Meaning Construction in Persian Nominal Compounds as Conceptual Blends

Considering that compounds configure a semantic whole that is not necessarily equal to the sum of the meaning of its constituents, the study aims to verify the process of meaning construction in endocentric, exocentric, cooperative and appositive Persian nominal compounds within Conceptual Blending Theory (2002). To this end, noun-noun nominal compounds were extracted from Sokhan (2003) and 100 compounds were analyzed randomly. The results reveals that non-metaphorical and non-metonymical endocentrics and endocentrics with metaphorical or metonymical modifier activate, respectively, simplex and single-scope network. By contrast, exocentric compounds activate single-scope, double-scope, or multiple blends. Exocentrics with metaphorical or metonymical head trigger single-scope network, exocentrics with two metaphorical and/or metonymical components activate double-scope network, and exocentrics where the compounds as a whole is metaphorical or metonymical prompt multiple blends. Cooperative and appositive compounds trigger mirror networks in the same way; nonetheless, the emergent meaning in their blend space varies to some extent.