Extensive Functions of the Conjunction "and" in Golestan-e Saadi

Abstract

One of the main categories of word is conjunctions which has a much more limited extension in relation to other categories. Most of Persian language grammarians divide this category into three groups: coordinating conjunctions, prepositions, and marks. The conjunction word "and" is one of the most important coordinating conjunctions in Persian and Arabic Languages that as a joint plays the role of a connection between the components of a sentence, and sometimes between several sentences. The ability of this word in accepting different meanings and functions provides an opportunity for Persian language speakers to enjoy this conjunction in different positions for a better embellishment of their speech and for avoidance of using repeated structures. Saadi Shirazi, who is one of the most fluent and eloquent speakers of Persian language, has enjoyed this potential in Persian language a lot. The authors of this article have attempted to study the extensive functions of this conjunction in Golestan-e Saadi. It should be noted that this conjunction has been totally used 2179 times according to the emendation of Golestan by Kazaeli, and has been categorized under 20 titles in this article. Some of the categorizations of "and" that have been realized by the authors of this paper in the text of Golestan have not been found in the previous grammatical resources, so they are the achievements of this research. This state that Saadi artistically allocated more aesthetic and emotional meanings to this word.