Abstract
Prepositions are highly polysemic words. In Homeric Greek, they either retain a number of meanings that are lost in post-Homeric Greek, or have not yet developed other meanings that later become conventionalized. In this paper, I analyze the semantics of the preposition ὑπέρ in Homeric Greek using the terminology of cognitive grammar. In addition, I use the model of structured polysemy in order to detect the original meaning of ὑπέρ, and to distinguish, among all its meanings, those triggered by the context from those independently stored in the mind of speakers. While making such a distinction, I also take into account both the semantic development of ὑπέρ in post-Homeric Greek, and the interaction between preposition and morphological case. I then arrange the distinct meanings in a semantic network, and link them directly or indirectly to the original spatial meaning. At the end, I show how further spatial or abstract meanings develop from the original meaning.
Highlights
In Homeric Greek, they either retain a number of meanings that are lost in post-Homeric Greek, or have not yet developed other meanings that later become conventionalized
I analyze the semantics of the preposition ὑπέρ in Homeric Greek using the terminology of cognitive grammar
I use the model of structured polysemy in order to detect the original meaning of ὑπέρ, and to distinguish, among all its meanings, those triggered by the context from those independently stored in the mind of speakers
Summary
In questo lavoro mi occupo dei significati che ὑπέρ mostra nel greco omerico, quando è usata come preposizione. Anche come preposizione ὑπέρ ha significati in parte diversi da quelli che sviluppa nel greco postomerico. In Omero la preposizione non sviluppa significati temporali e neppure il significato di Scopo, come invece avviene nel greco. L’uso di ὑπέρ con l’accusativo di estensione, attestato nei poemi omerici, tende a sparire nel greco postomerico (Luraghi 2003). Poi, che il significato di una preposizione come ὑπέρ può variare in base ai parametri associati a trajector, landmark o alla relazione tra i due. Nel paragrafo 2.2 spiego come i significati distinti di una preposizione siano instanziati nella mente del parlante sotto forma di scenari di tipo spaziale (Tyler e Evans 2003) e come tutti questi scenari siano organizzati in una rete semantica (modello della polisemia strutturata). Nel paragrafo cinque traggo le conclusioni di questo lavoro
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