Semantic Map of Instrumental-Comitative Prepositions of Iranian Languages

Semantic map is a way which represents cross-linguistic regularity in the mapping of meaning on form. Semantic map is a way for showing crosslinguistic variation through meaning. Of course, there are some universal restrictions on these variations. This is against the frequently thought in linguistics that semantics is an area fraught with irregularity and idiosyncrasy (Narrog & Ito 2007: 273). In this article we aim to show polysemy of adpositions in instrumental-comitative area of nine Iranian languages and to show the related semantic map of each language. Narrog’s (2010) semantic map in the area of instrumental related functions is the basis for drawing semantic map of Iranian languages. The results show that each of the Iranian languages has a special place in the instrumental-comitative semantic map and there are similarities as well as differences in the representation of instrumental related functions in these languages. Of course differences are regular and are explainable in the framework of Narrog’s (2010) semantic map.