engleski

Polysemy within multifunctionality. On the locative meanings of the Croatian suffix -(j)ar(a)

The objective of the present study is to account for the semantic heterogeneity of the locative sense of the Croatian suffix -(j)ar(a). The suffix as a whole exhibits a degree of multifunctionality: it is found with nouns denoting female agents or usu. female persons pejoratively, animals, plants, objects and locations. However, our focus will be on the variation found within one of these senses, viz. locative, for practical and theoretical reasons. First, the discussion will show that the concept of ‘location’ is not homogenous and can overlap with that of ‘objects’. In other words, within the locative sense there appear to be motivated meaning extensions, which one would hope to find between the more ‘global’ senses (agents, locations, objects, animals and plants). Second, more and more evidence is available to suggest that apparent synchronic polysemies of this global nature are in fact the results of diachronic ‘accidents’, viz. homonymization, ellipsis, borrowing, etc. (cf. Luschützky 2011, Rainer 2005, 2011, Luschützky and Rainer 2013). Third, while the existence of such ‘accidents’ in other languages does not preclude a polysemic account of -(j)ar(a) in principle, the acute absence of relevant diachronic treatments of Croatian word formation and, more importantly, of a large, representative historical corpus of Croatian, would seriously undermine such an account in practice. Therefore, this study will remain a cognitively plausible hypothesis about the motivation for the observed semantic variety within the locative sense. By focusing largely on the ‘local’ lexical polysemies and the low-level types of polysemy found within the broadly construed locative sense, rather than on the more ‘global’ schematic multifunctionality between the full spate of the suffixes’ senses, this study will remain closer to the specific, and arguably at least a bit more verifiable, language data.

lexical polysemy, affixal polysemy, locative meanings, motivation

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