A Study on the meanings of the suffix /pad/ in Middle Persian based on cognitive grammar

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Pouya Shahriarirad ¹

Azam Estaji ¹

Ali Izanloo ¹

Hosseinali Mostafavi Gero ²

¹ Department of Linguistics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

² Faculty of Russian, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

10.22067/jlkd.2026.96668.1359

Abstract

Abstract:

Within the framework of Cognitive Grammar, concepts of trajector and landmark elements play a central role in understanding relational meaning and the "figure-ground" organization in linguistic expressions. These concepts, initially introduced by Langacker (1991/2008), describe the roles of participants in a conceptual relationship. This paper examines the meaning of the postposition /pad/ in Middle Persian within this framework. To achieve this goal, all Middle Persian expressions in which /pad/ occurred were extracted from the Parsig Corpus and analyzed. In Middle Persian, this word appeared 2,456 times. The results indicate that /pad/ conveyed five distinct meanings: "in/within" (the most frequent meaning), "accompaniment," "down," "through," and "cause-effect relation" (the least frequent meaning), all of which reflect a different cognitive framework among Middle Persian speakers compared to Modern Persian speakers. These results are also compared with the related languages of Greek, Sanskrit, and Latin, showing a similar transformation in meaning in comparison with Persian.

Keywords

Middle Persian

Cognitive Grammar

trajector

landmark

/pad/

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