Polysituational semantics of Yiddish prefixed verbs (exemplified by the verb geyn with some prefixes)

This article looks into the polysituationality of verb semantics on the denotative logical level of a situation, the cognitive semantic macro-level of the concept of a situation and the cognitive semantic micro-level of the situatheme exampled by the verb geyn with some prefixes. 1) The situation as a predicative denotation is reflected by the language, including Yiddish, not always logically. 2) The concept of the situation (CS) as a generic and abstracted manner of a naive linguistic representation of the situation can be in the following relations to the situation: a) symmetrical when the prefixed verb has a logical internal form, or b) asymmetrical when the prefixed verb has an illogical internal form and its interpretation is possible only by means of an underlying abstraction. 3) The situatheme as a unit of content which reflects the dynamic polysituational denotative structure of a non-limited type and (unlike abstracted CSs) as a concrete unit enables to investigate and display that the so called non-additivity of components' meaning and - always - a new sense appearance take place by the interaction between the verb stem and the prefix; this new sense includes several micro-situations (MS) which: a) can be: - kernel MSs (MSK) when the main MS is expressed by the verb lexeme, the stem or the prefix; - peripheral MSs (MSP) when MSs are expressed by optional, dependent parts of the sentence; - marginal MSs (MSM) when the MS is syntactically inexpressible, but can be reconstructed by means of an underlying analysis; b) are dependent on each other by prospective, retrospective, introspective, synchronous or multiplex taxis relations. An example of the verb avekgeyn 'go away' will illustrate the points: a) The situation: "(Quasi-)self moving away of subject/object from the observer". b) CS: avekgeyn with its concrete spatial meaning conceptualises the situation symmetrically. c) The situatheme of avekgeyn: three-situational, targeted, prospective. The situatheme includes three MSs: - the first MSM "Initial location of subject/object", - the second MSK "Subject/object is going away", - the third MSP "Goal of moving away". d) Correlation between the situation, CS and the situatheme: 4) CS and the situatheme are deep specifiers of the meaning of the prefixed verb designating the situation that directly correlates only with MSK: a) the common component is "moving away of the subject / object"; b) a relevant distinction on the situation and situatheme level is that between the subject (self) and the object (quasi-self) moving away; c) "quasi-self" is irrelevant on the level of CS because the moving away of inanimate objects is conceptualised as "self"; d) two supplementary components become apparent on the situatheme level: MSM: "Subject / object is in its initial location"; and MSP: "With any goal".

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