The Stylistic Investigation of Prepositions and Their Meanings in Khaqani’s Qasidas

The aim of the present study is the stylistic investigation of prepositions in Khaqani’s qasidas. Prepositions with their vast semantic range are among the influencing language constructs that give identity to other language elements including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. To deal with different meanings of prepositions in different constructs that is a kind of stylistic deconstruction and a stylistic feature is among the aims of the present study. To do so, the Khaqani’s qasidas were studied and the items that were considered important and compatible in terms of usage and relevance to the topic under study were extracted and investigated according to layer stylistics. The results of the research indicate that Khaqani placed equal importance on prepositions compared to other language elements and took into account their vast semantic range. He also promoted their use from grammar level to rhetoric and transformed them from almost neutral elements to key and non-substitutable elements. Khaqani has also the special and unique liberty to use prepositions. Finally, there are rare usages of prepositions in Khaqani’s Divan that are utilized in special dialects of Iran and are not found in the Standard language anymore.