فصلنامه ادب پژوهی
پیاپی 13 (پاییز 1389)

“Physiognomy”, due to its concern with various categories, domains, ideologies and discourses, enters into different conceptual networks. Considering its correlated terms and functions, one comes to two distinctive areas, namely secular-experimental discourse, and mystical discourse. This article, after describing the lexical meaning of “Physiognomy”, explains the sphere of the two mentioned discourses and their conceptual correlates. In fact, it firstly discusses the works in these areas, and secondly studies Mowlavi’s ideas following “Physiognomy Traddition”. This is a key exemplum in understanding the mysticism of Mathnavi which determines the “radiative-reflective” nature of Physiognomy, the insight of mystics originating from their existential-intuitive experience, and its relation to “Prescience”, “Divination” and “Thought reading (Telepathy)”, while distinguishing the mystical discourse from the secular discourse.

There are different approaches for analyzing linguistic and cognitive structures of “Paradox”. One approach believes that paradox originates from a kind of contradiction of the statements, either descriptive or predicative; another approach, by an attempt to eliminate the contradiction, reduces the paradox to true statements; the third approach, by investigating the mystical and intuitive experiences, attempts to make a link between these experiences and paradox. In short all the approaches explain the properties of mystical language in general, and those of the paradoxical language in specific, in order to analyze paradox as far as possible. Nevertheless it seems that one of the fundamental characteristics of paradox, i.e. dissociation between its ontological and epistemological aspects has been neglected in these studies. That is why the present article focuses on this distinction and reveals its significance in the formation and interpretation of paradox.

Fabula (story), according to Formalists, is the chronologic sequence of events and actions which is in fact the “whatness” of the narrative content, its material, and potential aspect, while syuzhet (plot), is no longer the cause-effect relation between the events, but the actual aspect of narrative that comprises all the aesthetic and defamiliarising devices that are used to represent the story as something artistic. Formalists, as to their interpretation of the concept of plot, were more concerned with the defamiliarising sides of narration and thus studied it in the categories of language, theme and devices. This article, through reviewing the distinction between fabula and syuzhet according to Formalists, shows their various aspects in some formalistic Persian short stories.

Sheikh Ahmad Jām is among the mystics whose interlink of life events and charismatic characters have been a source of misunderstanding their true face. This misinterpretation is sometimes very great; for instance, the distance between the two Sheikh Jām’s pictures, one in Maghāmāt-e Zhende Pil, and the other originated from his works, is as great as the distance between myth and reality. The contradictions and paradoxes related to his character and thought have made him one of the most controversial figures in Persian mysticism. This article, after defining the concept of charisma, briefly deals with Iranian charismatic mystics, and then, referring to some unbelievable charismas of Sheikh Ahmad Jām mentioned in Maghāmāt-e Zhende Pil, brings multiple evidence in order to come as close as possible to the true character of Ahmad Jām.

Although Tāleshi and Tāti of Khalkhāl are two dialects that have affected each other in various levels, the degree of this effect in different places are not the same. In fact the very closeness of the two dialects has been a major reason for impossibility of drawing clear borderlines between them. It happens that Tāti varieties can be seen in the heart of Tāleshi districts, or Tāleshi varieties are found in the center of Tāti districts. Askestān and Asbu, as villages of Shāhrood region of Khakhāl, are located on the way Tālesh- Shāhrood, being tightly linked with Tālesh, but unfortunately this fact has been neglected in linguistic researches. This article postulates that Askestāni and Asbui, in spite of the dominant belief, are varieties of Tāleshi. This claim is supported by focusing on linguistic characteristics of Tāti and Tāleshi, the history of the interrelation between the two dialects, geographical parameters of the area, as well as the phonological, morphological, and lexical examples.

This article, firstly focuses on types of coordination, coordinating conjunctions, and also the literature on coordination in Persian, and secondly discusses multi-headedness and coordinating conjunction as a functional head, and points out the shortcomings of spec-head-complement and adjunction models for coordination. Regarding the essence of conjuncts, the paper explicates that coordination is possible at any level even at a level lower than word. Finally it deals with a new approach known as”conjunction as a pure merge operation” which says coordination is possible at any level.This new approach can be exploited to represent coordinate structure in Persian.

One of the benefits of comparative studies in the area of language is how the languages affect one another and how such a process can be a source of finding solutions for problems of language A through using the conventional procedures of language B. This article, based on the works done on Arabic and Persian grammar, follows an analytic method to examine the concept of “Transcendence” as one of the significant meanings of Arabic annexes and Persian prepositions, and determines the characteristics of those annexes and prepositions which manifest the concept of transcendence. The article, while being concerned with the interrelation of Arabic and Persian, focuses on some similarities and differences of the two languages concerning annexes and prepositions.