Fictive Motion in Persian: A cognitive approach

Motion is a fundamental human experience and mankind، through motion simulation in mind، extends it to the other areas in which there is no movement. This simulation and extension is also reflected in language and language users apply the elements of real motion to describe abstract motion. This paper focuses on a specific type of abstract motion، called fictive motion، from the point of view of cognitive semantics. Fictive motion refers to situations in which the state of a static entity، located in a fixed position، is described by a motion verb. In the present paper، fictive motions in Persian are examined، analyzed and explained. To this end، a corpus of 1750 sentences was established based on the criteria defined for fictive motion components by cognitive researchers. From among them، 42 sentences which are structured in fictive motion were analyzed. The results revealed that the occurrences of the various components of fictive motion construction like Trajector and motion verb follow semantic and stylistic restrictions in Persian. Thus Persian speakers often use Trajectors with a horizontal length and motion verbs that often lexicalize path of motion