The semantic profile of the verbal prefix do- in Bulgarian and Croatian

Abstract

This is a comparative study of the verbal prefix do- in two South Slavic languages, Bulgarian (Blg.) and Croatian (Cro.). Although these two languages show many similarities in the meaning of the verb stems and prefixation patterns, there are some unusual differences that may confuse foreign learners of Slavic, who expect identical or similar base verbs to combine with the same prefixes. The cognitive linguistics framework allows us to approach these differences systematically. We apply it to two databases of Blg. and Cro. prefixed verbs developed for the purposes of this research and extracted from reference books, dictionaries, and online corpora. We systematise do- verbs in a semantic network and account for both the overlapping meaning categories and the differences between the two languages studied, taking into consideration prefixes semantically similar to do- that combine with the same base verbs to form near-synonyms of do- verbs. We point to prefix variation as ensuing from different perspectives on the same event.