, middle, and end of sentence. Furthermore, the findings showed that the sense “Metaphor” is the prototype for the book Farsi, the sense “Whole Part” is the prototype sense for Practical Science and Social Studies, and the sense “Tense” is the prototype sense for Heavenly Gifts.
Word construction
Fatemeh Zohrabi; Adel rafiei
Volume 16, Issue 1 , August 2024, , Pages 109-128
Abstract
The present study examined compound words ending in the past stem "Gasht" in construction morphology. This research tried to describe the diachronic and synchronic of the semantic variations and the schematic system of the words resulting from this construction. The data included 202 compound words collected ...
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The present study examined compound words ending in the past stem "Gasht" in construction morphology. This research tried to describe the diachronic and synchronic of the semantic variations and the schematic system of the words resulting from this construction. The data included 202 compound words collected from diachronic and synchronic corpuses of the Persian language, dictionaries, and Google search engine. Descriptive-analytical method was used to to answer these questions: what are the systematic semantic variations of the compound words taken from the past stem "Gasht"? What is the superlative construction of compound words derived from the past stem "Gasht"? What are the variations of this construction in diachronic view? For this purpose, the extracted words were classified into four semantic categories based on their meaning. Then the main schema was determined. Diachronic studies showed that from this construction in the past centuries, the word "Golgasht" was created in a different meaning from what is used today. We also see changes in the functioning of this construction in the social media. By taking diachronic changes and describing the synchronicity of this construction, the schematic system of the construction [x- gasht] was obtained. In the schematic system of this construction, two productive constructions and two static constructions are evident.
Seyed Mahmoud Motesharrei; Fatemeh Yousefi Rad
Volume 11, Issue 2 , June 2020, , Pages 181-201
Abstract
The present paper aimed at investigating the polysemy of the Persian word Topol from the perspective of cognitive sociolinguistics. The study begins with introducing the tenets of cognitive sociolinguistics, and then goes on to investigate the polysemy of the Persian adjective topol within this framework. ...
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The present paper aimed at investigating the polysemy of the Persian word Topol from the perspective of cognitive sociolinguistics. The study begins with introducing the tenets of cognitive sociolinguistics, and then goes on to investigate the polysemy of the Persian adjective topol within this framework. In cognitive sociolinguistics, it is believed that polysemy cannot be reduced to a static state, one and the same for all speakers of a language. Rather, social variables like age and gender of speakers affect the way they perceive different senses of the polysemous words. This paper, in line with cognitive sociolinguistic studies on polysemy employed advanced statistical methods of Logistic Regression and Cross Tab to study the polysemy of Persian adjective Topol. The data were gathered through library research (including Persian dictionaries), interviews, and questionnaires. The research method employed is mixed, that is, qualitative and quantitative. The data were gathered from 200 participants, 100 male and 100 females, in four different age groups. The main hypothesis was that the “mere” cognitive approach is not adequate enough to explain lexical polysemy. The results indicate that cognitive sociolinguistics is indeed more adequate in giving more exact explanations concerning meaning variation in polysemous words and the effect of social variables of age and gender on the number and salience of each sense. In other words, the results show that different senses of the polysemous words do not suggest the same distribution among different speakers, both male and female, belonging to different age groups, and is not accidental but explainable in terms of age and gender of the speakers.
Ali Abdollahi Nezhad; Ali Izanloo; Azam Estaji
Volume 9, Issue 17 , July 2018, , Pages 153-174
Abstract
Extended abstract
1- Introduction
When a word resembles the meaning of another word, both words are in the same ideal cognitive domain and follow a certain conceptual cognitive pattern. Such associations suggest important relations between these concepts that can be because of so many reasons like ...
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Extended abstract
1- Introduction
When a word resembles the meaning of another word, both words are in the same ideal cognitive domain and follow a certain conceptual cognitive pattern. Such associations suggest important relations between these concepts that can be because of so many reasons like cultural priorities. Making a new association and eventually a new concept out of a new word, depends on the importance and the state of the association. Linguists' emphasis on the existence of focal and prominent meaningful entity for every single one of the concepts has been the fountain of many investigations for determining various meanings of a concept and its focal meaning in the form of semantic network.
2- Theoretical Framework
Some similar researches involve: (Achresh & Jahromi, 2015), (Afrashi et al., 2012), (Afrashi et al., 2015), (Afshari & Samet, 2014), (Ghavam Esperghem, 2015), (Golshaieb et al., 2014), (Graf, 2011), (Hesabi, 2016), (Ibañez-Moreno, 2005), (Mousavi et al., 2015). (Nasib & Izanloo, 2016), (Rasekh Mahand & Ranjbar Zarabi, 2013), (Rezaee & Rafiee, 2016), (Seargeant, 2009), (Sorahi, 2012), (Zahedi & Mohammadi Ziyarat, 2011).The common point that can be found among these researches and similar ones is that they try to determine different meanings of a word and draw its semantic network. The point that has usually been ignored is the grounds or inspirations that these meanings originated from. In the current research, based on the assumption that meanings are inspired by concrete or abstract features (social, psychological, cultural, etc.), the motivations of the meanings of bread in Farsi are going to be investigated.
3- Methodology
For collecting different meanings of bread, 18 Persian dictionaries and a corpus containing more than 2,600,000 words were covered. Meanings were elicited by referring to dictionaries' explanation for that special entry, then the prominent feature of bread that played the most salient role in making the meaning, was gained. For instance, the idiom "naan-e sefid-e falak" that could literally be translated as "white bread of sky" means (is record ed in the dictionaries as) "moon". When it is asked what feature of bread has inspired this meaning, it leads to "appearance": Similarity between a white round bread and the moon. Therefore, the shape and appearance of bread has been the ground and motivation for this idiom.
4- Results
In this research, the role of experience in creating various secondary meanings is studied. According to Fillmore (1982), meaningful elements in a language are created based on recurring experiences. Concepts are frames containing a collection of experiences that in contact with new phenomenon, one of their aspects can be triggered. On the other hand, for using the idiom "yek loghmeh naan"/"a bite of bread" meaning "a little amount of food or money", the concept of amount has been triggered, or in another idiom "nan-daani"/"bread's place" meaning "stomach", the place of bread has been triggered. Therefore, it can be said that tracing the semantic triggers of concepts leads to valuable information about different aspects of life and culture of societies.
5- Conclusion
According to Lakoff and Johnson (2003), our conceptual system is the result of our interaction with our culture and physical environment. It is interesting that in some idioms the meaning of bread refers to high value and in some to low value. The low value of bread can be traced through history in periods that Farsi speakers were suffering from drought and famine and vice versa, the high value of bread can be traced in periods that this foodstuff has been abundant. This research showed that meanings are not arbitrary and there are not any meanings out of the circle of features and interaction concerning them. It approved results of Buccino, Colagè, Gobbi & Bonaccorso, (2016) that by neuro-physiological investigation and analyzing the linguistic meaning reached to the conclusion that neurological structure of brain of human is responsible for perceiving sensual, dynamic and emotional meaning of words that proves embodied meaning in linguistics. The most important role of embodiment is generating commonalities from experiences of various people in a language society. These experiences build the infrastructure of common linguistic meanings.
