جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « فارسی نو » در نشریات گروه « ادبیات و زبان ها »

Taleshi dialect is a continuation of the natural and evolved language of the Middle and ancient Persian ones. Some scholars regard this dialect as the part of the Azeri language, and some people regard it as a language rooted in material language. This dialect is divided into three categories: North, Central, and South, among which the ambarani accent is located in the North Taleshi dialect group. Up to now, this accent has retained many ancient and Middle Persian words in its own language, and has phonetic, lexical, and grammatical features that the results of their careful examination can be a valuable service to the field. The Persian language is considered to be affluent and will help researchers in this field. The present study is based on the reading of the historical and phonological evolution of some tense words of Anbarian from the ancient and Middle Persian eras and their comparison with the new one. It can be said that these terms Within this accent have not been suffered from a phonetic and immortal evolution, and because of the similarity and resemblance of these words in the dialect of Anbarani dialect with the ancient and Middle Persian is more than the new Persian and the standard one, which is a sign of longitude and authenticity dialect.

This article studies semantic development of pronominal clitics in adnominal possessive constructions of New Persian (NP), i.e. 10th to 20th centuries. Although the structure of Persian possessive constructions has received attention in the previous literature, their semantic development is poorly noted. Since clitical possessors in adnominal constructions are not observed before NP, the investigation of their development will be beneficiary to understand semantic development of possession. A historical corpus of 500,000 words from prose texts of this period is investigated from which 1952 examples including clitical possessors are extracted. According to Heine (1977), Nikiforidou (1991), Koptjevskaja Tamm (2002), and Lehmann (2002), 21 meaning relations for possessive constructions with clitical possessors are introduced and the frequencies of each relation in the corpus and per century are represented. The diachronic investigation shows that the meaning relations are not distributed equally in various centuries but demonstrate a transfer from more concrete to more abstract relations. The body part and kinship relations are the most frequent which together with ownership are introduced as basic meanings of possessive constructions. Based on the semantic extension map of genitive structures introduced by Nikiforidou (1991), a map of semantic development of the above mentioned constructions is depicted with modifications. Moreover, the study shows that the third person singular and then first singular pronominal clitics have the most frequent usage in the corpus. In addition to contributing to understanding of semantic development of possession, the findings also represent linguistic criteria for stylistic analysis and dating of NP manuscripts.

Linguistic analysis of the texts of the period of development of the Persian language shows that during this period, a standard Persian language had not yet been formed. For this reason, in the domain of the spread of this language, texts full of dialectal elements are formed. One of the varieties of Persian, which has not been studied independently for some reasons, is the southwestern variety. In this article, the purpose of which is to introduce the southwest Persian variety, by examining some of the oldest surviving texts of this linguistic variety, we will examine some of the current constructions surviving from the middle period in this variety: 1/ passive stem; 2/ artificial stem; 3/ transitive suffix -ēn; 4/ subjunctive construction; 5/ verbal prefix by-. Of course, in some of these constructions, the verbal characteristics of the MP have been expanded and new verbal structures have been formed. After examining the above-mentioned cases, it becomes clear that the southwest Persian variety, probably due to its proximity to the area of ​​Middle Persian prevalence, has many of the verbal characteristics of this period in the time frame it has kept in itself.

The article tries to make a link between grammatical function of the prefix be- with past verbs in the current atlas of New West Iranian and the historical atlas of New Persian, and to interpret this marker’s historical statistics with respect to its behavior in today’s Iranian varieties. In the historical sampling of this research, 22% of past verbs of simple morphological structure (non-prefixed and non-complex) in 4th to 7th centuries had the prefix be-, but in the following centuries, its frequency decreased gradually, and eventually it disappeared. On the other hand, in the contemporary century, a very high level of grammaticalization of be- in the same position is observed in a wide variety of Iranian languages and dialects. The author looks at these two phenomena (the historical behavior of be- and its today’s behavior) in the same line, and believes that there has been a single path of grammaticalization of be- in progress in New West Iranian languages, but the written/standard variety of New Persian stopped this process for some external or internal reasons (contact with varieties without be-, and development of mi- as imperfective marker, respectively), while the process continued in some Iranian varieties to the current level.

This paper attempts to make a link between the grammatical function of the prefix be- with past tense verbs in the current atlas of New West Iranian and the historical atlas of New Persian, and to interpret the marker’s statistical behavior in old texts with respect to its behavior in today’s Iranian varieties. The issue of the grammatical function of be- in this position has always been controversial, and grammarians and linguists have proposed functions such as decorative, redundant, emphatic, and perfective aspect for it. With a statistical approach, this research is concerned with this controversial issue, considering the status of perfective aspect marker in the current linguistic atlas (of West Iranian varieties), suggesting the hypothesis that the grammaticalization of be- as the perfective aspect marker had begun in some regions in the historical linguistic atlas.

A common phenomenon in grammars is the grammaticalization of the speaker’s viewpoint towards the event: seeing it as a whole completed event, or looking from inside as an uncompleted one. This opposition, called perfective and imperfective aspect, respectively, is the main distinction in the grammatical aspect domain. In simpler words, the grammatical category of aspect is the result of grammaticalization of the speaker’s viewpoint. In this domain, there may be a grammaticalized morpheme for each opposition (perfective and imperfective); or just marking one the oppositions overtly, with no marker for the other one.   

The historical corpus of this research includes 77 thousand verbs, extracted from 55 texts from 10th to 20th centuries. To this aim, five texts from each century were selected, and then, two pieces of each text were taken randomly as the sampled data, each one including 700 verbs (1400 verbs from each text, altogether).

According to the statistics, be- in the grammatical function under discussion generally appears with positive verbs of simple structure (non-prefixed and non-complex), and its highest rate of usage is in 10th and 11th centuries. In these two centuries, on average, out of every four simple verbs in perfective aspect, one verb (and a bit more) takes be- (26.7%). In 12th and 13th centuries, the frequency of be- shows decrease (19%), and then, in the 14th, the statistics is reduced to less than half (8.1%), gradually disappearing in the following centuries. Furthermore, in 10th to 13th centuries, there are 17 texts from various geographical regions, having a rate higher than 10%, which shows that be- was being used in all centers of text production in the cultural territory of Persian. Also, the number of verbs with be- in the whole period (142 verbs, non-repeatedly) shows its high productivity, hence its inflectional nature, rejecting the derivational function hypothesis. On the other side, according to several researches in dialectology, a very high level of grammaticalization of be- in the same position has been reported in a wide range of Iranian varieties. At least in Mazandarani, Gilaki, Tati, Khorasani, Central Iranian, and Talishi, there are several language varieties with this marker in the same position, and in many of them, be- is nearly fully-productive with simple verbs. Furthermore, complex predicates and some past forms (present perfect, past perfect, and past subjunctive) are used with be- in some Iranian varieties. If we suppose that in early centuries the grammaticalization process of be- was in progress in some regions of the geography of Iranian languages, then, it may be hypothesized that since 14th century the production of Persian texts and the standardization of written language was affected by the varieties which lacked this function of be-, and this function was stopped gradually, but the varieties which had the marker (previously having more influence on the production of Persian texts) continued grammaticalizing itto the current level. By contrast, if we suppose that the grammaticalization of be- was only going on in New Persian, and after being stopped, it started again in some regions of the geography of Iranian languages, then, firstly, it would be difficult to account for the relatively short time spent for such a high level of grammaticalization of be- in today’s varieties, and secondly, on this assumption, the connection between perfective function and subjunctive-imperative function would be broken off, and restarting grammaticalization for perfective aspect would require theoretical justification. The author believes that it is more plausible to consider the grammaticalization of be- in the grammars of West Iranian languages as a single phenomenon. In other words, there has been a single path of grammaticalization of be- (for perfective aspect) in progress in New West Iranian languages which was gradually stopped in New Persian since 14th century, and was continued in some Iranian varieties. The consequence of such an integrated approach to the phenomenon will be that we can also consider be- in Classical Persian as a perfective marker.   

The statistics of this research show that 22% of simple perfective verbs in 10th to 13th centuries had be-. On the other hand, now, a very high level of grammaticalization of be- in the same position is observed in a wide range of Iranian varieties. The author believes that the most plausible explanation for these two linguistic phenomena (historical behavior of be- and its today’s behavior) is that the grammaticalization of be- for perfective aspect marking began since Early New Persian period (or possibly even Middle period), but Persian stopped this process gradually for some external reasons (contact with varieties without be-) or internal reasons (establishment of mi- as imperfective marker), while the process continued in some Iranian varieties to the current level.   

This paper deals with a Judeo-Persian letter named Dandān-Uiliq II (henceforth DU II); which probably dates back to 9th century C.E. In addition to its content, DU II has some important linguistic features, often absent in Persian texts written in Arabic script. Among them the use of “kū” as a preposition and the ancient subjunctive mood can be mentioned. The present paper will present a translation of the letter in addition to a discussion of its ancient linguistic features with comparison to the Early New Persian texts (in Perso-Arabic script) and certain early Quran translations into Persian (especially Qur'an-e Quds). The linguistic features of this early Judeo-Persian letter will represent a definite stage where the language is changing from Middle Persian to New Persian (Dari). Since the evidences related to this stage is relatively rare in the extant texts of Persian, this letter can undoubtedly be used for a more understanding of the period of Persian language evolution. The given translation is not the same as the previous English and Chinese translations and reflects our understanding of its syntax and morphology.   

Iranian Jewish communities have not settled only in the borders of Iran today, but in neighboring countries.  Their works, including unwritten as well as written materials, are not only the best heritages of their presence but also the mirror of Iranian culture, language and daily matters. Their value in a time when the works and materials reflecting the Iranian culture are not so numerous, and especially regarding the language, when most of the works are written in Arabic or at least in an official form of the Persian not reflecting the local changes as well as the process of transmission of the Middle Persian to the Early New Persian becomes more understandable. In such an environment and in a multicultural district like the Taklamakan, two Judeo-Persian letters written by ink on the papers have been found till now. In addition to their information about the district in the 8th-9th century C.E., the letters show a kind of local dialect which in companion with other few documents from this period, can give the researchers of the Persian language, some samples showing how the Middle Persian have been transmitted to the Early New Persian. In Dandān-Uiliq, the writer after greetings, starts to count the gifts and the materials he has sent or has given to some officials there. In the last part, he advises that they should behave in a friendly manner towards the daughter of Dihqan and also gives some reports on the war and peace in Kashgar with Tibetans. The letter is not complete and the end part has missed.   

The theoretical framework of the present paper is based on the common method of the Judeo-Persian studies and Persian language and literature as well as the historical linguistics. 

In this paper, by discussing the previous works on DU II as well as other EJP related texts, the authors tried to find all the available researches, and then by processing the information, emended previous researches and in some cases, they have strengthened and expanded such information. It’s noteworthy that everywhere they have found some ambiguities, did their best to make them clear.   

The Judeo-Persian letter of DU II represents some important linguistic features, often in the absence of Persian texts written in Arabic script, e.g. the use of kū as a preposition and the ancient subjunctive mood. The letter has been translated in this paper and its ancient linguistic features have been discussed with comparison to the Early New Persian texts (in Perso-Arabic script) and some early Qur'an translations into Persian (especially Qur'an-e Quds). These features represent language transmission from Middle Persian to New Persian (Dari). The given translation is not the same as the previous English and Chinese translations and reflects our understanding of its syntax and morphology.

The Judeo-Persian letter of DU II which is written approximately in the 9th century in the oasis of Dandān-Uiliq is the second letter of its kind and shows the historical, cultural, financial as well as the political and linguistic environment of the district at the time. From a linguistic point of view, the letter asserts the previous findings, however, it portrays some new features as well.  

One of the language change processes is pragmaticalization, and among the products of this process are discourse markers.Discourse markers are the language elements that make the discourse homogeneous and do not allow discourse to deviate from its original path.This paper aims to investigate the pragmmaticalization of the verb "goftan" (i.e. sayying) in New Persian. In order to investigate more exactly, we have divided New Persian into two separate periods: Early New Persian and Modern Persian.In early New Persian, the verb "goftan" functioned as the main lexical verb in the meanings of "to say" and "to name”, expressed the concept of inductive modality and also participated in impersonal constructions.In Modern Persian, in addition to conserve previous functions, this linguistic element is evolved into a discourse marker through pragmmaticalization.In this new function, "goftan" also appears in two other forms as "migam" and "begu" and functions as initiating discourse, changing the topic, and referring to new information. The token frequency of "migam" is more than "begu".The research data has been extracted from the books written in Early New Persian language, internet, and TV movies.Because discourse markers are mostly found in the spoken variety, the TV movies have been chosen in order to investigate functions of the verb "goftan" as a discourse marker in Modern Persian.

This article studies the diachronic development of reflexive pronouns derived from xod in New Persian, i.e. 10th to 20th centuries. Not in all centuries of New Persian one can find the indexation of xod by pronominal clitics and it is mostly believed that the indexation is a characteristic of colloquial Persian. The current study, employing a typological perspective, tries to investigate the sequence of the emergence as well as the development process of the reflexive pronouns with different persons and numbers in New Persian. We assume that the process follows the universal referential hierarchies.In Persian, similar to for example English, Turkish and Finnish, one and a same set of reflexive pronouns show both reflexive and emphatic functions. The reflexive pronoun xod in New Persian is derived from xwad in Middle Persian with adverbial function (Mackenzie, 2011), and xwad is a development from the prefix uva with possessive meaning in Old Persian (Kent, 1950). New Persian uses xod as both emphatic and reflexive pronouns. Moyne (1971) considers possessive function of xod as emphatic. However, Davari (2016) points out that the use of xod as a possessor is to denote reflexive function and based on this concludes that the reflexive uses of xod in Persian precede the emphatic uses.Regarding person and number indexations of different grammatical categories, different hierarchies are introduced (Greenberg, 1966; Comrie, 1989, 1999; Woolford, 1999; Corbett, 2000; Croft, 2003). In some hierarchies (according to certain languages), animacy plays a bigger role, dominating first and second persons over third person. However, for some languages, animacy is indifferent and they follow the hierarchy with the domination of third person. Furthermore, specifically for the presence of reflexive markers with different persons among languages, Comrie (1989; 1999) introduces the hierarchy that dominates third person over first and second persons, and Faltz (1985) believes that second person also dominates first person in reflexive pronouns.This study aims to determine what referential hierarchies play role in the emergence and development of the reflexive pronoun xod into personal reflexive pronouns xodam, xodat, xodaš, xodemān, xodetān, and xodešān. It also takes a brief look at the influence of different functions of xod in the process.

Since the study is diachronic, the given data at first place are of written type and only the prose of this period is investigated. Among various available texts, three manuscripts are selected per century, in total 33 texts. The criteria of the selections are the simplicity of the language of the texts, the narrativity of the texts, and the certainty on the dates they were written. From each text, 15000 words are compiled which resulted in a half a million word corpus[1]. The corpus includes 192 constructions where the reflexive pronoun xod is used with one of the pronominal clitics. The current article takes a diachronic typological approach and regarding the frequencies of the personal reflexive pronouns in different centuries of New Persian, investigates the influence of different referential hierarchies (Greenberg, 1966; Faltz, 1985; Comrie, 1989a, 1989b Comrie, 1989, 1999; Woolford, 1999; Corbett, 2000; Croft, 2003), on their development. It also takes a look at the role of the emphatic and reflexive functions in the developments.

According to the corpus, the first uses of personal clitic pronouns attached to xod belong to the third person singular and are not older that 14th or 15th centuries (8th or 9th in Hijri calendar). The third person singular reflexive pronoun xodaš, in both sequence of emergence and frequency in different centuries, overtly dominates the first and second reflexive pronouns. As illustrated in figure 1, first person also dominates the second person and singular is placed over plural in the hierarchy of number. Furthermore, according to the figure 2, the first cases of personal reflexive pronouns are used in the corpus in possessive constructions. Then emphatic function and later reflexive function are observed.

So far in the mood system of New Persian, the inflectional element ‘be-’ has had three grammatical roles: subjunctive marker, imperative marker, and future marker, all of which having in common the feature of unrealized occurrence of the event (as opposed to its realized occurrence for indicative mood). This investigation, based on a sampled corpus of 55 texts, selected from 10th to 20th centuries, follows the changes of these functions in New Persian diachronically. The results show that in a period of eleven centuries the frequency of ‘be-’ as a marker of subjunctive has increased three times, and as the imperative marker twice-and-half, while it has been productive in its third role (future marking) mostly in 10th to 12th centuries, and this function gradually disappeared later. Furthermore, since 19th c., ‘be-’ which was formerly used with simple verbs almost exclusively, began to be used with complex predicates as well. However, there is some amount of irregularity in the increasing frequency of ‘be-’ in the whole period, and the author attempts to explain it with such hypotheses as grammatical archaism in some texts, and the possible change of grammatical forms in the process of copying the texts

The purpose of this paper is investigating the conditional connective words in New Persian language based on the Declerck and Reed typology (2001). According to this semantic typology, different types of conditional sentences based on possible worlds of protasis are factual, neutral, closed, open, tentative and counterfactual. In the canonical conditional sentence there is one connective word in the beginning of the sentence that is used to mark conditionality. In the present study, we try to examine these types with respect to the corpus of 3648 conditional sentences extracted from 110 books of 4th to 14th AH centuries. In New Persian various connective words have been used as conditional words like: “agar, agarche, agarna, ta, ke, valo, farzan, haminke, darsuratike, vaella, hargah, chon, …”. Statistical calculations on conditional words with a frequency above fifty show that there are certain tendencies between different conditional possible worlds and types of conditional words.

In this study, the function of “rɒː” in some Persian dialects of Khorasan is sought. There are many studies of various kinds about the function of “rɒː” both in contemporary and previous periods of Persian. The reason behind it is the various position of “rɒː” as well as the changing function of it during various periods of Persian Language. However, the function of “rɒː” in Persian dialects and other Iranian languages and dialects is not well addressed yet. It seems that this grammatical function shows a different mode in Iranian languages and dialects from that of Persian Language.

This study is descriptive-analytic and the data are gathered from two sources: one from the printed works like articles and theses which are called secondary data and the other from the native speakers of the dialects which is called primary data. The source of the printed works has been cited in the text.

/rɒ:/ locates in a different position and has a different behavior comparing to the other Persian adpositions, so in different research it is identified with different names, such as case marker, adposition and direct object marker. In the traditional Persian grammars it is a marker which identifies direct object. In linguists’ works it has been paid attention to both syntactic (direct object marker) and semantic-discursive functions (as definiteness, topic or contrastive topic, specificity and presupposition marker). For example Sadeghi (1348) calls it a definiteness marker and Dabir-Moghaddam introduces it as a topic marker. Karimi (2003, 1996, 1990, 1989) attributes it a specificity marking function and Ghomeshi(1996) and Ganjavi(2007) believe that it’s a presupposition marker. Hosseini Fatemi (2013) challenges all these functions and believes that “while definiteness, specificity and presupposition capture important aspects of the meaning of /rɒ:/, none of them adequately characterize its semantics and they cannot give a unified account for all its functions”. In her opinion,” /rɒ:/ is a vacuous element which signals the presence of maximality operators higher in the structure”.

Studying the given dialects showed that “rɒː” plays four functions: the first is the same function that is found in Standard Persian that is direct object. In most dialects, this function appears both independently and in clitic form. In some dialects like “khafi” and “Delbari”, it seems to be used only in its clitic form that means its grammaticalization   process is a step forward than standard Persian.
The second function is the preposition “to”. This is seen in some dialects as “Kakhki” and “Neishabouri”. This function is found in the texts of Modern Persian in its first and second periods. It is also used in these texts within some other different functions. The third function of it is to appear in some sentences with enclitic compound verbs, pronominal compound verbs or temporary composite such as “khosh amadan” (to like), “khab mandan” (to fall asleep), “dard amadan” (to hurt), etc. In these structures, the surface subject does not correspond with the verb that is always in its third singular person form.
Studying these structures in the given dialects showed that there are three forms in this respect. In some dialects like Bajestani, the verbs along with the same indexed clitic forms appear with the potential surface subject like that of standard Persian:xoš-om miyâ  
like-I    come-she/he
I like.
In some dialects like “Khafi”, the pronoun does not appear in clitic form, but independently:az    u          xoš mo      namiya
from him/her like I   not-come-she/he
I don’t like him/her
In some dialects like “Kakhki”, this structure is produced with “rɒː” in the absence of the same indexed pronoun with surface subject:Zahrâ-rɒː            bad           miya
Zahrɒː-DO marker bad come-she/he
Zahrɒː dislikes it.
The form of “Kakhki” is used in the first and second periods of modern Persian, the trace of which is abundant in the works of Gulistan of Sa’di and Tarikh-i Bayhaqi. Regarding the fact that in these works, there can be found clitic pronoun of the above structures in limited scale and contemporary Persian is qualified to produce clitic form, it can be claimed that these changes follow the Dual Acquisition Theory of Hawking.
The fourth function of “rɒː” is the not-syntactic use of this marker that is evident in fewer dialects. In other words, this sign is syntactically pointless and expletive and it seems it has only pragmatic/discourse function. This is mostly used in some dialects like “Kakhki” and “Raghei”.
Example from Kakhki Dialect: Zahrâ rɒː az rudevalok mɛtarsa (Zahra is afraid of Lizards).
This function of “rɒː” no longer exists in the contemporary Persian but it exists in ancient periods. Some instances of it were indicated by Dehkhoda in “Samak-e Ayyar.  Another form of this expletive “rɒː” was in Old and middle Persian of Zoroaster that was accompanying with the preposition /az/. Such function of “rɒː” no longer exists in Khorasan’s dialects.

Today, there are not three functions out of four functions of “rɒː” in the contemporary Standard Persian and “rɒː” as a discourse marker is seen along with the non-nominative noun phrases like indirect object noun phrases or adverbial noun phrases instead of nominative ones. In this function, “rɒː” is used so frequently today.It should be indicated that holding the discourse function of “rɒː” is not a phenomenon related to the contemporary Persian, but it holds a long history. However, nowadays the distribution of “rɒː” in this function as well as its usage domain has been changed. The study of functions of “rɒː” in these dialects showed that the situation of “rɒː’ in some Persian dialects of Khorasan is like the situation of it in the texts of Modern Persian in its first and second periods and the changes of it are a step backward than the contemporary standard Persian.

Language is changing as a social phenomenon and in this changing process some dialects resist against some historical changes and ancient forms may still be used by native speakers. In this research, we hypothesize that there are some lexical and phonological middle Persian remnants in Kermani dialect. The research zone is kerman city and informants are selected from upper 50 years old native people of kerman city. Lexical middle Persian remnants include words which are used in Kermani dialect in the same way as middle Persian. Of course, some of them bear some tiny phonological and semantic changes. Phonological data include some middle Persian phonemes in Kermani dialect that are changed or deleted in new Persian language. The findings indicate that Kermani dialect resists against some lexical and phonological changes from middle Persian and this means that kermani dialect as a southeastern dialect of central Iranian dialects is old and ancient one.

This research is specifically about the function of inflectional "-i" suffix in new Persian. The objective of the article is to recognize some concepts and changes which are encoded by this morpheme in New Persian. Additionally, it follows up the reason of change or recognition of the linguistic elements. The results suggest that the so-called morpheme is changed in the cases that it was expressing two categories of frequentative aspect and modes, including subjunctive, conditional, optative, and imagined. The alternative sign in the category of aspect is prefix "mi-", which has taken a new frequentative aspect other than imperfect, and because of taking a new grammatical function, the auxiliary of "dɑʃtæn" is grammaticalized for its primary function, as well. The alternative sign in the category of mood is the abstract form of subjunctive mood, which means that a literal and phonemic function of an affix is titled to an abstract category. The reason of such changes should be found in the process of grammaticalization. That is, through this process, in aspect form "mi-" has taken a new function in addition to its primary one and has become more grammatical, and in mood form, a grammatical category has become more grammatical and more abstract.

This paper aims to investigate the development of new first and second person pronouns in New Persian from the perspective of grammaticalization. The data on which this work is based comes from the prose texts of the period. In the course of the paper, the role of metonymic and metaphorical processes involved in the grammaticalization of the pronouns are critically examined. Our findings suggest that metonymic processes, and along the same lines, syntagmatic relations play a significant role in paving the way for the metaphorical extension of the noun in the construction “singular proximal demonstrative + NP” and the functional shift of the construction into a first person pronoun. The slot for head noun of the construction is filled with nouns such as bande ‘slave’, jâneb “side’, etc. or de-adjectival nouns with original meanings of moxles ‘devoted’, haqir ‘humble’, and the like. Other phenomena that play quite some role in the formation of new pronouns are plurification and hypercharacterization. Plurification is responsible for the growth of new first and second singular pronouns, while hypercharaterization is at work forming new first and second person plural pronouns. Politeness is the major motivating factor for the evolution of the most new pronouns discussed, excluding those developed by hypercharacterization.

Cognitive typology is focused on conceptual principles, experience, and cognition to analyze language universals and differences in the representation of categories, experiences, etc. among the languages of the world. One of the fundamental principles of cognitive linguistics, and thus cognitive typology is the rejection of the distinction between diachronic and synchronic linguistics. In fact, neglecting the changes a language goes through time, results in neglecting the evidences that historically affected today’s language use. Therefore, this research aims to study different ways of using motion verbs in the Middle Persian (focusing on Zoroastrian Middle Persian) and comparing them with Modern Persian to find out about the changes in representation of motion verbs through the history of Persian language. Theoretical framework of this research is cognitive typology (Talmy, 2000) based on which languages are classified into two types of verb-framing and satellite-framing. In verb-framing languages, the information about path of movement is expressed in a verb, but in satellite –framing languages, information about the path is expressed outside the verb. One of the main elements of events is the path of motion which is represented in different ways in different languages based on their features and capacities. Therefore, motion verbs represent different information about the path of motion. In this article motion verbs in Middle and Modern Persian are analyzed and compared based on a cognitive approach. Results show that in this regard, Middle Persian is verb-framing, but Modern Persian is both verb-framing and satellite framing which may be due to the cognitive development of the speakers through time, and the growing capacity of languages to communicate the concepts.

This paper aims to investigate the expression of the core meanings of possession in New Persian. Using data from selected extant prose texts of this long period of some ten centuries, the constructions related to nominal and predicative possessions are identified and described in detail. In nominal possession constructions, the general and widespread tendency in New Persian is to mark the possessum with an izâfe linker or a pronominal clitic; however, marginally, the marking of possessor with analytic markers, like prepositions and the postposition of râ, is also attested. While the marking of possessum with synthetic markers remains almost unchanged in the whole period, adpositions as the marker of Possessor were subject to significant changes. The usage of the postposition râ both in nominal possession and alongside copula verb in predicative possession constructions became totally obsolete. The simple prepositions of az ‘from’ in nominal possession construction, and bar ‘on’, bâ ‘with’ in predicative possession constructions gradually fell into disuse and were replaced by mâl-e ‘property of’, vase-y-e ‘property of’, barây-e ‘for’ in Modern Persian, especially in copula verb predicative possession construction. The interesting point is that all recent alternative prepositions marking the possessors are themselves marked with an ezâfe linker. As far as the predicative possession is concerned, the widely used copula verb construction with râ in Early New Persian was replaced by once infrequent possessive verb of dâštan, in Modern Persian.

The investigation of linguistic devices for encoding the grammatical concepts, in a diachronic perspective, shows considerable patterns of grammaticalization and language change. These changes are very slow and gradual, while extremely systematic and teleological. The present research studies the devices used in Persian aspect and mood systems throughout a period of approximately 1800 years (since the early Sasanid period to the present time) and shows that every grammatical change can trigger a new chain of related changes. The decline of the rich morphology of Old Persian in the process of changing into Middle Persian motivated a compensatory and substituting reaction in the language system. Therefore, the system started a very long process of developing two new morphological devices, and the task was fulfilled. The result of this process is the inflectional suffixes mi- and be- in today’s Persian: the former, having an aspectual and a mood function, has become obligatory in almost all of related environments; and the latter with a mood function has not become obligatory in some environments yet, and it is on its way to spread. This article studies the behavior of the two mentioned morphemes in their process of grammaticalization in Middle and Modern periods as well as the way they competed with the alternative mechanisms in Classical Modern Persian, and the development of some intermediate structures (simultaneous occurrence of grammatical morphemes) in the transition period.

The future tense of the verbs has been changed from old period up to now. In Old Persian there was no future tense and often subjunctive mood has been used to refer to the future tense. In Avestan language, there has been an independent futute tense besides subjunctive mood and from this structure just remained the declarative mood and subjective adjective. In the western group of middle Iranian languages, the lack of future tense has been compensated with present subjunctive and present declarative. In the eastern group of Iranian languages, (Sogdian and Kharazmi), the future tense of the verb was made by the addition of tense suffix to the end of the verb. Following Dari Persian in the modern written language, the future tense is made through combination of the auxiliary verb »khāstan« and the lexical verb (in the full or truncated form of the infinitive). However, the mentioned future tense is not used in the spoken Persian and in practice; it has been replaced with the present declarative. In most Iranian dialects, the future tense characteristic is the same as the spoken Persian. In this paper, while investigating the historical change of the future tense of the verb from past up to now, its structure has been studied in some Iranian dialects.

Many suffixes of the Persian language which have evolved from the Indo-European to the New Persian Language Hr’s suffix in the new Persian language have changed into different forms. In this article، an effort is made to survey the evolved word forms in three periods. Moreover، the study emphasizes words that have arrived in the New Persian. We have arranged these words based on the kind of their evolution in the history of the Persian language. Finally، based on the phonetic evolution، we have made conclusions.