LINGUIST List 19.56
Tue Jan 08 2008
Diss: Ling Theories/Morphology/Psycholing: Parsafar: 'Spatial Prepo...'
Editor for this issue: Luiza Newlin Lukowicz
<luizalinguistlist.org>
1. Parviz
Parsafar,
Spatial Prepositions in Modern Persian
Message 1: Spatial Prepositions in Modern Persian
Date: 03-Jan-2008
From: Parviz Parsafar <porsafargmail.com>
Subject: Spatial Prepositions in Modern Persian
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Institution: Yale University
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 1996
Author: Parviz Parsafar
Dissertation Title: Spatial Prepositions in Modern Persian
Linguistic Field(s):
Linguistic Theories
Morphology
Psycholinguistics
Subject Language(s): Farsi, Western (pes)
Farsi, Eastern (prs)
Dissertation Director:
Laurence R. Horn
Stanley Insler
Gernot L. Windfuhr
Dissertation Abstract:
The main focus of this thesis on spatial prepositions in contemporarystandard colloquial Persian, but it may just as well be regarded as a studyof the prepositional system since its scope extends well beyond the spatialdomain. The analysis obtains observational and descriptive adequacy inscrupulously reflecting the linguistic knowledge of the Farsi speakers andprovides a psychological view of the way the language user's mind producesand processes prepositions and prepositional phrases.
Generative grammar, particularly its Extended Standard Theory, provides themajor theoretical framework upon which the present work is based. However,it also draws heavily on the findings of logical, geometric, cognitive,functional, and Space Grammar approaches to prepositions.
The thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter one deals with the syntax,morphology, and semantics of the ubiquitous ezafe. It shows that ezafe,whose host is always a [+N] constituent, is phonologically an encliticmorpheme, syntactically an associative marker, and semantically void of anyfeatures.
Chapter two explores the identity of prepositions. It questions theempirical and functional validity of the existing definitions and showsthem to be inadequate and/or suffering from circularity. The bulk of suchvagueness lies in the functional similarities between prepositions andconjunctions.
The contrasts between verbs and prepositions and between verbs andconjunctions demonstrates a closer functional affinity between the formerthan the latter two. A salient property is that a preposition is a categorythat may take an object, but is not a verb. Finally a criteria definitionfor prepositions is presented.
Chapter three is an extensive analysis of the semantics of prepositions.After discussing the issues of polysemy, homonymy, ambiguity, andnon-specificity, it offers a survey of prepositions and justifies dividingthem into two distinct groups: true prepositions (TPs) andpseudo-prepositions (SPs). The chapter examines the semantics of fivesimple spatial TPs and thirty six simple spatial SPs.
This study of prepositional semantics has three significantcharacteristics: it makes a distinction between the uses and senses of eachpolysemous preposition. It precludes the proliferation of senses bycollapsing those which express a unified concept into more abstractsuperschemas. And it demonstrates that logical and geometric analysescannot accurately describe spatial expressions unless they are accompaniedby functional descriptions stemming from the speakers' knowledge of the world.
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