The conceptualization of space and its elements is manifested in language through diverse linguistic expressions. Space, one of the most signifi cant analytical categories not only in linguistics, introduces a variety of meanings and conceptual relations in communicative meaning construction. The paper endeavours to analyse the concept of the ‘door’ (‘porta’) in Italian discourse as the element of space around us, based on cognitive grammar of Ronald W. Langacker, with the central focus on conventional imagery in Italian language. It is an attempt to merge cognitive linguistics with text linguistics by investigating the concept from a discourse perspective, which takes into consideration the speech event and its elements, thus providing a broader context. The results of the research have shown that the concept of the ’door’ (‘porta’), used in various contexts with different meanings, belongs to four major profi les: entrance, access, possibility, and the social profi le. Firstly, the ‘door’ is conceptualized as the point of entrance or one that allows / bans access to a place. Secondly, it conceptualizes possibility: by opening / closing the door we get / lose a possibility to accomplish our objectives. Thirdly, the ‘door’ represents social relations and interactions by uniting / separating people. Finally, the ‘door’ appears in many metaphorical expressions conceptualizing time. Therefore, we can assume that the abundance of meanings and their interpretation will depend on the imagination and knowledge of the speaker and the hearer, the participants in the speech event.

In the article I present and criticize the view of classical compatibilism on freedom, i.e. the view according to which free subjects and free actions can exist in the world ruled by universal, exceptionless causality. I claim that compatibilism does not solve the problem of freedom and determinism, but avoids and disregards it. Compatibilism pretends to accomplish the task by playing with semantic tricks that create a misleading impression of ‛compatibility’.

In the first part, ‘Visions’, a pattern of interpreting Western philosophical thought, as an attempt to deal with the problem of axiological catastrophe, is outlined. In the second part, ‘Vastness’, the author tries to show how far human speculative thinking (metaphysical thinking) can be extended, regardless of whether the ‘vastness’ that human metaphysics aims at is realized one way or another. The third part, ‘God’, deals with the relationship between the concept of God and the concept of metaphysical vastness. The fourth part is called ‘Cradle’ and its intention is to show that in comparison with real or only possible metaphysical vastness, the world in which we live is a kind of beginning of an infinite life, and therefore serves as a cradle. In the last part, entitled ‘Fullness’, some ideas are proffered to show how the eternal life of such entities as human persons may appear against the background of metaphysical vastness.

The question of what is the difference between borrowing and code-switching has attracted the attention of scholars far and wide and gave at the same time rise to a plethora of publications in order to draw a boundary between these two terms. In the most recent of these publications (Grosjean 1982, Poplack & Meechan 1995 & 1998; to name but a few), it has been often argued that borrowings are donor-language items that are integrated in the grammar of the recipient language at a community level, while code-switches take place at individual level and they retain the grammar of the language from which they derive. However, the current political and economic uncertainties in various regions of the world have been found to cause mass refugee movements to conflict-free places, where contact between newcomers and locals usually lead to some kind of linguistic interinfluencing. The current study discusses the contactinduced German-origin lone lexical items used by Iraqi-Arabic-speaking refugees in Germany. It is the aim of this study to show whether or not these lexical items can be considered as code-switches or established borrowings. The data I am analyzing come from spontaneous and elicited conversations of the first and second wave of Iraqi- Arabic-speaking refugees and asylum seekers to Germany as well as from online- and paper-pencil-questionnaires.