Cognitive study of semantic network of the letter “Thumma” in the Holy Quran

The Cognitive Semantics tries to examine meaning by relying on cognition; i.e. information processing in the human brain. In cognitive semantics, all language concepts are categorized. One of the important language issues that can be studied by relying on cognitive semantics are conjunctions in Arabic, and especially in the Holy Quran. In cognitive semantics, vocabularies, especially the conjunctions, have a central meaning that can be seen in the subjective meaning of the letter as well. Accordingly, many of the subjective meanings are somehow tied to the central meaning and the semantic network is formed. Based on this fact, the use of a particular letter in the words can be conceptualized regarding the situation, especially in the Qur'anic texts. The word “Thumma”  is one of the most widely used letters among the Arabic conjunctions which has been mentioned 338 times in the Holy Qur'an. By descriptive-analytical method and based on radial network of  “Thumma”  meaning, this article has concluded that the main meaning of  “Thumma”  in the Holy Quran is the junction between the words and the subjective meaning includes chronological order, ascending relationship between two cognate events, descending relationship between two cognate events and the disparity between the two.