The Conceptualization of ‘Time’ in Persian Grammatical Constructions from a Cognitive Grammar Perspective

The present study examined the mental representation and conceptualization of time in Persian through the framework of Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar (1987). The author attempted to demonstrate that ‘time’ in language is a cognitive, experienced, and culturally mediated phenomenon that takes shape within grammatical and discursive constructions. The purpose was to explain how temporal structures are organized and conceptually imaged in the minds of Persian speakers, and to identify the cognitive operations involved—such as scanning, profiling, reference-point, and viewpoint. The methodological nature of this qualitative study was descriptive–analytical, drawing on naturally occurring data from spoken and written Persian. The results showed that Persian conceptualizes time through a wide range of metaphorical and cognitive patterns, including time as flow, wind, healer, field of action, plannable domain, and perceptual magnitude. These representations demonstrated that temporal experience is not fixed but dynamic and multi-scalar, and that language highlights this multiplicity through image-schemas, agentive personification, dynamic scanning, and various profiling strategies. The findings indicated that Cognitive Grammar provides a powerful explanatory framework for understanding the cultural, affective, and perceptual mechanisms involved in temporal representation in Persian, offering new insights for the study of temporal constructions in Iranian languages.
 
Extended Abstract

Introduction

Time is one of the most fundamental semantic and experiential categories in natural languages; however, its linguistic representation cannot be fully explained through purely formal or morphosyntactic descriptions. In traditional analyses of Persian grammar, temporal meaning has mainly been examined through verbal tense categories such as past, present, and future. While this approach accounts for basic grammatical distinctions, it fails to explain how speakers cognitively experience, conceptualize, and dynamically organize temporal relations in discourse.
     To address this limitation, the present study conceptualizes time not as a fixed grammatical category but as a cognitively constructed, experientially grounded, and culturally mediated phenomenon. From a cognitive linguistic perspective, temporal meaning emerges through the interaction of grammatical constructions, conceptual operations, and embodied experience. Language, therefore, plays an active role in shaping temporal cognition rather than merely encoding objective temporal relations.
     Persian, with its rich metaphorical and aspectual resources, provides an appropriate context for examining these processes. Accordingly, this study moves beyond surface-level tense descriptions and investigates the cognitive mechanisms underlying temporal construal in Persian grammatical constructions. The main objective is to explain how time is conceptually structured in the minds of Persian speakers by analyzing naturally occurring linguistic data within the framework of Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar. In particular, the study examines how cognitive operations such as profiling, scanning, reference-point construction, and viewpoint contribute to dynamic representations of time in Persian discourse.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical foundation of this study is Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar (1987, 1991, 2008), which treats grammar as an integral component of human cognition rather than an autonomous formal system. Within this framework, grammatical structures are symbolic units that pair linguistic form with conceptual content, and temporal meaning cannot be reduced to tense morphology alone but arises from broader processes of conceptualization.
     One key notion employed in the analysis is profiling, which involves foregrounding a particular substructure within a broader conceptual domain. In Persian temporal constructions, speakers frequently profile specific phases, durations, or transitions of events, shaping how time is cognitively construed. Another central concept is scanning, referring to the mental traversal of a temporal sequence. Persian constructions may involve sequential scanning, highlighting the unfolding of events, or summary scanning, which compresses temporal extension into a holistic representation.
     The framework also incorporates the notions of reference point and viewpoint, which play a crucial role in temporal interpretation. Reference points anchor temporal relations to salient moments or experiences, while viewpoint determines the perspectival position from which time is construed. These mechanisms allow speakers to manipulate temporal meaning flexibly, presenting time as dynamic, subjective, and context-dependent.
     In addition, the study draws on cognitive semantic insights concerning conceptual metaphor, acknowledging that abstract domains such as time are often understood through more concrete experiential domains. Although the analysis remains grounded in Cognitive Grammar, it recognizes that metaphorical construals—such as time conceptualized as motion, substance, or agent—are central to Persian temporal expressions.

Research Methodology

This study adopts a qualitative, descriptive–analytical methodology consistent with cognitive linguistic research. Rather than relying on experimental elicitation or quantitative modeling, the analysis is based on naturally occurring linguistic data drawn from both spoken and written Persian, allowing for the examination of authentic patterns of temporal conceptualization in real communicative contexts.
     The data consist of selected grammatical constructions and discursive environments in which temporal meaning is salient. These constructions are analyzed in terms of their conceptual structure, with particular attention to how grammatical choices reflect underlying cognitive operations. The study does not aim to provide an exhaustive inventory of temporal expressions in Persian but focuses on representative patterns that reveal broader conceptual tendencies.
     Analytically, the research involves close qualitative examination of linguistic examples, focusing on how temporal meaning is shaped through grammatical form, metaphorical construal, and perspectival organization. Core concepts from Cognitive Grammar—such as profiling, scanning, reference point, and viewpoint—are systematically applied to interpret the data.

Discussion and Results

The analysis shows that time in Persian is conceptualized through a diverse set of cognitive and metaphorical patterns, indicating that temporal experience is neither uniform nor static. One prominent pattern involves conceptualizing time as flow or movement, where temporal progression is construed as something that passes, arrives, or departs. In such cases, grammatical constructions highlight dynamic scanning and sequential unfolding, aligning temporal experience with embodied perceptions of motion.
     Another recurrent pattern conceptualizes time as a natural force or agent, such as wind or a healer. These constructions attribute agency to time, enabling it to affect human experience by altering, erasing, or restoring states of affairs. This agentive construal reflects an experiential understanding of time as an active influence rather than a neutral background for events.
     The data also reveal instances in which time is construed as a field of action or a plannable domain, emphasizing human interaction with temporal structure. In these cases, time is presented as something that can be managed, allocated, or organized, foregrounding intentionality and control. Additionally, time is sometimes represented as a perceptual magnitude, capable of being expanded, compressed, wasted, or saved, relying on image schemas related to quantity and space.
     Across these patterns, profiling strategies and viewpoint selection play a key role in determining which aspects of temporal experience are foregrounded. Overall, the findings demonstrate that Persian employs a rich set of cognitive mechanisms to represent time through the interaction of linguistic form, cognitive operations, and lived experience.

Conclusion and Suggestions

The study concludes that time in Persian is best understood as a cognitively and culturally mediated construct rather than a purely grammatical category. Applying the framework of Cognitive Grammar reveals that Persian temporal constructions encode complex conceptual operations that shape how speakers experience and interpret time. The diversity of temporal representations identified in the data confirms that temporal experience is dynamic and deeply embedded in human cognition.
     The findings confirm the explanatory power of Cognitive Grammar in analyzing temporal meaning, particularly in capturing the interaction between grammatical structure and conceptualization. This approach goes beyond traditional tense-based analyses and contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of temporal representation in Persian and other Iranian languages.
     For future research, the study suggests extending the analysis to comparative investigations of Iranian languages and dialects, integrating corpus-based or experimental approaches, and expanding the analysis to discourse-level and pragmatic dimensions to further explore how temporal conceptualization interacts with narrative structure, evaluation, and stance.
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