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Volume 15, Issue 1
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Abstract

The present study investigates the semantic structure of the word assuming that its distinct senses form a semantic network with a prototypical spatial sense at the center and various extended senses at different distances away from the prototype. In order to explain the extensions of , the cognitive notions of construal, image schema transformation, metaphor and metonymy are taken into consideration. The conceptual blending theory is used to explain the semantic structure of the complex preposition . The research reveals that the word functions as a preposition (also a part of the complex preposition ), an adverb, an adjective and a verb, and that its semantic structure is best viewed as a continuum encoding both lexical and grammatical information. At the same time, the analysis shows that the polysemy of is rather impoverished when compared to the polysemies of other spatial prepositions, such as or .

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2017-08-18
2024-10-12

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A cognitive perspective on the semantics of near
Review of Cognitive Linguistics. Published under the auspices of the Spanish Cognitive Linguistics Association 15, 121 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.15.1.06bre
/content/journals/10.1075/rcl.15.1.06bre
/content/journals/10.1075/rcl.15.1.06bre
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): cognitive linguistics; semantics; spatial prepositions

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