Da participi presenti a preposizioni deverbali: le basi semantiche della transcategorizzazione

Among others, there are a few Latin deverbal prepositions, whose sources are present participles that occur in the ablative absolute construction, such as praesente ‘being there’ and adstante ‘staying close’. This category shift is a typical case of parts-of-speech transcategorization, and is investigated here in line with the ‘non-discreteness hypothesis of the Parts-of-Speech’. The main goal of this paper is to stress the role of a cluster of language-specific morpho-syntactic features and universal semantic properties that made this change possible. In particular, the following hypotheses will be put forward: a. the most marginal members of the source category are the first to undergo transcategorization; b. other members may progressively undergo this change, following a cline of prototipicality.