Semantic network of the German preposition hinter

Abstract

The present study sets out to construct a semantic network for the German preposition hinter (‘behind’) based on the theoretical framework of “principled polysemy”. The analysis regarding the cognitive and pragmatic aspects motivating the meaning extensions of hinter attempts to highlight the importance of varying construal patterns and vantage points as well as the role of real-world knowledge. By means of corpus data, I intend to present six senses of the preposition hinter, hinting at the polysemous nature of prepositions more generally. Furthermore, the theory of conceptual metaphor is applied to account for metaphorical extensions of hinter to more abstract domains of embodied experience.