A monosemic view of polysemic prepositions
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Yishai Tobin✝
Abstract
Prepositions are notorious for being “polysemic”. One of Zipf ’s laws is that the smaller a form, the more frequently it will be used, and the more meanings and functions it will have attributed to it. The Hebrew preposition l- ‘to’ has at least seventeen dictionary entries and the Hebrew preposition b- ‘in’ has at least fifteen and some of these dictionary meanings overlap. In this paper, I will view both of these prepositions as linguistic signs (in the Saussurean sense) and present a signifié or a single invariant or core meaning for each that will account for all of its messages and uses as well as explain the differences between them.
Abstract
Prepositions are notorious for being “polysemic”. One of Zipf ’s laws is that the smaller a form, the more frequently it will be used, and the more meanings and functions it will have attributed to it. The Hebrew preposition l- ‘to’ has at least seventeen dictionary entries and the Hebrew preposition b- ‘in’ has at least fifteen and some of these dictionary meanings overlap. In this paper, I will view both of these prepositions as linguistic signs (in the Saussurean sense) and present a signifié or a single invariant or core meaning for each that will account for all of its messages and uses as well as explain the differences between them.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
- The contributors 13
- French compound prepositions, prepositional locutions and prepositional phrases in the scope of the absolute use 17
- "Over the hills and far away" or "far away over the hills": English place adverb phrases and place prepositional phrases in tandem? 37
- Structures with omitted prepositions: Semantic and pragmatic motivations 67
- A closer look at the Hebrew Construct and free locative PPs: The analysis of mi- locatives 85
- Pragmatics of prepositions: A study of the French connectives pour le coup and du coup 115
- Particles and postpositions in Korean 133
- French prepositions à and de in infinitival complements: A pragma-semantic analysis 171
- Prepositional wars: When ideology defines preposition 191
- "Ago" and its grammatical status in English and in other languages 209
- Case marking of Turkic adpositional objects 229
- The logic of addition: Changes in the meaning of the Hebrew preposition im ("with"). 257
- A monosemic view of polysemic prepositions 273
- The development of Classical Armenian prepositions and its implications for universals of language change 289
- Author index 301
- Languages index 303
- Subject index 305
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
- The contributors 13
- French compound prepositions, prepositional locutions and prepositional phrases in the scope of the absolute use 17
- "Over the hills and far away" or "far away over the hills": English place adverb phrases and place prepositional phrases in tandem? 37
- Structures with omitted prepositions: Semantic and pragmatic motivations 67
- A closer look at the Hebrew Construct and free locative PPs: The analysis of mi- locatives 85
- Pragmatics of prepositions: A study of the French connectives pour le coup and du coup 115
- Particles and postpositions in Korean 133
- French prepositions à and de in infinitival complements: A pragma-semantic analysis 171
- Prepositional wars: When ideology defines preposition 191
- "Ago" and its grammatical status in English and in other languages 209
- Case marking of Turkic adpositional objects 229
- The logic of addition: Changes in the meaning of the Hebrew preposition im ("with"). 257
- A monosemic view of polysemic prepositions 273
- The development of Classical Armenian prepositions and its implications for universals of language change 289
- Author index 301
- Languages index 303
- Subject index 305
