Variation in Persian Head Idioms

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ph.D student of General Linguistics, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

2 Professor of General Linguistics, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

Abstract

This study aims to investigate variation in Persian Head Idioms at syntactic, semantic, lexical and morpho-syntactic levels. The corpus contains body part idioms including "Head" in Najafi (1378/ 1999). Moon (1998) and Langlotz (2006) are considered as the theoretical frameworks by the authors. The findings show that Persian Head Idioms display variation at the levels aforementioned through the processes of addition, syntactic permutation, substitution and deletion. The syntactic variation takes place through postposing, scrambling, using gerunds and infinitives, passivization, multiple-functioning, adding prepositional phrases, and deleting verbs. The semantic variation happens through polysemy and ambiguation. Moreover, the lexical variation occurs through adding nouns, adjectives and adverbs, substituting, and deleting verbs. Finally, the morpho-syntactic variation is displayed through the addition of indefinite "–ya" and pluralization. The two processes of addition and syntactic permutation explain the tendency towards the quantity and the complexity iconicity while polysemy, ambiguation, multi-functional variation and deletion explain the tendency to economy in idioms.
 
1. Introduction
Idioms have been extensively associated with non-compositionality in formal linguistic approaches. The intuition behind non-compositionality is that the meaning of the idiomatic expressions cannot be inferred from the literal meanings of the constituent parts of idioms. Such a view fails to consider the cognitive mechanisms which explain the form-meaning relations in idioms. Within the tradition of cognitive linguistics, however, idioms are considered to be conventionalized, that is to say the meaning of idioms cannot be wholly predicted on the basis of the knowledge of the literal meanings of their constituents. In cognitive linguistics, idioms are regarded as conceptual entities, however. This view does not fail to recognize metaphor, metonymy and the conventional knowledge as the conceptual motivations for the form-meaning relations in most idioms. In this paper, we define idioms as any familiar or unfamiliar lexico-syntactic order which is conventional in terms of form-meaning relations. This study aims at studying variation in Persian head-including idioms. More specifically, we attempt to answer the following questions: What variations are there in Persian body-part idioms? Which processes are responsible for such variations? And, finally, in what way or ways one can explain variation in terms of iconicity and language economy?
Moon (1998) and Langlotz (2006) are considered as the theoretical frameworks by the authors. Moon (1998) discusses verbs, nouns, adjectives, specificity, amplification and truncation as types of lexical variation and causative structures as a category of systematic variation. Langlotz (2009, 179-182), also, categorizes variation in terms of formal and semantic variants. Formal variation includes morpho-syntactic, syntactic and lexical variations while semantic variations comprise polysemy, ambiguation and meaning adaptation. The explanation of the iconicity of quantity and the iconicity of complexity are based on Haspelmath (2008). The notion of iconicity is that the structure of language reflects the structure of experience in some ways. On the basis of the iconicity of quantity, greater quantities in meaning are displayed by greater quantities of forms. Iconicity of complexity, also, implies that more complex meanings are expressed by more complex forms.
 
3. Methodology
The following study is a corpus-based analysis at two levels of description and explanation. The corpora are the idioms which include the word "sar" (head) in Najafi (1999). In our discussion of variation in idioms, we will focus on different texts in which head-including idioms appear in different forms or polysemous meanings. 
4. Results & Discussion
The first question of the study concerns the types of variation in Persian body-part idioms. To address the question, 248 idioms were studied. We found variation at different syntactic, semantic, lexical and morpho-syntactic levels in 121 idioms. In other words, around 50 percent of the idioms show variation at the levels above-mentioned. In 62 idioms we, also, found more than one type of variation. Therefore, the total number of variation amounts to 187. Syntactic, lexical, semantic and morpho-syntactic variations were found in 77, 62, 33 and 15 idioms, respectively.
The second question addresses the types of process involved in variation. The results indicated that variation is accomplished through the processes of addition (103 cases seen at syntactic, lexical, semantic and morpho-syntactic levels), syntactic permutation (63 cases seen at the syntactic level), substitution (30 cases seen at the lexical level), and deletion (9 cases seen at the syntactic and the lexical levels).
Finally, why do idioms show variation? Considering the issue in terms of iconicity and economy, we came to the conclusion that syntactic, lexical, semantic and morpho-syntactic addition to the forms or to the meanings of the idioms reflect the iconicity of quantity and the iconicity of complexity. Meanwhile, polysemy, ambiguation, function changes and deletion express the principle of language economy.            
 
5. Conclusions & Suggestions
Persian body-part idioms display variation at different syntactic, semantic, lexical and morpho-syntactic levels through the processes of addition, syntactic permutation, substitution and deletion. Syntactic variation is accomplished through postposing, scrambling, using gerunds and infinitives, passivization, function changes, adding prepositional phrases and deleting verbs. Semantic variation happens through polysemy and ambiguation. Moreover, lexical variation occurs through adding nouns, adjectives and adverbs to the idioms and the substitution and the deletion of verbs. Finally, morpho-syntactic variation is achieved through the addition of indefinite "–i" and pluralization. The two processes of addition and syntactic permutation explain the tendency towards the iconicity of quantity and the iconicity of complexity while polysemy, ambiguation, function changes and deletion explain the tendency towards the language economy in idioms.
 

Keywords

References

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Persian Language and Iranian Dialects
Volume 4, Issue 2 - Serial Number 8
Serial 8
September 2020
Pages 7-35

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