From Latin super- to Spanish sobre-

This chapter deals with verb formation concerning both sobre- and super- in Spanish and Latin, respectively. It is proposed a cognitive link between the different meanings shown by the prefix sobre- in verb formation processes. The difference between Spanish and Latin as regards the distribution of meaning is evident: while local meanings are the most frequent in Latin, non-local meanings are the most abundant in Spanish; in fact, the following senses have been detected: fictive movement, temporal location, excess, repetition, sudden action, incomplete action, wider action, surpassing and non-physical location. Nevertheless, it seems obvious that the local meaning constitutes the experiential base of the rest; moreover, it is argued that all notional meanings are accessible via local ones. Keywords: prefixes; semantic change; radial category