Research in Western Iranian Languages and Dialects
Year:2022 | Volume:10 | Issue:1|Papers Count:6

This research has investigated the historical origin of the /l/ and /ɫ / phonemes in Kurdish language (central and southern branches) within the phonological system. For this purpose, the historical origin of the /l/ and /ɫ / phonemes has been studied along with the historical process of phonemes or clusters that change from ancient to modern period in Kurdish. The study begins with the reconstructed forms in Indo-European language, and the process of developments has been studied from Old to Middle Iranian (north-western) with examples. Then, the developments to the new period in Kurdish have been investigated. This research argues the /l/ phoneme in Kurdish in some cases is originated from Indo-European and is continuation of Indo-European *l. It shows that l-in initial context of the word in Kurdish is equal to Indo-European *l-in initial position of the word. Moreover, it indicates the presence of the-ɫ in Kurdish originates from Indo-European *-l-in non-initial context of the word and also the sequence of *t and *d in Indo-European to Old Iranian. It also demonstrates the differences between /l/ and /ɫ / phonemes from a historical point of view and their positions in the word.

The present descriptive-analytic article is aimed to study and compare the syntactic structure and linear order of Persian verbal inflectional categories within the framework of Distributed Morphology (DM) (Halle & Marantz, 1993). First we suppose the syntactic hierarchical position of functional categories and clause syntactic structure of Persian to be what Taleghani (2008) proposes. Then based on the post syntactic operations such as, “ lowering” and “ local dislocation” and what Embick (2015) proposes for linearization of constituents within the framework of DM, syntactic and linear position of verbal compounds in present, past and future tenses are compared. Finally, any mismatches between the two structures are explained through the two post syntactic operations. Research findings showed that “ negation morpheme” , compared to other morphemes, mismatches much more in the syntactic and linear structures and requires more explanations in post syntactic component. It is concluded that this morpheme at post-syntactic component, lowers and prefixes mostly to vp and in some cases to aspect and auxiliary morphemes.

This paper attempts to investigate the progressive aspect in Bala-Geriveh Lori /lø ri/ based on Cognitive Grammar Approach (Langacker, 1982). In this dialect, the auxiliary hɑ , derived from hɑ se ‘ to want’ , is used for making present progressive while past progressive is made by the morpheme he. Hence, this paper investigates why the use of the verb hɑ se as an auxiliary is limited. For doing this research, 820 sentences were collected from villages around Khorramabad. Then the data was analysed using a descriptive-analytical method based on Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 1982). The data demonstrated that each morpheme has specific functions because hɑ assigns progression to the action, whereas he is used for the duration or repetition of an action. Meanwhile, both morphemes are used for making imperfective processes. Unacceptance of negation, acceptability of making present perfect progressive out of stative predicates, and simultaneous use of both morphemes in a sentence are among their important idiosyncratic features.

While compounding is one of the major processes of word formation in world languages, it remains one of the most controversial linguistic descriptions. There are various kinds of classifications for compound words, and one of the most common ones is the exocentric compounds. In Laki, one of the languages belonging to the north-west branches in the Iranian language, compounding is the most important word formation process. The majority of its compounds are exocentric. The present article aims to find and analyze two types of exocentric compounds in the Alashtari dialect based on Bauer (2017). The results based on data from Laki show that Bahuvrihi exocentric compounds in Laki include five different structures: (1) Adj + N; (2) N + Adj; (3) N + N; (4) quantifier + N; (5) N + P + N. Coordinative exocentric compounds include two types: class-maintaining and class-changing categories of which the former appears as (N + N) and the later as (V + V) or (NP + NP). The semantic analysis of the data reveals the effect of embodiment, metaphorical, cultural belief, and lifestyle of Laki speakers on the construction of exocentric compounds in their language.

In this descriptive-analytic research, different Persian time metaphors reflected in political and economic articles of Shargh Newspaper are compared in the general framework of cognitive semantics, with emphasis on Lakoff and Johnson’ s conceptual metaphor theory (1980), while using Nú ñ ez and Sweetser’ s approach (2006) and mathematical logic. The goals are determining: (1) adequacy of the theory, (2) different types of time metaphor and their dominant pattern in the articles, (3) their distribution, and (4) how they are expressed. Research population consists of all political and economic articles of Shargh Newspaper in 1396 and 60 randomly chosen articles make the sample. The results approved the adequacy of the theory and indicated that time-moving metaphor with the highest frequency (72%) was the dominant pattern while other patterns were ego-moving metaphor (%18) and time-moving-without-ego metaphor (%9). Time-ego-moving metaphors (%1) didn’ t make any pattern. The results revealed no significant difference between the above-mentioned metaphors in each kind of the articles but revealed a significant difference between time-moving metaphor and the others in data. Moreover, most temporal concepts were expressed via spatial concepts. This means time is more basic and vital than space in political and economic issues.

The present study aims at investigating the imperative construction and its paradigm in Persian. To this aim, the canonical imperative construction in Persian will be explained first, and the non-canonical ones will be studied thereafter. The results show that Persian has two imperative constructions, namely minimal and maximal. The minimal construction is specified for the second-person singular subjects, and the maximal one is applied for non-second-person-singular subjects, which are formally heterogeneous with minimal construction, but which are in complementary distribution with it. In addition to these two constructions, it is argued that there are four analytical constructions that are mainly based on grammaticalized motion verbs and that are combined with the main verb to convey directive meanings as their secondary function in certain contexts and as an imperative strategy (not construction). The primary meaning and function of these constructions refer to hortative or optative meanings. These constructions, as opposed to non-canonical constructions, are not in complementary distribution with the second person singular subjects. Apart from these constructions, there are some other imperative strategies such as modal, declarative, and interrogative constructions.