The lexicographic composition of function-words. The case of preposition ‘de’ in the "Diccionario General y Etimológico del Castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón"

Abstract

In this paper, we intend to show –by means of diachronic justification– the procedure followed by the team working on the DICCA-XV in the treatment of the preposition de. Semantic criteria are evaded when formalizing the different meanings of this preposition as an entry in the dictionary, because we consider that voices without a meaning of their own should be treated functionally. However, the very own nature of the Latin preposition from which these words originate like the cases that substitute them, make this impossible in certain functional definitions: those that come from the ablative, for example, intrinsically possess a related semantics.