engleski

The Binary Variable of Applicativity/Retroapplicativity as a Criterion for Identifying Prepositional Antonymy: The Case of the Italian Prepositions da1 and da2

Historically speaking, the paradigmatic relation of antonymy has been addressed by a great number of linguists, yet little light has been shed on prepositional antonymy in particular. In point of fact, very few studies have been focused on this specific issue (e.g., Katunar 2014). Therefore, in the author's view, this topic merits further attention, primarily in terms of pondering the reliable criteria for identifying prepositional antonyms. The author believes that these criteria cannot rely primarily on the methods of corpus linguistics, such as the frequency of the co- occurence of prepositional antonyms, but rather on the notions of embodied experience, which entails a consideration of the interplay between linguistic and extralinguistic factors. When it comes to defining the relation of antonymy within the category of prepositions, confusion abounds. As the members of this category are polysemous lexemes, it can be deduced that, in many cases, they can have multiple antonyms among the members of the same category. This confusion is significantly more pronounced in the case of topological spatial prepositions, than in the case of projective (relational) prepositions. Consequently, establishing clear and unequivocal parameters based on the notions of embodied experience turns out to be a necessary condition for distinguishing antonymy from any other kind of paradigmatic relations that can be established between individual members of this category. For this reason, the author makes use of the binary variable of 'applicativity/retroapplicativity', (Pennacchietti 2006 ; 2008 ; 2009) in order to provide reliable criteria for identifying prepositional antonymy. While ‘applicativity’ refers to the capacity of a preposition to encode a relation in which the trajector is projected onto the landmark, ‘retropplicativity’ refers to the opposite - the capacity of a preposition to encode a spatial relation in which the trajector emerges from the landmark. The effectiveness of this procedure is tested on the Italian prepositional form da, which proves to be homonymous – referring to both the retroapplicative preposition da1 and the applicative preposition da2. The mere fact that antonymy has been identified dismantles a widespread belief that all the uses of the Italian prepositional form da can be explained by means of polysemy.

antonymy, prepositions, (retro)applicativity

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