Language Studies

Abstract At the present study, the morpho-phonological processes of different cases of nouns in Azeri Turkish, Zanjani Dialect were studied based on Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolenski, 1993). This was a descriptive-analytical study and was based on interviews with native speakers of Zanjan, Iran. Azeri Turkish is an agglutinative language in which prepositions (better to say post-positions) are added to the noun roots as suffixes. Nouns have six different cases, namely, absolutive, accusative, dative, ablative, locative, genitive. Morpho-phonological processes are those phonological processes that occur in the boundaries between morphemes (between noun roots and suffixes). In this study, constraints were identified and ranked. Those constraints which were of two kinds ( markedness and faithfulness constraints) compete against one another so as to select the optimal candidate. Results showed that ONSET and HARMONY constraints were considered as high-ranked and fatal constraints, whereas DEP-IO and MAX-IO were regarded as low-ranked constraints in Azeri Turkish Language. These two constraints (DEP and MAX) are employed in order to prohibit HIAITUS in Azeri Turkish which is strictly forbidden. In addition, IDENT-IO constraint was considered as a low-ranked constraint, the violation of which didn’t render the candidate non-optimal.

Abstract The 9th book of Dēnkard includes three Gāhānīg Nasks which are SūdgarNask, Waršt-MānsarNask and BaγNask.In this research, the 8th chapter of Waršt-MānsarNask, which is called tā.vǝ̄.urvātā, is examined, and its contents are compared with the 31st Hāt of the Yasna, which is the tā.vǝ̄.urvātā from the Gathas.Then a comparison is made between this chapter and the 31st Hāt of the Yasna, to determine whether their contents match or differ from each other.According to the findings of this research, the name of the 8th chapter of the Waršt-MānsarNask has been taken from the 31st Hāt of the Yasna,verse 1,and its contents have been also taken from 19 verses out of 22 verses of this Hāt, and the compilers of Dēnkard did not mention the interpretations of verses 7,8, and 9 of the 31st Hāt of the Yasna in this chapter.Also, the contents of this chapter are not exactly similar to the Zand of this Hāt of the Yasna;but the contents of this chapter have been written in summary and in simple language to be used in the daily life of Zoroastrians and it has the aspect of advice and counsel for living according to the words of the Gathas of Zoroaster.

Abstract Abstract
Sogdian was originally the language used in the Zarafshan Valley, but gradually, it became the administrative and commercial language of vast areas in Central Asia, and many peoples, from the western borders of China to the eastern borders of Iran, used it as a lingua franca. There are many religious and non-religious Sogdian texts, which date back from the second to the tenth centuries AD. A lot of these texts were found in the Turfan oasis and Don Huang in East Turkestan, which belong to the Christians, Buddhists and Manicheans. Sogdian Christian texts are mainly translations of the Syriac writings, most of which no longer exist. These include exegesis, sermons, passages from the Bible, the biography and deeds of saints and Christian martyrs, and the ideas of the church fathers. One of them is a manuscript containing a sermon on Christian monasticism. In this study, after providing a transliteration, transcription, and Persian translation of this Christian Sogdian text, its structure and content is analyzed. Translation and study of the teachings contained in this text, in order to acquiring detailed knowledge of the Sogdian language and Christian monasticism, are among the reasons that make this research necessary.

Abstract This research examines the meanings of compound verbs with the light verb "keshidan" (pulling) in Persian. The study uses two semantic theories: Frame Semantics (Fillmore, 1982) and Construction Morphology (Booij, 2010a & b; 2018). The data consists of 252 compound verbs with "keshidan" sourced from Zanso dictionary (Keshani, 1994), Sokhan dictionary (2002), the syntactic valency lexicon for Persian verbs (Rasouli et al., 2011), and the Corpus of Light Verb Constructions in Persian (Eshaghi & Karimi-Doostan, 2022). The data was categorized based on meanings from Anvari's Great Dictionary and the authors' linguistic intuition. The study found that the formation patterns of compound verbs using constructional schemas can be explained, and the semantic roles and syntactic capacities of sentences with these verbs can be described using semantic frames. A key finding is that "keshidan" represents an extension that can be spatial, temporal, or spatiotemporal. The research also shows that speakers associate constructional schemas and semantic frames with different perspectives on phenomena. The study outlines a network of constructional schemas and sub-schemas that illustrate polysemic constructions in compound verbs with "keshidan," contributing to a deeper understanding of compound verb structures and meanings in Persian.