An instruction-based analysis ofover

Abstract

abstractMany studies in cognitive linguistics have analyzed the semantics ofover, notably the semantics associated withoveras a preposition. Most of them generally conclude thatoveris polysemic and that this polysemy is to be described thanks to a semantic radial network, showing the relationships between the different meanings of the word. What we would like to suggest, to the contrary, is that the meanings ofoverare highly dependent on the utterance context in which its occurrences are embedded, and consequently that the meaning ofoveritself is under-specified, rather than polysemic. Moreover, to provide a more accurate account of the apparently wide range of meanings ofoverin context, we ought to take into account the other uses of this unit: as an adverb and particle, and not only as a preposition. In this paper, we provide a corpus-based description ofoverwhich leads us to propose a monosemic definition.