Directionization in Persian: A Case Study of Landmark Terms Based on Grammaticalization

Language encodes abstract concepts like points of spatial orientations including above, down, back and the like by means of such concrete domains as organ words, nature words, and some verbs. In this research, the process of changing these objective sources into spatial oriention is called directionization. Directionization of lexical sources which refers to concrete examples in nature and are considered part of socio-cultural geography, or in other words, related to human culture and social life in relation to the earth, are used for further understanding and, to encode relative, principal, and metaphorical directions through metaphorical expansion. The present study investigates directionization  in Persian based on Heine's (1997) approach, and Davari and Naghzgouy Kohan's (2017; 2017) model was used to determine the dimensions of directionization, or the extent of semantic, morpho-syntactic and phonetic changes of sources. The data were collected from poetry and prose books, proverbs, novels, newspapers and websites. The time span includes Old, Middle and Modern Persian. Results indicate that Persian uses landmark terms such as sky, air, roof and alike for expressing geographical, relative and metaphorical directions, and the mentioned lexical sources have finally suffered a second degree of grammaticalization.