Analysis of Expressions in Shushtari Dialect in the Framework of Construction Grammar

The present research has aimed at describing and also qualitive and quantities analysis of constructions in Shushtari dialect called expressions based on construction grammar proposed by Fillmore et al (1988) and syntax-lexicon continuum (Croft, 2001). Data collection has been done using both field and library method from Shushtari native speakers and “Dictionaries of Shushtari Dialect” (Niroud, 1977 & Fazeli, 2004). First, with the help of the tools in the construction grammar, the analysis of Shushtari expressions based on the classification of Fillmore et al. (1988) has been attempted, and their frequency has been measured. The results indicate that Shushtari dialect idiomatic constructions fall into four categories of encoding/decoding, formal/substantive, grammatical/extra grammatical, and with pragmatic point/without pragmatic point. Idioms and the percentage of frequency of each terminology category was as follows: 47 decoding (57%) vs. 62 encoding idioms (43%), 91 substantive (83.5%) vs. 18 formal idioms (16.5%), 96 without pragmatic point (88%) vs. 13 with pragmatic point idioms (12%). None of the data is extragrammatical and as a result%100of the data is grammatical idioms. Also, the data examined, have been placed in complex and specific constructions in Croft's proposed syntax-lexicon continuum (2001).
Introduction
The branch of linguistics that studies dialects is called dialectology (Chambers and Trudgill, 1998: 3). Considering the fact that Iranian languages and dialects are intangible heritage of Iranians and their codification and preservation are essential, this study investigates one of the Iranian dialects called Shushtari. The Shushtari dialect is one of the southwestern dialects in Iran, specifically in Khuzestan province, which is very close to dialects such as Lori, Bakhtiari, and Dezfuli. This connection is rooted in the history of Aryan migration to Iran (Fazeli, 2006). A dialect is a technical term used to describe a variety of languages that, despite having phonetic, lexical, and grammatical differences, allow their speakers mutual intelligibility (Abdolkarimi, 2017: 64). According to these definitions, Shushtari can be considered a dialect. The authors aim to study this dialect, particularly its idioms, within the framework of Construction Grammar as the basis of data analysis. The researchers in this study seek to answer the following questions: 1. What are the types of Shushtari dialect idioms/expressions within the framework of Fillmore et al.'s (1988) Construction Grammar? 2. What reality is hidden behind the quantitative analysis of the different types of Shushtari dialect idioms/expressions within the framework of Construction Grammar?
Theoretical Framework
Cognitive linguistics is a multi-aspectual theory that includes theories such as Conceptual Metaphor and Frame Semantics; one of the syntactic frameworks in this field is Construction Grammar. This grammatical model was first introduced by Charles Fillmore and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Fillmore (1988) outlined the fundamental principles of Construction Grammar and the distinctions between the Construction Grammar approach, transformational grammar, and the grammar of phrasal structures in an article entitled "The Mechanisms of Construction Grammar" (Zhukovska, 2021: 65). In addition to this article, Fillmore et al. (1998) have published another paper in this field in which they analyzed expressional constructions using the mentioned approach. Many researchers, including Goldberg (1995; 2002), Michaelis and Lambrecht (1996), Kay and Fillmore (1999), and Croft (2001) became interested in Construction Grammar.
The research on Shushtari dialect, expressional constructions in general, and studies focused on Construction Grammar have not examined any of the expressional constructions of the Shushtari dialect. As a result, the expressional constructions of this dialect have not been studied or analyzed from a cognitive perspective. Construction Grammar discusses the linearity of syntax, the meaning of symbolic units, patterns, and classes of words. In this framework, each construction and pattern has an inherent meaning. As in other cognitive linguistic patterns, there is no definitive distinction between lexicon and syntax. Lexical and syntactic structures differ in terms of internal complexity and definite phonological forms, and their similarity lies in the formation of all structures by meaning (Goldberg, 1995: 4-7). Kay and Fillmore (1999: 7), quoted by Evans and Green (2006: 653), believe that Construction Grammar can examine and explain the properties of idiomatic expressions of languages, in addition to everyday language. The characteristic of Construction Grammar patterns is their linearity; that is, instead of any structural pattern being the result of a sequence of transformational structures, it consists of only one level of syntactic representation. Furthermore, representations in Construction Grammar include semantic and functional information in addition to syntactic information. In Construction Grammar, the study of grammar is not accepted without considering the meaning and conceptual aspects of grammatical elements. Grammatical structures are considered basic symbolic units, showing the unconditional presence of meaning within them. Construction Grammars are distinguished from transformational grammars by the absence of transformational rules. In Construction Grammars, grammatical relations are determined throughout the grammar as a whole (Fillmore et al., 1988: 35).
Discussion and Conclusions
In this research, based on four categories of expressional constructions introduced by Fillmore et al. (1988), Shushtari dialect expressional constructions were investigated, and three categories of expressional constructions were identified: encoding/decoding, formal/substantive, and grammatical/extra-grammatical, with pragmatic point/without pragmatic point. However, in the grammatical/extra-grammatical category of idioms, no examples of extra-grammatical idioms were found in the Shushtari dialect. The frequency of idioms in each terminology category was as follows: 47 decoding (43%) vs. 62 encoding idioms (57%), 91 substantive (83.5%) vs. 18 formal idioms (16.5%), 96 without pragmatic point (88%) vs. 13 with pragmatic point idioms (12%). None of the data are extra-grammatical, and as a result, 100% of the data are grammatical idioms. Additionally, the data examined were placed in complex and specific constructions in Croft's proposed syntax-lexicon continuum (2001).
The formal/substantive interaction analysis is investigated in an independent paper. According to Croft's syntactic terminology continuum (2001), the studied data in this research are located in complex and specific constructions. Semantically speaking, the number of constructions without semantic compositionality is lower than those with semantic compositionality, because they increase the memory load of speakers. Therefore, Shushtari speakers have fewer linguistic constructions in mind that are associated with specific use.
Since there has not been a sociological study to show the relationship between the types of common linguistic structures in a geographical area, especially in Shushtar, and cultural realities and beliefs, presenting the above hypotheses can motivate such research to confirm or disprove the hypotheses and present new findings to researchers in the fields of sociology, ethnography, and dialectology.