This monograph explores the semantic evolution of the verbs llevar and traer in the history of the Spanish language from a cognitive-functional and usage-based perspective. Drawing on data from the Corpus del Diccionario Histórico de la Lengua Española, it analyzes the semantic changes through which traer and llevar came to form a pair of deictic motion verbs, as well as the semantic extensions that enabled the development of rich lexical polysemy. The study also examines their grammaticalization in the causative-infinitive construction and, in the case of llevar, in the continuative verbal periphrasis llevar + gerund.
The results of the analysis show that the semantic evolution of llevar and traer is conditioned, on the one hand, by the need to preserve the internal semantic coherence of each verb and, on the other hand, by the tendency to maintain efficient paradigmatic relations with other lexical units. Furthermore, this research demonstrates that concepts and semantic structures related to motion occupy a central place in human cognition and language.
The book has been awarded the CIE-USAL Research Prize for doctoral dissertations in Spanish language and linguistics for the 2024-2025 academic year.
