The Interplay of Synonymy and Polysemy

Table 12
. Distribution of 
a 
‘at/to’ 
versus other prepositions/adverbs, 
including statistical results 
X-squared=6.95, df=3, p-value=0.074 
a 'at/to' 
other 
arrojar 
31 
37 
echar 
42 
40 
lanzar 
39 
27 
tirar 
21 
37 

---

110 | 
end-point of motion; where the object ends up. The typical preposition is 
a
‘at/to’, but 
contra 
‘against’ is also classified as a goal
23
.
Some prepositions mark the path that is followed, the route. Examples include 
por 
‘by/through’ and 
a través de 
‘through’. The fourth category is the intended goal. These 
prepositions denote motion directed towards a place or object, but there is no implication that 
the moving object has reached that place. This includes 
hacia 
‘towards’ and 
para 
‘towards’. 
The final group includes prepositions that mark the source or beginning of motion. The two 
most typical prepositions are 
de 
‘from/of’ and 
desde
‘from’. 
Table 13 shows the distri-
bution across the five groups. The 
counts for route, intended goal and 
source are too low to test using the 
chi-square test. If we test only goal 
versus locative the results are not 
significant. With a X-squared of 6.29 
and a df of 3, the p-value is 0.098. All four verbs behave comparably. Looking strictly at the 
prepositions and adverbs, the verbs seem to behave the same. It is still worthwhile to notice 
that both the goal and locative prepositions mark the end point of motion. Therefore, the end 
point of the trajectory is expressed in over 75% of the sentences with 
DIRECTIONALS
for each 
verb. Morante et al. (1998) had previously noted that sentences with verbs of motion tend to 
express the end-point. The data confirm this. Though it is possible to express the route, 
intended goal and source, it is done so infrequently in the 400-sentence corpus.
The 
DIRECTIONAL
also includes a noun that serves as the complement of the 
preposition. In the 400-sentence corpus, this complement denotes an assortment of elements. 
It could be a small physical object 
(maleta 
‘suitcase’), larger physical objects (
cama
‘bed’), a 
building (
mansión
‘mansion’), a part of a building (
celda
‘(jail) cell’), a city (
la capital de 
Guatemala 
‘the capital of Guatemala’), bodies of water (
río 
‘river’, 
lago
‘lake’), plants (
el 
grano 
‘the grain’) a person (
el chico
‘the boy/guy’), body parts (
cuello 
‘neck’),
 
a generic 
trajectory (
en derredor
‘around’), certain open spaces (
al
aire 
‘(up) in the air’), to name a 
few. Since there seems to be no clear cut way to divide the different complements into 2 or 3 
23
Contra 
‘against’ is also often classified as a locative preposition. In NGRAE §29.7j, it states that this 
preposition can express location in some contexts and a goal in others. In Meilán García (1998:25) she suggests 
that it is a preposition that implies motion, while later in the same text (1998:34-35) states that this 
preposition does not imply motion.