Humorous Grammatical Innovations in Contemporary Persian Press

This paper attempts to examine humorous grammatical innovations in contemporary Persian press in recent years within the framework of Bybee’s language change theory (2015) in accordance with the usage-based approach to grammer. In this regard, by collecting data from satirical press, this research endeavored to understand how and by which process these innovations have been produced, in which constructions they have been used and what characteristics they have. To this end, the humorous grammatical innovations have been classified in three categories consisting of derivatives constructions, fabricated verbs and constructions with “al-“. In this research, we demonstrate that a high number of innovations have been created on the basis of analogical processes. Furthermore the findings suggest that seemingly most of the innovations have the potentiality to enter the formal language but evidently  the language enclines to absorb the innovations which have been coined by virtue of the language exigency or the deficits of applicable grammatical constructions.
 
1. Introduction
When linguistic innovations take place in one language, they may seem humorous to many speakers at first because they are unprecedented. Nevertheless, over a short period of time, some of these humorous innovations enter the standard language due to the linguistic and communication needs, so that it may seem difficult to imagine that at one time these innovations were merely used to create humor and jokes. This study, by examining a number of humorous grammatical innovations used in the press, tries to find out why and through what mechanisms these innovations have been made in contemporary Persian.It also attempts to explore the characteristics of these innovations.
 
2. Theoretical framework
Bybee’s work greatly inspired the creation of usage-based models of language. Bybee’s model makes predictions about and explains synchronic, diachronic and typological patterns within languages, such as: which variants will occur in which contexts? what forms they will take, and what would be their diachronic consequences. Bybee proves that even irreducibly irregular word-forms are seen to be non-arbitrary when the context it occurs in is taken into consideration in the very representation of morphology. Simultaneously, she shows that even seemingly regular allomorphy is context-sensitive. Splits also aligns with the idea that linguistic forms cannot be studied as isolated entities, but rather in relation to the strength of their attachment to other entities.
 
3. Methodology
This research is a data based study attempting to select, classify and analyze data from various sources in the field of grammatical innovations of stire in Persian language. The main newspaper used in this research is the humorous pages of "Qanoon" newspaper. In addition, Gol Agha is another source that has been used to collect data. In addition to these two publications, other publications such as "Humor and Cartoon", "Isfahan Nimroz" and "Chelchelragh" have also been used to collect data. After collecting the data, they were first classified into three sections, including innovations related to derivative constructions, innovations related to fabricated verbs, and innovations related to Al- construction. In the next step, an attempt has been made to address the linguistic and non-linguistic needs based on the presented analysis of each data set, which have played a role in the creation and emergence of each of these innovations, and finally the reasons for consolidation and the lack of consolidation of these grammatical innovations in language is examined.
 
4. Results and discussion
In this research, we indicated that a high number of innovations have been created in the basis of analogy. Furthermore, the findings suggest that seemingly most of the innovations have the potentiality to enter the formal language but evidently the language enclines to absorb the innovations which have been coined by virtue of the language exigency or the deficits of applicable grammatical constructions. In fact, in this article, it was shown that humorous grammatical constructions in many cases indicate the need of the Persian language for the mentioned constructions. This brings to mind the common saying that any joke may express a serious fact.
 
5. Conclusions & Suggestions
In this study, it was found that innovations in derivative constructions have been created in most cases in comparison with existing constructions in Persian language, which in some cases has been accompanied by borrowing from Arabic and European loanwords. But in the meantime, innovations invented solely to create humor do not seem to enter the official language, even if they are of high-frequency. In addition, in the case of fabricated verbs, it was found that in some cases these verbs were created due to the principle of linguistic economics. In this case, speakers tend to use the simple form of the verb instead of its compound form. But in most cases, fabricated verbs are created due to the lack of the present tense to express some concepts or processes. Regarding the humorous innovations in Al- constructions, it was also revealed that apparently due to the long-term contact of Persian speakers with the Arabic language, some constructions of the Arabic language have entered the Persian language. But in the meantime, the use of Persian words in grammatical constructions of the Arabic language based on the theory of heterogeneity due to being humorous has been widely observed as a tool to create humor by satirists.
 
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