مجله جستار های زبانی
سال هفتم شماره 3 (پیاپی 31، امرداد و شهریور 1395)

McGurk effect is a perceptual phenomenon in which subjects use information from both auditory and visual modalities to come into a unified percept. In the classic example of McGurk, when auditory /bɑ/ is dubbed over the lip movements of /ɡɑ/ , subjects report perceiving /da/. Although this illusion is not considered a universal one, it is experienced by the majority of subjects. The effect had been the subject of multiple studies in different languages. The present study is the first survey which examines this effect in Persian and Kermanshahi Kurdish language. Our main question is to examine whether the effect is significant in Persian and Kermanshahi Kurdish language. We also investigated the effect of gender on the occurrence of this phenomenon. It investigated McGurk in Persian and Kermanshahi Kurdish subjects. 121 (11*11) audiovisual stimuli were presented to 120 subjects (60 Persian speakers and 60 Kermanshahi Kurdish speakers). The Results demonstrate a reduced McGurk effect in both Persian and Kermanshahi Kurdish subjects; however, the probability of its occurrence is significant in Kermanshahi Kurdish. The phenomenon is highly significant when an auditory labial CV is dubbed with a visual velar CV for Persian subjects; however, for Kermanshahi Kurdish subjects the effect was robust when an auditory velar CV is dubbed with a visual palatal CV. The effect of gender (both presenter and subjects) on the occurrence of this effect is also studied in this research. Results show significant effect of gender on audio-visual perception of consonants. However, if the percept happens, female presenters significantly affect the audio-visual perception of the subjects.

Persian and Arabic have been related for so many years. These two languages have influenced each other not only at the level of vocabulary but also in some other levels such as morphology, phonology, and even syntax. This study aims at investigating one of language interferences which is the letter æÇæ. The purpose of this study is to show that regarding the letters especially the letter æÇæ. Persian has borrowed a lot from Arabic. It means that both the function and the form of this letter have changed in Persian. However, with more care, it can be realized that many functions of this letter in Persian are still the same as in Arabic. When this letter comes between two nouns, verbs, or sentences, it has both its main syntactic function i.e. a conjunction and also some other semantic and rhetoric functions in the sentence. Letter æÇæ is used with different meanings such as manner, oath, with, but, and also because. The results of the present study show that words such as æÇÑ, æÑ, and æÑ in Persian which have the function of conjunction in discourse as well as the meaning of condition, are the result of Arabic words translation like æÇöä or æáæ, as these words have not had a long history in Persian.

Nathalie Sarraute belongs to the the modern novelists who take a discrete- fragmentary and physical-intuitive outlook to the representation of the human psyche. In fact, according to Sarraute, it is only within dialogism that the actualities of the human psyche manifest themselves, and such actualities stem from strains and stresses between characters which run through the underlying subspace of the dialogues—what Sarraute calles sub-dialogue, or tropism. We claim that there exists a distinct quality in Sarraute’s tropismes which detaches the reader from the horizontal axis of the narrative and leads him/her vertically into a veiled abstract world, a quality which we call “linguistic transudation, that is, a transudation which disconnects one from the stereotypical level and leads him/her to the veiled underlying world by rendering the imperceptible tropismes tangible. In this article, by referring to Mikhail Bakhtin insights on dialogism and polyphony, we demonstrate how our “linguistic transudation, as a linguistic technique, maps into to the writer’s view of discourse and the negation of the Cartesian Supreme Subject. In fact, Sarraute dialogism as fragmentary and discontinuous conception shows the resemblance with the principle of discontinuity as a philosophical term in phenomenology.

The study of the syntax of the Iranian languages has gained few attentions and Sogdian in this case is not an exception. Due to the fact that the Sogdian texts are recognized as translations of other languages, the scholars have a disinclination to pay attention to the syntax of these texts. Determining the scale of the influence of the syntax of the source languages from one hand and the distinction between the various types of this language on the other hand needs to be proved by studying and comparing the similar constructions in different type of this language variations. This essay studies and classifies the complement verbs of two major Sogdian modal verbs: s’c- and k’m-. In the previous studies on their syntax, the use of complement has been generally considered just by infinitive. This study shows that the complement of these verbs is more diverse than what was previously thought. The use of various types of infinitive and also different moods of verbs in the subordinate sentences are the other types of their complements. The verb sʼc- has less frequency in the texts other than Buddhist ones, and the variety of its complements is less than kʼm-, but the frequency of kʼm- in Christian and Buddhist texts is relatively equal and provides the ability to compare and analyze the difference of these two language types.

Aspect is a grammatical category which along tense and mood, appears in grammatical structure of the clause and affects its whole meaning. The available works conducted on Persian aspect have mainly no theoretical frame work and proper classification for this category. In this paper, attempts are made to conceptualize grammatical and lexical aspect on the basis of appropriate frame works. At first, by utilizing the metaphorical extension approach as a branch of grammaticalization theory and by introducing diachronic studies conducted on old and middle Persian, grammatical aspect is conceptualized within a cognitive framework. Then, in terms of aspectual features derived from Vendler (1967) and by a bottom-up approach, five lexical aspects are introduced and three others are predicted to be found in Persian. Finally, the effect of context on the type of aspect is brought under consideration. Finding a new lexical aspect, predicting to have three other lexical aspects, and conceptualizing the grammatical and lexical aspect in Persian are among findings of this investigation.

This research aims at analyzing the narrator type and the modality governing his point of view in the short story "Frankness and Decisiveness" (1349) by Bahram Sadeghi". We have used Simpson's model (1993) in which narrative and point of view are studied utilizing a linguistic framework. The goal of this paper is to determine the type of narrator (first, second or third person) and modality of the story (positive, negative, neutral). We have assumed that the narrator is third person and modality is neutral. The data are analyzed according to categories and analytic instruments introduced by the theory; Therefore, the method of this research is descriptive-analytic. Modality in linguistics concerns the writer's view on the truth of a proposition stated in a sentence. Findings of this study show that the narrator is type B (third person) who willingly enters the character's mind and reports their intentions and thoughts to the reader. Analyzing the modal devices in every sentence shows that the narrator uses verbs and adverbs of request, sentences stating opinions, generic sentences, imperative verbs and evaluative adjectives and adverbs all of which denote positive modality. To show the procedure which ends in a misunderstanding and also for evaluating the situation, the writer makes use of negative modality devices through which the most important elements are cognitive verbs.

The purpose of the present research is to investigate the formation of locative nouns in Persian which are not semantically similar in spite of their resemblance in functions. The suffix "-zâr" in Persian, for instance, indicates both the concept of location and multiplicity of something: "golzâr and lâlehzâr". The other suffixes of location, however, do not bear this semantic property. It's worth mentioning that along with the above mentioned process, two other processes of "compounding" and "derivation-compounding" are also investigated here. Thus, the authors in the present research have attempted to investigate these semantic constraints which are dominant on such suffixes, using the achievements of cognitive morphology such as categorization theory, conceptualization and configuration. Eventually, the authors attempt to introduce the cognitive potentials contributing to the formation and usage of these locative forms.

During recent decades, Persian complex predicates have been described by many grammarians and linguists with different approaches to their syntax, morphology, and, in less extent, to their semantics. Despite the extensive literature about the subject, cognitive semantic analysis of these predicates has not yet been the matter of analysis. This paper aims at examining the polysemous feature of the light verb zadan based on cognitive lexical semantics. It seeks to show that this feature of the light verb zadan based on the meanings of its corresponding heavy verb is a systematic phenomenon and cognitive concepts such as categorization, radial category, image schemas and conceptual metaphor play a major role in the formation of different meanings of this linguistic element in the form of a radial category. As well, the meaning of light verb is a determining factor in collocation between light verb and preverbal elements in light verb constructions.

The present research seeks to analyze two phonological processes of Pasikhani dialect: compensatory lengthening and Vowel harmony. The theoretical framework of the study is on the basis of optimality approach, and the dialectal data gathering has been via recording five hours of speech together with the researcher's intuition as a native speaker. The data have been transcribed according to IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) and the research method is descriptive- analytic one. Accordingly, the phonological processes and compensatory deletion of /h/, /?/ in mono syllabic words in CVCC and disyllabic words in CVC.CV (C) context which lead to compensatory lengthening of vowel in first syllable; raising and vowel harmony (change of /e/ as a low vowel to [i] as a high vowel; (change of /e/ as a front vowel to [u] as a back vowel) have been exemplified within the tables and analyzed in tableaus by the use of the constraint rankings in OT.
The results depict deletion and insertion as the highest processed and metathesis as the lowest.

In this qualitative study, through studying the thought patterns of two master candidates of the International Relations discipline, the process of development in their disciplinary genre awareness has been investigated. In so doing, academic writing skills were taught to the two cases of the study in a period of 18 months. In this period, one of the researchers held regular training sessions. The theoretical framework used for this study was the interaction model of Hyland (2005) and the methodology in the phase one to three of the study was descriptive ethnography and in phase four it was analytical and quantitative. Several rounds of interviews, stimulated recall sessions, field notes, and document analysis were used to collect the data. Based on the definitions provided by IELTS organization, the two cases improved from the level of limited user (band score 4) to the level of good user (band score 7). Finally, the result of the investigation of the stages of development in the disciplinary genre awareness of the participants was presented in a model of development. This study can shed light on the future perspective of curriculum design for academic and ESP writing courses.

The purpose of this research is to analyze Differential Adpositional Case Marking (DACM) in Vafsi within OT framework by using the generalization of Aissen’s (2003) Differential Object Marking (DOM) model. While Bossong (1985) has traced DOM in more than 300 languages, DACM has not been investigated typologically, yet. DACM, as a branch of Differential Case Marking (DCM), questions the effect of semantic and/or pragmatic features on case marking of object of adposition. Evidence from Vafsi (Stilo, 2004) suggest that animacy in object of adposition (OA), affects its case marking; i. e. human and animate OAs in Vafsi will be oblique case-marked, while inanimate OAs are direct (nominative) case-marked. DACM OT model is developed using Prince and Smolensky (1993), Smolensky (1995) and the generalization of Aissen’s (2003) DOM OT model. The constraints hierarchies are extracted using formal devices of harmonic alignment and local conjunction.

Modality is a grammatical feature which plays a crucial role in determining the ultimate interpretation of propositions. Different languages make use of different linguistic elements like mood, modal auxiliaries, modal verbs, modal adjectives and adverbs for encoding the concept of modality. Despite of its importance in the overall structure of any language, little attention has been paid to the study of modality in Iranian Languages. The present paper focuses on the analysis of the modal auxiliaries in Hawrami. After taking a short look at the concept of modality and getting familiar with the Palmer's (1999, 2001) basic classification of modal systems, these three modals are introduced:"mašjo/mašjā: must", "biey:become", "tāwāy: can". It is argued that among the other modals, only "mašjo" is used to denote the degree of "necessity" in both "epistemic" and "deontic" modal systems. "biey" and "tāwāy", on the other hand, exhibit the concept of "possibility" in "epistemic" and "deontic" systems. Moreover, "biey" and "tāwāy" encode different types of dynamic modality. Although "biey" can also be used to indicate "necessity" in deontic system as well, it imposes less severe obligations on the agent compared to the deontic "mašjo". It is also shown that "mašjā" is the only modal verb which can convey the "deontic" reading in the past tense constructions. None of the aforementioned modal auxiliaries encode evidentiality in Hawrami.