A semantic analysis of adessive -nál/-nél (‘at’) and superessive -n~ -on/-en/-ön (‘on’) in Hungarian

Abstract

Synchronic studies in the framework of holistic cognitive linguistics have recently yielded convincing results, and the idea of utilizing that framework for purposes of historical linguistics has also emerged (e.g. Blank–Koch eds. 1999). At the moment, no complete
studies of that sort are available for the Hungarian language, though Fazakas (2003) presented a brief account of the theoretical possibilities that arise. The present paper discusses a possible area of using cognitive semantics for historical purposes: the study of
the semantic system of certain Hungarian case endings. In particular, this study attempts to describe the behaviour of adessive -nál/-nél (‘at’) and superessive -n~-on/-en/-ön (‘on’) from a cognitive semantic perspective, considering diachronic aspects as well.