[2604.06674] Between Century and Poet: Graph-Based Lexical Semantic Change in Persian Poetry

Computer Science > Computation and Language arXiv:2604.06674 (cs) [Submitted on 8 Apr 2026] Title:Between Century and Poet: Graph-Based Lexical Semantic Change in Persian Poetry Authors:Kourosh Shahnazari, Seyed Moein Ayyoubzadeh, Mohammadali Keshtparvar View a PDF of the paper titled Between Century and Poet: Graph-Based Lexical Semantic Change in Persian Poetry, by Kourosh Shahnazari and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Meaning in Persian poetry is both historical and relational. Words persist through literary tradition while shifting their force through changing constellations of neighbors, rhetorical frames, and poetic voices. This study examines that process using aligned Word2Vec spaces combined with graph-based neighborhood analysis across centuries and major poets. Rather than modeling semantic change as vector displacement alone, it treats lexical history as the rewiring of local semantic graphs: the gain and loss of neighbors, shifts in bridge roles, and movement across communities. The analysis centers on twenty target words, anchored by five recurrent reference terms: Earth, Night, two wine terms, and Heart. Surrounding them are affective, courtly, elemental, and Sufi concepts such as Love, Sorrow, Dervish, King, Annihilation, and Truth. These words exhibit distinct patterns of change. Night is more time-sensitive, Earth more poet-sensitive, and Heart shows continuity despite graph-role mobility. The two wine terms highlight probe sensitivi...