POLYSEMY OF THE BULGARIAN PREPOSITION NA

Abstract

This paper proposes a cognitive analysis of some of the meanings of the highly polysemous Bulgarian preposition na, applying the Principled Polysemy Approach developed by Evans and Tyler (2003). Stepping on Boyadzhiev's 1952 classification of the uses of na, we suggest organizing the various senses of na as a radial (conceptual) category (Lakoff 1987, Brugman, Lakoff 1988) with a prototypical sense (lexical concept). We argue that in addition to the spatiogeometric parameters the core spatial lexical concept of na includes also functional information from which non-spatial meanings such as „active state“ derive.