The Russian prefix pod- from the viewpoint of lexical concepts

: Viimaranta Johanna

Publisher: Cambridge Journals

: Cambridge

: 2014

: Language and Cognition

: 6

: 4

: 462

: 491

: 1866-9859

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/ langcog.2014.11

The Russian preﬁ x pod- has several meanings, both concrete ones

having to do with approaching or being under or down, and a series of

seemingly unrelated abstract meanings such as imitating, ingratiating,

or doing in secret. This paper approaches the polysemy of pod- from

the viewpoint of the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Conceptual

Models (LCCM) that sees word meaning not as a permanent property

of words, but as a dynamic process in which context and accessed

non-linguistic knowledge representation play an important role. This

approach uses the notion of lexical concepts to describe the mediating

unit between concrete linguistic examples and cognitive models that

these examples are connected to. The 505 verbs analyzed bring up the

lexical concepts [UNDER], [VERTICAL MOVEMENT], [CLOSE],

and [CONTACT]. The connection of these lexical concepts with

certain metaphorical and metonymical models is also discussed. Twelve

of the 505 verbs are examined more closely in diff erent contexts with

the help of twenty-nine illustrative examples from the spoken corpus

of the Russian National Corpus

The Russian preﬁx pod- has several meanings, both concrete ones

having to do with approaching or being under or down, and a series of

seemingly unrelated abstract meanings such as imitating, ingratiating,

or doing in secret. This paper approaches the polysemy of pod- from

the viewpoint of the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Conceptual

Models (LCCM) that sees word meaning not as a permanent property

of words, but as a dynamic process in which context and accessed

non-linguistic knowledge representation play an important role. This

approach uses the notion of lexical concepts to describe the mediating

unit between concrete linguistic examples and cognitive models that

these examples are connected to. The 505 verbs analyzed bring up the

lexical concepts [UNDER], [VERTICAL MOVEMENT], [CLOSE],

and [CONTACT]. The connection of these lexical concepts with

certain metaphorical and metonymical models is also discussed. Twelve

of the 505 verbs are examined more closely in diff erent contexts with

the help of twenty-nine illustrative examples from the spoken corpus

of the Russian National Corpus

Viimaranta_Dec2013.pdf