Articles
Publication Date: 2025
Language Related Research (23223081)16(2)pp. 279-304
Employing Construction Morphology (CM), the present study aims to examine the Persian compound words, ending in the verb stem “bast”. The data is comprised of 51 compound words and 1791 attested sentences. The latter body of data comes from various reliable sources, including the diachronic corpus of Farhangyar-e Zaban-e Farsi, the synchronic corpus of Persian Language Database, Bijankhan Corpus, Iranian Geographical Dictionary, Zansou Dictionary (1372), Dehkhoda Dictionary (1377), Persian Wikipedia webpage, and Google webpages. The findings suggest that semantic variations of these compounds figure in the concepts of Action, Location, and Instrument. Accordingly, the dominating schema and sub-schemas of theses words, and their relations are described. The study also suggests that approximation-along with metaphoric and metonymic extensions-has a role in the expansion of the schema. © 2025, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
In the present study, we analyze the semantic fragmentation and conventionalization in Persian compound nouns ending in the verbal stems –andāz „throw‟,-band „fasten/close,‟-foruš „sell‟,-gir „catch‟,-keš „pull‟,-paz „cook‟,-yāb „find‟, and-zan „hit‟ from the usage-based perspective. The analysis is based on a 800 data set extracted from diachronic and synchronic corpora. The words produced from the general compounding pattern [XV PRS]N can be categorized in a range of semantic categories, including agent, instrument, location, and object. In describing the semantic fragmentation of [XV PRS]N, we propose the human agent as the starting meaning, from which the instrument sub-pattern is derived by the mechanism of metaphorical extension. However, to justify the object and location meanings, we consider the metonymic extension mechanism to be involved. The sense extension mechanisms do not only apply to the individual words but can happen on the pattern level. It is also argued that these mechanisms are not mechanically applied to all the patterns ending in the verbal stems, instead, it is the usage and the communicative needs of the speakers that determine the semantic fragmentation of any patterns. To illustrate this point, as a case study, we focus on the development of instrument meaning in the pattern [X-pazPRS]N. We show that the instrument sub-pattern is a recent linguistic phenomenon that coincides with the introduction of modern In the present study, we analyze the semantic fragmentation and conventionalization in Persian compound nouns ending in the verbal stems –andāz „throw‟,-band „fasten/close,‟-foruš „sell‟,-gir „catch‟,-keš „pull‟,-paz „cook‟,-yāb „find‟, and-zan „hit‟ from the usage-based perspective. The analysis is based on a 800 data set extracted from diachronic and synchronic corpora. The words produced from the general compounding pattern [XV PRS]N can be categorized in a range of semantic categories, including agent, instrument, location, and object. In describing the semantic fragmentation of [XV PRS]N, we propose the human agent as the starting meaning, from which the instrument sub-pattern is derived by the mechanism of metaphorical extension. However, to justify the object and location meanings, we consider the metonymic extension mechanism to be involved. The sense extension mechanisms do not only apply to the individual words but can happen on the pattern level. It is also argued that these mechanisms are not mechanically applied to all the patterns ending in the verbal stems, instead, it is the usage and the communicative needs of the speakers that determine the semantic fragmentation of any patterns. To illustrate this point, as a case study, we focus on the development of instrument meaning in the pattern [X-pazPRS]N. We show that the instrument sub-pattern is a recent linguistic phenomenon that coincides with the introduction of modern cooking equipment with mostly English names to Iranian society. The increasing use of these types of equipment has led to a new communicative need for naming such instruments. This extra-linguistic factor has motivated the pattern [X-pazPRS]N to be extended through analogy with English compound instrument nouns. The findings of this study may contribute to the understanding of word-formation patterns in general and compounding patterns in particular. © 2023, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
