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Abstract One of the issues discussed in the framework of cognitive semantics is the issue of polysemy. One of the fundamental concepts in polysemy is radial categories. In cognitive semantics, a polysemous word forms a category, and the different meanings of that word are assigned to the members of that category. From this point of view, prefixes also have multiple meanings that can be added to their bases. In this regard, in the present study, the polysemy of the prefix /hæm-/ was investigated by relying on the cognitive semantics approach. The methodological nature of this qualitative study was descriptive-analytic, and the data have been collected by library research method including Dehkhoda Dictionary (1995), Mo’in Dictionary (2003) and Amid Dictionary (2011). The findings indicated that the non-verbal prefix /hæm-/ is a polysemous prefix with a range of lexical functions. It’s worth mentioning that this prefix in some cases changes the lexical meaning of the verbal root, and thus creates a distinct lexical element. And also, the results showed that the prefix /hæm-/ consists of five distinctive meaning. Based on factors to determine the prototypemeaning, it was found that among the existing meanings, the meaning of "sharing" is the core or prototypemeaning of the prefix /hæm-/, and four other semantic clusters are formed around this core meaning. Accordingly, the prefix /hæm-/ has formed a category that gathers all its meanings around a core meaning, just like lexical categories. Keywords: cognitive semantics, polysemy, radial category, prefix, Persian Introduction One of the issues discussed in the framework of cognitive semantics is the issue of polysemy. In the field of semantics, polysemy is important because meaning generativity and expansion of concepts to a significant extent occurs as a result of the creation and formation of polysemy. Radial categories provide one of the fundamental concepts in polysemy. In cognitive semantics, a polysemous word forms a category and the different meanings of that word are assigned to the members of that category. It can be claimed that all these meanings are related to each other. The relationship between these meanings can be also justified through what are called radial categories. From this point of view, prefixes have multiple meanings that can be added to their bases. In this regard, in the present study, the polysemy of the prefix /hæm-/ was investigated by relying on the cognitive semantic approach. According to the prototypical theory, it is believed that some of these meanings are better examples for that particular category and some members marginally represent their category. Also, more prototypical meanings are placed in the center of this radial category and marginal meanings are related to these more central meanings through family similarities. Semantic relation is the outcome of humans’ daily interactions and their embodied experiences. Moreover, observations of the world around them show these experiences in image schemas and mental spaces as well. With the use of these concepts and experiences, human beings realize the similarities between two or more processes and use a word with a metaphorical extension in other meanings while referring to those processes. In this regard, Likoff and Brugmann (1988) stated that words occur in radial categories that are placed under a conceptual category, in which several concepts are organized in relation to a central concept. In the case of words, it is said that their central or prototypical meanings are located in the center of this category and their marginal meanings are further away from those prototypical meanings (Evans & Green, 2006: 332). The following figure shows an abstract image of how the different meanings of words are related to the perspective of radial categories: Fig 1- Network of radial categories (Evans & Green, 2006: 332) Materials and Methods The methodological nature of this qualitative study was descriptive-analytic and the data consisted of almost 436 words which were collected from the library resources available in Persian language, such as historical books and books of authoritative cultures, including Dehkhoda Dictionary (1995), Mo’in Dictionary (2003), and Amid Dictionary (2011). Then, by using the criteria provided by Taylor and Evans (Taylor & Evans, 2003), the prototypical and marginal meanings of the prefix /hæm-/ in Persian language were determined. In addition, the authors tried to use cognitive tools in this approach for different meanings of the investigated prefix to present the relevant schemata. Finally, the radial network of this prefix was drawn. Discussion of Results and Conclusion The issue that emerges is that, like words, Persian language prefixes, such as "Ham-", which are considered to be remnants of the previous periods of the mentioned language, have changed over time and as a result, their meanings have also changed and expanded in combination with different bases. Also, since prefixes play an important role in a language as constructive elements in the construction of language words and new concepts, determining their prototypical meanings and radial network can be an effective step in understanding their semantic range. Therefore, in the current research, the authors tried to answer the following questions: What are the prototypical meanings of the prefix /hæm-/ and its polysemous radial network? How are the compounded words derived from the prefix /hæm-/ explained? The findings indicated that the non-verbal prefix /hæm-/ is a polysemous prefix with a range of lexical functions. It is worth mentioning that this prefix changes the lexical meaning of the verbal root and thus creates a distinct lexical element in some cases. The results showed that the prefix /hæm-/ consisted of 5 distinctive meanings. Based on the factors, it was found that among the existing meanings, the meaning of "sharing" was the core or prototypical meaning of the prefix /hæm-/, while the other 4 meanings were considered as 4 semantic clusters formed around that prototypical meaning. Accordingly, the prefix /hæm-/ formed a category that gathered all its meanings around a core meaning just like lexical categories. To sum it up, among the collected data, 40 and 46 words were used in combination with the prefix /hæm/ in the semantic clusters of "similarity" and "association", respectively. Also, 42 words from the data in this research had the semantic cluster of "equality/sameness". Finally, the findings showed that the schemata of “sharing” as the prototypical meaning for the prefix /hæm-/ had the highest frequency of meaning compared to the semantic clusters and that was why it was considered as the prototypical meaning. Also, out of the 4 semantic clusters of "companionship", "similarity", "association", and "equality/sameness", the schematas of "companion" and "similarity" had the highest and lowest frequencies, respectively.

One of the issues discussed in the framework of cognitive semantics is the issue of polysemy. One of the fundamental concepts in polysemy is radial categories. In cognitive semantics, a polysemous word forms a category, and the different meanings of that word are assigned to the members of that category. From this point of view, prefixes also have multiple meanings that can be added to their bases. In this regard, in the present study, the polysemy of the prefix /hæm-/ was investigated by relying on the cognitive semantics approach. The methodological nature of this qualitative study was descriptive-analytic, and the data have been collected by library research method including Dehkhoda Dictionary (1995), Mo’in Dictionary (2003) and Amid Dictionary (2011). The findings indicated that the non-verbal prefix /hæm-/ is a polysemous prefix with a range of lexical functions. It’s worth mentioning that this prefix in some cases changes the lexical meaning of the verbal root, and thus creates a distinct lexical element. And also, the results showed that the prefix /hæm-/ consists of five distinctive meaning. Based on factors to determine the prototypemeaning, it was found that among the existing meanings, the meaning of "sharing" is the core or prototypemeaning of the prefix /hæm-/, and four other semantic clusters are formed around this core meaning. Accordingly, the prefix /hæm-/ has formed a category that gathers all its meanings around a core meaning, just like lexical categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of an elaborate system of co-verbial constructions is the hallmark of the Hungarian language and one of the biggest challenges a translator or a learner of this language has to face. Co-verbial constructions consist of verbs, or their derivates, accompanied by a limited number of prefixes or particles that modify their meanings. They not only perform numerous syntactic and lexical functions, which is important in terms of language production, but also are able to change the meaning of the verb completely. The aim of this study is to trace the cognitive motivation behind the use of Hungarian co-verbial constructions with össze/szét and to show that the meanings developed by these constructions can be organized with reference to prototypical scenes structured in the form of a radial category.

The main aim of this study is to describe the color term negro as a polysemic unit and to show it as a radial category containing different meanings related among them, as well as to highlight the prominence of metonymy in the motivation and the relation among senses. The article is structured as follows: (i) exposition of the main characteristics of cognitive semantics and conceptual polysemy, (ii) description of the motivation of different meanings related to negro and (iii) organization of the radial network of negro as a polysemic category and description of the role of metonymy and metaphor in the relationship among meanings. In order to carry out the study a corpus-based methodology is applied. This allows us to obtain usage-based events of the color term negro as well as to access the cotextual and contextual information that intervene in the activation and distinction of senses. In terms of the motivation and the relationship among them, the study is carried out according to the TCMM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of an elaborate system of co-verbial constructions is the hallmark of the Hungarian language and one of the biggest challenges a translator or a learner of this language has to face. Co-verbial constructions consist of verbs, or their derivates, accompanied by a limited number of prefixes or particles that modify their meanings. They not only perform numerous syntactic and lexical functions, which is important in terms of language production, but also are able to change the meaning of the verb completely. The aim of this study is to trace the cognitive motivation behind the use of Hungarian co-verbial constructions with ossze/szet and to show that the meanings developed by these constructions can be organized with reference to prototypical scenes structured in the form of a radial category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During recent decades, Persian complex predicates have been described by many grammarians and linguists with different approaches to their syntax, morphology, and, in less extent, to their semantics. Despite the extensive literature about the subject, cognitive semantic analysis of these predicates has not yet been the matter of analysis. This paper aims at examining the polysemous feature of the light verb zadan based on cognitive lexical semantics. It seeks to show that this feature of the light verb zadan based on the meanings of its corresponding heavy verb is a systematic phenomenon and cognitive concepts such as categorization, radial category, image schemas and conceptual metaphor play a major role in the formation of different meanings of this linguistic element in the form of a radial category. As well, the meaning of light verb is a determining factor in collocation between light verb and preverbal elements in light verb constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores synonymy and polysemy in the interaction of meaning and the elements that a verb combines with. It presents a corpus-based analysis of four Spanish verbs (tirar, lanzar, arrojar and echar) whose primary meaning is ‘to throw.’ A four-hundred sentence sample extracted from the Corpus del Español 1900s subcorpus serves as the basis for this study. Statistical tests are used to compare the verbs’ behavior across several factors: morphological markings such as mood, tense and person, the types of subjects (human versus nonhuman), the types of objects (concrete versus nonconcrete), and the interaction of subject and object in full constructions. The tests are accompanied by semantic analysis of the sample sentences. The result of the statistical and descriptive analyses is a radial categorization that highlights the types of metaphoric and metonymic extensions that each verb uses, and where and how the verbs overlap semantically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lexical nature of the preposition 'de' has not always been recognized duly. This is because prepositions cannot work independently and also because of the variety of meanings that they convey. In view of this theoretical gap, the present study --in line with the Prototypical-Cognitive Approach (Lakoff 1987, Langacker 1987, 1991, Hopper 1988, Geeraerts 2007, among others)-- formulates the following hypotheses: a) the different semantic values of the preposition 'de' (in nominal constructions) are systematically organized and constitute a polysemous item; b) the polysemous item 'de' is characterized by being organized (1) by a radial structure (Lakoff 1987), (2) on the basis of the idealized cognitive model of 'reference point' (Langacker 1991); and (3) through Taylor's (1995) attributes for possessive use, which is its prototypical meaning. Finally, the constructions with 'de' which deviate from the prototypical values maintain a semantico-pragmatic relationship with them by means of the notion of 'family resemblance' (Wittgenstein 1988[1953]; Lakoff 1987). This resemblance relationship includes both the loss and addition of attributes not present within the prototypical area. In order to test hypotheses, different examples of the semantic extensions derived from the central meaning of possession were analysed qualitatively. The data being described was selected from an oral corpus of Buenos Aires Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study explores some specific aspects of compatibility between cognitive models. Robert E. MacLaury’s theory of vantages as arrangements of coordinates and Lakoff’s concept of radial categories are mutually reinforcing to an analysis of semantic polysemy. Vantage Theory (VT) includes the notions of zooming in and zooming out, allowing focused and broad points of view to be constructed in reference to a figure and ground. Zooming in and out are some of the mechanisms of Lakoff’s increments of polysemous extension. Also helpful is Langacker’s usage-based model of a hierarchical semantic network. Expanding the VT model in this way enables interpretation of a complex lexical meaning as multiple perspectives on one concept, the Iberian macho. In addition to polysemy, we will look at the relation between vantages and prototypes and consider the contribution of one’s personal background and viewpoint to semantic networks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]