A Study of Lexical Motivation in Compound Words of The Persian Language at Two Milestones with a Two Hundred Year Interval Period (the present time and 200 years ago)

Document Type : Research

Authors

1 Ferdosi University

2 PhD student in Linguistics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

Abstract

Motivation means the existence of a code in from to get meaning. It directly leads us from the form to the meaning. It means that the relation of form and meaning is not always conventional and sometimes, this relation may be an iconic one. One type of motivation is motivation in compound words. A clear motivated compound word is a word that is possible to get the meaning of the whole word through meaning of its components. Some scholars believe that primary words of the human being were motivated, and over the period of time, the lexical motivation has been reduced due to phonetic changes and other variation. This study has a deeper and more detailed look at the phenomena. In order to investigate this hypothesis, 2800 content words from four texts with an outline of a journey from the present time have been extracted and motivation in compound words has been considered. Next, the results of these texts have been compared with the results of 2800 words of texts from 200 years ago in order to answer this question that since 200 years ago, Persian language words have been more transparent or vice versa. Comparison of the results of two time courses showed a meaningful increase in the number of semi motivated compound words in the present time in comparison with 200 years ago. But there is no significant increase in the number of motivated, non-motivated compound words and totally compound words. Therefore, it may be claimed that in the last 200 years, semi motivated compound words have become more motivated and more transparent

Keywords

ZABANPAZHUHI (Journal of Language Research)
Volume 3, Issue 5
October 2011
Pages 155-175

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