A comparative study of augmentation processes in Persian and Japanese Languages Based on the Theory of Evaluative Morphology

The current study is aimed at analyzing and comparing augmentation processes in Persian and Japanese languages based on the theory of evaluative morphology. According to evaluative morphology, a linguistic construction is evaluative if it conveys (consciously or subconsciously) a type of value of the referents or audience, according to the speaker’s judgment. Morphology provides the speakers of a language with different means and ways for expression of evaluation in language and plays a dominant role in the formation of evaluatives. Diminutives and augmentatives are two main forms of evaluation in languages. As diminutives are much more common in languages and are generally formed by affixes specifically developed for this function, they are also investigated more pervasively than augmentatives. This is also true for Persian and Japanese linguistics where augmentatives, at least in the case of Persian, have so far been neglected or have only been sporadically touched upon in grammar books. The findings of this study showed that although Persian and Japanese belong to two different language families and are typologically placed in two different language types, both use compounding and reduplication as two dominant mechanisms for producing augmentatives. The present study aims to provide a detailed examination and comparison of these two mechanisms for the formation of augmentatives in two languages.