LAUSR

Abstract This paper aims at showing the relevance of cognitive semantics in the study of linguistic units whose conceptual import tends to be underresearched within formalist frameworks. Specifically, I focus on the alternation between the prepositions con ‘with’ and de ‘of’ in the change-of-state variant of the locative alternation (e.g., cargar el camion con/de heno, lit. load the truck with/of hay). I show that although the con- and the de-constructions share many semantic properties and they can refer to the same conceptual content, experimental-based cognitive semantics offers powerful tools to elucidate subtle shades of meaning that might remain opaque in formal semantic theories.