Предложните изрази в българския език: инвентаризация на размитото множество
Complex Prepositions in Bulgarian: Counting the Members of a Fuzzy Set

Summary/Abstract: The overview of the descriptive Bulgarian grammars and lexical resources shows that the status of complex prepositions such as по отношение на and независимо от is still a matter of debate. Some linguists classify them as lexical units, yet others consider them a type of phrasemes if not mere collocations. The type and the number and the elements vary from source to source – not surprisingly, given the different stages of grammaticalization of the individual expressions and the different methodologies used for their identification. More importantly, by virtue of their transitional nature, these complex prepositions constitute a fuzzy set μCP whose members exhibit various degrees of membership μCP(х). The degree should be defined based on a selection of criteria for all constructions classified as complex prepositions in the literature, which will allow for an in-depth and more precise analysis of the class and its internal structure. In order to do that, we examine the existing studies on the subject and two of the largest Bulgarian lexical databases (a dictionary and a wordnet) and identify all multiword expressions classified as complex prepositions up to this point. While we argue that sequences of prepositions in contact position p1 p2 (p3) such as за по над are not proper members of the class, we show that among the 160 complex prepositions of the two structural types p N p and Adv p no more than 15 are considered to be prototypical. In addition, we propose a number of criteria that should be taken into consideration in defining the degree of membership for each member of the class.

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