Volume 6, Issue 4 (Journal of Studies in Applied Language (JSAL) 2023)                   JSAL 2023, 6(4): 95-121 | Back to browse issues page


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Samenian T. (2023). The analytical and corpus-based study on Semantic and Syntactic Representations of Persian Motion-Directional Verbs [In English]. JSAL. 6(4), 95-121. doi:10.61186/jsal.6.4.95
URL: http://jsal.ierf.ir/article-1-108-en.html
PhD student in language translation, University of Isfahan , tsamen2006@yahoo.com
Abstract:   (834 Views)
This study aims to comparatively investigate the semantic frames of motion directional verbs in Persian and English within the framework of the frame semantics theory (Fillmore 1977; 1982; 1985). Motion event is analyzed from different realizations in linguistics. On the one hand, in discussion regarding the meaning of word, verbs have an important function in interpreting the meaning.  The different syntactic realizations and different coding of direction in Persian motion directional verbs show that FrameNet should take into account the differences among languages. However, direction in Persian language is encoded as prefix or satellite. Furthermore, this type of investigation also shows us that figurative relations and fictive motions and polysemy should be analyzed in detail by FrameNet. These problems indicate that the language specific features have an important role in frame- to- frame relations. Our discussion of culture and language specific words has shown that not all semantic frames derived on the basis of English are good candidates for universal frame-hood. The case of Persian motion directional verbs has shown that that there are cases in which it is necessary to define more fine-grained semantic sub-frames and augment these with more specific cultural information. Direction is represented as prepositional phrase in verb argument. As far as motion verbs are concerned, direction is considered as one of the motion components expressed by either the verb or any element other than the verb. In English — a satellite-framed language (Talmy 2000b) — direction is shown by motion verbs, whereas in Persian it is typically indicated by non-verbal elements, although there are also some verbs via which direction is encoded. Within this study, 117 Persian verbs of direction were selected from Soxan Dictionary based on 10 verbs which was introduced in motion directional frame in FrameNet and then looked up through the Persian Corpus of Bijankhan to achieve their contexts of use. Next, FrameNet was asked for the semantic frame each verb evoked. Thereafter, comparing the semantic frames in the two languages, it was revealed that not every verb of direction does exist as a Lexical Unit in FrameNet. Likewise, not for every verb was a specified semantic frame either. Moreover, the frames for some other verbs have been defined in such a way that they cannot semantically distinguish those verbs from each other, whereas such distinctions are prominent in both directional verbs and the frames they evoke especially in Persian.
 
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Type of Study: Research | Subject: Sociolinguistics
Received: 2023/04/19 | Accepted: 2023/10/2 | Published: 2023/11/1

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