An inquiry into the polysemy of the preposition "bær" (on) in the framework of cognitive semantics

Document Type : Scientific

Authors

1 Linguistics- hamanities- tarbiat modares- tehran- iran

2 Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran. Iran

10.22103/jis.2023.19965.2367

Abstract

In the Persian language, since Old Persian, /bær/ (on) has been one of the adpositions that grammatically and semantically acts as a preposition. Studying the polysemy of /bær/ (on) as a preposition is the subject of this paper, which is in the cognitive semantics framework and based on “principled polysemy” introduced by Tyler and Evans (2001 & 2003). This study seeks to determine the core meaning and explain the semantic network of /bær/ (on) as a preposition, in addition, to investigating the role of spatial and non-spatial elements in its semantic network. This research is descriptive-analytical, and the data are extracted from the two most comprehensive dictionaries in Persian: Dehkhoda and Sokhan. The results show that /bær/ is used to represent abstract concepts systematically derived from the core meaning of /bær/, "above, on". These abstract concepts are causality, duty and responsibility, confrontation and opposition, accumulation, concomitance and companionship, and conformity and compatibility. The process of abstraction, changing the relationship between Trajectory and Landmark, and focusing on each of the configuration elements of the proto-scene are the factors that create peripheral concepts in which abstraction and non-spatialization of the core meaning have been more effective than others.

Keywords

Journal of Iranian Studies

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 08 January 2024

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