نشریه پژوهش های زبان شناسی
سال چهاردهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 27، پاییز و زمستان 1401)

In languages and varieties, the exact locations of the alignment of f0 transition points differ from those of the segmental string (Ladd, 2006). The differences of inter-languages or inter-varieties are sometimes so small that it is not possible to identify a deep representation. We conducted a production experiment with 40 speakers of two regional varieties of Persian language. The aim of the present study was to investigate the strategies used by the speakers of the varieties in response to the time pressure caused by reduced sonorant rime of target words by adopting autosegmental-metrical theory (Pierrehumbert, 1980). For this purpose, 20 Isfahan speakers and 20 Tehrani speakers were asked to repeat the three target words, which were accompanied by a decrease sonorant rime, in the positions of nuclear pitch accent twice. Three prosodic parameters, such as contour conditionm alignment, and duration of the segments containing pitch accents, were mainly considered. The results showed that in each contour condition, the duration of the sonorant rime of the nuclear accented word was varied. In the phonetic domain, the range of adjustments fell into three broad categories. First, the speakers of Isfahani variety took more time by increasing the duration of the rime in the fall-rise condition while retracting the peak of the fall-rise contour. However, the speakers of Tehrani variety worked harder by compressing contours in the fall contour. Both speakers of the two varieties took shortcuts by truncating responses of the final pitch movements. The responses were shown to be dialect-specific and contour-specific.

The present research aims to examine and classify "hedges” through investigating the effect of “gender" and "age" on the use of this linguistic category in the everyday speech of Persian speakers. To this end, a researcher-made questionnaire was designed and randomly distributed among 523 Persian speakers in 4 different age groups (15-25, 26-35, 36-45, and 45 years and older). As far as it is concerned to the methodology, it is questionnaire-based survey benefiting from the qualitative components and quantitative analysis. The theoretical framework was based on Hyland’s (1996) and Varttala’s (2001) classifications of hedges. The statistical tests including T-test, ANOVA, and Tukey were used for data analysis. The findings showed that women used “evidential verbs” more than men to show their uncertainty, while the opposite was true for “judgmental verbs”. Furthermore, the statistical analysis revealed that there was a significant difference in the use of “judgmental, modal, and evidential verbs” among participants in different age groups. Finally, the results indicated that Persian speakers used only five groups of Hyland’s and Varttala’s hedging classifications in their everyday speech.

Referring to novel concepts for which there are no simple equivalents, speakers of languages often resort to predicates with two or more components. This phenomenon is so widely used in some languages that in Persian, for instance, new simple predicates are hardly added to the lexicon and the commonly used simple predicates in spoken and writing Persian do not appear to exceed a few hundred. This study concentrates on different types of complex predicates in the Dari language spoken by the Zoroastrians (Behdinan) of Yazd (in central Iran) and different features of each type. It takes advantage of a number of published works on Behdinani language, as well as instances directly collected from native speakers of that language. This study particularly focuses on the influence of syntactic-semantic factors on the inflection of complex predicates; such factors include tense, main or modal status of the predicate, and transitivity of the predicate as a whole as well as its verbal component alone. The findings of this study further underline the need for an unfettered, interactional perspective to the study of language which can shed light and facilitate investigation into the interaction between factors and elements from different modules of grammar.

One of the issues discussed in the framework of cognitive semantics is the issue of polysemy. One of the fundamental concepts in polysemy is radial categories. In cognitive semantics, a polysemous word forms a category, and the different meanings of that word are assigned to the members of that category. From this point of view, prefixes also have multiple meanings that can be added to their bases. In this regard, in the present study, the polysemy of the prefix /hæm-/ was investigated by relying on the cognitive semantics approach. The methodological nature of this qualitative study was descriptive-analytic, and the data have been collected by library research method including Dehkhoda Dictionary (1995), Mo’in Dictionary (2003) and Amid Dictionary (2011). The findings indicated that the non-verbal prefix /hæm-/ is a polysemous prefix with a range of lexical functions. It’s worth mentioning that this prefix in some cases changes the lexical meaning of the verbal root, and thus creates a distinct lexical element. And also, the results showed that the prefix /hæm-/ consists of five distinctive meaning. Based on factors to determine the prototypemeaning, it was found that among the existing meanings, the meaning of "sharing" is the core or prototypemeaning of the prefix /hæm-/, and four other semantic clusters are formed around this core meaning. Accordingly, the prefix /hæm-/ has formed a category that gathers all its meanings around a core meaning, just like lexical categories.    

Iranian deaf people use sign language in their interactions. It is a natural language with its own grammar independent from language itself. The purpose of this research was to investigate the construction of negation in Iranian sign language (Tehrani variety). The research method was taken from the cross-linguistic researches done by Zashen et al. (2004 & 2006), which were conducted on 38 sign languages. 7 profound deaf adults that were fluent in Iranian sign language (Tehrani variety) were selected by using a purposive sampling method. An interpreter and a sign language consultant were present at all stages of the research. To collect the data, video recording and observation of the signers’ language behaviors during the presentation of linguistic stimuli, as well as targeted observation of some films in Iranian sign language (Tehrani variety), were done. The data were entered into the ELAN software program for analysis. The data analysis showed that in Iranian sign language (Tehrani variety), negation marking could be seen in different forms both manually and non-manually. Non-manual negation was not mandatory and could include the whole clause (minus any topicalised constituents) or part/parts of a clause. The basic negators of the clause (manual negative particle) were NOT, NO, NONE, NEVER, and NOT-EXIST. A lot of negation cliticisation were observed.

The present study seeks to examine the discursive construction of privileged future (PF) and its legitimisation strategies through adopting a discourse analytical approach. In so doing, we employed the “Alternative Futures in Political Discourses” as the analytical framework. The data for the present study comes from the inauguration speech of Sayyid Ibrahim Rai’si, delivered on August 6, 2021. Analyses indicated that the privileged future is depicted in terms of four main axioms, including axiological principles and doctrines, socio-cultural concerns, economic and financial statuses, and international politics. Lexico-grammatically concerned, the PF is conceptualised through progressive aspect and different lexico-grammatical devices as the epistemological perpetuation of the conceptually-extended present time. Moreover, the realisation of the PF is construed as civil demands of Iranian society. This is mainly carried out by construing the ‘demand’ via the main verb khastan [to want] and positioning the nominal item mardom [people] in the subject position. Findings also suggest that despite construing the present time at the epistemological bedrock of the PF, the present is features with inaction and inertia with regard to materialisation of the future-oriented civil demands. To prompt an ideological opposition between the present and future, this discourse substitutes the involvement of the new government with civil demands with the present-time inaction. In this discourse, the legitimisation for the PF policies and measures is solicited through construing the intellectual and ideological continuation of the present in the future, representation of the legitimisation repertoire (civil society) as demanding the materialisation of the PF, and construing a transition from inaction to involvement with civil demands.

The paper investigates the concept of face in the sense of relational connection and separation in Iranian culture in the light of Face-Constituting Theory. It is first argued that the culture-specific, folk understanding of connection and separation is conceptualized in samimiat (‘cordiality’, ‘friendliness’) and ehterām (‘respect’, ‘deference’). Then, extracts drived from a reality show conversation are analyzed to demonstrate how connection/samimiat and separation/ehterām are conjointly co-constituted by the host and the guest at the moment of interaction. Findings suggest that this is mainly achieved through dynamic use of various resources such as ta’ārof rituals, address forms, honorifics, disclaimers, turn size, pauses, and gaze direction. This dynamicity cannot be captured by simply enumerating a list of positive and negative face strategies as in Brown and Levinson’s model.

Not only do the interrogatives characteristically serve the pragmatic function of questioning, they are also used for a variety of other functions. Yes-no biased interrogatives, such as rhetorical, tag, and conducive interrogatives, imply that a particular answer is expected or desired. The current study describes conducive interrogatives from structural and pragmatic perspectives in contemporary Persian conversations. It is also aimed towards pointing out some differences among the types of biased interrogatives. The present research demonstrated that, from a structural point of view, assertive words (e.g., combinations of baɂzi ‘some’), some special constructions (e.g., the coordination tags of yā čize digeɂi ‘or something else’, yā hamčin čizi ‘or something like this’), and the wh- interrogatives with self-supplied answers are some factors for positive conductivity. From a pragmatic point of view, conducive interrogatives are helpful when requesting confirmation, expressing surprise, criticizing, introducing or presenting information, offering or asking for help, and reaching an agreement. The current study also attested to the existence of epistemic, deontic, and desiderative conductivity in Persian. Findings suggest that the incorporation of special constructions, in addition to particular usages in the context, will result in a matched or reversed polarity between the interrogatives and their answers.

This paper examines weight patterns in tri-syllabic words within a Moraic-theoretic account. A word weight pattern is weight of syllables and is defined based on distinction between heavy and light syllables (Carr, 2008:172); Here, the notion of mora (symbolized μ) as a basic timing unit provides a distinction between 'light' and 'heavy' syllables. Hayes (1989:356) mentions that heavy syllables have more moras compared to light ones. Also, there are some weight alternations in the syllabic patterns of Persian tri-syllabic words; that is, in an alternative weight pattern, syllables are distributed so that weight is alternately high and low. In order to study and compare weight patterns of simple, derivative and compound words, about 32 thousand tri-syllabic words were collected from Dehkhoda (2003) and Moshiri (2009) dictionaries. Then, they were sorted in an Excel worksheet with all phonological information, including weight of syllables (light, heavy, super-heavy, and ultra-heavy). Also, alternative and non-alternative weight patterns were specified. Results indicate that there happen 49 weight patterns in tri-syllabic words and syllables of one mora (mono-moraic), two moras (bi-moraic), three moras (tri-moraic), and even four moras (tetra-moraic) are probable. However, the sequence of mono-moraic and bi-moraic syllables is the most frequent and tri-moraic and tetra-moraic syllables, especially adjacent ones, are less frequent. This indicates that tri-syllabic words tend towards short syllables. Moreover, the non-alternative quasi-monotonic weight patterns are the most frequent ones. Likewise, simple words ideally tend to sequences of mono-moraic and bi-moraic syllables and tetra-moraic ones are loanwords; the derivatives are heavier than the simple and lighter than the compounds. 

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the argument structure of deverbal nouns, and the restrictions on the mapping of arguments in Sanandaji Kurdish. Due to the syntactic-space limitations of the DP in the language (i.e, the Ezafe construction), the issue concerning how to map the arguments of a deverbal noun and the limitations governing its argument structure are important. This is mainly because achieving a comprehensive mapping space that covers different syntactic projections is a desirable theoretical goal in generative approaches to argument structure. In this research, first, deverbal nouns are divided into four categories: unergative, unaccusative, two-place predicate, and three-place predicate. In unergative deverbal nouns, the external argument is instantiated as Ezafe to the deverbal noun and it cannot be incorporated into the deverbal noun. Regarding the unaccusative deverbal nouns, the internal argument can be present both as Ezafe and as being incorporated into the deverbal noun. There are two forms regarding transitive deverbal nouns: the internal argument can be instantiated as Ezafe and the external argument cannot be present, or the external argument is instantiated as Ezafe, and the internal argument is incorporated into the deverbal noun. In the last category of Sanandaji Kurdish deverbal nouns, the Goal is in the form of a Preposition Phrase (PP) and cannot check the EPP feature and be raised to the subject position.