PERCEPTUAL PARAMETERS, ANIMACY AND REFERENCE FRAMES IN THE SEMANTICS OF “OPPOSITE” AND “IN FRONT OF”
PERCEPTUAL PARAMETERS, ANIMACY AND REFERENCE FRAMES IN THE SEMANTICS OF “OPPOSITE” AND “IN FRONT OF”

Summary/Abstract: In this paper we combine topological and dynamicity analysis with other parameters like reference frames, animacy, and function, in order to depict the polysemy of two prepositions that express spatial relationships along the horizontal axis, namely, “opposite” and “in front of”. Our method consists of manual corpus analysis of 200 examples of each one of these particles from the COCA and BNC. The sense of each preposition in context has been classified according to a network of senses which includes a proto-concept, from which other senses are cognitively derived. In addition, frames of reference and degrees of animacy provide semantic contrasts between the prepositions under analysis. Finally, metaphorical senses can be described as cognitively derived from the previous parameterized senses, by means of mappings across domains (Lakoff, 1993). A first approximation to different senses is based on standard dictionaries. We claim that our analysis provides both native speakers and foreign learners with a coherent explanation of the polysemy of these items.

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