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Article published In:
Review of Cognitive Linguistics
Vol. 19:2 (2021) ► pp.403–428

Semantic network of the German preposition hinter

| University of Turku

The present study sets out to construct a semantic network for the German preposition hinter (‘behind’) based on the theoretical framework of “principled polysemy”. The analysis regarding the cognitive and pragmatic aspects motivating the meaning extensions of hinter attempts to highlight the importance of varying construal patterns and vantage points as well as the role of real-world knowledge. By means of corpus data, I intend to present six senses of the preposition hinter, hinting at the polysemous nature of prepositions more generally. Furthermore, the theory of conceptual metaphor is applied to account for metaphorical extensions of hinter to more abstract domains of embodied experience.

Keywords: preposition, meaning extension, polysemy, semantic network, German
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Spatial semantics and prepositions: Basic principles
  • 3.Overview of hinter/behind in the scientific literature
  • 4.Analysis of hinter
    • 4.1Methodology
    • 4.2Findings
      • 4.2.1The proto-scene: At the Back/Lack of Perceptual Access Sense
      • 4.2.2The Lack of Priority sense
      • 4.2.3The Temporal sense
      • 4.2.4The Unknown sense
      • 4.2.5The Support sense
      • 4.2.6The Reason sense
      • 4.2.7Hinter Gittern (‘behind bars’)
    • 4.3The semantic network of hinter
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
  • Online dictionaries and database
Published online: 11 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00089.ker
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