Causality in the Persian Language (from Bondarko’s St.Petersborgian School of Applied Grammar)

Abstract

Causality, supposedly available in any languages in the world, has been studied not only in linguistics but also in psychology, logic and philosophy. In other words, those sciences which target language and its various linguistic functions in different situations constantly have paid due attention to the conception of causality. The present descriptive-analytical study used Bondarkov’s theory of applied grammar to investigate causality in the Persian language. To this end, causality conception was addressed in the dependent complex sentences. More specifically, the presence of causality in causal /conditional/targeting and concessional complex sentences was probed. To describe causality in these complex sentences, the author utilized Bondarkov’s functional- semantic fields. Functional grammar and functional linguistics are special areas in modern language science, the special subject of study of which has become the functions and functioning of linguistic units and the linguistic system in speech. The functional-semantic field is a two-sided (content-formal) unity formed by the grammatical (morphological and syntactic) means of a given language together with lexical, lexical-grammatical and word-formation elements related to the same semantic zone interacting with them. In functional- semantic fields, the core and sub-components are distinguished. At the core are linguistic phenomena such as grammatical categories and all its grammatical expressions. In other words, the meaning of a category is clearly seen in the structure of the nucleus. In subcomponents, not all grammatical signs are fully displayed. Therefore, the meaning of the category is many times weaker in them. In addition to the category meaning, the sub-components also have the meanings of other grammatical categories.

Keywords

• causality
• applied grammar
• complex sentences