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By virtue of categorization and prototype theories, cognitive semanticists have proposed different models for the polysemy of over since the 1980s. However, the previous studies are problematic in both theory and method. To improve them, this paper argues for usage-based research to construct the polysemy of over in the paradigmatic dimension, following Lin and Hwang’s (2021) analysis of the syntagmatic construction of over. Based on Saeed’s (2016) contextual distinction between vagueness and ambiguity, it proposes an ambiguity analysis, where the fuzzy boundary of two related senses of a lexical polysemy can be interpreted in terms of ambiguity. Drawing on usage-based lexico-grammatical evidence generalized from BNC data, this study sorts out six basic level senses/usages of over. Then, a comparative analysis is made between “above-across” and “covering” usages, of which the result shows that “above-across” over is more typical than “covering” over from the usage-based perspective. What’s more, it also supports a possible connection between the two usages, since “covering” over resembles the “horizontally resting on” association of “above-across” over in both form and meaning.
