Clothes and What is Attached to them in the Gazan Tongue: a Semantic Study

Abstract

Semantics is the most important branch of modern linguistics as it deals with the study of meaning which is the ultimate goal of all linguistic levels. The present research seeks to investigate the semantics of the lexical items that represent prominent semantic fields with various connotations through examining the semantic fields in clothing and the lexical items associated with it in the Gazan tongue. The results of this research show that the words listed within the semantic fields exist in the Gazan tongue until they become an essential part of its dialect. The research also shows that the richness of lexis in the Gazan tongue exemplified in the multiplicity of meanings associated with every semantic field. Moreover, despite the existence of some words that are used with different meanings compared with their meanings in the Arabic dictionaries, the Gazan tongue draws a close relation to the standard Arabic language in addition to the convergence with the meanings of some words in other dialects, and this gives evidence of the unity of the Arabic language and its originality.