Time line and time sequences in Persian

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

university of tehran

Abstract

This paper, based on researches in other languages such as English, Mandarin and Korean, is concerned with how time is lexicalized in Persian. Determining the orientation of time-line and perspectives adopted by observer to conceptualizing events and units of time is the goal of this paper. The study has been done in light of Radden (2011) ideas in the framework of Cognitive Linguistics. The data has been mainly chosen from contemporary Modern Persian and some from Dehkhoda dictionary. Results demonstrate that the orientation of time-line is conceived of as frontal, the future is seen as INFRONT of the observer and the past as BEHIND the observer. Sequences of events are conceptualized using both ego-aligned and ego-opposed perspectives, but sequences of units are lexicalized using ego-opposed perspective, so they are bidirectional sequences.

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