Inheritance Links in Persian Ezafe Constructions: A Construction Grammar Study

Ezafe constructions are one of the most frequent constructions in Persian language, studied by many researchers in the fields of Linguistics, Literature, Persian Language Grammar and the like. Different kinds of Ezafe constructions are linked to each other. The said links, according to Construction Grammar which is a cognitive approach, are called "Inheritance Links". Inheritance Links are made through motivation, meaning that one construction is inherited from the other one. The present study, which is a descriptive-analytical study, is aimed at studying the inheritance links existed between Ezafe constructions in Persian Language. Results indicate that different kinds of Ezafe constructions in Persian Language are related to each other by different inheritance links, constituting a semantic-inheritance network of constructions. The inheritance links existed in Ezafe constructions include, but are not limited to, polysemy inheritance links, metaphorical inheritance links, degree decreasing inheritance links, description limiting inheritance links, and abstract inheritance links.