Linguistics and Khorasan dialects
Youli Ioannesyan
Volume 16, Issue 1 , August 2024, Pages 1-29
Abstract
The study examined five characteristics of the Khorasani Group of Persian Dialects distinguishing it from the Afghan-Tajiki group. These characteristics consist of two phonetic and two morphological features as well as one relating to prepositions. Though not representing all the distinguishing features ...
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The study examined five characteristics of the Khorasani Group of Persian Dialects distinguishing it from the Afghan-Tajiki group. These characteristics consist of two phonetic and two morphological features as well as one relating to prepositions. Though not representing all the distinguishing features between the groups, they have been singled out by the researcher as some most stable characteristics. The study used a wide range of sources, including field research and numerous works of Russian, Western, Iranian, Tajiki and Afghan authors. The texts (legends and stories about everyday issues) in the Herat dialect, which were obtained as a result of the author's field work in Afghanistan, were collected from illiterate and poorly literate speakers of the said dialect. Due to the lack of education, these people were not influenced by the Kabul dialect or the language, and they kept their native dialect in the purest form. This research proved that the discussed features are among the main features that distinguish Khorasani Persian dialects group from Afghani-Tajik group.
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.
Pragmatics
Mohammadreza Pahlavannezhad
Volume 16, Issue 1 , August 2024, Pages 55-73
Abstract
The present study reviewed Herman Cappelen and Ernest Lepore’s theory of Semantic Minimalism. This theory was proposed as a universal semantic theory in linguistics in 2005. In this article, the Semantic Minimalism theory was examined in Persian language and on the data of this language. By examining ...
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The present study reviewed Herman Cappelen and Ernest Lepore’s theory of Semantic Minimalism. This theory was proposed as a universal semantic theory in linguistics in 2005. In this article, the Semantic Minimalism theory was examined in Persian language and on the data of this language. By examining the criticisms raised by some experts, it can be seen that considering the nature of the theory that follows logical and mathematical languages, it is inefficient and unacceptable in the analysis of meaning in languages that are natural. In this article, the opinions of different experts regarding the Semantic Minimalism theory of Cappelen and Lepore were reviewed. Moreover, this study evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the viewpoints of experts in this field of study. There are important objections to this theory. Some of the objections context displacement, incompleteness, and unchangeability of truth conditions.
Discourse analysis
atoosa rostambeik
Volume 16, Issue 1 , August 2024, Pages 75-107
Abstract
Assessing the development of narrative skills is one of the practical and frequently used methods in research related to bilingualism, language acquisition, and language impairment. Tools designed based on the story grammar which focus on both cognitive and linguistic skills have attracted a lot of attention. ...
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Assessing the development of narrative skills is one of the practical and frequently used methods in research related to bilingualism, language acquisition, and language impairment. Tools designed based on the story grammar which focus on both cognitive and linguistic skills have attracted a lot of attention. This comparative study tried to investigate the complexity of Persian narrative structure of monolingual and Persian-Mazandarani bilingual children. The sample includes 16 bilingual boys and girls aged 4 to 6, and 16 monolinguals matched in age and gender. The independent and control variables are bilingualism, gender, and age. The picture story, ‘Frog, where are you?’ (Mayer, 1969) was used to extract data. The framework introduced in the test of narrative language (TNL-Pr) (Gillam & Gillam, 2009) was used to analyze the narrative complexity. The results showed that the complexity of narrative structure increases in both groups in older children, especially regarding the use of adverbs, conjunctions, mental verbs, and referring to consequence. Monolinguals generally recorded higher points in all groups especially in younger children. At macrostructure level, differences between monolingual and bilingual children in referring to initiating event, and internal response are significant. Monolinguals significantly produced longer narratives comparing to bilinguals and the difference is significant among children aged 4-4/5. Gender does not show any significant impact on the complexity of the narratives. Among monolinguals, WC and MLU were higher in narratives produced by girls, but among bilinguals it was the opposite. However, gender does not have a significant impact on the length of narratives.
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.
Syntax
Maedeh bigom Shirazi; Seyed hossein Seyedi; Ahmad Reza Heidarian Shahri
Volume 16, Issue 1 , August 2024, Pages 129-150
Abstract
The nineteenth century can be considered a time when modern Arab thought formed, and contemporary linguistic research was also born in line with other Arab intellectual fields. Modernist linguists presented their new findings, derived from contemporary linguistic approaches to the Arabic-speaking readership. ...
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The nineteenth century can be considered a time when modern Arab thought formed, and contemporary linguistic research was also born in line with other Arab intellectual fields. Modernist linguists presented their new findings, derived from contemporary linguistic approaches to the Arabic-speaking readership. Despite different reactions often based on sanctifying their traditional linguistic heritage, they established a distinct and independent structure for contemporary Arab linguistics. On the one hand, it was based on ancient theoretical foundations and on the other hand, it was compatible with modern Western approaches in linguistics. Ibrahim Mustafa and Mehdi Makhzoumi are contemporary Arab linguists who adopted a new viewpoint on linguist research and Arabic syntax. This study attempted to delve into the books Ehya Al-nahw (Syntax Revival) by Ibrahim Mustafa and Fi Al-Nahw Alarabi; Naqd Wa Tawjih (On Arabic Syntax: Criticism and Guidance) by Mehdi Makhzoumi. The study tried to comparatively study the linguistic point of view, foundations, and intellectual origins of these two grammarians based on methodological criticism. The results showed that Ibrahim Mustafa, although he does not have a linguistic approach, is looking for the revival of syntax and has been trying to abolish the agent theory in Arabic grammar. But Mehdi Makhzoumi takes a text-linguistic approach and emphasizes the sentence in Arabic syntax. Most contemporary Arab linguists, relying on the necessity of making fundamental changes in Arabic syntax to get rid of traditional syntax, could criticize some of it with their scientific and experimental knowledge and provide accurate, scientific, novel viewpoints theoretically and practically.
Syntax
Shabnam Majidi; Fatemeh Bahrami; Mazdak Anoushe
Volume 16, Issue 1 , August 2024, Pages 151-185
Abstract
Ellipsis phenomena or deletions, in traditional generative terms, involve a number of cases where otherwise expected syntactic material goes missing under some conditions. How to formulate a generalization that can explain all types of deletion has been a central question since the dawn of Principle ...
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Ellipsis phenomena or deletions, in traditional generative terms, involve a number of cases where otherwise expected syntactic material goes missing under some conditions. How to formulate a generalization that can explain all types of deletion has been a central question since the dawn of Principle and Parameters Theory. The present study endeavored to take a step towards this goal within the framework of phase-based minimalist syntax in order to provide a comprehensive explanation of various types of ellipsis in Persian clauses. To achieve this, at first, the main issues of ellipsis were outlined and the success of the different accounts available in the literature were evaluated. Then, the split-C system was introduced and the functional projections dominating the Tense Phrase were examined in order to identify the projection that forms the upper phase in Persian. The empirical evidence shows that, similar to German, the typical complementizers like “ke” (that) and “ta” (in order to) are generated in the head of Finite Phrase (FinP) in Persian and then raises to the head of the Force Phrase (ForceP), thus, the FinP should be considered the upper phase, which triggers some deletion processes in the clause structure. Following this proposal, it was tried to provide a detailed description of the types of deletion within the clause and attempted to analyze the deleted structures such as gapping, pseudogapping, Right Node Raising, VP-ellipsis, sluicing, tag-question, and sentence fragmentation based on the minimalist approach. Ultimately, in the final section of the research, it was argue that the different types of deletion within the clause apply to the lower phase (vP) or upper phase (FinP) and eliminate the heads and/or constituents from the syntactic derivation. This analysis, relying on the post-syntactic operations of deletion and morphological merger, explains why in complex predicates, the non-verbal element can be either retained or deleted.
