A Diachronic Study of " ǰɑ" Adposition in Baboli Variation of Mazandarani Language

In Baboli Variety of Mazandarani language, “ǰɑ” is a postposition encoding semantic roles of source, cause, comitative, and instrument, and has functionally the same meaning as “az” and “ba” in Persian. The aime of this study is to investigate archaic form of “ǰɑ” and its functions in Old and Middle periods of Iranian languages. Furthermore, it is determined that “ǰɑ” is derived from Sanskrit sačā and Avestan/Old Persian hača/hačā. Its equivalents in Sogdian, Middle Persian, and Parthian are respectively čan, az, and až. Based on the many instances presented in this article, it is concluded that the archaic forms of this adposition, similarly, encoded semantic roles of source, cause, comitative, and instrument in Old and Middle periods of Iranian languages. ǰɑ has retained these semantic roles in Baboli / Variety of Mazandarani language. The oldest form of ǰɑ in Sanskrit has encoded semantic role of comitative which means that this role is of an older origin.