The Polysemy of Khilal: A Cognitive Approach

This paper presents a cognitive analysis of the Arabic preposition khilāl “through” on the basis of Tyler & Evans’ (2001, 2003) model of Principled Polysemy. The study includes developing a semantic or polysemous network of khilāl through applying the criteria of this model, identifying its primary sense and distinct senses. The study also includes a contrastive analysis of the semantic networks of khilāl and the equivalent English preposition through in terms of their proto-scenes and the distinct senses associated with each. Analyses showed that both khilāl and through share the same proto-scene of a Trajector Traversing a bounded Landmark. Moreover, khilāl seems to have very limited uses comparing to through and this, as I assume, might be due to its restricted use in Modern Standard Arabic, decreasing as a result its pragmatic strengthening possibilities.