The verbal prefix u- in Croatian and Bulgarian

Abstract

This study compares the semantic networks of the verbal prefix u - in two South Slavic languages, Bulgarian ( blg .) and Croatian ( cro .), in a cognitive linguistics framework using two databases of prefixed verbs drawn from dictionaries and corpora. We point to similarities and overlapping categories in the semantic networks of u - in blg . and cro ., as well as to differences. When accounting for the differences, we consider prefixes semantically similar to u - (within one language and in both languages) that combine with the same base verbs forming either prefixed near-synonyms (e.g., blg . uvehna, zavehna, izvehna ‘wither, fade’; cro . umastiti, omastiti, zamastiti ‘grease, stain’) or prefixed verbs that are only seemingly near-synonyms (e.g., blg . ukaža ‘indicate, show’, okaža se ‘turn out’; cro . ocrniti ‘denigrate, slander’, ucrniti ( se ) ‘color black, wear black’). We examine how the meaning networks of individual semantically related prefixes (e.g., u - and za -, iz- ) overlap within one language and across the two languages, as well as how different construals of the same event affect the prefix choice.