انجمن زبان شناسی ایران زبان و زبان‌شناسی 23223847 21 41 2025 12 22 Expressing possession in Pashto بیان مالکیت در زبان پشتو 1 24 10749 10.30465/lsi.2026.51389.1795 FA یوسف آرام استادیار گروه زبان شناسی، دانشکده علوم انسانی، دانشگاه بوعلی سینا، همدان، ایران 0000-0001-6462-3758 مهرداد نغزگوی کهن استاد، گروه زبان شناسی، دانشکده علوم انسانی، دانشگاه بوعلی سینا، همدان، ایران 0000-0002-3451-745X فضل العظیم میاخیل دکترای زبان شناسی، گروه زبان‌شناسی، دانشکده علوم انسانی، دانشگاه بوعلی سینا، همدان، ایران Journal Article 2025 03 04 Man is familiar with the concept of possession from birth, because he knows all the places and things that belong to him. Accordingly, the concept of possession is encoded in all the languages of the world. There are two concepts involved in possession, which are called possessor and possessed, and the relationship between the two is called possession. Possession is divided into two main groups, nominal and predicate, and has different types including action, location, association, addition, purpose, source, initial and equality possession. In the present study, the expression of possession in the Pashto language has been studied. So far, the category of linguistic possession has not been studied in the Pashto language from the perspective of linguistics and only descriptive references have been made to it. Today, the study of language from a cognitive perspective is at the center of attention of researchers in the field of language; therefore, in this study, we aim to study the encoding of possession in the Pashto language for the first time, based on the collected linguistic corpus, within the framework of cognitive linguistics. In this regard, the schemas of possession expression in Pashto will be introduced and their frequency of occurrence will be given. The corpus of the research is extracted from three best-selling Pashto books and two motion pictures. The results of the research show that in Pashto, the frequency of use of nominal possession is higher than predicate possession, and this is also confirmed for the frequency of occurrence of types of possession. In types of possession, the frequency of occurrence of additional and connecting possession is higher than other possession, and these two types of possession are also encoded in the nominal way. In addition, in Pashto, the equality schema is not used to express possession. 1. Introduction Pashto is one of the official languages of Afghanistan, which is also spoken in parts of Pakistan. It is considered as a member of the Eastern Iranian language family. Pashto is related to ancient languages such as Sanskrit and shows structural and syntactic links with other Indo-Aryan languages. Despite the historical background of this language, it has not been studied extensively in linguistics, especially at the global level, and many of its grammatical and structural issues still require more detailed research. One of them is the expression of possession in this language. Possession is one of the most basic concepts that all languages in the world have the means to express. In this regard, the present study examines the linguistic structures of possession in Pashto and attempts to analyze these structures within the framework of cognitive linguistics and based on the model presented by Heine (1997). Previous studies in Pashto have often been limited to a brief description of the category of possession, while this study aims to systematically and analytically extract the possessive schemas in this language and examine their frequency of occurrence. Given the importance of cognitive approaches in contemporary linguistic studies, this study is the first to examine the coding of possession in Pashto from this perspective. The results of this study can contribute to a better understanding of possession structures in Pashto and provide a basis for comparative studies with other languages in the region. Accordingly, the objectives of this study include extracting and examining the types of linguistic constructions encoding possession in Pashto, presenting and analyzing possessive schemas in Pashto, comparing possessive schemas in Pashto with the model presented by Heine (1997), and examining the frequency of occurrence of various possessive structures in Pashto. 2. Literature Review Previous studies on possession in Pashto have mainly described linguistic structures and have made less use of cognitive linguistic frameworks. Some studies such as Rashtin (1998) and Khoshaki (2016) have referred to the coding of possession in Pashto, but have not specifically categorized the possessive structures. Also, Momand (2004) and Ziyar (2005) have focused more on possessive pronouns and have examined their grammatical role. Pinzel (2010) has also addressed the means of coding possession, but has limited his study to the Kandahari dialect. In linguistic studies related to Iranian languages, studies such as Sharifi (2009) and Nagzguy Kohan (2016) have examined the strategies of possessive formation in Persian and Taleshi. In particular, Nagzguy Kohan and Maleki (2019) have examined the possessive schemas in Persian and have added a new schema (associative) to Heine’s (1997) model. In addition to these studies, some researchers such as Sharifi and Sabouri (2019) have examined possessive strategies in different varieties of Iranian languages and have shown that these languages use strategies such as demonstrative, contiguity, and conjunction to express possession. In addition, more general research has been conducted on Pashto, which has addressed its grammatical structures and syntactic roles. For example, Dabir-Moghaddam and Mayar (2019) have examined the systems of agreement and case in Pashto and have shown that this language exhibits the characteristics of a dual language (semi-Kenyan) at different times. Also, Miakhil and Dabir Moghadam (1401) have analyzed the case system in Pashto and identified its syntactic features. However, no independent research has been conducted to examine possession in this language based on cognitive frameworks. 3. Methodology In this study, we seek to extract and examine the types of possessive structures in Pashto based on Heine (1997). In this study, any structure that refers to the relationship between the owner and the owned is categorized as a possessive structure and its type, whether nominal or predicate, is determined, and then its possessive event schema is obtained based on Heine (1997); therefore, it is necessary to collect a linguistic corpus to achieve this goal. In this regard, best-selling fiction books in Pashto were introduced as part of the linguistic corpus of this study. 5. Conclusion Possessiveness is a concept used and encoded in all languages of the world. The relationship between the owner and the owned is called possession. In general, three types of nominal, predicate and external possessive structures are found in the languages of the world. In the nominal possessive structure, the owner and the owned form a noun group, such as “my hand” or “his car”. Usually, this nominal structure covers three types of possessive concepts: legal ownership, whole-to-part relationship and kinship relationships. Predicate possessive refers to the structures in which the possessive relationship appears in the predicate. This is achieved by using various types of possessive verbs, such as “having”, “belonging”, “existential construction” or “spatial construction” with a linking verb. In this study, the types of predicate and nominal possessive types in Pashto were studied and a table of the results was also presented. Now it should be stated which type of possession is used more in Pashto. The frequency of these two types of possession can be seen in the chart below: As is clear from the chart above, in Pashto, nominal possession is used more to express possession. Numerous examples of this possession were found in the corpus. In the table of types of possession, the number of nominal possessions for types of possession is more than predicate possession. In the next study, types of possession in Pashto have been conducted. In the previous sections, types of possession in this language were presented with examples from Pashto compared to examples from Persian. The authors have also obtained the frequency of these possessions based on the corpus. The frequency of types of possession in Pashto is also visible in the chart below: It is clear from the chart above that the highest frequency is for additional and connective possession, and therefore the chart above confirms the results of the previous chart, because these two types of possession are in the category of nominal possession. Finally, it is stated that the Pashto language uses nominal possession the most in possession and among the types of possession, it also uses additional and connective possessions for encoding. انسان از بدو تولد با مفهوم مالکیت آشنایی دارد؛ زیرا همة مکان‌ها و چیزهایی را که به او تعلق دارد، می‌شناسد. بر این اساس، مفهوم مالکیت در تمامی زبان‌های دنیا رمزگذاری می‌شود. دو مفهوم در مالکیت دخیل‌اند که مالک و مملوک نام دارند و رابطة بین این دو، مالکیت نام دارد. مالکیت به دو گروه اصلی اسمی و محمولی تقسیم می‌شود و انواع متفاوتی شامل مالکیت کنش، مکانی، همراهی، اضافی، هدف، منبع، مبتدائی و برابری دارد. در پژوهش حاضر، بیان مالکیت در زبان پشتو مورد مطالعه قرار گرفته است. تا کنون، مقولۀ مالکیت زبانی، در زبان پشتو از منظر علم زبان‌شناسی مورد مطالعه قرار نگرفته و تنها اشاراتی به‌صورت توصیفی به آن شده است. امروز، مطالعۀ زبان از دیدگاه شناختی در مرکز توجه پژوهشگران حوزۀ زبان قرار دارد؛ بنابراین، در این پژوهش بر آنیم تا برای اولین‌بار رمزگذاری مالکیت را در زبان پشتو، بر اساس پیکرۀ زبانی جمع‌آوری‌شده، در چارچوب زبان‌شناسی شناختی مطالعه کنیم. در این راستا، طرح‌واره‌های بیان مالکیت در زبان پشتو معرفی و بسامد وقوع آن‌ها به دست داده خواهد شد. پیکرة پژوهش از سه کتاب پرفروش پشتو و دو فیلم سینمایی استخراج شده است. نتایج پژوهش نشان می‌دهد که در زبان پشتو، بسامد استفاده از مالکیت اسمی بیشتر از مالکیت محمولی است و این امر در مورد بسامد وقوع انواع مالکیت نیز تأیید می‌شود. در انواع مالکیت نیز بسامد وقوع مالکیت اضافی و اتصالی بیش از سایر مالکیت‌هاست و این دو نوع از مالکیت نیز به شیوة اسمی رمزگذاری می‌شوند. علاوه بر این، در زبان پشتو برای بیان مالکیت از طرح‌وارة برابری استفاده نمی‌شود.

https://lsi-linguistics.ihcs.ac.ir/article_10749_69bfa2aa2b7b139ff581a806abf0a886.pdf