نشریه زبان فارسی و گویش های ایرانی
سال پنجم شماره 2 (پیاپی 10، پاییز و زمستان 1399)

The article tries to make a link between grammatical function of the prefix be- with past verbs in the current atlas of New West Iranian and the historical atlas of New Persian, and to interpret this marker’s historical statistics with respect to its behavior in today’s Iranian varieties. In the historical sampling of this research, 22% of past verbs of simple morphological structure (non-prefixed and non-complex) in 4th to 7th centuries had the prefix be-, but in the following centuries, its frequency decreased gradually, and eventually it disappeared. On the other hand, in the contemporary century, a very high level of grammaticalization of be- in the same position is observed in a wide variety of Iranian languages and dialects. The author looks at these two phenomena (the historical behavior of be- and its today’s behavior) in the same line, and believes that there has been a single path of grammaticalization of be- in progress in New West Iranian languages, but the written/standard variety of New Persian stopped this process for some external or internal reasons (contact with varieties without be-, and development of mi- as imperfective marker, respectively), while the process continued in some Iranian varieties to the current level.

This paper attempts to make a link between the grammatical function of the prefix be- with past tense verbs in the current atlas of New West Iranian and the historical atlas of New Persian, and to interpret the marker’s statistical behavior in old texts with respect to its behavior in today’s Iranian varieties. The issue of the grammatical function of be- in this position has always been controversial, and grammarians and linguists have proposed functions such as decorative, redundant, emphatic, and perfective aspect for it. With a statistical approach, this research is concerned with this controversial issue, considering the status of perfective aspect marker in the current linguistic atlas (of West Iranian varieties), suggesting the hypothesis that the grammaticalization of be- as the perfective aspect marker had begun in some regions in the historical linguistic atlas.

A common phenomenon in grammars is the grammaticalization of the speaker’s viewpoint towards the event: seeing it as a whole completed event, or looking from inside as an uncompleted one. This opposition, called perfective and imperfective aspect, respectively, is the main distinction in the grammatical aspect domain. In simpler words, the grammatical category of aspect is the result of grammaticalization of the speaker’s viewpoint. In this domain, there may be a grammaticalized morpheme for each opposition (perfective and imperfective); or just marking one the oppositions overtly, with no marker for the other one.   

The historical corpus of this research includes 77 thousand verbs, extracted from 55 texts from 10th to 20th centuries. To this aim, five texts from each century were selected, and then, two pieces of each text were taken randomly as the sampled data, each one including 700 verbs (1400 verbs from each text, altogether).

According to the statistics, be- in the grammatical function under discussion generally appears with positive verbs of simple structure (non-prefixed and non-complex), and its highest rate of usage is in 10th and 11th centuries. In these two centuries, on average, out of every four simple verbs in perfective aspect, one verb (and a bit more) takes be- (26.7%). In 12th and 13th centuries, the frequency of be- shows decrease (19%), and then, in the 14th, the statistics is reduced to less than half (8.1%), gradually disappearing in the following centuries. Furthermore, in 10th to 13th centuries, there are 17 texts from various geographical regions, having a rate higher than 10%, which shows that be- was being used in all centers of text production in the cultural territory of Persian. Also, the number of verbs with be- in the whole period (142 verbs, non-repeatedly) shows its high productivity, hence its inflectional nature, rejecting the derivational function hypothesis. On the other side, according to several researches in dialectology, a very high level of grammaticalization of be- in the same position has been reported in a wide range of Iranian varieties. At least in Mazandarani, Gilaki, Tati, Khorasani, Central Iranian, and Talishi, there are several language varieties with this marker in the same position, and in many of them, be- is nearly fully-productive with simple verbs. Furthermore, complex predicates and some past forms (present perfect, past perfect, and past subjunctive) are used with be- in some Iranian varieties. If we suppose that in early centuries the grammaticalization process of be- was in progress in some regions of the geography of Iranian languages, then, it may be hypothesized that since 14th century the production of Persian texts and the standardization of written language was affected by the varieties which lacked this function of be-, and this function was stopped gradually, but the varieties which had the marker (previously having more influence on the production of Persian texts) continued grammaticalizing itto the current level. By contrast, if we suppose that the grammaticalization of be- was only going on in New Persian, and after being stopped, it started again in some regions of the geography of Iranian languages, then, firstly, it would be difficult to account for the relatively short time spent for such a high level of grammaticalization of be- in today’s varieties, and secondly, on this assumption, the connection between perfective function and subjunctive-imperative function would be broken off, and restarting grammaticalization for perfective aspect would require theoretical justification. The author believes that it is more plausible to consider the grammaticalization of be- in the grammars of West Iranian languages as a single phenomenon. In other words, there has been a single path of grammaticalization of be- (for perfective aspect) in progress in New West Iranian languages which was gradually stopped in New Persian since 14th century, and was continued in some Iranian varieties. The consequence of such an integrated approach to the phenomenon will be that we can also consider be- in Classical Persian as a perfective marker.   

The statistics of this research show that 22% of simple perfective verbs in 10th to 13th centuries had be-. On the other hand, now, a very high level of grammaticalization of be- in the same position is observed in a wide range of Iranian varieties. The author believes that the most plausible explanation for these two linguistic phenomena (historical behavior of be- and its today’s behavior) is that the grammaticalization of be- for perfective aspect marking began since Early New Persian period (or possibly even Middle period), but Persian stopped this process gradually for some external reasons (contact with varieties without be-) or internal reasons (establishment of mi- as imperfective marker), while the process continued in some Iranian varieties to the current level.   

In addition to the grammatical weight and the nominal head thematic role effects on the processing of a relative clause, which has been dealt with extensively in previous studies, other factors influence the processing of the relative clause. In the present paper, the research data has been collected from TV and radio programs and the quantifier's role on relative clauses occurrence has been investigated based on Wiechmann approaches (2015). Wiechmann believes that each component in a relative construction can affect other components occurrence. Results show that ambiguity and generality in the meaning of the modified head, and occurring in special constructions affect the relative clause presence. This is compatible with exemplar–based theory in that components of a structure affect each other's occurrence. The result of this study can be used in determining the degree of ambiguity among Persian quantifiers and can explain how relative clauses are processed.   

A relative clause is a construction consisting of a nominal and a subordinate clause attributively modifying it. The nominal is called the head and the subordinate clause is called relative clause (henceforth RC). The attributive relation between head and RC is such that the head is involved in what is stated in the clause. As prenominal modifiers precede post modifiers, they can have certain influence on post- modifiers occurrence. It seems that indefinite pronouns occur with RCs more than any other prenominal modifier. Wiechmann believes that the more general the term, the greater the need (and hence the likelihood) for the additional material that enables the hearer to identify the intended referent of the complex. In this way, RC as a clausal post modifier is a good alternative for post modification of the expressions in the following list: anyone, anything, best everybody all, anybody, everybody, that thing, things, those, time, two, uncle, way, what, woman, women. Accordingly, in the present paper we are going to investigate the co-occurrence of quantifiers in expressions such as h{r ‘any , every’ k{s  ‘one, body’   ; h{r ‘any , every’  ,tSiz ‘thing’,… and relative clauses in Persian.   

In cognitive construction grammar, a relative clause is unified as a language sign which its processing procedure is highly the same as the lexicon’s. Linguistic signs are of different intermediate levels that have both fixed and variable parts. A complete characterization of a high level construction, such as an English RC, will have to take into account its constitutive constructions and their properties. That is to say, an actual utterance of an RC always instantiates a number of lower level construction simultaneously. Each grammatical unit is a routine process which speakers master it over repetition and they activate it as a predetermined assembly. Every experienced exemplar of an RC is involved in its cognitive representation. An exemplar-based representation indicates a list of words happening in a certain slot. When uttering a construction, we do not refer to a set of general features but analogically we refer to the memories of lexical items which have happened in that slot in previous exposures.   

The present paper is a descriptive - analytical research about RC s in spoken Persian. We analyzed each quantifier co-occurrence with RC and other post modifiers. Data for the current paper has been collected from 30 hours of conversations on TV and radio programs. 1200 relative clauses were extracted in addition to 500 sentences with a nominal head modified by other post modifiers to find out the difference between relative clause and other post - nominal modifiers. 

Prenominal modifiers behave differently in co-occurrence with RCs. The difference is displayed in the following hierarchy: h{r  ‘every, any’ 90.21% > Xeili {z  ‘many of’ 45.16% > h{me ‘all’ 30.20% > yeki{z ‘one of’ 27.88% > hitS  ‘no none’  21. 05% The results indicate that Persian quantifiers are of different characteristics. h{r ‘every, any’ refers to a singular head and it is used in conditional constructions to indicate general propositions. In fact, after some heads such as  h{r k{s ‘every one, any one’, h{r tSiz  ‘every thing, anything’ RC is more predictable to happen and easier to process. In the present paper, 3 constructions were introduced which included a nominal head modified with a quantifier: 1. RC construction with a nominal head modified with “h{r” implying a conditional proposition.  h{r‘every, any’ + head + RC + MC.  h{r   k{s  kar  n{-kon-e   be  s{lam{ti=e    Xod-eS   asib  mi-   z{n-e. any  one  work (exercise)  NEG- SUBJ. do- 3SG. to  health =of  self-3SG.CL  damage  PROG-PRES.hit. - 3SG. ‘Anyone who doesn’t exercise will damage his own health’    2. An extraposed RC with some nominal head modified with quantifier   Xeili {z ‘ many of ‘. in these constructions the verb is copular: Xeili {z   pezeSk-a   h{st-{n   ?{sl{n  did-e   ne-mi-S-{n  many of  doctor-PL PRES.be- 3PL never  see- PP. NEG- PRES- be- 3 PL ‘There are many doctors who are never seen’   3. An extraposed RC with  an indefinite quantifier hitS ‘ nothing’ According to exemplar-based theory, different components affect each other’s occurrence. Frequent use of these components leads to a pre-defined and entrenched construction which in turn increases RC usage in related contexts.   

As indicated in section 4, we introduced some intermediate levels of RC in Persian. These findings are in line with exemplar theory principles. In exemplar theory, different components of a construction affect each other’s presence. Frequent occurrence of these components leads to construction entrenchment in the speaker’s mind helping to predict next construction components. The results also show that pre-nominal modifiers display three different behaviors in occurrence with RCs: 1. Compared to all other quantifiers, the quantifier h{r ‘any, every’  is more used with RC in a way that all  the RC occurrence with other quantifiers is less than h{r ‘any, every’ occurrence with RC. 2. In Xeili {z ‘many of’ construction, RC is more frequently used compared to any of other post modifiers. 3. In  hitS ‘no, none’  and yeki {z ‘one of’ constructions  RC occurred less than other post modifiers such as  genitive and descriptive modifiers. It is recommended that the co-occurrence of quantifiers with RC be investigated cognitively in language laboratories.   Select Bibliography Bybee, J. 2013. Usage-based Theory and Exemplar Representations of Constructions, In: Thomas Hoffmann  and  Graeme Trousdale (eds.). TheOxford Handbook of Construction Grammar.,Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

One of the poets whose quatrains can be traced in various forms among the quatrains of Rumi's Divan-e Kabir is Sana'i. After reviewing "Nozha Al-Majalis" and several valid manuscripts from Sanai's Divan, the number of common and similar quatrains to Sanai's Divan corrected by Modarres Razavi and Rumi's Divan-e Kabir corrected by Forouzanfar increased from 26 quatrains to 35 quatrains. In order to perform an accurate attribution analysis in the field of common and similar quatrains of these two poets, the works of poetry and prose of other poets and writers before Rumi, in addition to the mentioned sources, were also investigated. Out of a total of 35 common and similar quatrains, 24 quatrains from the Divan-e Kabir definitely belong to Sanai, or are guaranteed and adapted from his quatrains. 8 quatrains are most  likely from Sanai, and the other 3 quatrains have been attributed to other poets in addition to Sanai. Of the Sana'i quatrains, only four quatrains are mentioned in complete and unchanged form in the Divan-e Kabir. In other cases, the quatrains are accompanied by changes that vary from a change in a few words to a change in three lines.   

One of the Rumi's most important works in Persian literature is his quatrains. In Badi-ol-Zaman Forouzanfar's edition of Rumi's Divan, 1983 quatrains are attributed to him. In this work, traces of several quatrains can be found that belong to Sufi and non-Sufi poets before Rumi.One of the poets whose quatrains can be traced in various forms among the quatrains of Rumi's Divan-e Kabiris Sana'i. Rumi's poetic thought and style of expression, in his quatrains, like his other poems, has been influenced by Sanai's poetic thought and style of expression. The important point about the common quatrains of the Sanai's Divan and Rumi's Divan-e Kabir  is that Rumi is not only the narrator of the Sanai's quatrains, in the form of direct and unchangeable quotations, but in most cases these quatrains in the Divan-e Kabirare accompanied by changes. 

Several researchers such as Franklin D. Lewis, Badi-ol-Zaman Forouzanfar, Mohammad Amin Riahi, and also the prominent researcher of Persian quatrains, Sayyid Ali Mirafzali, have mentioned the existence of quatrains from other earlier poets among the quatrains of the Rumi's Divan-e Kabir. However, the only research that has been written in this field is an article entitled "Recognition of the source of 38 quatrains attributed to Rumi in literary and historical texts." In this research, in most cases, the quatrains have been investigated which are mentioned in earlier prose texts from previous poets. However, studying the common quatrains of Rumi's Divan-e Kabir   cannot be performed in such a generalized study. Conducting more specialized research, the subject can be studied better and more accurately so that more new results can be achieved. In this study, by examining the Sanai's quatrains and comparing it with Rumi's quatrains, in addition to examining other earlier works, it has been tried to investigate the traces of the Sanai's quatrains in the Divan-e Kabir   more carefully. 

The most famous correction of the Sanai's Divan is the correction of the Modarres Razavi, however, none of the editions of the Sanai's Divan incompass all his quatrains. Therefore, in this article, we have also referred to the authentic manuscripts of Sanai's Divan. We argue that through finding all the common and similar quatrains of Sanai and Rumi, an accurate analysis in attributing the common quatrains according to the date of writing of this manuscripts can be achieved. Of course, in order to search for Sanai's quatrains among Rumi's quatrains, we did not just suffice to the Sanai's printed divan and the manuscripts of his divan, Because many wandering quatrains have been repeated many times in the Divans of early Poets that, in most cases, the poet of these quatrains cannot be determined with certainty, so in addition to examining the printed Divan and the most important manuscripts of the Sanai's Divan, other works of earlier poets and writers, Rumi was also examined in order to obtain more accurate results. 

The study of the common quatrains of Divan-e Kabirand the Sanai's quatrains shows that Rumi, with his own style, often uttered the Sanai's quatrains with changes, so that 35 common and similar quatrains of these two poets can be divided into five following categories: 1. Four quatrains of the Divan-e Kabir   in all four lines are completely similar to the Sanai's quatrains. 2. Sixteen quatrains from the Divan-e Kabir, while being similar to the Sanai's quatrains in all four lines, show some differences. 3. Four quatrains of the common quatrains of the Divan-e Kabir and Sanai's quatrains are similar in three lines. 4. Seven quatrains of the Divan-e Kabir are similar to the quatrains of the Sanai's Divan in only two lines. 5. Four quatrains of the Divan-e Kabir are similar to the quatrains of the Sanai's Divan in only one line. 

After examining the quatrains of the "Nozhat Al-Majalis" collection and four manuscripts of Sanai's Divan, another 9 quatrains were added to the common and similar quatrains of Rumi's Divan-e  Kabir and Sanai's printed Divan, and based on this, the number of common and similar quatrains of the two poets reached 35 quatrains. According to the present study, 24 quatrains from the Divan-e Kabir, based on two ancient manuscripts from the Sanai's Divan, as well as the collection of quatrains, "Nozhat Al-Majalis" and certain earlier prose texts, are definitely from Sanai, or have been guaranteed and adapted from his quatrains. The 8 common quatrains are most likely to belong to Sanai, based on the recent manuscripts of the Sanai's Divan and some stylistic features. The other three common quatrains are probably by Sanai, or another poet. In other words, these quatrains, in addition to Sanai, are also attributed to one or more other early poets.   

Khaghani is one of the most fanciful Persian poets. The difficulty of Khaghani's poems is related to fantasy, elegance, and its utilization of science. This perplexity led descriptions from the oldest times, such as Shadi Abadi on Khaqani's poetry to be written These efforts continued until the age of printing. The complexity of Khaqani's poetry has caused all the works written about him not to be free from defects. These defects are also included in Khaghani's poetry corrections, so that all versions and corrections are flawed. Among the corrections was Abdolrasouli’s correction which is also known as the Tehran edition. Moreover, Sajjadi, based on the London version and other copies in the book of Tehran, published Khaghani's poetry as well. Although Sajjadi published more Khagani's lyric poems than Abdolrasoli in certain cases, the version of Tehran (the corrected version by Abdulrasooli) is superior to other versions, especially to the London edition. However   Sajjadi in order to illustrate the new aspects of the Divan in his publication along with putting confidence on London version has marginalized the exact words of Tehran correction in many instances. In the present paper, the version of Tahran which is oftentimes regarded whimsical and unusual will be mentioned with regards to poetic and non-poetical reasons. 

Khaghani Shervani is one of the greatest and the most difficult poets of Persian language and literature among Persian poets. The reasons for the difficulty of Khaghani's poems is both the use of different sciences and the imagination. A commentary on Khaghani's poems has been written since ancient times. These old explanations express the difficulty and the importance of Khaghani's poetry. In the contemporary era, certain corrections have been made to Khaghani's Divan as well. One of these corrections is the correction of Abdolrasouli namely Tehran correction. He has used several versions for his correction. Later, Sajjadi and Mansour also corrected Khaghani's Divan. Evaluating items recorded in different versions shows that Abdulrasooli's correction portrays the most accurate correction. 

One of the editions of Khaghani's poems is the edition of Abdolrasouli namely Tehran version. This edition, which is one of the first scientific examples, has been made through several copies whose exact identities are not very clear. Abdolrasouli's printing has been somewhat marginalized after Saqjadi’s correction. According to the items mentioned in the Tehran version, it is clear that the Tehran edition has given correct items that are not in other versions. The importance of the Tehran version will be revealed by carefully examining the items recorded in Abdolrasouli's edition and comparing them with the items recorded in other copies. This research shows that the Abdolrasouli's version is very valuable and is necessary to read Khaghani's Divan and researchers of Khaghani's poems need other corrections in addition to Sajjadi.   

The research method in this research is analytical-descriptive. First, the items recorded in the Tehran printing press, which are different from other versions, have been identified. Subsequently, by examining and comparing the cases recorded in the Tehran version and other copies, additional research was performed. Finally, the research confirmed the importance and accuracy of the items recorded in the Tehran version. That is, by analyzing the cases in the manuscript through the ancillary sciences as well as the poetic and textual reasons, the reason for the accuracy of the case in the Tehran version was revealed. The semantic description and the analysis of the bit at the end of each entry was the final path of the research.   

Although after Abdolrasoli, Sajjadi published more Khagani's lyric poems than Abdolrasoli, in specific cases, the version of Tehran is superior to other versions, especially to the London edition. However,   Sajjadi,  in order to illustrate the new aspects of the Divan in his publication along with putting confidence on London version has marginalized the exact words of Tehran correction in many instances which is believed to be whimsical and unusual in particular cases, will be mentioned with poetic and non-poetical reasons. In this study, it was found that the  words noh xarās ‘nine mills’, volūgh ‘dogs drink water’, nadab ‘gage’, moqri-e Misr ‘egyptian quran reader’, zafar ‘victory’, morgh-e nāme-āvar ‘letter chicken’, shāye ‘fruit’, āyene ‘mirror’, anghā ‘phoenix’, bayān ‘expression’, deyhīm wa gargar ‘throne and crown’, golbām ‘morning sound’, Mašghūf  ‘very happy’, noghte-ye nūn ‘point of noon’, šīrxhār "infant", šekvā ‘complaint’ and bāghhā ‘gardens’ that are mentioned in the Tehran version are correct. In most versions and natures, the wrong aspects of noh havās ‘nine senses’, hozūr ‘presence’, diat ‘blood money’, masrū’ ‘epileptic’, sāye ‘shadow’, ābele ‘smallpox’, falak ‘the sky’, jenān ‘paradise’, takht ‘bed’, golbāng ‘loud’, maš’ūf  ‘happy’, xūn ‘blood’, rūzedār ‘fasting’, šokrī ‘thanksgiving’ and bā-dahā or bādhā ‘cleverly’ or ‘wines’ have been mentioned. Another result of the present study is highlighting the necessity of paying attention to the Tehran version while describing Khaghani's poems. However, this latter result does not support the complete correctness of the Tehran version, but it does indicate that the reading of Abdolrasouli's edition should also be considered in reading Khaghani's Divan.   

In order to more accurately understand Khaghani's poems, it is necessary to pay attention to all the copies of Khaghani's Divan. The Tehran edition (published by Abdolrasouli) is one of the editions that can make it easier to understand Khaghani's poetry. Using this version and comparing the disputed cases with other versions, it is observed that the Tehran version occasionally offers the most correct case.   

In this research, the main objective was to enumerate the types of euphemism in the novels of the Constitutional period and to compare them with the literary works, and cultural and social situations in addition to analyzing their evaluation through time. For this target, three novels “The orphan’s story”, “The interview”, and “The black trick”, which are considered as social novels of the Constitutional period, have been studied. In this research, the words based on the context, the narrative situation, and the concept they contain were examined and consequently were analyzed regarding the euphemism construction mechanism. Based on this study, it is argued that euphemisms, in addition to their main concept, include certain implicit meanings. These implications can be constructed in a particular community, or in a historical period and can also carry a certain emotion and ideology. Moreover, they can be used for taboo words and concepts. In this article, it has been shown how novels express social, cultural and moral concepts of the Constitutional period through euphemisms. The mechanisms of euphemism are verbiage, brevity, metonymy, metaphor, irony, descriptive phrase, adduct, use of non-Persian words, use of ancient Persian words, and repudiation questions.   

In this research, three novels namely“The orphans’ story”, “The interview”, and “The black trick” that belong to the Constitutional period were carefully studied. Euphemisms are words that have certain semantic load and can convey the author's intentions through specifically semantic, emotional, sentimental, and even ideological burden. Euphemism is the best word that can, to the best form, convey the author's intent. The most important criterion in choosing euphemism is the amount of knowledge and awareness of the audience. In this regard, the author, according to the collective and ideological consciousness of the target community, tries to use the best words to express her/his intention. This choice, if done correctly and accurately; at first, attracts the audience’s attention to the story; and then will be able to influence her/his social, cultural and moral bias. According to this, euphemisms are categorized in three categories namely historical-social, emotional-ideological, and complimenting words against taboo words.   

Euphemism is the use of polite and respectful instead of unpleasant or offensive words or phrases. Euphemism can be considered as “a purely lexical phenomenon which is used to replace taboo words and expressions for polite language applications” (Mousavi and Badakhshan, 1395: 56). The use of euphemisms causes explicit and unpleasant meanings to appear in a new pleasant format. In this new context, words will be more engaging and effective. Therefore, we can assume Euphemism as “a form of creation, literary invention, or even semantic aberration” (Norouzi and Abbaszadeh, 1389: 152). It is noteworthy that we can claim “This is euphemism” only when the audience understand the indirect use of words or phrases which are indicating the speaker's desire to refer to an implicit meaning in a polite manner. Therefore, the meaning of the words will be determined by the context (Warren, 1992: 132). 

In order to study the Euphemism, three novels belonging to the Constitutional period namely “The orphans’ story”, “The interview”, and “The black trick were selected. To cultivate theoretical foundations, the library method was used. In this article, the study of euphemism was performed within the framework of lexical approach and was limited to the level of lexical items. Ironic expressions, descriptive or additional expressions, metaphors, and repudiation questions which were used in the form of complex words bearing a single meaning were considered as euphemism.   

According to the present study, euphemisms were verifiable in three categories namely historical – social, emotional – ideological, and complimenting words against taboo words. Historical – social euphemisms used by native speakers emerge according to the social conditions and characteristics and also the historical period. Emotional – ideological euphemisms contain the emotions, feelings and ideology of the language and can express people's approach to a particular issue. Next to these two groups are euphemisms that are used in contrast to taboo words. The mentioned types of euphemism can be transformed crossing a historical era or stay the same. It can be said that the evolution of words depends on the social and cultural evolution of the target society.   5. Conclusions & Suggestions Based on this study, it was argued that euphemisms are tools of significance which provide the writer with a variety of expressive possibilities. In this regard, it can be observed that using this tool by the writer accurately and intelligently and in order to express social, cultural and moral ugliness in an aura of ambiguity, can have a deeper impact on the audience. In other words, if the authors of the novels under survey in this research did not use euphemism, they could not express their personal opinions. Euphemisms in addition to the semantic load, bear historical noteworthiness and carry social, cultural, ethical, emotional, or ideological burdens. Therefore, it can be claimed that they represent the features of social attitude, historical development, and the way culture and ethics flow in society. Moreover, they include the author's personal feelings and emotions and can convey these feelings and emotions to the audience so that they can have a deeper impact on the audience than what the neutral words may have.   

In addition to the main construction of oath in which one swears to someone or something, it has another form in Persian language. This kind of oath is a conditional construction which, at its first part, is provided with the subject of oath and at the second part, with the act of oath. In this paper, using the "speech act" theory in John Austin's point of view as a theoretical basis and by mentioning examples of literary works as well as examples of slang register, we will specify the conditional construction of oath. The results of the present research show that the form of conditional oath, in comparison with the main form, bears more emphasis and thus is further used in occasions that the addresser tends to emphasize on the subject. 

Oath in Persian has always had a special syntactic construction that has changed over time. The basic complete construction of swearing consists of the following components:  *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article)  In this construction, the ‘noun’ is what is sworn by. The ‘sentence’ is subject of the oath, i.e. what the oath is taken for, such as: *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article) • ‘I swear by the dust of your feet that I wish to die at your feet’ Apart from the main form mentioned above, the expression of an oath in Persian represents another form through a conditional construction. In a conditional swearing, the subject of the oath (i.e. what the oath is taken for) is stated in the dependent clause, and the act of swearing (i.e. what the oath is taken by) is included in the main clause.   

John Austin’s theory of “speech acts” suggests that, in the human language system, the speech inherently represents the performance of an act. In other words, the expression of words in itself is the doing of the action. Austin calls such speech ‘speech act’, i.e. the speech that carries an action. He argues that when a speaker utters a sentence, three levels of speech acts occur simultaneously: Locutionary act, Illocutionary act, and Perlocutionary act. Locutionary act is the meaningful phrases and sentences that are expressed. In illocutionary act, the speaker expresses phrases and sentences to encode a specific meaning. In the perlocutionary act, the speaker influences the audience through the speech. Austin divides the second speech act, i.e. illocutionary act, into five categories: 1. Verdictive: Acts that emphasize the speaker’s commitment to the truth of a proposition, such as ‘express’ and ‘estimate’ verbs. 2. Exercitive: Acts that indicate the exercise of power, right, sovereignty, will and influence and are expressed through such verbs as ‘choose’, ‘advise’, ‘order’, ‘appoint’ and ‘plead’ . 3. Commissive: Acts that indicate the speaker’s commitment to do something and, by expressing them, the speaker obliges oneself to do things. The verbs ‘promise’, ‘commit’ and ‘swear’ fall into this category. 4. Behabitive: Acts that show the types of social behaviors of language speakers, such as the verbs‘apologize’, ‘thank’, ‘sympathize’, ‘insult’, ‘humiliate’, etc. 5. Expositive: Acts that deal with how words are used in language and describe how speech is organized in the conversational process. This type of act includes the following verbs: ‘Argue’, ‘answer’, ‘assume’, ‘accept’ and ‘explain’. Taking of an oath or oath, which is the subject of this inquiry, belongs to the category of commissive acts in which the speaker takes an oath to express their commitment to an issue. Thus, from the point of view of the theory of speech acts, ‘swearing’ is an act that the speaker does with speech. The pragmatics and semantics of the syntactic construction in question confirm that although the form of speech is conditional, it is used for a certain act, which is the expression of an oath.

In this article, the nature and the status of the conditional construction of oath is examined with examples of classical and contemporary Persian literary works. To do this, with a comprehensive plan and a practical approach, we will examine the conditional construction of oath to understand how the components of this syntactic construction may change to encode a different meaning at different tenses and for first-person, second-person and third-person forms.   

What is needed to know about this type of oath is to answer the following two questions: 1- What is its syntactic form and what are its components? 2- How does each of the syntactic components of this type of swearing change, and in what ways can it be plotted? In other words, in different practical situations, what structural changes might occur in conditional oath constructions to produce different forms of this type of oath? The nature of the conditional type of oath is best revealed when comparing the following examples, which expresses the same subject in both types of oath: The common construction of swearing:   *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article) • ‘I swear by my life that I will not break my covenant’ Conditional swearing: *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article) • ‘Broken be my back and my soul! If I break my covenant’ The meaning of both sentences is the same, but the way they are expressed is syntactically different. In the conditional construction, the speaker considers breaking the covenant as a curse upon themselves to show that they do not break the covenant. In this syntactic construction of swearing, the dependent clause in which the subject of the oath is raised is not limited in terms of tense: it is used for any subject in all three present, past and future tenses: Present: *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article)• ‘May I be a base-born if I have any other mistake than this’ Past: *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article) • ‘May my poetry be ill-gotten if I had written only a poem in my life except with the echo of your name’ Future: *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article)• ‘I would be worse than a dog if I run after bread/sustenance like a dog’ The main clause can be expressed in three forms: ‘declarative’, ‘imperative’ and ‘exclamatory’, each of which can be converted into other forms. The possibility of converting these forms into one another form implies that the speaker feels free to express a story with three different constructions according to the situation: Main clause in the form of a declarative sentence: *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article)• ‘I am ignoble if I go with a complain to a stranger’ Main clause in the form of an exclamatory sentence: *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article)• ‘If I have been contaminated by the wine so far, may God’s lawful be unlawful to me!’ Main clause in the form of an imperative sentence: *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article)
• ‘If this deed of mine is not true, make me die a Jew God’ Although the expression of an oath through the conditional construction is possible in all three grammatical persons, i.e. first, second and third person, in both ‘singular’ and ‘plural’ forms, it is widely used in the first person (singular and plural) and its meaning is clearer in this form. This type of oath is rarely used in the second or third persons, and its meaning is not very clear: First person singular: *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article)• ‘My house may be ruined if I have said such a thing’ First person plural: *(To view this part of the text, refer to the end of the pdf file in the main article)• ‘We are not human if we relinquish our right’   

The present paper illustrated that oath in Persian is not limited to the major common construction rather it has long been encoded through conditionals on special occasions. The conditional construction of swearing in Persian is used for any subject in all three tenses of the past, present, and future, with slight differences in the first-, second- and third-person forms. The main clause in this type of oath expression is always in negative form and can be expressed in declarative, imperative, or exclamatory forms. Rhetorically, this type of oath is used widely in situations where the speaker emphasizes the subject in question and tends to reassure the audience about the subject by removing any doubts. Uncommon abbreviations: SUBJ = subjunctive; DECL = declarative; EXCL = exclamatory; IMPE = imperative; PRS = present; PST = past; FUT = future; PL = plural; SG = single.   

One of the most important issues in the field of semantics is polysemy occurring at different language levels. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the semantic frames of the verb xandæn and to present the different meanings of this verb in Persian based on the Frame Semantics Theory (1982) in cognitive approach. The methodology of this qualitative research is descriptive-analytic, and the studied corpus contains the prototypical and distinctive meanings of the Persian verb xandæn collected from Farhang-e Bozorg-e Soxan. In the mentioned book, fifteen distinctive meanings have been documented for this verb. The total samples used in the present research are taken from this book. The analysis of the research data revealed that the prototypical meaning of the verb xandæn is ‘reading’. Moreover, it was showed that, in addition to the prototypical meaning of "reading" as a semantic frame, xandæn illustrates five more semantic clusters, namely “mapping, comprehension, education, naming and metaphorical meaning,” which are regarded as semantic sub-frames of "perceptual-visual". In other words, all distinctive meanings fall under this particular semantic sub-frame. The research findings give a clear picture of the meanings of xandæn in Persian. Also, the explanations presented in this study can be useful in Persian language teaching and facilitate learning   Persian for Persian language learners. 

One of the most important issues in the field of semantics is polysemy occurring at different language levels.The purpose of the present study is to investigate the semantic frames of the verb xandæn and to present the different meanings of this verb in Persian based on the Frame Semantics Theory (1982) in cognitive approach.Frames are represented as the lexical units. In other words, lexical units are used to express mental concepts (i.e. frames) so that the semantic differences in a single general concept or a single frame are portrayed through different lexical units. In this regard, Fillmore has investigated the importance of studying the encyclopedic meaning and examining the semantic network of each word. He considers each template to be a single design of the experience that exists in human’s long-term memory. Therefore, it is not possible to understand the meaning of a word or a grammatical construction outside of its semantic frame. This frame consists of elements gathered around the experience. Each semantic frame is the knowledge needed to understand the meaning of a particular word or related words. In this article, among different lexical categories, the category of verb has been examined.   

As the present study aims to investigate the polysemy of the verb xandan from the perspective of Frame Semantics model, in the following, the model which was first proposed by Fillmore (1982) will be introduced The model of Frame Semantics is based on the belief that words are empirical categories influenced by situations which are, in turn, shaped by background knowledge and experience. According to this idea, words are formed only through experiences and situations of human’s life, consequently the only possible way to realize how the semantic elements of speech are being served is to understand the experiences and the situations. With respect to the meaning of a word, Frame Semantics is an attempt to understand the motivations of a language community toward the production of a word category. Hence, this approach shows the meaning of a word by classifying these motives. Fillmore’s (1982) view of Frame Semantics is a study and research program in empirical semantics as well as providing a descriptive framework for explaining the results of such a study. He also believes that Frame Semantics provides both a specific way to deal with the meanings of words and a way to determine the principles of creating new words, as well furnishing conditions to add new meanings to words and to accumulate the meanings of the components of a text to understand the whole meaning. In his 1969 paper, Fillmore argues that cases such as agentive, experiencer, instrumental, patient, factive, locative, temporal, source, goal, companion, benefactor, and force are universal and possibly inherent concepts which are formed through the judgments humans make about the events taking place around them. Generally, there are two types of frames called “cognitive frames” and “interactive frames”. Interactive frames are concerned with how to conceptualize what happens between the speaker and the listener or between the writer and the reader. For further explanation, Fillmore describes the "scene" schema of the “transaction” field (Fillmore, 1977) and tries to prove that a large number of English verbs are semantically related in different ways through the same “scene” in the human mind. For example, in the field of transaction, there are certain elements such as ‘buyer’, ‘seller’, ‘goods’, and ‘money’, which through each a scene is highlighted alongside the transaction-related English verbs namely ‘sell’, ‘buy’, ‘pay’, ‘cost’ etc. while the other part shapes the scene background. According to the relationships that govern commercial exchange, the scenes of outside of the world portrays the buyer and the seller as giving money to the seller and giving goods to the byer in return. Interestingly, while expressing such a single scene in languages of the world bears a certain frame, the four mentioned elements express the same event in the form of a large set of sentences. Fillmore seeks to understand how these language patterns encode the outside world events.

The methodology of this qualitative research is descriptive-analytic, and the studied corpus contains the prototypical and distinctive meanings of the Persian verb xandæn collected from Farhang-e Bozorg-e Soxan. In this book, a myriad of distinctive meanings have been considered for xandæn. The total samples used in this article are taken from the mentioned book. 

The research findings represent a clear picture of the meanings of the verb xandæn ‘reading’ in Persian.In this regard, the explanations presented in this study can be useful in Persian language teaching and can facilitate learning Persian for Persian language learners. Studying the fifteen distinct semantic frames in Persian for the verb xandæn ‘reading’ in Persian based on the findings of this article indicate that the analysis of this verb led to finding fifteen distinct semantic frames in Persian among which the meaning of ‘reading’ is considered as the prototypical meaning, which immediately comes to the mind of the Persian speakers.   5. Conclusions The main focus of this study was on the verb xandan in Persian. Analyzing the separate meanings of this verb based on Fillmore's frame semantics model (1982) in cognitive semantics, it was found that this verb bears the prototypical and primary meaning of ‘reading’. The results also showed that this verb, in addition to the prototypical meaning of ‘reading’ as a semantic frame, portrays five more semantic clusters, namely “mapping, comprehension, education, naming and metaphorical meaning,” which are regarded as semantic sub-frames of “perceptual-visual”. In other words, all distinctive meanings fall under this particular semantic sub-frame.     

This paper deals with a Judeo-Persian letter named Dandān-Uiliq II (henceforth DU II); which probably dates back to 9th century C.E. In addition to its content, DU II has some important linguistic features, often absent in Persian texts written in Arabic script. Among them the use of “kū” as a preposition and the ancient subjunctive mood can be mentioned. The present paper will present a translation of the letter in addition to a discussion of its ancient linguistic features with comparison to the Early New Persian texts (in Perso-Arabic script) and certain early Quran translations into Persian (especially Qur'an-e Quds). The linguistic features of this early Judeo-Persian letter will represent a definite stage where the language is changing from Middle Persian to New Persian (Dari). Since the evidences related to this stage is relatively rare in the extant texts of Persian, this letter can undoubtedly be used for a more understanding of the period of Persian language evolution. The given translation is not the same as the previous English and Chinese translations and reflects our understanding of its syntax and morphology.   

Iranian Jewish communities have not settled only in the borders of Iran today, but in neighboring countries.  Their works, including unwritten as well as written materials, are not only the best heritages of their presence but also the mirror of Iranian culture, language and daily matters. Their value in a time when the works and materials reflecting the Iranian culture are not so numerous, and especially regarding the language, when most of the works are written in Arabic or at least in an official form of the Persian not reflecting the local changes as well as the process of transmission of the Middle Persian to the Early New Persian becomes more understandable. In such an environment and in a multicultural district like the Taklamakan, two Judeo-Persian letters written by ink on the papers have been found till now. In addition to their information about the district in the 8th-9th century C.E., the letters show a kind of local dialect which in companion with other few documents from this period, can give the researchers of the Persian language, some samples showing how the Middle Persian have been transmitted to the Early New Persian. In Dandān-Uiliq, the writer after greetings, starts to count the gifts and the materials he has sent or has given to some officials there. In the last part, he advises that they should behave in a friendly manner towards the daughter of Dihqan and also gives some reports on the war and peace in Kashgar with Tibetans. The letter is not complete and the end part has missed.   

The theoretical framework of the present paper is based on the common method of the Judeo-Persian studies and Persian language and literature as well as the historical linguistics. 

In this paper, by discussing the previous works on DU II as well as other EJP related texts, the authors tried to find all the available researches, and then by processing the information, emended previous researches and in some cases, they have strengthened and expanded such information. It’s noteworthy that everywhere they have found some ambiguities, did their best to make them clear.   

The Judeo-Persian letter of DU II represents some important linguistic features, often in the absence of Persian texts written in Arabic script, e.g. the use of kū as a preposition and the ancient subjunctive mood. The letter has been translated in this paper and its ancient linguistic features have been discussed with comparison to the Early New Persian texts (in Perso-Arabic script) and some early Qur'an translations into Persian (especially Qur'an-e Quds). These features represent language transmission from Middle Persian to New Persian (Dari). The given translation is not the same as the previous English and Chinese translations and reflects our understanding of its syntax and morphology.

The Judeo-Persian letter of DU II which is written approximately in the 9th century in the oasis of Dandān-Uiliq is the second letter of its kind and shows the historical, cultural, financial as well as the political and linguistic environment of the district at the time. From a linguistic point of view, the letter asserts the previous findings, however, it portrays some new features as well.  

There are many words in Persian that are formed through the two processes of reduplication and medial adjuncts bearing a flat structure. This means that the two processes of reduplication and medial adjuncts are not performed step by step; rather they are formed by the operation of these two processes simultaneously. This flat structure can be explained in Construction Morphology. Construction Morphology is a cognitive and structure-based approach toward the process of word formation. Based on this theory, the patterns of forming new words in a language are based on abstract schemas. These flat structures are produced through the unification of schema of reduplication and the schema of medial adjuncts simultaneously. To show the starting point of forming such schemas in the mind of Persian speakers, we chose a historical view over the evolutionary period from Old Persian to New Persian. Our findings show that these structures are formed in Middle Persian. In this regard, the medial adjunct was merely the preposition /be/ which means ‘to’.The mentioned words transferred only the meanings of enhancement and sequence. However, during the next periods of Persian, other kinds of prepositions were also used in this structure on the basis of analogy. 

Many words in Persian are generated through the two important processes of reduplication and medial adjuncts that are considered as flat structures. flat structures are structures in which the processes of combination are not performed step by step. Regarding the structures in our focus through this paper, they are formed by the operation of the two reduplication and medial adjuncts processes simultaneously. This flat structure can be explained in Construction Morphology. Construction Morphology is a theory of word structure in which the complex words of a language are analyzed as constructions, that is systematic pairings of form and meaning. Based on this theory, the patterns of word formation in a language are based on abstract schemas. The flat structures are produced through the unification of schema of reduplication and the schema of medial adjuncts simultaneously. In order to specify the starting point of forming such schemas in the mind of Persian speakers we had a historical view over the evolutionary period from Old Persian to New Persian. Our findings demonstrate that these structures are made in Middle Persian. In this regard, the medial adjunct was only the preposition be which means ‘to’. The mentioned words transferred only the meanings of enhancement and sequence. However, during the next periods of Persian, other kinds of prepositions were also used in this structure on the basis of analogy.

Construction Morphology is a word-based perspective in which words are the starting point of morphological analysis (Aronoff, 2007). This is carried out by comparing sets of words like: (1) buy buyer eat eater shout shouter Regarding the set of words listed in (1), we discover a formal difference between the words in the left column and those in the right column. This difference correlates systematically with a meaning difference: the words on the right have an additional sequence /-er/ compared to those on the left, and denote the agents of the actions expressed by the verbs on the left. Words like “buy” and “buyer” stand in a paradigmatic relationship, as opposed to the systematic relationship that holds for words combined in a phrase or a sentence. This paradigmatic relationship between pairs of words like /buy/ and /buyer/ can be projected onto the word /buyer/ in the form of word-internal morphological structure: (2) [[buy]v er] N In the mind of the English speakers, the set of words listed in (1) may give rise to an abstract schema of the following form: (3) [[x] v er] N ‘one who Vs’ A new word is formed by replacing the variable x in the schema with a concrete verb. This is the operation of unification. One of the properties of such a schema is embeddability which is interesting for morphological analysis. Given the existence of word formation schemas as abstractions over sets of complex words, such schema can be unified into more complex schema (Booij, 2015). 

The particular constructions studied in this research are extracted from the following corpus: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon by Kent (2005); Old Persian by Razi (1988); Pahlavi texts by Jamasp (1992); A concise Pahlavi dictionary by Mackenzie (1992); Historical Grammar of Persian by Abolghasemi (2010, 2016); Persian Pahlavi dictionary by Faravashi (2001). Thousand years of Persian Prose by Keshavarz (2009))it includes texts from early New Persian from primary centuries to near the end of 7th century). Through a review over the Old Persian to New Persian, we could verify the appearance of these constructions in Persian. Then we would be able to explain such complex constructions on the basis of abstract schemas described in Construction Morphology.

Regarding Old Persian and since Old Persian is an inflectional language, no structure of reduplication with the medial adjuncts was documented. That is, nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were inflected for gender, number and case and verbs were conjugated. Reviewing the texts of Old Persian, it is observed that the adverb duveii tā prānām with the meaning of ‘generation after generation’ is an inflectional word and the structure reduplication with medial adjuncts is not used for such kinds of concepts. With regards to Middle Persian, the only example for the construction of reduplication with medial adjuncts, was the word sarāsar. The medial formative is /ā/ and the meaning of this word is ‘throughout’. Other different words with this kind of formative formed through the next periods of Persian bear the structure of reduplication like gōnag gōnag with the meaning of ‘different’. Besides, in Middle Persian there are some words documented with the structure of reduplication and the preposition be meaning ‘to’ which is the only preposition in this era. The other words with the structure of reduplication and different prepositions in the next periods of Persian, are formed on the basis of analogy. It is noteworthy to mention that the meaning of all these constructions refer to quantity enhancement and sequence. Concerning Early New Persian to New Persian, it is observed that there are many words with the construction of reduplication and medial formatives and prepositions. On the basis of construction morphology, we have shown here the unification of the schema of reduplication and the schema of medial adjunct as an example: adj،adv [X preposition "be" [adjunct medial] X] medial adjunct]”be”preposition =] + reduplication ofNs,ADJs,advs [X X] (4) 5. Conclusion We studied about the constructions of reduplication with medial adjuncts in Persian to specify the co-occurrence of word formation patterns in the coining of complex words. To show the starting point of forming such schemas, we had a historical view from Old Persian to New Persian. Our findings showed that these structures are formed in Middle Persian. The medial adjunct was only the preposition /be: to/. Such words transferred only the meanings of enhancement and sequence. However, during the next periods of Persian, other kinds of prepositions were also used in this structure on the basis of analogy.

Typology of language deals with similarities and differences among different languages in the world. The current research aimed to study the typology of constituent order in Lori dialect of Mamasani as a south branch of Western Iranian languages in Fars province based on the framework of Greenberg (1963) and the revised framework of Dryer (1992). The methodology including qualitative and quantitative data were obtained employing face to face interview with 45 native speakers without considering their gender involving 65 hours of free speech and 45 questionnaires as well. The research shows that Mamasani  Lori contains both VO versus OV criteria and manifests strongest type of VO typological properties in Eurasia and world languages. The results also indicated that despite the general similarities of this dialect with standard written Persian, there are some differences in terms of prepositions, structural elements, and the order of verbs and adverb of manner. Furthermore, it was portrayed that some prepositions have different morphemes that can appear both before and after the nouns. The research data also revealed that the prepositions and the adverbs of manner in Mamasani Lori can be located both before and after the verbs, an occupancy behavior which is different from standard written Persian.   

In Language Typology, by examining linguistic similarities, researchers try to establish the universality of languages and, accordingly, provide the possibility of studying the main source of linguistic dispersion. One of the main features which received a considerable attention is the study of constituent order in languages. The aim of the present study is to describe the ordering categories of structures in Mamasani Lori, a Southwestern branch of Iranian languages in Fars province based on the 24 feature model of Dryer (1992). The purpose is to study the linguistic constructs and the position of the variable and the nucleus in relation to other linguistic features. In this regard, the questions of the present paper are as follows: a.“What kind of relationship does exist between different variables in Mamasani Lori?” and b. “Based on the under-studied typological features, what are the similarities between Persian and Mamasani Lori”?   

Extensive research has been performed on the typology of world languages, however, the initiator of this research field is rooted in the seminal work of Greenberg (1963). Language typology in which linguistic varieties are studied has devoted special attention to the study of prepositions. Dryer (1992), through a typological survey, introduces a new paradigm by encroaching on Greenberg's views, according to which the languages ​​of the world are classified into different head initial and head final languages. So the authors of this study follow Dryer’s (1992) variable typology which is a modified and extensive form of Greenberg’s (1963) typological universals. Based on this framework and among five main variables, the relevant position of direct object, adjective, preposition, and genitive constructions are explored in this study. Based on Dryer’s view, if X and Y present correlation with the verb and direct object they are called paired variables. The pair can be in relation to the verb or the direct object. In head final language, it is observed that postpositions occur predominantly, whereas in head initial languages, prepositions occur predominantly. Dryer believes that there is a significant distinction between VO vs. OV languages. In VO languages, subject and object are usually located after the verb, while in OV they are located before the verb. This general rule is also valid for those languages which present both OV and VO word orders.   

The statistical population of this study consist of people aged 32 to 101 years. The face-to-face interviews have been randomly carried out with 45 native people regardless of their gender and literacy in the form of 65 hours (3900 minutes) free speech. There were also 45 related questionnaires distributed. The questionnaire contains 330 sentences adopted from the work of Comrie (1981) to classify and compare the traces of world languages. The aforementioned questionnaire can be downloaded from the website of the Max Planck Leipzig Institute. The data were recorded alternately between the years 2016-2017 by one of the authors who is the resident of Mamasani and consequently were transcribed precisely by IPA (international phonetic alphabet).   

The data show that Mamsani Lori uses prepositions rather than postpositions. One of the postpositions is  ra which is generally used in the form of a cliticized =a attached to the verb stem and the noun so that  the other elements follow this clitic. Moreover, prepositions and postpositions can be used alternatively in Mamasani Lori in various positions before or after the verb. In complex sentences and clauses, the noun phrase is generally used before the relative clause and the genitive. Both the GEN-HEAD and the HEAD-GEN are common in Mamasani Lori.   5. Conclusions & Suggestions The data analysis shows that, regarding constituent order typology, Mamasani Lori cannot be placed in one single type. Rather, Mamasani Lori represents a split-behavior variety. For example, the prepositioned-type shows a great variety  in Mamasani Lori, however, postpositions and prepositions are both used. The number of prepositions are much higher than the number of postpositions, and according to the prepositional component, it should be considered as a head initial language. However, despite the nature of prepositions as defined in the typological universals, these prepositions can be placed anywhere in the sentence namely before or after the verb in Mamasani Lori. Such a variable contradicts to the classification of Dryer typology because the head initial languages must have predominantly a preposition and the preposition must be placed after the verb. As for the other components, the position of the relative clause shows the same great variety, but mostly their position is after the verb. Other components of Dryer are predominantly in a more stable position in Mamasani Lori. Some prepositions in Mamasani Lori have different allomorphic features that can occur both before and after the noun, as well as the prepositional phrases which are mentioned both before and after the verb. The Adverb of Manner in Mamasani Lori is mentioned both before and after the verb, which is contrary to the standard Persian.  It can finally be concluded  that Mamasani Lori is in the process of changing due to the linguistic interfering of Persian as the standard and educational language of Iran. This is a result of importance for the researchers of Iranian languages.   

This study investigated the changes and deviations from linguistic and stylistic patterns of forensic discourse in Revolution Courts of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The research problem focused on the frequency and the percentage of verbal deviations in judges’ and the defendants' speech. The research tool was McMenamin’s (2002) linguistic and stylistic framework concerning the standard, prescriptive, and descriptive norms and the deviations from these norms in both judges’ and defendants’ speech. Data were collected through observing 45 court sessions among them 15 sessions were randomly selected based on systematic sampling method. The data were analyzed statistically through descriptive statistics. Data were divided into three categories of verbal norms: standard speech, changes of standard speech, and deviations from the norms. Findings indicated that using the standard and non-standard words have vital role in the defendants' speech. While the judges followed standard norms, the defendants changed or deviated from the norms more significantly than the judges did. The findings of the study suggest that analyzing court speeches can lead to the study of judges and defendants' linguistic and stylistic patterns correlated to their use of discourse. 

Verbal and stylistic markers regulate interpersonal relationships (Hargie & Dickson, 2004)and the majority of members within the society adhere to it. According to McMenamin (2002), the patterns of discourse in the court are categorized into three linguistic and stylistic markers including prescriptive, descriptive and statistical norms. These indicators may be violated or performed by judges and defendants in Revolution Courts in Iran. For example, the sentence lotfan haqiqat ra be dâdgâ begin. 'Please, tell the truth to the court' is considered as standard norm in terms of prescriptive speech style. With respect statistical patterns in the court, up to 85 or 90 percent of speech frequency can be observed in the judges' speech. If the sentence haqiqat râ begin.'tell the truth!' is changed or deviated from benâl 'confess!' from the standard norm, it can be assumed that two categories from the standard pattern. If the sentence is changed, the style is informally descriptive. In the sentence, "He beating Mary." the speaker may violate linguistic markers and deviate from the standard norm of "He is beating Mary." The use of "He's beating Mary" could be the change in the standard norm. Deviation from discourse norms is considered prescriptively because it is ungrammatical in the court environment. On the other hand, it is odd the judge says the violated word or sentence with a low percentage (below 5%). The effect of stylistic markers on the observance of verbal norms and deviation from these rules and principles is the goal of this study. The present research also intends to examine judges’ and defendants’ discourse regarding observing, changing or deviating from prescriptive, descriptive and statistical norms. Comparing the frequency of these changes and deviations (Momeni, 2010) can show the practical nature of discourse in Iranian Revolution Courts (Biabani & Hadianfar, 2005). 

The aim of this study is to investigate judges’ and defendants’ linguistic and stylistic markers with regard to changing or deviating from speech norms in the Islamic Revolution Courts following McMenamin’s (2002) approach. He introduces three verbal patterns including prescriptive, descriptive and statistical norms in terms of standard, variation (i.e., changing) or deviation (i.e., ungrammaticality) and their sub-categories. For example, the phrase "Water am drinking." is considered as a standard variation in terms of observing prescriptive norm. But the statement,” Water I'm drinking. "can be a change in the norm; however, it is understandable. If the sentence is not comprehensible linguistically (e.g., drink my water), it is reagrded as the violation in the speech norms.   

The reasrerch design of the present study is based on descriptive method and the corpus was 45 sessions in Revolution Courts. The video files were randomly selected among the pool of data that were broadcasted on TV or on the Internet. Two experts in linguistics for the sake of reliability and validity indices prescribed recorded videos. These trials included the outstanding court sessiosns that are recently performed in Iran. They are the trial of Akbar Tabari (former executive deputy of the Judiciary for receiving bribes), Fazel Khodadad (economic acusation and the embezzler of 123 billion Tomans), Babak Zanjani (embezzlement), Gholamhossein Karbaschi (the former mayor of Tehran accused for embezzlement), etc. For validity of identifying and analyzing the types of discourse patterns and verbal and stylistic markers in judges’ and defendants’ conversations, two linguists matched the sentences with a video file with 95% validity. There was an agreement on how to implement and identify linguistic and stylistic markers in judges’ and defendants' speech. Finally, 2230 sentences of the judges and 2270 sentences of the defendants were analyzed. Descriptive and inferential statistics including means, percentage, frequency, and independent samples t-test were implemented. 

Findings revealed the judges observed descriptive norms more than the defendants concerned with the prescriptive norms. Results indicated that the judges used more socially accepted descriptive patterns.Defendants tried to maintain their social status by using standard language or close to it. The judges frequently asked the defendants through standard linguistic and stylistic norms but the defendants violated or changed the standard norms. For instance, the judge asked, čerâ ân âqâ be šomâ yek âpârtmânčand milyuni dâd? ‘Why did that person give you a multi-billion apartment?’ Mr. Tabari as the defendant replies; čon man ro dus dâšt.  šomâ dus nadârid?  ‘Because this gentleman loved me. Don’t you like it?’ This can be regarded as the deviation in stylistic norms in terms of power because the defendants thought he was in a position to ask questions in the court. He did not follow the standard speech and continued,če bâyad manbekonam? in barâ dostiye. ‘What should I do? That’s due to Friendship.’ The defendants' speech was full of deviations in descriptive norms. Here, Tabari compared himself with the judge and stated that he had friends who could give him the whole Lavasan property as a gift. This power is completely diminished in front of the judge when the judge did not say anything, made a sarcastic smile and only said čerâ? ‘why?’ which indicated the deviation from the standard norm in prescriptive pattern. This can be seen in the words of most of the defendants who believe that they can justify themselves with money, bribes, and so on.   

The results showed that the use of linguistic and stylistic markers play a decisive role in judges’ and defendants’ individual and social status. Considering power in legal discourse, we studied different dimensions of standard, changes and deviations from the speech norms among the judges and defendants. Members of a social group can expand their ideas and cultural heritage through communication and attempt to preserve it. The defendants used more changed and violated instances than the judges did. Further research is needed to uncover the changes and violations from the lawyers' speech or interrogators in the courts. Implications of the study for forensic researchers and the students of law could be beneficial. Training centers for judges and lawyers can use linguistic and stylistic markers affecting their speech in Revolution Courts.  

The study of language in the social context as well as the influence of language on another language has always been of interest to sociolinguistics. In this study, the effect of phonetics and phonology of Persian language on Mazandarani (Saravi variety) has been investigated. The present study is a descriptive-analytical field study that describes and analyzes data to investigate the effect of phonetic and phonology of Persian language as an independent variable (and the effect of social factors of age and geographical area as a moderating variable) on Mazandarani as a dependent variable. In this study, questionnaire, interviews and audio recordings were used and the participants included different age groups of girls and boys ages 14-18 (youth), women and men between 30-40 years (middle age) and over 50 years (adults). They were classified randomly from urban and rural areas of Sari. The results show that the Mazandarani language is about to change and become Persianized by interfering with processes such as analogy and overgeneralization in different rural and  urban generations. The present study can be used by sociolinguistics and language planners to provide a new analytical horizon for language development and change. 

The dominance of Persian over other local languages has led to changes in the culture  of Mazandarani people. In this study, considering the developments of literacy and teaching Persian, media and development of communication and tourism, and the neighbor hood of Tehran, Persian impacts on Mazandarani pronunciation of Saravi variety. Two Japanese researchers called Navata (1984)  and Yoshie (1996) did surveys titled " Mazandarani " and  another as "Sari  dialect" . The Saravi dialect was written  " by Shukri (1995). Another research was done about the structural analysis of Mazandarani verbs  by Samare (1988).  Amouzadeh (2002) studied and explained the cultural and social aspects that play a role in the decline of the Mazandarani languageAnalogy and overgeneralization are the processes that have been studied in this research as influential factors on the Mazandarani language.   

Theoretical framework of this research is Critical Applied Linguistics  based on the newfound approach of  Cook (1990). The main objective in this study  is  a description of the process of changing the characteristics of phonetic - phonological of Mazandarani  Saravi variety from the perspective of the change of language by comparing urban and rural speakers speech in different age with  standard and colloquial of Persian language.   

This research is a field study, data analysis and description of the available facts, it surveyed the effect of pronunciation of Persian on the Mazandarani language as a dependent variable by some social factors as moderating variables. Questionnaire and interview were used to collect data . Participants included girls and boys in the age groups of 14-18 years (youth) and age groups of 30-40 years (middle-aged) and over 50 years (adults) who were randomly selected from urban and rural areas of Sari. 

In the original phonetic system of Mazandarani (Sarvai variety), the number of consonants is 22 and the number of vowels is 7 and  the difference with Persian was due to the phoneme / ʒ / . One of the phonetic differences between the urban and rural consonants of Mazandarani is labialization feature of consonants: / x, k, g / [ x w , k w , g w ]> [x, k, g]   . The lack of labialization feature in pronunciation urban Saravi is due to the influence of Persian. Elimination of this feature in the young rural generation is expressed in moderate forms, which indicates a gradual change.  The deletion of /h/  and /ʔ/ consonants   has occurred in terms of the ease of Persian language in the urban and rural Saravi variety by analogy. Parts of speech in Mazandarani   were increasingly borrowed from Persian.   For example, adjectives are used before nouns in Mazandarani and after nouns in Persiam. When borrowed adjectives are used in Mazandarani, the order of words usually changes as in Persian. Young urban Saravi speakers sometimes change verb roots by producing a new infinitive to be under the influence of interference of Persian. The change of /o/ in be-ʃno- ‘hear’to /e/ in be-ʃne- which young people think has become Mazandarani, is an example of the overgeneralization of the root of the verb, because in many cases the young Sarvai speakers are less fluent in Mazandarani. They change /a/ and /o/ to /e/ to make the words look like Mazandarani, which is a possible result of comparison with a pair of words in two languages, and another possibility could be the result of the influence of Persian because ʃenid ‘heard’ has a vowel /e/. Moreover, the urban young and middle aged speakers are doing innovation between the two infinitives in two languages, without any historical connection. In this case, a similar process occurs in which the verb prefix and the identifier are added to the root of the Persian verb. There are some cases where young urban speakers use overgeneralization process such as : /pɛːdɒ/ in the speech of rural speakers - /pidɒ/ in the speech of urban speakers and /peidɒ / in Persian which means ‘visible’. Urban speakers often use Persian subject pronouns instead of Mazandarani subject pronouns for all persons. The data show  that  urban speakers used   the plural reference pronouns of colloquial Persian   rather than Mazandarani subject pronouns. 

In the field of phonology, / ʒ/, as a result of lexical borrowing items is borrowed from Persian and is added to urban Mazandarani consonants  Labial consonants are recognized as non-prestigious signs of  rural Mazandarani variety. In the evolution of the parts of speech, the verbs have undergone several changes.  Other parts of speech such as nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs have also been influenced by Persian so that the effects and the entry of these words have caused many local words of Mazandarani to be disappeared. Rural adults  have almost regular system without any variability or any influence of Persian in comparison with other groups. As we compare younger age groups with the older age groups and urban speakers with the rural ones, we face with a scale which implies that if the rural adult speaker, mainly uses a distinguished feature of Persian or semi-Persian, it demonstrates that the other age groups do certainly use the same features. This pronunciation analysis proves that Mazandarani is strongly influenced by Tehrani colloquial Persian. A possible cause is that the people whose native language is not Persian try to imitate Persian variety of Tehran that bears a higher social status. It is predicated that Saravi variety of Mazandarani in urban areas is in the risk of complete disappearance regarding the gradual change of Mazandarani to a higher social status  which was also proved through the results of Bashirnezhad(2000),Shahidi(2008). This study can be used by sociolinguists and language planners to open a new analytical perspective on the development and change of the language.