Where Do the Senses of Cora Vaꞌa- Come From?

Statement of Responsibility: 
Casad, Eugene H
Issue Date: 
2001
Publisher: 
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Publisher Place: 
Amsterdam/Philadelphia
Is Part Of Series: 
Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 177
Extent: 
pages 83-114
Abstract: 
The Cora-Huichol verb system is characterized by a complex system of locational and directional prefixes that combine with adjective and verb stems and incorporated noun roots with a dazzling array of semantic effects. These prefixes and prefix sequences are typically polysemous and have developed from a variety of grammatical sources. I examine the polysemy of the Cora locative prefix vaꞌa- , which can be glossed as “covering an area of a surface” in its static locational uses, and as “coming this way” in its directional senses. I consider its usages with both the prefixes a- “outside” and u- “inside”. No single prototype can subsume all these usages; they reflect two distinct mental models, each correlating with distinct lexical items that have merged phonologically and semantically. Both locational and directional usages derive historically from distinct main verbs, one meaning ‘to cover over an area’ and the other meaning ‘to come towards X’.
Publication Status: 
Published
Country: 
Mexico
Subject Languages: 
Content Language: 
Field: 
Work Type: 
Nature of Work: 
Is Part Of: 
Polysemy in cognitive linguistics. Hubert Cuyckens and Britta Zawada, eds., Polysemy in Cognitive Linguistics. Selected papers from the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Amsterdam, 1997. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 90272368
Entry Number: 
2979