| Resumo: | This paper analyses, from a diachronic perspective, the relation between two lexical and semantic diachronic processes of change in the prepositional phrase consisting of the preposition a + noun: delocativization and abstraction. The main finding of this research is that, throughout the his- tory of Spanish, the basic locative meaning of this sort of phrases decreased in favor of non locative ones. This led to an increase in the amount of abstract nominal phrases, to the detriment of concrete ones. The interest of this lexi- cal and semantic change is that it ocurred as a result of a “domino effect”: a first delocativization cleared the way for a subsequent abstraction.
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