Adriano Rossi | Università Degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale" (original) (raw)
Papers by Adriano Rossi
A. Korangy, C. Miller (eds.), Trends in Iranian and Persian Linguistics, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, pp. 53-68, 2018
The speakers of any language, even if at a small extent, concur to change the lexicon, which they... more The speakers of any language, even if at a small extent, concur to change the lexicon, which they have inherited as a whole. They are driven to do that by the necessity of naming something new or optimizing the onomasio-logical salience of already existing words, with a continuous changing in the way they express concepts. In order to avoid an overloading of the memory system, they are encouraged to recycle what is already existent in the lexicon. Through a small set of associative strategies, people relate a concept which has already been verbalized, with another one which has to be verbalized, producing lexical changes. Over time, however, the conceptual motivation which originated a particular designation becomes obscure to speakers. Large scale lexical surveys aid us in discovering recurrent schemas of designating a concept and recovering the relevant motivation for each designation, i.e. its 'iconym' (the Engl. term iconym has been currently utilized, e.g., by Joachim Grzega in his contributions to Onomasiology Online). In the general framework of cognitive onomasiology, I have been carrying out since the 1990s (at L'Orientale University, Naples) a project aimed at singling out the different 'pathways' through which natural physical concepts have been designated in the Iranian languages, in order to get insight into the way Iranian speaking peoples have perceived and conceptualized the physical environment which they concurred to change with their millenary activities. There are several types of associative relations on which lexical innovation relies on; one of these is similarity. The best known process based on similarity is that of metaphor, a process through which we speak of a concept in terms of another, and whose main lines are similarity of shape, similarity of spatial configuration , functional similarity, etc. Since human beings perceive their bodies as an interface between themselves and the surrounding world, the body part lexicon overlaps in many points with those of other conceptual domains; first of all, with the lexicon used to describe the environment.
in: Atti del Seminario italo-spagnolo: Dall’Indo all’Egeo: Contatti culturali e linguistici attraverso e all’interno dell’Iran achemenide, Madrid , 2017
![Research paper thumbnail of Thirty-two More Pears For Uwe, in “Iran and the Caucasus” 19 (2015), pp. 335-342 [= Fst Uwe Bläsing]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/54600569/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](The paper deals with the etymology and dialectology of Turkic armut, Persian armud 'pear'. The in... more The paper deals with the etymology and dialectology of Turkic armut, Persian armud 'pear'. The interrelations of these phytonymical families were treated a few years ago by Prof. Uwe Bläsing who considered the Turkic words borrowed from a Middle Iranian language (viz. Pahlavi, because of some isolated attestation in this language), but also the Ira-nian words probably borrowed from a third (unknown) language of the Irano-Caucasian area. On the basis of an extensive areal study (with original materials from the archive of the Balochi Etymological Dictionary Project, L'Orientale University, Naples) the author argues for a back dating of the Iranian attestations, and the preservation in many modern Iranian dialects of a lexical type believed to be isolated in Middle Persian.
Paragraph 14 of Darius inscription at Bisotun is devoted to the measures taken by Darius in order... more Paragraph 14 of Darius inscription at Bisotun is devoted to the measures taken by Darius in order to restore the legitimate kingship usurped by Gaumāta and to re-establish the social order thrown into confusion by the revolt leaded by the magus. The central core of the paragraph is (A) Darius' re-establishment of the kingship; (B) the realisation of some royal action (specified in all three languages by the general verb 'to make, to do') regarding the ā ̆ yadanā/ AN zí-ia-an AN na-ap-pan-na/É.˹MEŠ˺ šá DINGIR.MEŠ destroyed by Gaumāta. Analysing the syntactic structure of the three versions, studying the structure of the word ā ̆ yadanā – considered as problematic already by the early editors of the Bisotun inscription – the author discusses LECOQ's (1995) interpretation, stating some details which allow a better interpretation of § 14 as a whole.
Résumé: Le §14 de l'inscription de Darius à Bisotun est consacré aux mesures prises par Darius pour restaurer la royauté usurpée par Gaumāta et pour rétablir l'ordre social qui avait été mis à mal par la révolte du mage. L'objet central du paragraphe est (A) le rétablissement par Darius de la royauté soustraite, comme elle l'était auparavant ; (B) la réalisation d'une action royale (indiquée dans les trois langues par le verbe général 'faire') concernant les ā ̆ yadanā/ AN zí-ia-an AN na-ap-pan-na/É.˹MEŠ˺ šá DINGIR.MEŠ que Gaumāta avait détruits. En analysant la syntaxe des trois versions, en étudiant la structure du mot ā ̆ yadanā qui a été considéré problématique déjà à l'époque de la première publication des textes de Bisotun, l'auteur discute l'interprétation du passage donnée par LECOQ (1995), en précisant des détails qui permettent une meilleure interprétation du § 14 dans son ensemble.
A. Korangy, C. Miller (eds.), Trends in Iranian and Persian Linguistics, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, pp. 53-68, 2018
The speakers of any language, even if at a small extent, concur to change the lexicon, which they... more The speakers of any language, even if at a small extent, concur to change the lexicon, which they have inherited as a whole. They are driven to do that by the necessity of naming something new or optimizing the onomasio-logical salience of already existing words, with a continuous changing in the way they express concepts. In order to avoid an overloading of the memory system, they are encouraged to recycle what is already existent in the lexicon. Through a small set of associative strategies, people relate a concept which has already been verbalized, with another one which has to be verbalized, producing lexical changes. Over time, however, the conceptual motivation which originated a particular designation becomes obscure to speakers. Large scale lexical surveys aid us in discovering recurrent schemas of designating a concept and recovering the relevant motivation for each designation, i.e. its 'iconym' (the Engl. term iconym has been currently utilized, e.g., by Joachim Grzega in his contributions to Onomasiology Online). In the general framework of cognitive onomasiology, I have been carrying out since the 1990s (at L'Orientale University, Naples) a project aimed at singling out the different 'pathways' through which natural physical concepts have been designated in the Iranian languages, in order to get insight into the way Iranian speaking peoples have perceived and conceptualized the physical environment which they concurred to change with their millenary activities. There are several types of associative relations on which lexical innovation relies on; one of these is similarity. The best known process based on similarity is that of metaphor, a process through which we speak of a concept in terms of another, and whose main lines are similarity of shape, similarity of spatial configuration , functional similarity, etc. Since human beings perceive their bodies as an interface between themselves and the surrounding world, the body part lexicon overlaps in many points with those of other conceptual domains; first of all, with the lexicon used to describe the environment.
in: Atti del Seminario italo-spagnolo: Dall’Indo all’Egeo: Contatti culturali e linguistici attraverso e all’interno dell’Iran achemenide, Madrid , 2017
The paper deals with the etymology and dialectology of Turkic armut, Persian armud 'pear'. The in... more The paper deals with the etymology and dialectology of Turkic armut, Persian armud 'pear'. The interrelations of these phytonymical families were treated a few years ago by Prof. Uwe Bläsing who considered the Turkic words borrowed from a Middle Iranian language (viz. Pahlavi, because of some isolated attestation in this language), but also the Ira-nian words probably borrowed from a third (unknown) language of the Irano-Caucasian area. On the basis of an extensive areal study (with original materials from the archive of the Balochi Etymological Dictionary Project, L'Orientale University, Naples) the author argues for a back dating of the Iranian attestations, and the preservation in many modern Iranian dialects of a lexical type believed to be isolated in Middle Persian.
Paragraph 14 of Darius inscription at Bisotun is devoted to the measures taken by Darius in order... more Paragraph 14 of Darius inscription at Bisotun is devoted to the measures taken by Darius in order to restore the legitimate kingship usurped by Gaumāta and to re-establish the social order thrown into confusion by the revolt leaded by the magus. The central core of the paragraph is (A) Darius' re-establishment of the kingship; (B) the realisation of some royal action (specified in all three languages by the general verb 'to make, to do') regarding the ā ̆ yadanā/ AN zí-ia-an AN na-ap-pan-na/É.˹MEŠ˺ šá DINGIR.MEŠ destroyed by Gaumāta. Analysing the syntactic structure of the three versions, studying the structure of the word ā ̆ yadanā – considered as problematic already by the early editors of the Bisotun inscription – the author discusses LECOQ's (1995) interpretation, stating some details which allow a better interpretation of § 14 as a whole.
Résumé: Le §14 de l'inscription de Darius à Bisotun est consacré aux mesures prises par Darius pour restaurer la royauté usurpée par Gaumāta et pour rétablir l'ordre social qui avait été mis à mal par la révolte du mage. L'objet central du paragraphe est (A) le rétablissement par Darius de la royauté soustraite, comme elle l'était auparavant ; (B) la réalisation d'une action royale (indiquée dans les trois langues par le verbe général 'faire') concernant les ā ̆ yadanā/ AN zí-ia-an AN na-ap-pan-na/É.˹MEŠ˺ šá DINGIR.MEŠ que Gaumāta avait détruits. En analysant la syntaxe des trois versions, en étudiant la structure du mot ā ̆ yadanā qui a été considéré problématique déjà à l'époque de la première publication des textes de Bisotun, l'auteur discute l'interprétation du passage donnée par LECOQ (1995), en précisant des détails qui permettent une meilleure interprétation du § 14 dans son ensemble.
