The cognitive semantics of prepositions in the Holy Qur’an and their implicatures

Abstract

First, this paper investigates the crucial role of metaphor and metonymy in the polysemy of the Arabic prepositions in holy Qur'an. Metaphor and metonymy, as cognitive mechanisms motivating polysemy, are powerful tools triggering meaning extension of the preposition in the qur'anic verse from its central meaning to its new extended meaning. Second, the study explores the contribution of these two cognitive tools in deriving the explicature of the extended meaning of the preposition through applying processes of pragmatic enrichment which, in turn, play a major role in the recovery of the explicated meanings and assumptions of the qur'anic verse as a whole. The study focuses on the issue that the extended meaning of the preposition accounts for the explicated content of the qur'anic verse from which an independent assumption, implicature, is inferred in terms of the central meaning of the preposition used.