نشریه پژوهش های زبان شناسی
سال ششم شماره 2 (پیاپی 11، پاییز و زمستان 1393)

The present study aims at investigating the nature of object indexed elements in Persian. This is an essential element for deciding about the layered structure of the clause in the framework of the Role and Reference Grammar. Because of the inefficiency of the mere formal approaches، we appeal to the Role and Reference Grammar، a functional-structural model which considers all morpho-syntactic units with regard to their usage in the context. The goal of the Role and Reference Grammar is to uncover the universal aspects of the clause structure، without imposing features on languages in which there is no evidence for them. The research is descriptive-analytic and uses the standard colloquial Persian as its data. To do this، the data of standard spoken Persian are extracted from various resources and then analyzed syntactically. The behavior of indexed elements signifies that they have not turned into the agreement markers، although they behave like them somehow. So in representing the clause structure of transitive sentences، we posit the indexed elements in INDEX node outside the AGREEMENT node. In the absence of overt object noun phrase، the indexed element can function as the argument in the clause.

This article studies verbo-pictorial metaphors in some informative Persian posters، based on Forceville''s cognitive approach to multimodal metaphors. Semiotic and social semiotic studies of nonverbal aspects of message were started respectively by Barthes and Kress and Van Leeoven. However، first in the cognitive semantics، a number of researchers، like Forceville (1994)، began studying visual، pictorial، and multimodal aspects of metaphors from a cognitive semantics point of view. Till now، there are little investigations in Persian verbo-pictorial metaphors from this perspective، though many ones are reported in some other languages. In finding the appropriate required data، among eighteen informative categories in Hafteh Informative Poster Website، five subjects were selected. For each subject (total N=236) one poster was selected. The research questions involve: How verbo-pictorial metaphors appear in Persian posters? How the existing pictures and texts interact to represent multimodal metaphors in the selected informative posters? And finally، what is the pragmatic effect of their interaction on conveying the poster message? The results show that the selected posters contain one or more cognitive mechanisms like metaphor، metonymy، symbol، and image schema. The verbal and pictorial metaphors have complementary، though proportionately various، roles in conveying the informative messages of posters. The similarity of source and target domains of verbo-pictorial metaphors are realized either through physical resemblance، filling a schematic slot unexpectedly، and simultaneous cuing of these concepts. Moreover، this study shows that metaphors of this small corpus play informative function in the posters. The pragmatic role of metaphors is performed by both pictorial and verbal modes، though the anchorage role of the text used in these posters is various and cannot be identified clearly.

This study investigates conceptualizing anger in Persian by means of metaphor، one of the most effective devices of conceptualization. First of all، the anger metaphors in Persian are gathered from the utterances of Persian speakers in Tehran during 1390-1391، and then the determined source domains in Persian are compared with 13 source domains introduced by Kövecses. Anger metaphors in Persian are divided into 3 groups based on Kövecses model (2000). Analysis of 72 metaphorical expressions shows that breakdown /destruction with the highest frequency and fire /heat، physiological change، and animal behavior /reaction with equal frequency are the most common source domains of anger metaphors in Persian. After dividing these metaphors into three groups، most of them are placed within the first group. In other words، the great part of metaphors represents emotional responses out of anger. Moreover، results of the analysis indicate the effect of cultural beliefs on the selection of different source domains among different communities، even within one community.

In lexical processing studies، nouns and verbs processing differences have always been investigated with respect to different lexical features in nouns and verbs and the activation of different cortical locations fundamental to noun and verb representations. Such investigations on bilinguals in particular، are of primary importance due to the mediation of L1 words to process L2 words. In this research، a comparative analysis between a first and a second language، by considering the lexical processing levels in Persian-English bilinguals and by participation of eighty six BA students of English literature has been done. Picture naming task was used as the main cognitive measure and the latencies in naming object and action pictures in either of Persian and English languages were recorded in milli-second. With regard to the findings of this research، in both languages morphological features in comparison with semantic features are more influential in nouns and verbs processing differences and nouns have longer retention in comparison with verbs. In addition، acquiring a language (L1) or learning a language consciously (L2) does not influence the significant contribution of processing levels in bilinguals.

As pioneer trends in Iranian computational dialectology، the Levenshtein algorithm applied to Mazandarani dialect data - extracted from LAI – revealed regional dialect in the northern range of the Alborz Mountains. Current synchronic fieldwork aimed to determine vowels responsible for regional variation، and likewise reliability and validity of the research findings، through vowel frequency method. The linguistic material consisted of 113 interviews with NORM Speakers of 36 years old and primary level of education in average، 38% of whom were female. Representative and interpretive dialect maps validate the results obtained in previous studies with 0. 84 Cronbach’s α، emphasize manifestation of regional dialect، and illustrate the front vowels / i / and / a / verses central vowel / ə /، impose uttermost difference index on regional variations.

This article investigates the position of the adjunct «chera» (why) in Persian. There are two different proposals to consider. According to the first proposal، «chera» is merged post-verbally before it obligatorily moves to precede the verb. According to the second proposal، first introduced in this article، «chera» is generated before the verb، but moves somewhere higher in the tree structure. In this article we employ the linear order of the phrases in the sentence and certain empirical facts to support the second hypothesis. We take «chera» as a wh-causal phrase merged in the adjunct position to the vP to the left before it moves to the Spec، Interrogative phrase along the lines of Shlonsky and Soare (2o11).