Language Research

Abstract   Inflectional features of languages have diversity and each language utilizes a range of these features to express its grammatical relations. Sometimes, in an inflection of a grammatical category (such as a verb), the semantic conditions require that several inflectional features come into use simultaneously in order to express a correct and accurate description of the event. In this case, this simultaneity is formed in an interwoven manner in the application of inflectional values and the phenomenon of fusion occurs. The main goal of this research is to examine fusional forms, including pormanteau, suppletion and fusions in the inflection of two languages, English and Persian, based on natural morphology theory, in order to determine the naturalness of these forms in the grammatical categories of noun, verb, adjective and pronoun of both languages and answer the question that what are the similarities and differences of these two languages in terms of the degree of fusion and naturalness of inflection and inflectional rules. The Persian and English data are extracted from the Persian language database and Corpus of Contemporary American English respectively by random sampling based on the equal number of words, and then analyzed based on the natural morphology theory. The results signify that the phenomenon of fusion occurs in the inflection of both languages and can be noticed in the inflection of different grammatical categories in the form of cumulative, strong and weak suppletion and pormanteau. In both languages, the frequency of fusion in verbs is more than other categories, namely nouns, adjectives, and pronouns, and this is one of the common features of these two languages. In the category of pronouns, in English, there is a greater diversity of fusion. One of the reasons is the presence of gender feature in English pronouns and its absence in Persian. The results of the research highlight the fact that the inflectional forms with infusion do not follow the most important principles of the theory of natural morphology, which is the existence of a biuniqueness between the form and the meaning. They distort the criteria of naturalness and cause a decrease in the naturalness of the Persian and English inflectional systems.

Abstract In this study we have investigated the coordination of constructions from different grammatical categories, with a Cognitive Grammar approach. Haspelmath (2007: 1) and Langacker (2009:349) have argued that common category membership in not the only criterion for coordination of two grammatical groups. They have both given some exaples where different grammatical categories have made well-formed coordinative constructions and they have considered meaning as the key factor for two grammatical categories to coordinate. There are also similar examples in Persian. The studies which have investigated coordinative constructions in Persian are mostly carried out in Generative Grammar framework and none of them are devoted to investigation of this specific problem. So, since Cognitive Grammar is a meaning-based theory and investigates the language with all aspects of it, adopting it can render new and different results. According to the researches done on English language, it was expected for Cognitive Grammar to manage to describe this type of coordinative constructions, using the meaning-based definitions for grammatical categories and the schemas offered for each of them. Investigating 200 coordinative constructions gathered from major Iranian newspapers, showed that that all the grammatical categories belonging to atemporal relations, and also having compatible trajectors can act as the coordinands of a coordinative construction. In conclusion, we can say that in Persian, propositional and adjective phrases, and also propositional and adverbial phrases, dispite belonging to different grammatical categories can appear as the coordinands of a coordinative construction.