Analysis of the Persian Preposition /az/ within the framework of Cognitive Semantics as compared to the Traditional Approach

There is a common practice of presenting a long list of meanings with no mention of the relationship among different meanings of a preposition, as an entry, in traditional Persian grammar books. The present paper argues that such a practice is far from adequate in the case of the preposition /az/, and that the more adequate way is to present a family resemblance semantic network, based on a prototype. The method presented here makes it possible to show the conceptual relations among the senses, and therefore refutes the common assumption that the meanings of prepositions are quite arbitrary.