From Polysemy to Semantic Change
Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations
Editor
| Llacan (Inalco, CNRS), Fédération TUL
This book is the result of a joint project on lexical and semantic typology which gathered together field linguists, semanticists, cognitivists, typologists, and an NLP specialist. These cross-linguistic studies concern semantic shifts at large, both synchronic and diachronic: the outcome of polysemy, heterosemy, or semantic change at the lexical level. The first part presents a comprehensive state of the art of a domain typologists have long been reluctant to deal with. Part two focuses on theoretical and methodological approaches: cognition, construction grammar, graph theory, semantic maps, and data bases. These studies deal with universals and variation across languages, illustrated with numerous examples from different semantic domains and different languages. Part three is dedicated to detailed empirical studies of a large sample of languages in a limited set of semantic fields. It reveals possible universals of semantic association, as well as areal and cultural tendencies.
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 106] 2008. xiii, 404 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
vii–xiii
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Part 1. State of the art
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3–52
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Part 2. Theoretical and methodological issues
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55–92
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93–105
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107–137
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139–161
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163–215
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217–232
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233–264
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Part 3. Case studies
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267–289
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291–301
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303–315
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317–339
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341–370
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371–386
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General index
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387–395
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Index of languages
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397–400
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Index of names
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401–404
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“Overall, the book offers an up to date overview of a branch of linguistics that has always served as a testing ground for many linguistic theories. [...] the case studies closing the book constitute an invaluable resource for cognitive linguists, especially for the investigation of the universality and culture-specificity of metaphor and metonymy. All the articles demonstrate how typology, diachrony and cognitive linguistics intertwine in the study of polysemy.”
Malgorzata Fabiszak, Adam Mickiewicz University, Posnán, in Cognitive Linguistics 22(2): 430-436, 2011
“This edited volume is a fine reader for those who are interested in applied linguistics and especially in language teaching and acquisition. The conclusions of the various analyses reveal it is possible to distinguish common features in semantic shifts in very diverse languages, from Indo-European languages to Sino-Tibetan languages, from African languages to Finno-Ugric, etc. The universal mechanisms underlying semantic change may be a helpful starting point for developing a method to improve lexical competence.”
Cinzia Citarrella, University of Palermo, on Linguist List 21.3510, 2010
Cited by
Cited by other publications
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Harris, Martyn & Tomi S. Melka
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria
Lawrence, Joshua Fahey, Aste Mjelve Hagen, Jin Kyoung Hwang, Grace Lin & Arne Lervåg
Paradis, Carita & Mats Eeg-Olofsson
Pericliev, Vladimir
Robinson, Justyna A.
Urban, Matthias
Urban, Matthias
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Subjects
BIC Subject: CFG – Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General