DIRECTION AND PROXIMITY IN THE ROMANIAN PREPOSITIONS SPRE, CĂTRE, ÎNSPRE. A COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS APPROACH
DIRECTION AND PROXIMITY IN THE ROMANIAN PREPOSITIONS SPRE, CĂTRE, ÎNSPRE. A COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS APPROACH

Summary/Abstract: Drawing on the claims put forth by cognitive semantics and cognitive grammar, this paper provides an analysis of three Romanian prepositions (spre, către, înspre) which share the central semantic features of direction and proximity. Although all these prepositions code basic spatial relations between two physical entities, they have developed further non-spatial meanings pertaining to temporal, teleological and stance scenarios. While suggesting diagrammatic representations for the image schemas underlying diverse prepositional meanings in conventional language contexts, it is argued that the spatial scene, due to its physical experiential grounding, serves as the foundation for the concrete to abstract semantic extension.

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