Volume 15, Issue 4 (2024)
LRR 2024, 15(4): 361-407 |
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Sadeghyar F, Rezaei R, Hooshmand M. Semantic Analysis and Classification of Conceptual Metaphors in Persian Compound Verbs: A Study in the Framework of Cognitive Linguistics. LRR 2024; 15 (4) :361-407
URL: http://lrr.modares.ac.ir/article-14-62224-en.html
URL: http://lrr.modares.ac.ir/article-14-62224-en.html
1- MA in General Linguistics, Department of English Language and Literature, Yasouj University, Iran 2 Corresponding Author: Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Department of English Language and Literature, Yasouj University, Iran
2- Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Department of English Language and Literature, Yasouj University, Iran ,Reza.rezaei1@yu.ac.ir
3- Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Department of English Language and Literature, Yasouj University, Iran
2- Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Department of English Language and Literature, Yasouj University, Iran ,
3- Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Department of English Language and Literature, Yasouj University, Iran
Abstract: (1569 Views)
The present study attempts to analyze and classify different types of conceptual metaphors and their method of conceptualization among Persian compound verbs based on cognitive semantics approach in metaphor analysis. The research method is descriptive-analytical and corpus-driven. Data collection was done through Sokhan's 8-volume dictionary as well as Persian language database. The research data consists of more than 1000 Persian compound verbs in the form of 20 common Persian language combinations, for each of which 50 current Persian language combinations were examined and analyzed. In fact, the objective of the authors is to analyze the types of conceptual metaphors and their frequency as well as to show their conceptualization among Persian compound verbs .The main objective of the current research is to answer the following questions: 1. How is metaphorical conceptualization formed in Persian compound verbs? 2. Which of the common conceptual metaphors has a higher frequency of occurrence? The results showed that in this corpus there are five domains of source, object, container, human being and material, which all belong to ontological metaphors are with a big difference (especially in comparison with the first two domains) the most frequent source domains in this corpus of Persian.
1. Introduction
Fundamental studies and research in the field of cognitive linguistics began in the 1970s, and from the 1980s, it became increasingly important, and today it has become one of the leading schools of linguistics, more important in the West, particularly in Europe. Cognitive linguistics is rooted in the emerging linguistic and cognitive sciences of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in the examination of categorization in the human mind and Gestalt psychology, and is an approach to the study of language based on our experiences of the world, our way of seeing things, understanding and our way of conceptualizing. Cognitive linguists do not view language as a system distinct from other mental faculties. In other words, they do not accept the realm of the spirit. In cognitive linguistics, it is assumed that language is a mental faculty outside the domain and dependent on other mental faculties. Cognitive linguists attempt to describe the system and role of language. They examine the relationship between human language, its mind, and its social and physical experiences. Considering the fecundity of the composition process in the Persian language and the subsequent formation of compound verbs, which have a high frequency of occurrence in the Persian language, and since there has been no research on this approach around these verbs, it is necessary to research this subject.
In this regard, the objectives of future research are: a) metaphorical ways of conceptualizing them based on concepts such as concept mapping, field of origin and destination; b) examine, analyze, and categorize all kinds of conceptual metaphors among Persian compound verbs.
The current research is descriptive-analytical. The collection of the required data is done via the 8-volume Sokhon dictionary and the Persian language database. The research body includes 1000 Persian compound verbs, which are analyzed in the form of 20 common combinations of the Persian language and 50 current combinations for each, and various metaphors are extracted and represented based on the stages of the theoretical framework.
In the present study, the authors attempted to answer these questions: 1. How is metaphorical conceptualization formed in Persian compound verbs? 2. Which of the common conceptual metaphors has the highest frequency of occurrence? The results showed that in this corpus, the five original domains of object, container, human, living being, and matter, which all belong to ontological metaphors, are by far ( especially the first two domains) the most frequent original domains in this Persian language corpus.
2. Review of Literature
Until now, a lot of research has been carried out on compound verbs from the point of view of their syntactic and semantic construction in Persian language. The traces of this research can be followed both within the framework of traditional grammar and in the approaches proposed in modern linguistics in terms of semantics and grammar. On the other hand, the question of conceptual metaphors in the context of semantics, raised for the first time by Likoff and Johnson (1980), has also been the subject of numerous research. Therefore, in this section, the authors have reviewed work in the two areas of compound verbs and conceptual metaphors that have the most affinity with the present research. A review of other research is beyond the scope of this discussion and is fundamentally irrelevant to the topic under discussion. On the other hand, the authors have reviewed these studies in a logical and timely manner and in a categorized and separated manner to show the differences and commonalities of each of them with the current research to reveal the innovative aspects of the research.
2.1. Compound Verbs from the Point of View of Traditional and Modern Grammar
By dividing verbs into two categories, simple and non-simple, compound verbs should be considered non-simple verbs made up of different components. The constituent elements of the compound verb together play the role of a verb and are stored together as a lexical unit in the vocabulary of speakers of the language. Compound verbs constitute the most frequent grammatical elements in the Persian language and have a controversial status in terms of syntactic and semantic characteristics.
Modern research on the compound verb has mainly focused on the two concepts of composition and conjunction as two main elements in the formation of this category of verbs.
2.2. Noun Conjugation
“It is a process that combines the [explicit] object with the verb, and the result of the combination, which is a word, plays the role of the proposition of the sentence. Incorporation as defined is a "syntactic" process, and although this process is generally thought to be common in Native American languages, a fair analysis of these cases reveals that most of these languages lack such a process” (Kroeber, 1909, pp. 541-544).
On the other hand, eminent linguists like Sapir consider the formation of compound verbs to be both lexical and syntactic. Therefore, according to Kroeber's (1909) assertion that the existence of the noun incorporation process is improbable, Sapir's article is in fact a "refutation of this assertion." According to Sapir, Kroeber's definition of the assimilation process considers this process on the one hand as a lexical construction and on the other hand as a syntactic construction. It is a process of lexical construction, because two independent structures (one a noun and the other a verb) “are linked together and form a lexical unit, and it is syntactic because the noun linked to a verb must be the (explicit) object of this verb” (Sapir, 1911, pp. 250-257).
2.3. A Brief Review of Studies on Conceptual Metaphors within the Framework of Cognitive Semantics
Since cognitive linguists have discussed the importance of metaphor in language, mind, and thought, “the main idea is that metaphors are based on our embodied experience and then provide a context for analyzing metaphors in a simultaneous framework” (Imre, 2010, pp.17-81). In the cognitive approach to meaning, metaphor is considered “one of the inseparable characteristics of the mind, which is realized through a concrete concept in order to better understand mental concepts” (Grady, 2007, p. 189). In conceptual metaphor theory, our thinking has a metaphorical structure, just like language. Conceptual metaphors are examined in the layers of the mind and not all of them find linguistic representation, but are present in culture, art, customs and symbols, because the conceptual system of the mind is metaphorical in a significant measure. Metaphor is the use of one concept to understand another concept or the application of an element from one realm of experience to another. Therefore, based on the proposed similarities, it transfers the meaning of one concept to another. However, metaphor is about words and not concepts. But the place of metaphor is in concepts, not in words.
3. Theoretical Framework
In cognitive semantics, conceptual metaphors are a process that connects two different ideas. These two thoughts are one in the conceptual field of the origin and the other in the conceptual field of the destination. The concepts of the source domain are more objective than the concepts of the destination domain and are used to conceptualize the destination domain. Therefore, conceptual metaphor is a process of understanding and understanding, through which understanding as well as conceptualization of abstractions are possible. The systematic correspondences that connect the source domain and the destination domain are called mappings, and the formulas that are extracted based on these correspondences are called mappings (Afarashi, 2011, 2017; Grady, 2007; Talmy, 2000).
According to Lakoff and Johnson, the essence of metaphor is the understanding and experience of one type of thing in terms of another type. We act based on the way we imagine things (Likoff & Johnson, 1980).
Therefore, the nature of metaphor can be briefly described as follows:
1. Metaphor is the main mechanism through which we understand mental concepts and perform mental reasoning.
2. Many subjects, from the most obscure to the most obvious scientific theories, can only be understood through metaphor.
3. Although most of our conceptual system is metaphorical, a significant part of it is non-metaphorical. Metaphorical understanding is based on non-metaphorical understanding.
3.1 Proposed principles to study the conceptual metaphors
3-1-1conceptuality principle
3-1-2 Ubiquity Principle
3-1-3unidirectionality and necessity principle
3-1-4Invariance principle
3-1-5Experimental motivation principle
3-2 Different types of cognitive metaphors
3-2-1 : Structural
3-2-2: orientational
3-2-2: ontological
4. Metaphorical language is a surface reflection of conceptual metaphor.
5. Metaphor is primarily conceptual, not linguistic.
4. Research Methodology
The present research is descriptive-analytical and corpus-oriented, and the authors started their work without presupposition of the existence of various nomenclature and source domains in the class of existing metaphors as well as in the whole corpus, and in this way, they have not chosen a specific domain of metaphors. Collecting data (compound verbs) and analyzing their meaning through the 8-volume dictionary of words and sample sentences extracted from the Persian language database. In this research, more than 1000 current combinations and nearly 1500 sentences along with their analysis and metaphorical classification have been used. What is the basis of the analysis of compound verbs in the present research is the model presented by Dabir Moghaddam (2004) in the article "Compound Verbs in the Persian Language". Fifty combinations were examined for each collaboration and various metaphors were extracted and represented based on the stages of the theoretical framework.
5. Data Analysis
5.1. Ontological Conceptual Metaphors
Among the 1500 cases of ontological metaphors in the form of 580 noun mappings, the highest number was assigned to noun mapping (mental states/emotions are objects). The ten most frequent name mappings in the ontological class are as follows.
Table 1 and Figure 1 show that in the category of ontological metaphors, the targeted areas have the highest frequency of occurrence, or in simpler terms, what the abstract concepts expressed through conceptual metaphors in the Persian language are.
The corpus findings also showed that the most frequent domain of origin in the category of ontological metaphors used to explain abstract concepts are "objects" with 684 occurrences in the corpus, and the origin domains of "container" with 350 occurrences, "man" with 127 occurrences, "Animals" with 101 occurrences, "Substance" with 79 occurrences and "Movement" with 74 occurrences are in the next ranks respectively.
5.2. Structural Conceptual Metaphors
We call structural metaphor in which one concept is expressed in the form of another concept; such as: “time is gold”, “work is eternal capital”, and “the world is a caravan”.
Among the 450 structural conceptual metaphors found in the form of 155 noun mappings, the most frequent noun mapping was "goals/desires are destinations" with 20 occurrences, and the noun mappings were "life is a journey" and “to understand is to see” with 19 repetitions in the following rows.
Structural findings revealed that in the class of structural metaphors, the abstract concepts of "goals/desires", "life", "time" and concepts related to "mind [understanding, reasoning, thinking, paying attention and..." have the highest frequency of occurrence. Among the concepts of the destination domain, the objective concepts of "travel", "building", "seeing", "food" and "source" were among the most widely used concepts of the origin domain to express abstract concepts in the body under study.
As seen, the concept of "travel" is the most widely used objective concept to construct abstract concepts. In Table 3, to show the diversity of this metaphor, we present the examples found in the body that is constructed using the concept of "travel", along with the concepts of destination and route, which are part of the overall concept of travel.
After examining the sample body, among 125 cases of directional metaphors in the form of 9 types of noun mapping, the domain of origin "up and down" had the highest frequency of occurrence with a significant difference compared to other types. The frequency of other types of source domains in the category of directional metaphors can be seen in Table 4.
6. Conclusion and Discussion
In this research, an attempt has been made to answer the research questions, to determine how to represent the types of conceptual metaphors in a corpus of compound verbs of the Persian language, and to provide statistical analyses based on these data.
Since the creation of this theory, the question has been raised as to which areas of common origin are used to understand which of the most common abstract concepts? The answer to this question is undoubtedly possible through physical studies. Studies that are based on speculation, linguistic sham, or the investigation of the most common areas of origin and destination in the articles related to conceptual metaphors and related examples, will not give a correct and accurate answer to this question. Therefore, a sample corpus from the Persian language was referred to to answer these questions in the present research. In this structure, the first five domains of origin from the following domains, which are all from the category of ontological metaphors, were by a large margin (especially the first two domains) the most frequent domains of origin in this structure from the Persian language and among compound verbs and their conceptualization methods: 1. object; 2. container; 3. Man; 4. Animate; 5. Material; 6. Travel; 7. Motion; 8. Location; 9. food; 11. Physical experiences; 12. Animals; 13. Body parts; 14. Force; 15. Light and darkness; 16. Building.
Since the concepts related to mental states and emotions are one of the most widely used target domains in language, and on the other hand, the object origin domain is one of the most commonly used domains in the category of ontological metaphors, it is expected that the metaphorical mapping (mental states/emotions are objects), the most frequent mapping in the classification of conceptual metaphors, is among compound verbs in Persian language. Therefore, the metaphorical conceptualization of compound verbs is based on noun mappings, which is described earlier. Based on the corpus-oriented analysis and the obtained results, as stated, in the class of ontological conceptual metaphors, the most frequent metaphorical mapping, among 1500 ontological metaphors in the form of 580 noun mappings, the largest number was dedicated to mental states/emotions (151 cases).
Since the three domains object, container, and human are among the most used domains for understanding abstract concepts of language, the object domain is expected to have the highest frequency in the formation of metaphorical mappings. Based on the analysis of the body orbit and the results obtained, as shown, in the class of ontological conceptual metaphors, the most frequently used original domain to explain abstract concepts is that of "objects" with 684 occurrences, and the original domains are the "containers". with 350, "man" with 127, "living beings" with 101, "substance" with 79, and "movement" with 74 occurrences are found in the following ranks respectively.
Since the concept of time is one of the most commonly used abstract concepts to understand it in language, structural conceptual metaphors are used, especially conceptualization in the speech domain, so it is expected that the nominal mapping (the time something is in motion) is the most frequent metaphorical mapping in the class of structural metaphors.
Based on the body orbit analysis and the results obtained, as shown, in the category of structural conceptual metaphors, the most frequent noun mappings were found among 393 structural metaphors occurring in 20 cases and the metaphors “ “goals/desires are destinations” were found in the form of 178 name mappings. A concept (life is a journey) and (understanding is seeing) appeared in the next row with 19 repetitions.
Considering the wide application and diversity of conceptual metaphors in everyday language, which are constructed using the most frequent origin domain in the travel origin domain class "travel", we expect that the conceptual domain of conceptual metaphors is structural.
Based on the analysis of the body orbit and the results obtained, as shown, in the class of structural conceptual metaphors of the original field, "journey" is the most widely used objective concept for constructing abstract concepts.
It appears that within the category of directional conceptual metaphors, noun mapping (higher is lower) has the highest frequency of occurrence. Based on the analysis of the body orbit and the results obtained, as shown, in the class of directional conceptual metaphors, among 102 cases of directional metaphors in the form of 9 types of nominal mapping, nominal mapping (plus c 'is high, less is low) with a significant difference compared to other types. It had the highest frequency of occurrence.
Based on the corpus-oriented analysis and the results obtained, as shown in Table 4, in the category of directional conceptual metaphors, the most frequently used original domain to explain abstract concepts was “up and down” with 66 repetitions in the corpus.
It has been predicted that the original five domains 1. Man (ontological), 2. Container (ontological), 3. Object (ontological), 4. Journey (structural), 5. Force (structural) are among the domains most widely used of origin in the entire examination of the case. According to the corpus results, the following five original domains, all of which belong to the category of ontological metaphors, were by far (especially the first two domains) the most frequent original domains in this Persian language corpus:
1. Object (684 items, 41 percent); 2. Container (350 items, 20 percent); 3. Humans (127 cases, 7 percent); 4. Alive (101 cases, 6 percent); 5. Female (79 cases, 4 percent).
After them, the most commonly used original fields in this structure were:
6. Travel (71 cases, 5 percent); 7. Movement, 59 cases, 4%); 8. Location (50 cases, 3 percent); 9. building (43 cases, 3 percent); 10. Food (22 cases, 2 percent); 11. Physical experiments (18 cases, 1 percent); 12. Animals (17 cases, 1 percent); 13. Body parts (17 cases, 1 percent); 14. Force (15 cases, 1 percent); 15. Light and darkness (14 cases, 1 percent).
Overall, in this research, an effort has been made to provide a preliminary framework for the corpus-oriented study of conceptual metaphors in the Persian language. Undoubtedly, this research can be a starting point for a systematic and structured study of conceptual metaphors as well as how to represent and conceptualize them among the compound verbs of the Persian language
1. Introduction
Fundamental studies and research in the field of cognitive linguistics began in the 1970s, and from the 1980s, it became increasingly important, and today it has become one of the leading schools of linguistics, more important in the West, particularly in Europe. Cognitive linguistics is rooted in the emerging linguistic and cognitive sciences of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in the examination of categorization in the human mind and Gestalt psychology, and is an approach to the study of language based on our experiences of the world, our way of seeing things, understanding and our way of conceptualizing. Cognitive linguists do not view language as a system distinct from other mental faculties. In other words, they do not accept the realm of the spirit. In cognitive linguistics, it is assumed that language is a mental faculty outside the domain and dependent on other mental faculties. Cognitive linguists attempt to describe the system and role of language. They examine the relationship between human language, its mind, and its social and physical experiences. Considering the fecundity of the composition process in the Persian language and the subsequent formation of compound verbs, which have a high frequency of occurrence in the Persian language, and since there has been no research on this approach around these verbs, it is necessary to research this subject.
In this regard, the objectives of future research are: a) metaphorical ways of conceptualizing them based on concepts such as concept mapping, field of origin and destination; b) examine, analyze, and categorize all kinds of conceptual metaphors among Persian compound verbs.
The current research is descriptive-analytical. The collection of the required data is done via the 8-volume Sokhon dictionary and the Persian language database. The research body includes 1000 Persian compound verbs, which are analyzed in the form of 20 common combinations of the Persian language and 50 current combinations for each, and various metaphors are extracted and represented based on the stages of the theoretical framework.
In the present study, the authors attempted to answer these questions: 1. How is metaphorical conceptualization formed in Persian compound verbs? 2. Which of the common conceptual metaphors has the highest frequency of occurrence? The results showed that in this corpus, the five original domains of object, container, human, living being, and matter, which all belong to ontological metaphors, are by far ( especially the first two domains) the most frequent original domains in this Persian language corpus.
2. Review of Literature
Until now, a lot of research has been carried out on compound verbs from the point of view of their syntactic and semantic construction in Persian language. The traces of this research can be followed both within the framework of traditional grammar and in the approaches proposed in modern linguistics in terms of semantics and grammar. On the other hand, the question of conceptual metaphors in the context of semantics, raised for the first time by Likoff and Johnson (1980), has also been the subject of numerous research. Therefore, in this section, the authors have reviewed work in the two areas of compound verbs and conceptual metaphors that have the most affinity with the present research. A review of other research is beyond the scope of this discussion and is fundamentally irrelevant to the topic under discussion. On the other hand, the authors have reviewed these studies in a logical and timely manner and in a categorized and separated manner to show the differences and commonalities of each of them with the current research to reveal the innovative aspects of the research.
2.1. Compound Verbs from the Point of View of Traditional and Modern Grammar
By dividing verbs into two categories, simple and non-simple, compound verbs should be considered non-simple verbs made up of different components. The constituent elements of the compound verb together play the role of a verb and are stored together as a lexical unit in the vocabulary of speakers of the language. Compound verbs constitute the most frequent grammatical elements in the Persian language and have a controversial status in terms of syntactic and semantic characteristics.
Modern research on the compound verb has mainly focused on the two concepts of composition and conjunction as two main elements in the formation of this category of verbs.
2.2. Noun Conjugation
“It is a process that combines the [explicit] object with the verb, and the result of the combination, which is a word, plays the role of the proposition of the sentence. Incorporation as defined is a "syntactic" process, and although this process is generally thought to be common in Native American languages, a fair analysis of these cases reveals that most of these languages lack such a process” (Kroeber, 1909, pp. 541-544).
On the other hand, eminent linguists like Sapir consider the formation of compound verbs to be both lexical and syntactic. Therefore, according to Kroeber's (1909) assertion that the existence of the noun incorporation process is improbable, Sapir's article is in fact a "refutation of this assertion." According to Sapir, Kroeber's definition of the assimilation process considers this process on the one hand as a lexical construction and on the other hand as a syntactic construction. It is a process of lexical construction, because two independent structures (one a noun and the other a verb) “are linked together and form a lexical unit, and it is syntactic because the noun linked to a verb must be the (explicit) object of this verb” (Sapir, 1911, pp. 250-257).
2.3. A Brief Review of Studies on Conceptual Metaphors within the Framework of Cognitive Semantics
Since cognitive linguists have discussed the importance of metaphor in language, mind, and thought, “the main idea is that metaphors are based on our embodied experience and then provide a context for analyzing metaphors in a simultaneous framework” (Imre, 2010, pp.17-81). In the cognitive approach to meaning, metaphor is considered “one of the inseparable characteristics of the mind, which is realized through a concrete concept in order to better understand mental concepts” (Grady, 2007, p. 189). In conceptual metaphor theory, our thinking has a metaphorical structure, just like language. Conceptual metaphors are examined in the layers of the mind and not all of them find linguistic representation, but are present in culture, art, customs and symbols, because the conceptual system of the mind is metaphorical in a significant measure. Metaphor is the use of one concept to understand another concept or the application of an element from one realm of experience to another. Therefore, based on the proposed similarities, it transfers the meaning of one concept to another. However, metaphor is about words and not concepts. But the place of metaphor is in concepts, not in words.
3. Theoretical Framework
In cognitive semantics, conceptual metaphors are a process that connects two different ideas. These two thoughts are one in the conceptual field of the origin and the other in the conceptual field of the destination. The concepts of the source domain are more objective than the concepts of the destination domain and are used to conceptualize the destination domain. Therefore, conceptual metaphor is a process of understanding and understanding, through which understanding as well as conceptualization of abstractions are possible. The systematic correspondences that connect the source domain and the destination domain are called mappings, and the formulas that are extracted based on these correspondences are called mappings (Afarashi, 2011, 2017; Grady, 2007; Talmy, 2000).
According to Lakoff and Johnson, the essence of metaphor is the understanding and experience of one type of thing in terms of another type. We act based on the way we imagine things (Likoff & Johnson, 1980).
Therefore, the nature of metaphor can be briefly described as follows:
1. Metaphor is the main mechanism through which we understand mental concepts and perform mental reasoning.
2. Many subjects, from the most obscure to the most obvious scientific theories, can only be understood through metaphor.
3. Although most of our conceptual system is metaphorical, a significant part of it is non-metaphorical. Metaphorical understanding is based on non-metaphorical understanding.
3.1 Proposed principles to study the conceptual metaphors
3-1-1conceptuality principle
3-1-2 Ubiquity Principle
3-1-3unidirectionality and necessity principle
3-1-4Invariance principle
3-1-5Experimental motivation principle
3-2 Different types of cognitive metaphors
3-2-1 : Structural
3-2-2: orientational
3-2-2: ontological
4. Metaphorical language is a surface reflection of conceptual metaphor.
5. Metaphor is primarily conceptual, not linguistic.
4. Research Methodology
The present research is descriptive-analytical and corpus-oriented, and the authors started their work without presupposition of the existence of various nomenclature and source domains in the class of existing metaphors as well as in the whole corpus, and in this way, they have not chosen a specific domain of metaphors. Collecting data (compound verbs) and analyzing their meaning through the 8-volume dictionary of words and sample sentences extracted from the Persian language database. In this research, more than 1000 current combinations and nearly 1500 sentences along with their analysis and metaphorical classification have been used. What is the basis of the analysis of compound verbs in the present research is the model presented by Dabir Moghaddam (2004) in the article "Compound Verbs in the Persian Language". Fifty combinations were examined for each collaboration and various metaphors were extracted and represented based on the stages of the theoretical framework.
5. Data Analysis
5.1. Ontological Conceptual Metaphors
Among the 1500 cases of ontological metaphors in the form of 580 noun mappings, the highest number was assigned to noun mapping (mental states/emotions are objects). The ten most frequent name mappings in the ontological class are as follows.
Table 1 and Figure 1 show that in the category of ontological metaphors, the targeted areas have the highest frequency of occurrence, or in simpler terms, what the abstract concepts expressed through conceptual metaphors in the Persian language are.
The corpus findings also showed that the most frequent domain of origin in the category of ontological metaphors used to explain abstract concepts are "objects" with 684 occurrences in the corpus, and the origin domains of "container" with 350 occurrences, "man" with 127 occurrences, "Animals" with 101 occurrences, "Substance" with 79 occurrences and "Movement" with 74 occurrences are in the next ranks respectively.
5.2. Structural Conceptual Metaphors
We call structural metaphor in which one concept is expressed in the form of another concept; such as: “time is gold”, “work is eternal capital”, and “the world is a caravan”.
Among the 450 structural conceptual metaphors found in the form of 155 noun mappings, the most frequent noun mapping was "goals/desires are destinations" with 20 occurrences, and the noun mappings were "life is a journey" and “to understand is to see” with 19 repetitions in the following rows.
Structural findings revealed that in the class of structural metaphors, the abstract concepts of "goals/desires", "life", "time" and concepts related to "mind [understanding, reasoning, thinking, paying attention and..." have the highest frequency of occurrence. Among the concepts of the destination domain, the objective concepts of "travel", "building", "seeing", "food" and "source" were among the most widely used concepts of the origin domain to express abstract concepts in the body under study.
As seen, the concept of "travel" is the most widely used objective concept to construct abstract concepts. In Table 3, to show the diversity of this metaphor, we present the examples found in the body that is constructed using the concept of "travel", along with the concepts of destination and route, which are part of the overall concept of travel.
After examining the sample body, among 125 cases of directional metaphors in the form of 9 types of noun mapping, the domain of origin "up and down" had the highest frequency of occurrence with a significant difference compared to other types. The frequency of other types of source domains in the category of directional metaphors can be seen in Table 4.
6. Conclusion and Discussion
In this research, an attempt has been made to answer the research questions, to determine how to represent the types of conceptual metaphors in a corpus of compound verbs of the Persian language, and to provide statistical analyses based on these data.
Since the creation of this theory, the question has been raised as to which areas of common origin are used to understand which of the most common abstract concepts? The answer to this question is undoubtedly possible through physical studies. Studies that are based on speculation, linguistic sham, or the investigation of the most common areas of origin and destination in the articles related to conceptual metaphors and related examples, will not give a correct and accurate answer to this question. Therefore, a sample corpus from the Persian language was referred to to answer these questions in the present research. In this structure, the first five domains of origin from the following domains, which are all from the category of ontological metaphors, were by a large margin (especially the first two domains) the most frequent domains of origin in this structure from the Persian language and among compound verbs and their conceptualization methods: 1. object; 2. container; 3. Man; 4. Animate; 5. Material; 6. Travel; 7. Motion; 8. Location; 9. food; 11. Physical experiences; 12. Animals; 13. Body parts; 14. Force; 15. Light and darkness; 16. Building.
Since the concepts related to mental states and emotions are one of the most widely used target domains in language, and on the other hand, the object origin domain is one of the most commonly used domains in the category of ontological metaphors, it is expected that the metaphorical mapping (mental states/emotions are objects), the most frequent mapping in the classification of conceptual metaphors, is among compound verbs in Persian language. Therefore, the metaphorical conceptualization of compound verbs is based on noun mappings, which is described earlier. Based on the corpus-oriented analysis and the obtained results, as stated, in the class of ontological conceptual metaphors, the most frequent metaphorical mapping, among 1500 ontological metaphors in the form of 580 noun mappings, the largest number was dedicated to mental states/emotions (151 cases).
Since the three domains object, container, and human are among the most used domains for understanding abstract concepts of language, the object domain is expected to have the highest frequency in the formation of metaphorical mappings. Based on the analysis of the body orbit and the results obtained, as shown, in the class of ontological conceptual metaphors, the most frequently used original domain to explain abstract concepts is that of "objects" with 684 occurrences, and the original domains are the "containers". with 350, "man" with 127, "living beings" with 101, "substance" with 79, and "movement" with 74 occurrences are found in the following ranks respectively.
Since the concept of time is one of the most commonly used abstract concepts to understand it in language, structural conceptual metaphors are used, especially conceptualization in the speech domain, so it is expected that the nominal mapping (the time something is in motion) is the most frequent metaphorical mapping in the class of structural metaphors.
Based on the body orbit analysis and the results obtained, as shown, in the category of structural conceptual metaphors, the most frequent noun mappings were found among 393 structural metaphors occurring in 20 cases and the metaphors “ “goals/desires are destinations” were found in the form of 178 name mappings. A concept (life is a journey) and (understanding is seeing) appeared in the next row with 19 repetitions.
Considering the wide application and diversity of conceptual metaphors in everyday language, which are constructed using the most frequent origin domain in the travel origin domain class "travel", we expect that the conceptual domain of conceptual metaphors is structural.
Based on the analysis of the body orbit and the results obtained, as shown, in the class of structural conceptual metaphors of the original field, "journey" is the most widely used objective concept for constructing abstract concepts.
It appears that within the category of directional conceptual metaphors, noun mapping (higher is lower) has the highest frequency of occurrence. Based on the analysis of the body orbit and the results obtained, as shown, in the class of directional conceptual metaphors, among 102 cases of directional metaphors in the form of 9 types of nominal mapping, nominal mapping (plus c 'is high, less is low) with a significant difference compared to other types. It had the highest frequency of occurrence.
Based on the corpus-oriented analysis and the results obtained, as shown in Table 4, in the category of directional conceptual metaphors, the most frequently used original domain to explain abstract concepts was “up and down” with 66 repetitions in the corpus.
It has been predicted that the original five domains 1. Man (ontological), 2. Container (ontological), 3. Object (ontological), 4. Journey (structural), 5. Force (structural) are among the domains most widely used of origin in the entire examination of the case. According to the corpus results, the following five original domains, all of which belong to the category of ontological metaphors, were by far (especially the first two domains) the most frequent original domains in this Persian language corpus:
1. Object (684 items, 41 percent); 2. Container (350 items, 20 percent); 3. Humans (127 cases, 7 percent); 4. Alive (101 cases, 6 percent); 5. Female (79 cases, 4 percent).
After them, the most commonly used original fields in this structure were:
6. Travel (71 cases, 5 percent); 7. Movement, 59 cases, 4%); 8. Location (50 cases, 3 percent); 9. building (43 cases, 3 percent); 10. Food (22 cases, 2 percent); 11. Physical experiments (18 cases, 1 percent); 12. Animals (17 cases, 1 percent); 13. Body parts (17 cases, 1 percent); 14. Force (15 cases, 1 percent); 15. Light and darkness (14 cases, 1 percent).
Overall, in this research, an effort has been made to provide a preliminary framework for the corpus-oriented study of conceptual metaphors in the Persian language. Undoubtedly, this research can be a starting point for a systematic and structured study of conceptual metaphors as well as how to represent and conceptualize them among the compound verbs of the Persian language
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