‘Rā’ an Adposition or Function-marker? A Functional-Cognitive Approach to the Grammatical Category of ‘rā’

One of the most disputable elements of Persian is ‘rā’. But what is most debated on is its function. In this investigation based on Prototype Theory, it is focused on another aspect of ‘rā’ which is its grammatical category. Because recognizing grammatical category of different elements of a language and this puzzling element of Persian, is really influential in teaching and learning. So far ‘rā’has been called as object marker or case marker, discourse marker and postposition. In this study, first, it is focused on historical, typological, and syntactic properties that adpositions and ‘rā’ have in common. Then semantic features of ‘rā’ are discussed based on a functional-cognitive framework. The analysis shows that according to categorization and Prototype Theory, which is one of the central components of cognitive approach, ‘rā’ is still an adposition, but it is located on the periphery of this category. And ‘rā’ is getting far away from the prototypes of this category such as ‘dar’ (in) and ‘bā’ (with). Furthermore, ‘rā’ is on a continuum of ‘adposition-function marker’ which denotes it is converting from a postposition to a function-marker in the process of grammaticalization. In teaching Persian, we can refer to both categories of ‘rā’. It is suggested that ‘rā’ as an adposition is taught in basic levels and as a function-marker in advanced levels.