Conceptualization of Motion in Persian Compound Verbs: A Cognitive Approach

Abstract

Motion is considered as a fundamental concept in human cognitive system that could be represented in all languages differently. The present paper is going to explain that how lexicalization happens in motion compound verbs. This research is analytical descriptive, and is going to study the lexical meaning of the none-verbal elements and main verb elements such as (do, give, become, hit, eat, go, take, come, pull) according to Talmy’s theory(1985) ,and to find the amount of lexicalization of these verbs in Persian language which is divided into verb-framed and satellite-framed combined verbs. Another aim is to show the semantic meaning between its constructions. Thus, 100 combined verbs collected as non-head framed construction which consisted of mentioned verbs from Fargang-e-Sokhan (Anvari,1381). The results indicate that lexicalization happens both in root and satellite. It also shows that the meaning components of each head framed construction causes that special satellite accompanied with the mentioned verbs, thus the more fertility in satellite, the more lexicalization. Other results show that Persian compound verbs are more satellite-framed than verb-framed. Another result shows that according to Slobin’s theory (1960), speakers of verb-based languages as persian languags languages tend to remove the component of path in sentences.

Keywords

• cognitive linguistics
• compound verbs
• motion verbs
• lexicalization
• lexicalization compound verb