Cognitive Implications of Polysemy in Bosnian Translations of Surah al-Balad

Abstract

Using the descriptive-analytical method and grammatical analysis, this paper explores the phenomenon of lexical and grammatical polysemy in the 90 th Qur'anic surah al-Balad. Contemporary works from Cognitive Linguistics and the tafsir tradition form the basis of the research. Some key lexical units in this surah are characterised by polysemy, as observed by commentators of the Qur'an. The commitment to a specific semantic structure during interpretation can lead to semantic changes in the text’s higher structures. The paper’s aim is to present the cognitive implications of the use of such expressions, and to discover why Qur'an translators opted for specific interpretive matrices in the Bosnian language.