Laleh Molaei
Abstract
Agreement can be known as the phenomenon by which a word takes morphological features that originate somewhere else, i.e., a situation in which a target form has grammatical marking that is controlled by a controller. On the other hand, cross-referencing (when a verb is marked) is often used in the pro-drop ...
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Agreement can be known as the phenomenon by which a word takes morphological features that originate somewhere else, i.e., a situation in which a target form has grammatical marking that is controlled by a controller. On the other hand, cross-referencing (when a verb is marked) is often used in the pro-drop languages as a mechanism through which a verb is marked by bound elements in order to express its arguments. This kind of verb on its own suffices to represent its arguments, as it is inflectionally rich. Since Persian, as a pro-drop language, has the above-mentioned features, we can logically apply the term cross-referencing to Persian. But, it seems this term has not technically and comprehensively been investigated in this usage in Persian, and instead, agreement is usually used in this case. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate: Can cross-referencing be used for the typological situation of the Persian verbal agreement system? What are the components of the Persian cross-referencing framework? Can a technical field be proposed for cross-referencing in Persian? To do this, analyzing 43 standard colloquial Persian scenarios, this research characterized the components of the Persian cross-referencing framework, and introduced a technical field for the mentioned term based on typological approach according to Siewierska & Bakker (2005), and Corbett (2006). Besides, to select between agreement and cross-referencing, the study offered a two-way continuum.
saeede shoja razavi
Abstract
Whereas Persian bilingual children in kindergartens make their best attempts to properly apply language rules, they cannot be as successful in understanding and applying metaphorical phrases as Persian monolingual children. The present study, therefore, adopting cognitive- sociolinguistics perspective, ...
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Whereas Persian bilingual children in kindergartens make their best attempts to properly apply language rules, they cannot be as successful in understanding and applying metaphorical phrases as Persian monolingual children. The present study, therefore, adopting cognitive- sociolinguistics perspective, sought to study the bilingual factor in the level of comprehension and application of metaphorical expressions of these children. The methodology of this research was descriptive-experimental. The study was based on the Bialka-Pikul’s (2003) approach. It was found that bilingual children expressed more equalities than monolingual children in the metaphorical idiomatic expressions questionnaire and responded better than them. In the dual card test, bilingual children had the highest score in the metaphor of taste and the lowest score in the metaphor of sound. Monolingual children, on the other hand, had the lowest score in the tactile metaphor and the highest score in the metaphor of taste. It was concluded that while bilingual children received third-level score in the test of dual cards, monolingual children earned fourth-level score or full use.
Maryam Afshinpoor; Adel Rafiei; Sayyed Mohammad Reza Ibnorrasool
Abstract
The present study sets out to lay bare the lexical syntagmatic errors of Arab Persian-speakers studying at Al-Mustafa Virtual University and expound the reasons for committing such errors. To achieve this aim, 260 writing samples of the intermediate-level Persian language learners were collected and ...
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The present study sets out to lay bare the lexical syntagmatic errors of Arab Persian-speakers studying at Al-Mustafa Virtual University and expound the reasons for committing such errors. To achieve this aim, 260 writing samples of the intermediate-level Persian language learners were collected and sorted out. In the first stage, the lexical syntagmatic errors were identified. In the next stage, taking context into account, an attempt was made to determine the correct forms. Finally, drawing upon Selinger’s (1972, 1992) proposal, effective factors in committing errors were recognized. Given that the researchers did not have direct access to the participants of the study and their educational context, ‘transfer of training’ and ‘Strategies of L2 Communication’ were not taken into consideration for the purpose of the present study. The results of the study revealed that, from among the 56 identified lexical syntagmatic errors, effective factors in committing them can be subsumed under the following rubrics, respectively: Strategies of L2 Learning (41%), Native Language Transfer (36%), and overgeneralization (23%).
Ruhollah Mofidi
Abstract
The issue of noun’s I’rāb has been discussed as case in linguistic theories, and its different patterns and markers have been investigated in the languages of the world. The present study aimed at investigating the systematic patterns of case-marking and their grammatical behavior in Classical ...
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The issue of noun’s I’rāb has been discussed as case in linguistic theories, and its different patterns and markers have been investigated in the languages of the world. The present study aimed at investigating the systematic patterns of case-marking and their grammatical behavior in Classical and Standard Arabic based on linguistic theories within a typological perspective. Relying on structural and formal criteria (considering the final form of the words), two general patterns in Arabic case-marking are distinguished: a) nouns lacking a number suffix (i.e. single nouns and broken-plurals) make a three-way distinction of case (nominative vs. accusative vs. genitive); and b) nouns having a number suffix (i.e. duals, masculine sound-plurals, and feminine plurals) make a two-way distinction (nominative vs. oblique). The present study seeks to show dominant as well as exceptional patterns in a theory-oriented approach, and at some points, criticizes the Arabic traditional grammars for their analyses, presenting some questions for further analysis in future.
Mahmood Jafari Dehaghi; Mojtaba Monshizadeh; Fahimeh Tasalibakhsh Kaseb
Abstract
Modal functions of the verb “residan” (to arrive) and the emergence of such modal characteristics are discussed from the perspective of grammaticalization in the present study. To achieve this goal, it was necessary to make a review on former studies on the subject of modality – more ...
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Modal functions of the verb “residan” (to arrive) and the emergence of such modal characteristics are discussed from the perspective of grammaticalization in the present study. To achieve this goal, it was necessary to make a review on former studies on the subject of modality – more specifically, grammaticalization of modality – in Persian, followed by a description of theoretical approaches toward the concepts of modality and grammaticalization. The authors gathered data from different periods of Persian language to study the diachronic changes the verb “rasidan” has faced since the early stages of Old Persian to Middle Persian, New Persian and recent usages in Modern Persian. Analysis of data showed that in some specific contexts in New Persian, the verb “residan” was grammaticalized to represent dynamic, deserving, and permissive modality after undergoing changes such as metaphorical extension. On the other hand, in recent usages in Modern Persian, “residan” has survived, through a different path, as a means to represent dynamic modality.
Heydar Yazdanshenas; Mohammad Hossein Sharafzadeh; Zahra Babasalari; Saeed Yazdani
Abstract
One of the main concepts in cognitive linguistics is that each unit of language has a semantic network. In this approach, morpheme, categories, and syntactic constructs all have a symbolic unit. In this sense, enclitics also have their own meanings that add meaning to the base of the host. As a result, ...
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One of the main concepts in cognitive linguistics is that each unit of language has a semantic network. In this approach, morpheme, categories, and syntactic constructs all have a symbolic unit. In this sense, enclitics also have their own meanings that add meaning to the base of the host. As a result, the derivative is formed. An extension like the lexical categories provides a category that classifies all its meanings around a central meaning. /-ku/ is one of the most widely used enclitics in the Tangestan dialect which is connected to different bases with the category of nouns, adjectives, and infinities. The present article, in the context of cognitive semantics, explores the various concepts of the "-ku:" as an enclitic. The main objectives of this research are to show that the various meanings of the "-ku:" suffixes are not randomized and present its semantic network. The findings of this study revealed that the "-ku:" enclitic has a coherent network in which the various meanings of this enclitic extend around a prototypical meaning (i.e., definite meaning) in the form of a radial structure.
Nima Noori; Shahla Raghibdoost
Abstract
Since, based on previous findings, orthographic depth affects the nature of cognitive mechanisms, different patterns can be expected depending on the degrees of transparency or opacity of the orthographic systems of languages. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between ...
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Since, based on previous findings, orthographic depth affects the nature of cognitive mechanisms, different patterns can be expected depending on the degrees of transparency or opacity of the orthographic systems of languages. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, and phonological working memory with reading speed and reading accuracy in Persian. The participants included 75 healthy and normal monolingual Persian-speaking children (mean age 121.6 months) studying in Grades 3-5 in Zahedan elementary schools. From each grade, 25 children were selected by purposive sampling. All children belonged to the middle and upper social classes. 9 subtests were administered to the children to measure the variables of IQ, reading speed, reading accuracy, phonological working memory, phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming. The results indicated that there is a strong and significant relationship between rapid automatized naming and reading speed. The relationship between this variable and reading accuracy was moderate and significant. Phonological awareness had a relatively strong and significant relationship with reading speed and reading accuracy. Phonological working memory had a significant and moderate relationship with reading speed. It did not have a significant relationship with the reading accuracy. Regarding the relationship between these cognitive predictors and reading in Persian, it can be inferred that it is very similar to the relationship between these variables and reading, which has been reported in inconsistent orthographies like English and Hebrew. The results indicate that the cognitive predictors are significantly affected by the orthographic transparency.
Masume Zarei
Abstract
Color terms and color naming is a matter that has frequently drawn the attention of the linguists. Human eyes can identify more than seven million colors. Languages in different cultures have tried to represent lexically a range of them. Color terms and their typology is considered as one of the pivotal ...
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Color terms and color naming is a matter that has frequently drawn the attention of the linguists. Human eyes can identify more than seven million colors. Languages in different cultures have tried to represent lexically a range of them. Color terms and their typology is considered as one of the pivotal studies in recent decades. While there are Persian words for the colors, each year, due to inaccessibility, several non-Persian color terms enter this language. This article is aimed at representing a list of Persian color terms, studying their morphological structure, their localization and enrichment of Persian language and culture. More than sixteen hundred color terms have been collected by the writer. These terms can be divided into simple and complex words. Only 2.74% of Persian color terms are simple and 97.26% of them have complex structure. Persian speakers create color terms through suffixation and syntactic processes. 50.50% of complex color terms have derivational structure and the remaining 46.76% are compound. Derivation and compounding are the most productive and frequent processes in the formation of Persian color terms.
Mozhgan Homayounfar
Abstract
Linguistic research carried out in formal theoretical frameworks, such as Generative Approaches, often show high degree of falsifiability due to their precise data observations and mathematical foundations. Combining these qualities with the psychological reality of typological studies will result to ...
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Linguistic research carried out in formal theoretical frameworks, such as Generative Approaches, often show high degree of falsifiability due to their precise data observations and mathematical foundations. Combining these qualities with the psychological reality of typological studies will result to more reliable conclusions. In this paper, I tried to show that having an eye on the typological facts of a language (Farsi in this case) might end up into a more precise and realistic conclusion of a formalist linguistic analysis. Two papers are used here as sample of formalist approaches - Generative Linguistics in general and Minimalist program particularly- one on the functional head position of sentence in Persian and the other one on topicalization in Persian.
Esmaeil Safaei Asl; Rezamoead Sahraei
Abstract
Systemic functional grammar (SFG) is a theory which is very strong and so flexible that it addresses various research areas such as ‘language development in children’, ‘educational linguistics’, ‘computational linguistics’, and ‘clinical linguistics’. One ...
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Systemic functional grammar (SFG) is a theory which is very strong and so flexible that it addresses various research areas such as ‘language development in children’, ‘educational linguistics’, ‘computational linguistics’, and ‘clinical linguistics’. One of the other research applications of the mentioned theory is ‘language typology’. The research area of language typology within SFG is called ‘systemic functional typology’ or ‘systemic typology’ in short. In this paper, along with briefly introducing the book “Language Typology: A Functional Perspective”, we have tried to present a profile of ‘systemic typology’. To do so, at first, we have briefly reviewed the dominant approaches to language typology, i.e., holistic typology and partial typology, and the studies conducted in the framework of those approaches. Then parallel with the chapters of the book “Language Typology: A functional perspective”, we have mentioned the key points in systemic typology. Since the main objective of systemic typology is ‘to achieve empirical generalizations’, a large part of the introduction of systemic typology in this paper has been devoted to typological generalizations. In the end, an analysis of ‘word order typology’ has been touched upon, too.
Abstract
This article studies the spatial interpretation of the left-right and front-back axes in Persian in the theoretical framework of Levinson (2003) and Danziger (2010). On the horizontal plane, there are three main Frames of Reference. Of these three, the Absolute FoR is not used routinely in Persian. The ...
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This article studies the spatial interpretation of the left-right and front-back axes in Persian in the theoretical framework of Levinson (2003) and Danziger (2010). On the horizontal plane, there are three main Frames of Reference. Of these three, the Absolute FoR is not used routinely in Persian. The other two, the Relative and Intrinsic FoRs, can potentially be the interpretation of the two main axes of the horizontal plane. In order to obtain real data from the native speakers, the “Ball & Chair” game (Bohnemeyer, 2008) was used. Data analysis shows that in all the cases where the speaker’s description caused misunderstanding for the listener, the speaker’s intended interpretation has been relative, while the listener has understood them intrinsically. For the left-right axis, whenever the speaker has considered “[az negah-e] ma” redundant and has had it decreased from the sentence and used phrases such as “chap/rast-e sandali”, there has been a possibility of misunderstanding for the listener. However, when they have used it even in its decreased form of “chap/rast-e ma” the listener has well understood the intended relative meaning. According to the data, in Persian the absolute dominant usage of left and right is relative and only in special cases are they used intrinsically. The front-back axis is also used in the relative sense but with small dominance over intrinsic.
Azita Abbasi
Abstract
In the conjugation of root morpheme, zero morpheme is a morpheme which has semantic load but no visual representation, not in written nor spoken form. As an example, the word رفت in Persian is a third-person, simple past, singular but there are no visual representations in this word to indicate person ...
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In the conjugation of root morpheme, zero morpheme is a morpheme which has semantic load but no visual representation, not in written nor spoken form. As an example, the word رفت in Persian is a third-person, simple past, singular but there are no visual representations in this word to indicate person and number. A group of linguistics analyze this verb as [رفت-Ø]verb and relate the person and number indicators to the zero morpheme. But the zero morpheme, from the viewpoint of many researchers such as Aronov (1976, 1983), Lieber (1981), Bauer (1983, 1988), Schtechaur (1992) and Melchuk (1996), has been criticized for many reasons including multiplicity of grammatical categories and meanings. In the present paper, the nature of the zero morpheme will undergo detailed analysis, and the examples of this morpheme as well as the conditions for its existence determined by linguists will be explained. Then, after providing the reasons for accepting or rejecting the zero morpheme, it will be determined, by proposing linguistic evidence, that what is referred to as the zero morpheme in different references is actually a contextual vacuum in the syntagmatic axis which is filled by the speaker by using the available linguistic and non-linguistic context.
Ehsan Changizi
Abstract
In Avestan Language, ablative case is sometimes used for encoding functions of instrumental case and instrumental case is used for encoding functions of ablative case. These two cases encode semantic roles. Ablative case is a spatial case whose main function is to encode source, location, and path. Instrumental ...
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In Avestan Language, ablative case is sometimes used for encoding functions of instrumental case and instrumental case is used for encoding functions of ablative case. These two cases encode semantic roles. Ablative case is a spatial case whose main function is to encode source, location, and path. Instrumental case is a non-spatial case whose main function is to encode accompaniment, instrument, manner as well as cause and agent in passive voice. Ablative and instrumental cases- in case hierarchy- are located in the last position and are not distinguished hierarchically. In the present study, Avestan data were explored and it was found that these two cases are polysemic and overlap functionally; hence, they are used interchangeably in Avestan language. The ablative case encodes the semantic roles of manner and cause in passive voice in addition to semantic roles of source, location, and path. Along the same vein, the instrumental case indicates source, path and location in addition to semantic roles of accompaniment, instrument, manner and cause and agent in passive voice. Semantic map of these two cases is drawn to demonstrate their semantic range and polysemy.
Mousa Ghonchepour
Abstract
The study of the argument structure of Persian synthetic compounds shows that not only do the internal argument but also the external argument and indirect object incorporate into verbal stem to make synthetic compounds. In addition to simultaneous incorporation of internal and external arguments, other ...
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The study of the argument structure of Persian synthetic compounds shows that not only do the internal argument but also the external argument and indirect object incorporate into verbal stem to make synthetic compounds. In addition to simultaneous incorporation of internal and external arguments, other categories such as adjuncts, adjectives, noun phrases, adjective phrases and prepositional phrases are incorporated into synthetic compounds. Phrasal verbal compounds, compounds possessing conjunctions, extended verbal compounds, argument structure and referential structure of nonverbal constituent of verbal compounds, referential verbal compounds and multi-incorporation are criteria that reject both "lexical integrity" and "no phrase constraint" hypotheses and confirm the interaction of morphology and syntax modules in word formation. Identical relations between constituents of sentences and synthetic compounds, from argument and non-argument points of view, indicate the participation of syntax in word formation process and accessing of syntactic rules to internal structure of words. Verbal compounds data reveals that, on the one hand, morphological output is used as syntactic and phrasal input; on the other hand, syntactic output is employed as word formation process input. Therefore, morphology and syntax have reciprocal, rather than directional, relation in word formation. Changeability of verb valence and referentiality of non-head constituents of verbal compounds show the interface of morphology and semantics.
Simin Sedehi; Shahla Raghibdoust
Abstract
Velati (Velayati) is a dialect used to be spoken all over Varnosfaderan, a region located in Khomeini Shahr, Isfahan Province in Iran. Unfortunately, like many other dialects, affected by miscellaneous factors, this dialect has been considerably wiped out and its usage is currently restricted to Bavalgan, ...
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Velati (Velayati) is a dialect used to be spoken all over Varnosfaderan, a region located in Khomeini Shahr, Isfahan Province in Iran. Unfortunately, like many other dialects, affected by miscellaneous factors, this dialect has been considerably wiped out and its usage is currently restricted to Bavalgan, one of the five regions of Varnosfaderan. In a research by Esmaeili (1379), the internal classification of the central Iranian dialects and common grouping of Velati and Isfahan Jewish dialects were mentioned. As no documented evidence regarding the linguistic comparison of the two dialects was available, the present study aimed at examining the structure of the past tense verbs in the two dialects in order to shed light on their similarities and differences. The results of the study indicated striking resemblances between Velati and Isfahan Jewish dialects at the phonetic, phonologic and morphologic levels. Moreover, it was found that transitive and intransitive past tense verbs involve distinct structures in both dialects which may point to the existence of the ergative structure. In sum, the similarities of the past-tense verb structures in the two dialects were so remarkable that they confirmed the hypothesis that they are of a common historical origin.
Majid Alaee; Mohammad Rasekh-Mahand; Mahdi Tehrani Doost
Abstract
constituent ordering, is not arbitrary; rather, it is aimed at fulfilling efficiency principles. Length effect- as a formal characteristic- is a significant determinant in the occurrence of movement rules. The ultimate structural configuration of sentences is interwoven with processing ease. Adopting ...
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constituent ordering, is not arbitrary; rather, it is aimed at fulfilling efficiency principles. Length effect- as a formal characteristic- is a significant determinant in the occurrence of movement rules. The ultimate structural configuration of sentences is interwoven with processing ease. Adopting eye movement registration technique, the current research study aims to explore eye behavior in response to processing difficulty of syntactically different but semantically identical sentences and provide behavioral evidence for the effect of length on the occurrence of movement in structural sentence pairs in Persian. Encompassing two syntactic movements (relative clause extraposition and postposing) through 2 sets of 40 sentence pairs in two length levels (short and long), some eye behavior such as fixation count/duration and regression were registered and analyzed using SPSS. Regarding the patterns of fixation, when the constituents under study were short, there was either no significant difference before and after the occurrence of syntactic movement, or the mean of fixation count and duration was lower in sentences with canonical constituent ordering; however, the patterns appeared to be reversed and hence a significant difference was spotted by the increase of constituent length. Regarding regressions, the mean regressions declined after the post-verbal movement of constituents by the increase of length. It can be concluded that syntactic movement is weight-sensitive and aimed at easing processing difficulty. Also, the likelihood of post-verbal movement in extraposition and scrambling increases by the rise of length and driven by the incentive of increase of processing efficiency.
Shahnaz Yegane; Rezamorad Sahraee
Abstract
In recent years, a major shift has been observed in English language textbooks in all grades, especially in secondary school in Iran. It seems that the inappropriateness of the previous syllabus has led the material developers to make content and structural changes in the new books; therefore, it is ...
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In recent years, a major shift has been observed in English language textbooks in all grades, especially in secondary school in Iran. It seems that the inappropriateness of the previous syllabus has led the material developers to make content and structural changes in the new books; therefore, it is expected that in the writing of new books, different scientific views be taken into consideration and aligned with the scientific theories of the day. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the secondary school’s English language textbooks in Iran based on the textual metafunction of Halliday’s Systematic Functional Grammar (SFG) and to specify the frequency and type of textual themes in the texts of the new books. For this purpose, 301 clauses in reading parts of the secondary school’s English language textbooks were analyzed. The results of the analysis showed that the authors of these books are familiar with these concepts; that is, these components have been taken into account in many cases in terms of the choice of reading texts in terms of type and number of themes and the number of simple and compound clauses; but, in some cases, they have not paid careful attention to the distribution of the components, especially in the lesson to lessons distribution, considering their respective educational bases. It is hoped that the weaknesses identified in this study be considered in the new editions of the aforementioned books.
Sahand Elhami Khorasani; Kourosh Safavi
Abstract
This article studies the spatial interpretation of the left-right and front-back axes in Persian in the theoretical framework of Levinson (2003) and Danziger (2010). On the horizontal plane, there are three main Frames of Reference. Of these three, the Absolute FoR is not used routinely in Persian. The ...
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This article studies the spatial interpretation of the left-right and front-back axes in Persian in the theoretical framework of Levinson (2003) and Danziger (2010). On the horizontal plane, there are three main Frames of Reference. Of these three, the Absolute FoR is not used routinely in Persian. The other two, the Relative and Intrinsic FoRs, can potentially be the interpretation of the two main axes of the horizontal plane. In order to obtain real data from the native speakers, the “Ball & Chair” game (Bohnemeyer, 2008) was used. Data analysis shows that in all the cases where the speaker’s description caused misunderstanding for the listener, the speaker’s intended interpretation has been relative, while the listener has understood them intrinsically. For the left-right axis, whenever the speaker has considered “[az negah-e] ma” redundant and has had it decreased from the sentence and used phrases such as “chap/rast-e sandali”, there has been a possibility of misunderstanding for the listener. However, when they have used it even in its decreased form of “chap/rast-e ma” the listener has well understood the intended relative meaning. According to the data, in Persian the absolute dominant usage of left and right is relative and only in special cases are they used intrinsically. The front-back axis is also used in the relative sense but with small dominance over intrinsic.
Sajjad Badri
Abstract
Today, dealers, institutions and service providers need to attract customers to their product with effective advertisements. The commercials then play an important role for selling and effectively attracting customers. The language tools help to encourage customers to purchase goods. Jakobson- linguist ...
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Today, dealers, institutions and service providers need to attract customers to their product with effective advertisements. The commercials then play an important role for selling and effectively attracting customers. The language tools help to encourage customers to purchase goods. Jakobson- linguist and founder of the Prague school- enumerated six roles for language, one of which is the conative role. According to this view, it is possible to distinguish three types of conative roles: encouraging, descriptive and threatening. In the present study, 100 cases of frequently encountered commercials were reviewed. The findings of the study indicated that the encouraging conative role (47%) was used more frequently than descriptive conative (46%) and threatening conative (7%) roles
Shahla Raghibdoust; Elahe Kamari
Abstract
Previous research showed that deaf individuals in compare to hearing ones perform weaker in syntactic processing. Therefore, they are expected to compensate for this defect through using their background knowledge. The aims of this study were to investigate the effect of deafness on the participants’ ...
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Previous research showed that deaf individuals in compare to hearing ones perform weaker in syntactic processing. Therefore, they are expected to compensate for this defect through using their background knowledge. The aims of this study were to investigate the effect of deafness on the participants’ ability to comprehend subject relative clauses, and to determine their strategies in comprehending the semantically plausible subject relative clauses and semantically implausible ones within the theoretical framework of Interactive-Compensatory Model (Stanovich, 1980). The performance of 4 profound deaf students in fifth grades as the experimental group and 4 healthy hearing students as the control group was studied in a cross-sectional research to evaluate their comprehension of semantically plausible subject relative clauses and semantically implausible ones. The findings of this research showed that there was no significant difference between the performance of the deaf and hearing participants in comprehending semantically plausible sentences (p>0/05). However, a significant difference between the performance of the two groups was observed with respect to their comprehension of semantically implausible sentences (p<0/05). Based on the analysis of the data, it was concluded that the difficulty that the deaf experimental group experienced in processing semantically implausible subject relative sentences can be attributed to their use of a top-down strategy in comprehending these syntactic structures.
Maryam Ramezankhani
Abstract
The present paper aimed at discussing the possibility of formalizing the sense relation of hyponymy. In order to do so, the research applied mathematical tools borrowed from set theory and algebra. Firstly, it went over the definitions of the sense relation in question presented in linguistic dictionaries ...
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The present paper aimed at discussing the possibility of formalizing the sense relation of hyponymy. In order to do so, the research applied mathematical tools borrowed from set theory and algebra. Firstly, it went over the definitions of the sense relation in question presented in linguistic dictionaries and also semantics’ text books. The definitions show that hyponymy between two words might be based on type, time or both. That is an important feature of hyponymy which the present research takes into account while trying to introduce a formal translation. Next, the paper presented a formal expression corresponding the sense relation of hyponymy, mostly using the fundamental concepts from set theory such a subset, conjunction, disjunction, etc. Finally, the efficiency and correctness of the introduced formal translations were examined using some examples of natural language which is Farsi in this case. The expression proved to be consistent with what we expect according to the way hyponymy works in natural language.
Anis Masoumi; Maede Sadat Mirtalaei
Abstract
This study aims to analyze the correlation between ictus and acoustic features of duration, intensity and pitch in Persian folk poems. For this purpose, 51 lines of Persian folk poems were recorded, which consisted of 139 syllables in ictus positions and 139 syllables in off-ictus positions. Each line ...
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This study aims to analyze the correlation between ictus and acoustic features of duration, intensity and pitch in Persian folk poems. For this purpose, 51 lines of Persian folk poems were recorded, which consisted of 139 syllables in ictus positions and 139 syllables in off-ictus positions. Each line was segmented into syllables, feet and colons. The vowels in ictus and off-ictus positions were analyzed acoustically and the amounts of pitch, intensity and duration of vowels were measured manually. In order to compare the acoustic features of these vowels, Some Paired two-sample t-test were conducted. The results suggested that: a) duration of vowels in ictus positions is more than that of vowels in off-ictus positions. In addition, analytic statistics showed that the effect of ictus on the duration of vowels is significant; b) the mean intensity of vowels in ictus positions is less than that of vowels in off-ictus positions. Furthermore, analytic statistics indicated that the effect of ictus on the intensity of vowels is significant and c) the vowels in off-ictus positions have lower pitch values than those in ictus positions. Moreover, it was declared that the effect of ictus on the pitch value of vowels is not significant.
Elham Esmaeilpour Aghdam; Masoud Dehghan
Abstract
As the conceptual system of the human mind, based on which human thought and action is formed, is metaphorical in its essence and rooted in the conceptual system of language, metaphor is considered as a salient category in linguistic studies. The present study investigates the embodiment pattern of conceptual ...
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As the conceptual system of the human mind, based on which human thought and action is formed, is metaphorical in its essence and rooted in the conceptual system of language, metaphor is considered as a salient category in linguistic studies. The present study investigates the embodiment pattern of conceptual metaphors in the congenital blind in comparison with their vision counterparts from cognitive semantics perspective based on Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) conceptual metaphors. The present quantitative-qualitative study was comparatively done between two groups of blind people and their counterparts. A total of 48 male and female blind men and women with graduate and postgraduate education aged 18- 28 years were evaluated. The participants were asked to describe the 30 selected words based on Bitley and Peggy’s (1991) procedures. In so doing, the study initially investigated image schemas as the source domain in metaphorical mappings and then conceptual metaphors used by the participants. Results show that the blinds, due to lack of vision, use more lexical descriptions and far more image schemas than their counterparts. Moreover, postgraduate female blinds were reported as the most users of image schemas.
Fahimeh Khodaverdi; Golnaz Modarresi Ghavami; Mojtaba Monshizadeh
Abstract
This article accounts for the acoustic grounds of the diachronic lenition of Old Persian /k/ to [ʧ] and [z] in certain verbal (present tense) and nonverbal forms and to [x] in the past tense of the same verbs, in /V__ [a, e]/ and /V__[t]/ contexts respectively. In order to replicate the phonetic ...
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This article accounts for the acoustic grounds of the diachronic lenition of Old Persian /k/ to [ʧ] and [z] in certain verbal (present tense) and nonverbal forms and to [x] in the past tense of the same verbs, in /V__ [a, e]/ and /V__[t]/ contexts respectively. In order to replicate the phonetic context of these diachronic changes within the framework of laboratory phonology, present day Persian forms containing the same phonetic contexts were uttered twice by two male speakers of Persian and recorded and analyzed using the Praat software (version 5363). The results of the acoustic analysis of the recorded samples and Independent-Samples t-test indicated that [k] shows a high degree of fronting within the context of the stressed vowels [á, é]. At the same time, aspiration in intervocalic position motivates the spirantization/affrication of this consonant. Intervocalic fronted [c] and [ʧ] are acoustically similar to each other as well as to [ʃ] and [s]. The consonants [c] and [x] have certain common acoustic characteristics when they appear before [t]. Therefore, [c] is prone to be weakened and interpreted as a fricative/affricate in such contexts.
Abstract
In certain languages, vowel quality changes in unstressed syllables. In acoustic phonetics, this characteristic, namely vowel 'undershoot' under certain conditions and the tendency to centralize, is referred to as 'vowel reduction'. Previous researches have shown that Persian vowel space reduces and ...
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In certain languages, vowel quality changes in unstressed syllables. In acoustic phonetics, this characteristic, namely vowel 'undershoot' under certain conditions and the tendency to centralize, is referred to as 'vowel reduction'. Previous researches have shown that Persian vowel space reduces and is centralized in unaccented syllables and as a result have considered the change in vowel quality to be an acoustic correlate of lexical stress in Persian. The present paper is an investigation of the effect of stress on the duration and quality of simple vowels in accented and unaccented open syllables of bisyllabic words in the speech of 14 female and male speakers of Persian. Results showed a reduction of vowel duration in unaccented syllables, but no reduction or centralization of vowel space. Rather, the vowel space was larger in unaccented syllables. Vowel quality changed, but this change was not statistically significant for all vowels. Previous research has shown that a reduction in vowel duration is not necessarily accompanied by vowel undershoot, as articulators can move faster to achieve ideal vowel quality under time limitations. Thus, vowel reduction cannot be considered as an acoustic correlate of lexical stress in Persian, since besides stress, many other factors, including speaking style, syllable type, word length and type, influence vowel quality.
