Meaning Interpretation of Persian Noun-Noun Compounds: A Conceptual Blending Approach

Background and Aim: Linguistics units have two facades of form and meaning, the meaning is either literal or figurative. In linguistic units with figurative meaning, it is more difficult to relate meaning to the form, since a word or concept is interpreted from a different word or concept. In these cases, the relationship between form and its figurative meaning could be studied from various perspectives including cognitive linguistics in which mind and mental processes play crucial roles. "Conceptual blending theory" in cognitive linguistics is argued to provide a useful tool for explaining mental processes of meaning interpretation; nevertheless, it has not been adequately studied the Persian language. Methods Both creating and understanding compound words seem processes that conceptual bending is involved. The figurative meaning of a compound word is beyond simply the juxtaposition of its parts. Each word in compounds forms an input space (conceptual blending network is based on mental spaces). The concepts in input spaces are selectively projected into a blended space. Results This study analyses Persian N+N compounds with figurative meaning from the perspective of conceptual blending and it is argued that this theory could explain interpreting figurative meaning in these data. Conclusion: The present study confirms that in Persian N+N compounds, their figurative meaning could better be interpreted by using a conceptual blending network, because what differentiates conceptual blending from other ways of meaning understanding is arising new semantic aspects (emergent structure) in blended space which leads to a more comprehensive and precise interpretation.

کلیدواژه ها:

Compound Nouns ، Figurative Meaning ، Cognitive Linguistics ، Conceptual Blending