The Metaphorical Use of Spatial Prepositions in Sorani Dialect
Zanco Journal of Humanity Sciences
Metaphorical cognition arises from the mapping of two conceptual domains onto each other, Based on the theory of conceptual metaphors, the present study aims at analyzing the metaphorical use of spatial prepositions in Sorani Dialect weekly press Although it is often thought that the metaphorical uses are idiomatic, the researchers suggest that some of the spatial prepositions retain their meaning metaphorically under a non-spatial relation stressing that the use of non-spatial prepositions is
... al prepositions is only a relative semantic change and is therefore a limited aspect of the spatial prepositions. Metaphor is primary a conceptual tool to understand non-spatial relations in both English and Sorani Dialect. In English the conceptualization of spatial prepositions depends on the preposition itself while in Kurdish the conceptualization of spatial prepositions must be mediated through the syntactic constructions (le+ ser, le+ jer, le+ naw). There are some differences in the conceptual metaphor of spatial prepositions in English and Kurdish. Through conceptual analysis, the major differences concerning the metaphorical use of spatial prepositions can be observed. The pervasive difference between the metaphorical use of spatial preposition in English and Kurdish is that in English the simple prepositions such as "in, on, under, above .etc" convey metaphorical meaning while in Kurdish , the prepositions are extending the abstract, non-spatial relations if they are followed by a place term such as "ser, jer, or naw" in which they become a free preposition and indicate a spatial or non-spatial relation. In English the most productive, frequent and widely used spatial prepositions are "in" and "on", while in Kurdish, they are "leser" ("on") and "le jer...da" ("under"). Furthermore, there are other differences concerning the metaphorical use of spatial prepositions, for example, in English spatial prepositions can be used metaphorically and convey meanings which differ from the original one, "spatial relation", wherein they do not retain their aspects of spatial sense such as under, above, out of, etc. while in Kurdish all of the spatial prepositions retain their aspects of spatial meaning even in abstract context .Hence, their metaphorical meanings depend on the whole phrase or sentence together. For example in English the term "in a continuous process" is understood in the meaning of the concept of the spatial preposition "under" as in the following example: 27) investigation is under way and will continue throughout the festive period. While in Kurdish the abstract meaning of the spatial preposition will retain the aspects of the spatial sense, take "le jer" as in the following example: 28) Filimekim drust kird le ser meseley Kurd le jer desti rijemi baas.( I made a movie on the Kurdish issue duringthe bath regime.) As it is observed, the metaphorical meaning is understood depending on each term of the sentence, not only the spatial preposition "le jer" alone.