{"title":"Exploring the meaning and productivity of a polysemous prefix","authors":"Angeliki Efthymiou, Georgia Fragaki, Angelos Markos","doi":"10.1556/064.2015.62.4.4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This paper follows a corpus-based approach to the meaning and productivity of the Modern Greek prepositional prefix para-. A semantic categorization of the prefix is proposed and its productivity is measured across semantic categories, registers, text types and grammatical categories. Para- was found to be more productive in non-locational and evaluative meanings. Its most productive meaning is excess, while the locational meaning of proximity still remains strong. It is also more productive in written than spoken registers and the grammatical category of nouns. The findings of the study can have implications about the prefix’s ongoing grammaticalization and its affixal status.","PeriodicalId":54157,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Hungarica","volume":"62 1","pages":"447-476"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2015-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1556/064.2015.62.4.4","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Acta Linguistica Hungarica","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1556/064.2015.62.4.4","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
This paper follows a corpus-based approach to the meaning and productivity of the Modern Greek prepositional prefix para-. A semantic categorization of the prefix is proposed and its productivity is measured across semantic categories, registers, text types and grammatical categories. Para- was found to be more productive in non-locational and evaluative meanings. Its most productive meaning is excess, while the locational meaning of proximity still remains strong. It is also more productive in written than spoken registers and the grammatical category of nouns. The findings of the study can have implications about the prefix’s ongoing grammaticalization and its affixal status.