Cognitive Semantic Study of the Preposition ‘Min’ in the Quran

The preposition ‘min’ is semantically more complex than what the traditional lexicaAl-syntactic approaches held it to be adverb or adverbial of place and time. This paper attempts to investigate the semantic complexity of the preposition ‘min’ from cognitive linguistic perspective to find out its semantic classification and linguistic symmetric patterns. Data has been taken from the Quran to investigate the claim of conceptual metaphor theory that sensorimotor neural structures generates the preposition ‘min’ on the image schema of source-path-goal. The findings reveal that the source-pathgoal image schema is not only at work in the use of preposition ‘min’ in spatio-geometric sense, but also to map the abstract concepts, emotional states and relationship with supernatural entities in spatial terms in the Quran. However, the data also show idiosyncratic behaviour of preposition, attaining different semantic arguments in different linguistic contexts, which strengthen the argument that language use cannot be abridged to static mapping in the human conceptual system. This paper recommends future research on the same preposition or other prepositions to investigate further the source-path-goal image schema in the Quran and Arabic language.

Functioning of NEPRA as an Effective Power Regulator of Pakistan

The effectiveness of a regulatory agency is outcome of the quality of its management, whereas a strong infrastructure i.e., fulfillment of institutional requirements and autonomy of functions are the basic requirements of an autonomous regulatory system, besides the environmental factors that can also influence the effectiveness of a regulatory body. NEPRA, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority was established in 1997 to ensure transparent and judicious regulation in the power sector, after restructuring of power sector. Earlier the government was the operator as well as the regulator for both power services providing companies i.e., WAPDA and KESC. The power sector restructuring and other reforms in the energy sector were the efforts to avert the risk of any future energy crisis, but they could not be proved to be fruitful. This research work is based on evaluation of the efficiency of NEPRA as an effective electric power regulator in Pakistan, considering the above stated four main factors. The scientific research method, consisting of hypotheses testing and the formulation of regression model was used in the research work. It has been concluded that NEPRA is working in a nice manner. There are three stakeholders of NEPRA, i.e., government, electric power companies and the electricity consumers. Out of which government and most of the electric power companies are satisfied with the performance of NEPRA, but the electricity consumers are less satisfied. Availability of trained manpower and implementation of regulations have been pointed out as the areas of special attention to improve the performance of NEPRA. Some steps are also suggested in this regard. This study is an attempt to improve the effectiveness of NEPRA by exploring the influence of different factors upon it. The research work has contributed towards increasing the ability of NEPRA to overcome the present power crisis of Pakistan and to address the grievances of electricity consumers.