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Both generative and functionalist approaches agree that syncretism reveals similarity in meaning. Investigating syncretism among oblique markers, Croft (1991) makes a distinction between the so-called “Antecedent” roles (e.g., Cause, Agent, Instrument) and “Subsequent” roles (e.g., Result, Purpose, Goal). Antecedent roles show syncretism among themselves, as do subsequent roles, but there is little syncretism across the two groups. However, Luraghi (2001) notes that some languages show syncretism between Cause (He was arrested for robbery) and Purpose (He did it for money). This syncretism runs counter Croft’s generalization and against the intuition that Cause and Purpose occupy quite distinct places in the causal chain. This paper sheds new light on this syncretism by examining the preposition za ‘behind’ in Russian. Its properties indicate that the cognitive models of intentionality (for money) and causality (for robbery) are principally different from each other, as well as from the cognitive model of time, i.e., there are three separate scales of intentionality (purpose), causality, and time involved. The same preposition can serve to locate the events with respect to each other on each scale, but since the scales are different, the preposition ends up with apparently contradictory meanings.