La polisemia de los verbos de colocación: descripción sincrónica y evolución diacrónica de los cuasi-sinónimos poner/meter y poser/mettre

This article compares the syntax and semantics of the locative verbs poner and meter in Spanish with their French cognates poser and mettre. In some contexts these lexemes are clearly interchangeable, whereas in others they are not. The purpose of this study is double. First, based on a large contemporary corpus for Spanish and French, it describes the intricate polysemy of the verbs. It shows that in modern Spanish mainly poner presents more grammaticalized uses – that is as a semi-copulative or causative verb. In contrast, its near-equivalent meter behaves more frequently like a true locative verb. In French, the situation is the other way around: mettre seems to display more grammaticalized uses, mainly as inchoative auxiliary verb, than poser does. The second part of the analysis provides an explanation for this different behavior and maps out the diachronic semantic development of the verbs, from the 13th century up till now.