scholarly journals Évolution sémantique des prépositions spatiales de l’ancien au moyen français

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-338
Author(s):  
Benjamin Fagard
Keyword(s):  
Partial Answer ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
Middle French ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Semantic Development ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Semantic Domains

Summary The aim of this paper is to investigate a particular aspect of semantic change. Many theories have tried to capture the regularity in semantic change. In this respect, some linguists have claimed that space is the necessary starting point of any semantic development, and others have stated that space is situated at the same distance from the “semantic core” of a given lexeme as other semantic domains, such as time. I will formulate a partial answer to the question of the primacy of space. Using diachronic corpus data, I will examine prepositions in Old and Middle French (11th to 16th centuries). The prepositions I have focused on are vers, envers, devers, and pardevers, chosen from a wider corpus of prepositions (which I have studied in the same way) because of their semantic behavior, which is particularly complex, and which I try to explain here in detail.

scholarly journals Diminutives and augmentatives in Beja (North-Cushitic)

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-80
Author(s):  
Martine Vanhove ◽  
Mohamed-Tahir Hamid Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Romantic Love ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
Distribution Of Values ◽  
Gender Shift ◽  
Semantic Domains

Abstract The evaluative morphology of Beja consists of four devices: gender shift to feminine on nouns, and sound change (r>l) on nouns, verbs and adjectives form the diminutives. A suffix -loːj on adjectives, and -l on Manner converbs, form the augmentatives. The analysis focuses on the evaluative, emotional and other pragmatic values associated with these morphemes, size, endearment, praise, romantic love, contempt, politeness and eloquence. When relevant, the links to the general mechanism of semantic change, lambda-abstraction-specification proposed by Jurafsky (1996), is discussed. This paper also discusses productivity, cases where the evaluative device has scope over an adjacent noun instead of its host, the distribution of values across semantic domains and genres, and cases of lexicalization. The corpus analysis shows that the proportional frequency of pragmatic expressive connotations compared to the denotational meaning is higher for diminutives than for augmentatives. Further, with diminutives, positive emotional values are more frequent than negative ones, while with augmentatives attested pejorative values are very rare. The analysis is set within a typological framework.

scholarly journals Investigating the Semantic Development of Modal Markers: The Role of Context

Clotho ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-53
Author(s):  
Tomaž Potočnik ◽  
Matej Hriberšek
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
Semantic Development ◽  
Modal Verb ◽  
Deontic Modality ◽  
Do So

The article tackles the problem of studying diachronic semantic changes of modal markers in Latin. It proposes to do so by using context as a proxy for tracing the development of otherwise unchanging forms. In the first part, the main theoretical positions in modality studies are presented, especially the notions of deontic modality, epistemic modality, and pathways of modality. In the second part, Heine’s model for studying the role of context in language change is presented and applied to the modal verb licet. In the case study of licet, an attempt is made to identify the so-called switch context which co-creates the conditions necessary for the semantic change.

Lexical change often begins and ends in semantic peripheries

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Vejdemo
Keyword(s):  
Color Naming ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
Linguistic Development ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
Semantic Domains

Abstract The article discusses semantic change and lexical replacement processes in the color domain, based on color naming studies in seven Germanic languages (where diachronic intra-linguistic development is inferred from cross-linguistic synchronic studies) and from different generations of speakers in a single language (Swedish). Change in the color domain often begins and ends in conceptual peripheries, and I argue that this perspective is suitable for other semantic domains as well.

Mάρτυς and Martyrdom in the Apocalypse

1973 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-80
Author(s):  
Allison A. Trites
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Change ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
Semantic Development ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractThe results of this inquiry can now be summarized. The words and have not arrived at the fourth and fifth stages of semantic change, and do not imply martyrdom as part of their dictionary meaning. About it is more difficult to speak categorically; death seems to be implied as part of the witness in i 5, iii 14 and xvii 6, and this would indicate the third stage in the semantic development of the word. In xi 3 definitely retains its forensic meaning, and the same is probably true of ii 13, though martyrological elements are present in both contexts. In brief, is definitely moving towards the fourth and fifth stages of semantic development, but it is still questionable whether the martyrological understanding has become part of the dictionary definition of the word.

scholarly journals Towards Robust Semantic Role Labeling

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sameer S. Pradhan ◽  
Wayne Ward ◽  
James H. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Wall Street Journal ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Semantic Role Labeling ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Corpus Data

Most semantic role labeling (SRL) research has been focused on training and evaluating on the same corpus. This strategy, although appropriate for initiating research, can lead to overtraining to the particular corpus. This article describes the operation of assert, a state-of-the art SRL system, and analyzes the robustness of the system when trained on one genre of data and used to label a different genre. As a starting point, results are first presented for training and testing the system on the PropBank corpus, which is annotated Wall Street Journal (WSJ) data. Experiments are then presented to evaluate the portability of the system to another source of data. These experiments are based on comparisons of performance using PropBanked WSJ data and PropBanked Brown Corpus data. The results indicate that whereas syntactic parses and argument identification transfer relatively well to a new corpus, argument classification does not. An analysis of the reasons for this is presented and these generally point to the nature of the more lexical/semantic features dominating the classification task where more general structural features are dominant in the argument identification task.

scholarly journals From quick to quick-to-infinitival: on what is lexeme specific across paradigmatic and syntagmatic distributions

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
MARTIN SCHÄFER
Keyword(s):  
Starting Point ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Combinatorial Preferences

Adjectives are paradigmatically versatile: they combine with many different items in the same syntactic configuration. They are also syntagmatically versatile: they occur in many different syntactic configurations. Given this versatility, how and to what extent can lexeme-specific preferences and features of the adjectives be identified? With the adjective quick as its starting point, this article answers this question by using corpus data, contrasting the behavior of quick with that of its semantic neighbors. Case study 1 investigates quick's attributive usage. It is shown that quick in its default usage combines with eventive heads, and that there are clear differences in combinatorial preferences across its semantic neighbors. Case study 2 investigates the quick-to-infinitival construction. Here, direct combination with eventive heads is impossible. It behaves differently from other adj-to-infinitival constructions as well as the competing quickly constructions. Comparison of the availability of this construction for quick's semantic neighbors, and linking this to the results of study 1, shows a clear connection between paradigmatic and syntagmatic distributions.

scholarly journals Argument structure, conceptual metaphor and semantic change

Diachronica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-508
Author(s):  
Cynthia A. Johnson ◽  
Peter Alexander Kerkhof ◽  
Leonid Kulikov ◽  
Esther Le Mair ◽  
Jóhanna Barðdal
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Careful Scrutiny ◽  
Semantic Development ◽  
Historical Semantics ◽  
Different Levels

Abstract In contrast to grammaticalization studies of lexical verbs changing into auxiliaries, the realm of semantic changes associated with lexical verbs is an understudied area of historical semantics. We concentrate on the emergence of verbs of success from more semantically concrete verbs, uncovering six conceptual metaphors which all co-occur with non-canonical encoding of subjects in Indo-European. Careful scrutiny of the relevant data reveals a semantic development most certainly inherited from Indo-European; hence, we reconstruct a dat-‘succeeds’ construction at different levels of schematicity for Proto-Indo-European, including a novel reconstruction of a conceptual metaphor, success is motion forward, and the mapping between this metaphor and the verb-class-specific argument structure construction. Hence, this article offers a systematic analysis of regularity in semantic change, highlighting the importance of predicate and argument structure for lexical semantic developments.

scholarly journals Processes of ideologization and de-ideologization in Russian religious dictionary

2020 ◽  
pp. 204-215
Author(s):  
E. Yu. Bulygina ◽  
◽  
T. A. Tripolskaya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Value System ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
Weak Points ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Ideological Context ◽  
Post Soviet Period

The paper is focused on studying the changing fragments of the Russian picture of the world documented in lexicographic sources of the Soviet era and the post-Soviet period, as well as in contemporary discourse. There are “eternal” concepts in the ideological field of society, reflected in the lexicon of native speakers as ideologemes. These lexemes represent the value system of a particular confession, social group, etc. It is this lexical layer that most acutely responds to socio-economic and political changes in society. The authors analyze the dynamic processes of a pragmatically marked fragment of a dictionary (religious vocabulary) during the 20th – early 21st centuries. The starting point is D. N. Ushakov’s Russian Explanatory Dictionary, which provides a thorough representation of religious lexicon, with interpretations determined by the ideological context of 1930–1940. Today, the strong and weak points of describing the lexicon, that was “alien” for the Soviet period, are obvious. The analysis of vocabulary and corpus data allows us to formulate a hypothesis about the emergence of ambivalent (positive and negative) connotations in the lexical array, which has recently been interpreted as neutral by dictionaries. Thus, when filled with new pragmatic content and reflecting significant changes in the socio-political life of society, the semantics of a religious word, as ideologically marked during a century, changes its connotative halo several times. The ideological and related evaluative components reflect one of the most controversial fragments of the linguistic picture of the world in modern Russia.

Results and Prospects in the Study of Semantic Change: A Review of From Polysemy to Semantic Change (2008)

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-196
Author(s):  
Patrick McConvell ◽  
Maïa Ponsonnet
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Semantic Theory ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
General Evaluation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
And Diffusion ◽  
Semantic Domains

The topic of this review article is a volume addressing the relationship between polysemy and semantic change, a relationship which has been important in discussions of semantic theory and method particularly in recent years, and which has the potential to unite synchronic and diachronic approaches. The first part of this article consists of thorough reviews of the fourteen chapters in the volume, entitled From Polysemy to Semantic Change, edited by Martine Vanhove (2008). We review each of them in turn, providing a brief summary of the content of each chapter, as well as comments on the impact of the contribution to the study of polysemy and semantic change, and/or on its limits. The second part of the article presents a general evaluation of the volume, and reflects upon the achievements, limits and perspectives of the study of polysemy and semantic change. Some of the chapters demonstrate that a degree of generalization can be reached on these questions, and provide new and potentially productive ways forward in theory and method; others either do not have such aims, or struggle to provide a useful general framework. We consider why this may be the case, and suggest hypothetical solutions. In particular, we examine the difficulty met with drawing conclusions across semantic domains, and the lack of a framework taking language contact and diffusion into account in the study of semantic change.

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