Language Research

Abstract In the non-lexicalist approach to grammar, all morphemes, whether lexical elements or function heads, are pieces that merge within the domain of syntax to form larger constituents. Consequently, what is referred to as an affix is essentially a morpho-syntactic category that occupies the head of a functional projection and selects another category as its complement (Embick 2015). The present study, adopting such an approach, analyzes the structure of the imperfective aspect in Persian and its morpho-syntactic interaction with the derivation of the perfective aspect. The imperfective aspect, one of the two grammatical aspects in Persian, is embodied in structures traditionally called progressive and continuous verbs. Like the perfective aspect, this verbal construction is used in both present and past tenses, though in contemporary Persian, the imperfective, unlike its perfective counterpart which appears in indicative, subjunctive, and sometimes imperative moods, solely indicates the indicative mood. Throughout this research, we argue that a lexicalist analysis and a feature-based theory, especially where the interaction of the prefix "mi-" with causative and perfective suffixes (“-ɑn” and “de/-te”, respectively) is concerned, fail to account for the certain inflectional forms of the verbs. Framed within non-lexicalist approach and more in the spirit of Distributed Morphology (DM) we explore the construction of the imperfective aspect in Persian and examine the interaction of its prefix with other verbal inflectional elements. In this process, we argue that in the hierarchy of functional projections of sentence in Persian, the perfective projection merges above the imperfective projection. In this structure, the head of PerfP which has an overt auxiliary verb dominates the head of ProgP which hosts a covert grammatical verb in Persian. We will see that this speculation is reinforced by empirical evidence of cliticization of the perfect auxiliary (“bɑš” in Persian and “have” in English) in the present perfect continous sentences.

Abstract Many studies have shown the effect of prosodic cues on the disambiguation of syntactically ambiguous sentences. Following previous research, this study investigated the prosodic disambiguation of sentences with different syntactic attachments (low and high attachments) in Persian. For this purpose, two types of syntactically ambiguous strings with distinct meanings were examined. Expressions Type 1 was composed of N1-N2-conj-N3, and Expressions Type 2 was composed of N1-conj-N2-Adj. In a speech production experiment, 264 utterances were produced by 11 female Persian speakers (6 sentences × 2 conditions × 2 repetitions × 11 speakers). All the target expressions (conjoined noun phrases) were extracted, word-segmented by hand in Praat software, and subjected to phonetic analysis. The duration and mean f0 of the segmented words were measured and compared across two conditions. Differences in measurements were statistically analyzed by using Independent t-test. Generally, the outcomes of this paper supported the previous studies. The speakers resolved the ambiguity by significantly altering their production of the utterances in ways consistent with the intended meaning and structure. The statistical comparison revealed a higher pitch excursion on and a longer duration of the target noun phrases in low attachment condition as opposed to high attachment one. Specifically, in Expressions Type 1, the duration of N2, the conjunction, and N3 was longer, and the mean f0 of the conjunction and N3 was higher in the low attachment condition. In addition, a pause was produced between N2 and the conjunction to mark a prosodic boundary. In Expressions Type 2, N1 and N2 duration was longer, and the mean f0 of the conjunction and N2 was higher in the low attachment condition. Moreover, a pause was inserted between N1 and the conjunction to mark a prosodic boundary. In sum, Persian speakers use the insertion of pauses, pre-boundary word lengthening, post-conjunction word lengthening, and f0 rise for disambiguation

Abstract  
Sound substitution is a process whereby a phoneme in a loanword is replaced by its closest phone in the borrowing language. English and Arabic share dental consonants /D/ and /T/ which are absent in Persian. This comparative study aimed at explaining how these consonants are substituted by Persian speakers within the framework of optimality theory (Prince and Smolensky, 1993/2004). The findings of this research indicate that their substitution in English (loan) words depends on their position in the syllable; the dental consonants /D/ and /T/ are replaced by the dento-alveolar consonants [dÏ] and [tÏ] respectively in the syllable onset of (loan)words because they are the closest consonants to dentals. However, /T/ changes to [s] in the coda position since the markedness constraint ‘LAZY’ which favors sounds produced with less energy prohibits the substitution of /T/ by the more effortful stop consonant [tÏ] in this syllable position. With regard to Arabic (loan)words, the substitution of the dental consonants /D/ and /T/ (which are represented by the graphemes  <ذ>  and <ث> respectively in Arabic orthography) depends on how these graphemes are pronounce in Persian. Therefore, this process cannot be explained using an analysis that is solely phonological. So, there is a need for an analysis which incorporates graphemes as well. Technically speaking, a constraint which has access to graphematical information is needed. Some optimality theory phonologists who came up with this need while working on other languages have already proposed orthographic constraints as the third type in addition to faithfulness and markedness constraints. Accordingly, the pronunciation of the graphemes <ذ> and <ث> in words adapted from Arabic by Persian was analysed using orthographic constraints which require these graphemes to be always pronunced [z] and [s] respectively. This comparative study presents arguments in favor of different constraint rankings which cause the occurances of these processes

Abstract The aim of this article is to analyze the polysemy of the three suffixes "-ani, -ayi and -al" in Persian language with construction morphology framework. This analysis is based on Booij construction morphology theory (2010, 2016) which is rooted in the cognitive linguistics school and especially the cognitive grammar theory (Langacker, 2008, 2009). In Booij’s (2010, 2016) construction morphology approach, language words are "constructions" whose meaning is the most important component in their structural analysis. Derivational affixes of Persian language, which include suffixes and prefixes and are numerous, have a good capacity to add new meanings to basic constructions and create a derivative word. The research data is extracted from Zansu Persian dictionary (Keshani, 1993). In order to investigate the polysemy of these suffixes, first we have designated the construction schemas and sub-schemes of the words containing the three mentioned suffixes, and then we have designed their polysemy network. Examining the research data showed that the words containing each of these three derivational suffixes, which are different from each other in terms of meaning and caused the polysemy of the named suffixes, are actually the result of different schemas and sub-schemas that are different in terms of form and meaning. The results of the research show that at the lowest level of the schema network of the "-ani" suffix, there are five different sub-schemas, two of which have a nominal base. Next two sub-schemas have prepositional base and at last, the last sub-schema has adjective base. At the lowest level of the schema network of the "-al" suffix, there are four sub-schemas which bases are from the categories of nouns, adjectives, or verb present stem. While the suffix "-ayi" has only two sub-schemes, one of which has a nominal base and the other has an adjective base. According to Booij’s (2010, 2016) construction morphology theory, the polysemy of these suffixes cannot be explained at the level of concrete words; Rather, this polysemy should be considered related to the level of constructional schemas, which are more abstract than the concrete words of the language

Abstract Research showed that children need two important pragmatic skills to understand Simile: understanding the intended similarity and deriving a scalar implicature. However, the second skill has not been studied yet by Iranian researchers. The aim of the present study was to investigate the ability of mono-lingual Persian-speaking children aged 5 to 7 years old and adults in understanding scalar implicature. To this aim, 30 Persian speaking children 5, 6 and 7 years old were selected and were compared with 10 adults. The groups were investigated and compared on a first experiment which was a form of similarity judgment task and on a second experiment, which was in a form of a game. In the first experiment, subjects should understand "x is like a y" as an expression of similarity. In the second experiment, the subjects received metaphors (“Nina is a rabbit”) and similes (“Nina is like a rabbit) as clues to select one of a three images (a rabbit, a girl or a rabbit looking girl). The results showed that 5 years old children were able to understand the implicature “x is not a y”, whereas 7-6 years old children performed like adults. The results showed that children from the early childhood were able to understand and extract scalar implicature and the literal meaning of simile and metaphor decreased by increasing age

Abstract Since, due to the advancement of technology, mankind solves many of its educational needs, such as learning foreign languages, through electronic education, upgrading electronic learning systems with educational infrastructure become very important. Therefore, this research aims to introduce an efficient method to provide the most appropriate educational content for the learner by discovering her interests and preferences and adapting it to educational and cultural issues by using artificial intelligence techniques. In this regard, The present study uses a decision-making framework using a Memetic optimization algorithm to extract the best match between available learning paths and activities. It also provides the best possible response, which is the system's best decision for each individual's learning, using a linear formula and determining personal factors such as the learner's knowledge level and preferences. The resulting educational framework was tested on 40 students, 12-15 year old. In this experiment, a control group of 20 and an experimental group of 20 were considered, and the framework was given to the experimental group and the control group learned using traditional methods such as books. SPSS software was used for data analysis. In addition, in the last class session, a survey was used to examine the experimental group on issues such as interest in e-learning, willingness to continue the class, need for more breaks, and willingness to continue learning English in this way. The findings showed that the average post-test score of the control group after training through textbook-based content was 14.8750 and the average post-test score of the experimental group that was trained with diverse content considering the learner's preferences was 16.7500. On the other hand, the significance level test indicates that the use of an e-learning program based on learner preferences had a significant (p < 0.05) effect on the experimental group, and as a result, it refers to the greater effect of e-learning with considering learner preferences compared to traditional learning.The final achievement was evaluated using multi-part software plugins from the point of view of flexibility, efficiency and interoperability through user satisfaction testing. Considering that more than seventy percent of users were satisfied with the learning efficiency and flexibility of the system, the results indicate that the system's output will have a more favorable effect on individual learning

Abstract The function of persuasion as a linguistic action is to change the audience's attitude and behavior or strengthen his beliefs. In general, persuasion is the basic and ultimate goal of all types of communication behaviors. This kind of persuasion is applied in the form of language tricks and the phenomenon of persuasion has an active presence in speech. The study of linguistic methods and tools involved in persuasion leads to the examination of the issue of power and how to dominate the mind, and this itself is the beginning of critical discourse analysis. Critical discourse analysis relies on methodological theories. The theory of LacLau and Mouffe has presented a systematic formulation in this field. Discourse is the result of the communication and interaction of the speakers in a social and cultural context. Legal discourse, due to the inherent nature of communication with the audience through "language", contains various methods of persuasion, which discourse analysis can discover many of them. The Dispute Resolution Council, as a legal-judicial institution, has created a special legal discourse by using various functions of language as the main tool. The main goal of the current research is to analyze the legal discourse of this council and examine the role of linguistic knowledge in its persuasion methods. In this research, the data has been collected by field method and direct observation, from 20 sessions of conciliation branches of the Dispute Resolution Council of Islamabad Gharb city. The data includes a total of 1,273 parts of speech, which formed the linguistic body of the research and were analyzed in a descriptive-analytical way, based on the theory of Laclau and Mouffe. The research question is, what are the findings of linguistics based on the theory of Laclau and Mouffe that can be effective in the process of persuading the parties to the dispute in the discourse of the members of the dispute resolution council? The result of the research shows that in order to convince the parties to the dispute, the linguistic tools of highlighting, the relationship between the signifier and the signified, backgrounding and hegemony, in descending order, have played an effective role in the discourse of the dispute resolution council members. In this discourse, the members of the council have used several effective words as persuasive elements by fixing the semantic system, each of which has specific meanings with specific signifiers

Abstract The purpose of the present research is to investigate the placement order of different types of adjectives in the sentence in Persian language based on Functional Discourse Grammar. Therefore, in this study, FDG will be considered in determining the arrangement of different types of adjectives in the sentence in Persian language. According to the principles of FDG, presenting a pattern in the arrangement of adjectives in a sentence in Persian language, in which the order of the adjectives in sentences does not follow a certain rule, is another goal of the present research. Although in Persian language, the order of adjectives does not follow a specific rule, the principles of FDG show that the type of the adjective determines that in what level of the hierarchical layer of FDG each adjective is produced and then based on what order it is mapped on morphosyntactic templates. In this study, the method of mapping the different types of adjectives on morphosyntactic templates in four absolute initial, second, medial and final positions and infinite relative positions in FDG was considered. This study is based on a descriptive-analytical method and the examples are taken from Persian adjectives. Examining the samples in this research shows that although the Persian language does not seem to have a particular order for the placement of adjectives in the sentence, the order pattern of adjectives in the sentence based on the mechanisms of FDG is also suggested for Persian language, since each adjective is produced in a special layer. The results indicate that the placement of adjectives in Persian language is based on the type of adjective and the production of each type of adjective takes place in its respective hierarchical layer. The results also show that FDG is an appropriate and efficient method for explaining the placement of adjectives in a sentence in Persian language and provides a suitable model for the placement of adjectives in a sentence in Persian language

Abstract  Persian and Arabic languages ​​have had phonetic, grammatical, and lexical influences on each other in terms of vocabulary exchange, and they have similarities and differences in terms of phonetic system; Arabic is today considered one of the six official languages ​​of the United Nations and the first language of the Islamic world that learners from different countries, especially Iran, attempt to learn. Arabic learners make numerous phonetic errors at different stages of learning Arabic as a foreign language. Since the phonetic system of the learners' native language is imprinted in their minds by default, it is a natural phenomenon for a non-native learner to make errors during the learning of the next language. At the phonetic level of the Arabic language, there are sounds that differ in pronunciation and pronunciation from their corresponding sounds in Persian; Among the Arabic letters " Θ ،ħ، ð، sˤ، dˤ، tˤ، ðˤ، ʕ، ɣ، w"  which, due to their absence in Persian, have become the closest equivalent sounds in the Persian phonetic system. Therefore, Persian-speaking Arabic learners do not have sufficient skills in the field of listening and speaking as language output, but due to the lack of comparative analysis between the different levels of Arabic and Persian, they usually experience doubts, fear, and ultimately despair of learning this language when using Arabic. The results of the study in the present study indicate that the learner who is learning a foreign language, due to his adherence to his mother tongue, unconsciously tries to maintain the structure of the previous language and shows resistance to new findings, which are the phonetic system of the language. The purpose of this research is: First, to define and elaborate on the contrastive analysis, then to explain the phonetic system of Persian and Arabic, then to explain the types of interference, and finally to provide solutions and strategies to prevent interference. Based on the contrastive analysis at the phonetic level, we concluded that after describing and then comparing and contrasting the two languages, as well as the hierarchy of difficulties in pronouncing sounds, the sounds at level four (extreme distinction) create the greatest difficulty in teaching Arabic sounds to Persian speakers, because at this level, a completely new item that has no similar item in the mother tongue must be learned; therefore, our greatest focus in learning the phonetic system of the target language should be on these sounds

Abstract In understanding the culture and language of any geographical features, it is very important to examine the toponyms. In this study, it has been tried to investigate and classify the places of names of Markazi province in Iran based on the model of Tenet and Blair (2021), who conducted a survey on the places of Australian national. The placesnames studied in this research are the residential placenames in Markazi province including the names of villages based on the official statistics of the National Portal of the Statistical Centre of Iran in 2016. 225  placenames of villages in this province were purposefully selected from among 379 villages based on the factors of linguistic distribution, population density, distance, and existing historical background of the villages. The model of each village is determined approximately based on 7 categories of descriptive, associative, evaluation, occurrent, copied, eponymous and innovative. The findings show that the descriptive category with about 61.08% has the highest percentage and includes 137 placenames.  Then, in order, the other categories are placed: the associative category with 47 place names at the limit of 20.85%, the eponymous with 20 cases at about 9.79%, and the occurrent with 18 cases at about 7.84% and the evaluative category with one placename about 0.44%. The categories of copying and invention have been without any placenames

Abstract  The present study examines the cognitive aspects of Persian and Arabic languages in the domain of taste and its resulting product, flavors, with the aim of understanding part of the perception of Persian and Arabic speakers derived through the gustatory domain. In this context, the study conducts a cognitive analysis of expressions that reflect the influence of the physiological taste function of the tongue on spoken language. The research method is descriptive-analytical and is conducted within the framework of the cognitive semantics approach. The study of the data shows that: 1. The mentioned languages primarily utilize the gustatory domain to conceptualize the idea of "testing and evaluation" and its associated outcomes, such as feelings of satisfaction and pleasure or dissatisfaction and pain; 2. The cognitive reality of the gustatory domain appears different from the external and conventional reality of the sense of taste. Externally, tasting is a sensory and temporary experience where the sole receptor is the tongue, and it is only relevant to edible substances. However, the cognitive mechanism uses this physical-taste experience to understand and perceive the environment and abstract concepts, "tasting" many of our experiences and environmental phenomena! For example, tasting the words of others, as in «شیرین‌سخن» ("sweet-tongued"), or describing someone as «گوشت‌تلخ» ("bitter-fleshed"). In this cognitive mechanism, the tongue is not the only receptor of taste; hearing can also create a taste, as in «با این خبر کاممون تلخ شد» ("this news left a bitter taste in our mouth"), and the heart "tastes" the sweetness of union, as in «به کام دل رسید» ("it reached the heart's desire"). Moreover, tasting is not limited to edibles; the eyes can be "شور" ("salty"), temperament can be "تند" ("hot"), and the face can be "ترش" ("sour"). The importance of understanding the non-edible world through the lens of edibles is highlighted by the fact that the set of correspondences within these metaphors allows us to think about our experiences and the phenomena around us using the knowledge we have about flavors. For example, since "بانمکی" (being salty) is desirable, interacting with a person perceived as "بانمک" (salty) is also understood as pleasant and desirable. In this way, the "saltiness" of the person in question can overshadow other undesirable traits they may have, just as the "saltiness" of a type of food can make its harmful aspects seem appealing. In conclusion, flavor serves as a phenomenological and evaluative perspective on the nature of our experiences as a target domain

Abstract At the beginning of the 18th century, with the act of the parliaments of England and Scotland, the four countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland were formed the Great Britain, and the British identity was added to the people of these countries. Along with this union and with the advancement of sciences, the British took the first steps to become a colonial power. But in the first place, it was necessary to form the idea of empire in the minds of the British; Therefore, English authors and travel writers started to compose works whose themes were the discovery of distant lands, colonization and confrontation with the natives. One of these people was Daniel Defoe, who in his novel Robinson Crusoe (1719), which is one of the texts subject to reading in the course Novel 1, B.A. in English Language and Literature in Iran, depicted the adventures of Robinson Crusoe. In the novel, he managed not only to establish a colony for himself and achieved great wealth, but also became a slave owner in Latin America in the cotton fields. Therefore, this research aims to analyze the above novel in light of postcolonial criticism to reveal the colonial discourse in the work, that is, the conquest of the natives and their reduction to others and colonial subjects