Semantic Polygenesis; an Example of the Application of Diachronic Prototype Semantics in New Persian

Semantic categories have a prototypical structure and consist of central and peripheral meanings. There are some peripheral and accidental meanings at the fuzzy borders of these categories; transient meanings which disappear in the course of time. Some of these meanings may occur in a different time and independent from previous occurrence(s) of the same meaning. Geeraerts (1997) calls this phenomenon “semantic polygenesis.” Semantic polygenesis, on one hand, characterizes prototypicality of meaning and, on the other hand, indicates its social aspect. In this paper we investigated semantic polygenesis in New Persian words’ meanings, from the 10th century (AD) until present.

For this research, we examined ten selected words, from the semantic domain of politics and governance, in 113 texts in poetry and prose, and recorded their meanings. Then we designated peripheral meanings and investigated them based on semantic polygenesis conditions. For the purpose of simplicity, we divided the whole period into 100-year intervals coinciding with Hijri centuries, except the last period after the Islamic Revolution of Iran which is 42 year long. The texts allocated to the periods based on their approximate time of writing.

In this research we investigated the meanings of the words āzād ʻfreeʼ, āzādi ʻfreedomʼ, edāre ʻinstitution, managementʼ, enghelāb ʻrevolutionʼ, hokūmat ʻgovernmentʼ, khāje ʻsir, masterʼ, dastūr ʻdecree, commandʼ, dowlat ʻstateʼ, rejim ʻregimeʼ, and siyāsat ʻpoliticsʼ, to find the effect of semantic polygenesis. Five words, āzād, enghelāb, khāje, dastūr, and siyāsat, have peripheral meanings whose reoccurrence can be instances of semantic polygenesis. In total, there have been nine meanings of these five words. Each of the first four words had two meanings, and the last one represented one meaning. These meanings have disappeared within a period, however, they have emerged after a considerable time (probably) independent of their first occurrence.

As a result of this research, we found out that nine meanings of five words could be considered as semantic polygenesis instances. The existence of semantic polygenesis means that in a prototypical semantic structure, one meaning can occur in two different periods in the borders of the category of the senses of a word independently. This phenomenon indicates the prototypical characteristic of lexical meaning and, in a micro level, designates fuzzy and instable borders of categories and the existence of peripheral and accidental meanings. Moreover, another aspect of semantic polygenesis reveals the social properties of meaning, as meaning does not exist in isolation or as a priori endowment in the minds of all speakers. The meaning is produced by speakers, or even a single speaker, and then it would be transferred to other speakers.