A Glimpse of the Semantic Structure of the Bulgarian Preposition nana

This paper demonstrates the applicability of a cognitive lexical semantic analysis to some of the meanings of the highly polysemous Bulgarian preposition na. It proposes an account of the various senses of na as a radial (conceptual) category with a prototypical sense and various extensions refer...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Tsoneva-Mathewson, Snezha
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Fondazione Università Ca' Foscari 2023-01-01
Series:Balcania et Slavia
Subjects:
Online Access:http://doi.org/10.30687/BES/2785-3187/2023/02/004
Description
Summary:This paper demonstrates the applicability of a cognitive lexical semantic analysis to some of the meanings of the highly polysemous Bulgarian preposition na. It proposes an account of the various senses of na as a radial (conceptual) category with a prototypical sense and various extensions referred to as lexical concepts in the Principled Polysemy Approach developed by Tyler and Evans. Similarly, it is argued that, in addition to the spatio-geometric parameters, the core spatial lexical concept of the Bulgarian na includes also functional information from which non-spatial meanings such as ‘active state’ derive.
ISSN:2785-3187