| Summary: | The cognitive linguistic interest in spatial prepositions is a relatively new research path. The question of their categorical status has not been resolved yet — linguists underline either their purely grammatical or lexical nature. The present paper investigates the semantic structure of near, functioning as a preposition, an adverb, an adjective and a verb, as well as the semantic structure of the complex preposition near to to determine whether the word belongs to the English lexicon or grammar. The research confirms that the semantic structure of near is best viewed as a continuum encoding both lexical and grammatical information giving, at the same time, an insight into the polysemy of near which is rather impoverished compared with the polysemy of other spatial prepositions such as over or at. Finally, the semantic difference between the simple and complex expressions, near and near to, is discussed. Even though the two structures are often considered synonymous, the present study argues that their formal difference reflects the difference in meaning.
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