From Polysemy to Semantic Change: Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations

From Polysemy to Semantic Change

Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS) This series has been established as a companion series to the periodical Studies in Language.

Editors Werner Abraham University of Vienna

Michael Noonan

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Editorial Board Joan Bybee

Christian Lehmann

Ulrike Claudi

Robert E. Longacre

Bernard Comrie

Brian MacWhinney

University of New Mexico University of Cologne Max Planck Institute, Leipzig University of California, Santa Barbara

William Croft

University of New Mexico

Östen Dahl

University of Stockholm

Gerrit J. Dimmendaal University of Cologne

Ekkehard König

Free University of Berlin

University of Erfurt

University of Texas, Arlington Carnegie-Mellon University

Marianne Mithun

University of California, Santa Barbara

Edith Moravcsik

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Masayoshi Shibatani

Rice University and Kobe University

Russell S. Tomlin

University of Oregon

Volume 106 From Polysemy to Semantic Change. Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations Edited by Martine Vanhove

From Polysemy to Semantic Change Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations

Edited by

Martine Vanhove Llacan (Inalco, CNRS), Fédération TUL

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data From polysemy to semantic change : towards a typology of lexical semantic associations / edited by Martine Vanhove. p. cm. (Studies in Language Companion Series, issn 0165-7763 ; v. 106) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1.  Semantics, Historical. 2.  Polysemy. 3.  Typology (Linguistics)  I. Vanhove, Martine. P325.5.H57F76

2008

401'.43--dc22 isbn 978 90 272 0573 5 (Hb; alk. paper)

2008031821

© 2008 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Table of contents

Semantic associations: A foreword Martine Vanhove

vii

Part 1. State of the art Approaching lexical typology Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

3

Part 2. Theoretical and methodological issues Words and their meanings: Principles of variation and stabilization Stéphane Robert

55

The typology of semantic affinities Bernard Pottier

93

Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change: Around the eye Peter Koch

107

Mapping semantic spaces: A constructionist account of the “light verb” xordæn “eat” in Persian Neiloufar Family

139

Semantic maps and the typology of colexification: Intertwining polysemous networks across languages Alexandre François

163

A catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation Anna A. Zalizniak

217

Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

233

Part 3. Case studies About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages Emilio Bonvini

267

 From Polysemy to Semantic Change

Eating beyond certainties Christine Hénault

291

From semantic change to polysemy: The cases of “meat/animal” and “drink” Pascal Boyeldieu

303

Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

317

Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions: A crosslinguistic perspective Martine Vanhove

341

Cats and bugs: Some remarks about semantic parallelisms Michel Masson

371

General index Index of languages Index of names

387 397 401

Semantic associations: A foreword Martine Vanhove

Llacan (Inalco, CNRS), Fédération TUL

The book whose outline is presented here is the outcome of a joint project, which began during the fall of 2002, at the Fédération Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS, http://www.typologie. cnrs.fr), and of various collaborations with several European researchers. It gathered field linguists, semanticists, cognitivists, typologists, and one NLP specialist around different issues concerning the “Typology of semantic associations”, i.e., polysemy, heterosemy and semantic change at the lexical level. For a long time typologists have had doubts about the possibility of crosslinguistic studies of the lexicon since the relevant phenomena appear to be highly idiosyncratic and there seems to be no convincing solution to the problem of delimiting the field of inquiry. In the last few decades, however, there has been a growing interest in crosslinguistic research on the lexicon, from different perspectives and within different theoretical frameworks (see Koptjevskaja-Tamm et al. 2007). In the first part of the present volume, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm provides a very detailed state of the art article of the research in this domain. She shows how the very term of “lexical typology”, although seldom defined, is nonetheless often used as if it were self-explanatory, leading to a great diversity of approaches, and a lack of consensus about the domain of research itself. Her paper defines and illustrates various existing and possible approaches to lexical and semantic typology. She discusses some of the problems inherent in these approaches, and suggests reflections on possible directions for future research. Her review makes it clear that the papers presented in this volume are concerned by only one aspect of a vast issue, namely semantic shifts, be they synchronical or diachronical. Our joint project started from the well-known facts that the polysemy of lexical units is a universal phenomenon, and that within one linguistic phylum or one geographical area, the persistent occurrence and regular patterns of certain polysemies and semantic parallels are useful tools for establishing genetic affiliations. These observations go along a growing awareness that there exist also recurrent patterns of semantic associations, which transcend genetic or areal boundaries. This led us to a more general, typological survey about the possible existence of semantic universals that would go beyond the usual genetic or areal classifications. This in turn led to a

 From Polysemy to Semantic Change

discussion of several issues related to the fact that semantic associations are problematic from a comparative and crosslinguistic perspective: (i) the problem of the organization of the different meanings at the level of the individual linguistic system; (ii) the problem of how we have access to the relevant meaning, from a cognitive viewpoint; (iii) the problem of how to disambiguate meaning in context. In the second part of the book, within these general semantic and cognitive issues, Stéphane Robert examines the different reasons behind linguistic variation, the rule in natural languages. She proposes a multidimensional approach to the layering of the lexicon and its semantic organization, aiming at explicating the principles of variation and stabilization of the lexical network. She shows how the linguistic units trigger representations which are caught up in a complex network of relations, both language internal and external, semantic and formal, what she calls “the depth dimension of language”. This includes cultural categorization, referential paths, internal architecture (figure and ground), metaphor and metonymy, referential scales, application domains, scenarios and semantic universes, networks of formal and semantic relations between terms, connotations and social roles, associations between linguistic and extralinguistic representations, structured relations within a specific verbal or situational context, pragmatic inferences, (de)motivations, landmarks, attractors and “active zones”, prototypes, “semantic isotopics”, and anchor points. In addition, she also points to the two modes for forming meaning, construction or quotation, which both play a role in the construction of meaning and reference access. This overview, deeply entrenched in cognitive linguistics, provides a comprehensive background for a better understanding of the reasons behind semantic associations. Several other theoretical and methodological approaches are also proposed and discussed. They all aim at accounting for and studying the phenomenon of polysemy, heterosemy, and semantic change in the lexicon from a cognitive and typological perspective. Bernard Pottier offers a classification of the different mental processes at work in the domain of semantic associations (denominated as semantic “affinities”), which could be used as a tool for crosslinguistic comparison and typological classification in future research. Each process is named, described, visualized by use of dynamic graphs whenever possible, and exemplified in various languages and language phyla. Using the methodology of diachronic cognitive onomasiology, as developed in two projects at Tübingen University, the decolar, and the Lexical Change – Polygenesis – Cognitive Constants, Peter Koch discusses polygenetic semantic parallels in semantic change. He focuses on semantic parallels that are due to fundamental cognitive constants, leaving aside those that are triggered by genetic relationships, or by linguistic and cultural contacts. Through a two-dimensional grid, he identifies the cognitive and formal relations between a source and a target concept. He then shows, for the semantic domain of the eye (eyelash, eyebrow, eyelid, and eyeball),



Semantic associations: A foreword 

how cognitive constants can be revealed crosslinguistically, even in cases of complete diversity of formal devices. He provides a list of all the cognitive solutions chosen by the languages of the sample to create lexical innovations. His study explains how the degree of saliency of a concept interacts with semantic shift, producing or not patterns of demotivation and remotivation within the lexicon. Together with cultural and linguistic categorization, it also provides an explication for the different options chosen by the languages for lexical conceptualisation and gives insight to the ongoing debate on linguistic relativity. Within the framework of Construction Grammar, which accommodates idiosyncrasy, polysemy, compositionality, and productivity, Neiloufar Family has developed an analytical tool to map semantic regularities in semantic spaces. This is illustrated with the study of the semantic spaces of the Persian “light verb” xordæn “to eat”, which forms the basis of over 200 verbal notions. Her analysis implies that a light verb’s semantic space is populated by “notional islands” where groups of light verb constructions, expressing similar notions, combine the light verb with a restricted, but large, class of preverbs. Each island possesses linguistic and cognitive properties that allow intuitive disambiguation. The result of this analysis is a fresh insight into general linguistic issues, such as meaning construction, productivity, and compositionality. Furthermore, due to the compositional structure of the Persian verbal system, this study provides a basis for crosslinguistic investigations comparing and analysing processes of verb formation as they have evolved in different languages. It also allows for a crosslinguistic analysis of the status of these verbs in order to gain a better understanding of the semantic structures common to different languages. Alexandre François arrived at similar results within a crosslinguistic approach. He offers an adaptation to the lexicon of the methodological tool of semantic maps, now common among typologists for the comparison of grammatical devices. His aim is to define a standard of comparison, whereby the semantic network corresponding to a polysemous unit in one language (e.g., English right) may be compared with a similar semantic network in a different language (e.g., French droit). The method proposes to overcome the complexity of the polysemy networks and the pitfalls of idiosyncrasy, and to make crosslinguistic comparison possible, by breaking down the meaning into simpler, atomistic semantic units (or “senses”). This is illustrated with the study of the notion of breathe in a sample of 13 languages from 8 genetic phyla. The visual representation of the data shows how the semantic maps can provide heuristic tools also when trying to define semantic universals and typological tendencies across languages. Anna Zalizniak presents the ongoing project, at the Institute of Linguistics (Russian Academy of Sciences), of a database of semantic shifts. It comprises, in a unified, user-friendly format, a catalogue of parallel semantic shifts, both synchronic and diachronic, that took place in two or more words of different languages.

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From Polysemy to Semantic Change

The inventory aims at revealing the most frequent, prominent and significant samples of semantic derivations, which occur independently in different languages and eras, and serve as a basis for semantic typology. The paper deals with the formal structure of the lexicographic entry of the catalogue of semantic shifts and discusses examples in several groups of the Indo-European phylum. The theoretical and methodological approach proposed by Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignaud and Martine Vanhove is based on a new multidisciplinary approach using data processing resources, graph theory, and cognitive semantics. Recent work on the semantic networks of the French lexicon, based on dictionaries, and dictionaries of synonyms, as developed by Bruno Gaume and the research group DiLan (http://dilan. irit.fr/), meet typological and comparative issues. Dictionaries, once coded as graphs, show remarkable structural properties (technically called graphs of Hierarchical Small Worlds), which do not seem to be language dependent. These structural properties challenge compositional models of lexical semantics and support interactive linguistic and psycholinguistic models based on dynamic networks and the dynamic construction of meaning. The article explores a method for the automatic analysis of semantic groupings in order to distinguish, on typological and cognitive levels, which groupings are universal, and which are more limited geographically, genetically or culturally. The robustness of the method is tested on the polysemous verbs of sensory and cognitive perceptions. The third part of this volume is dedicated to empirical researches. The six case studies, covering five semantic domains, enlarge the limited set of semantic fields which have mainly be dealt with so far, i.e., colour terms, body parts and perception words, or which are closely intertwined with the evolution of grammatical morphemes, e.g., epistemic verbs. The original sample contained 45 languages for which we could rely on first hand data collected by the linguists of the research team, or on their mother tongues. For various reasons, it has not been possible to use them all systematically throughout the chapters, resulting in some discrepancies between the languages surveyed. Each case study takes into account, as much as possible, as outlined in Robert”s article, the role of cultural factors, co-textual and contextual environments, as well as universal cognitive findings, in establishing semantic associations. Emilio Bonvini’s article deals once more with the semantic notion of eat in a sample of languages from one phyla, the vast Niger-Congo family. His study is based on the lexical material and data of examples published in various dictionaries, and his own expertise in some of the languages. His aim is to identify the semantic specificity of each language in relation to universal semantic domains. He shows, through a synchronic and semasiological approach, how the lexical items meaning eat, a universal of human experiment, broaden out to a larger range of polysemous meanings (often comparable with the other findings about eat in other phyla). This is achieved in three steps: (i) the study of the notion of eat as lexical units, (ii) the study of eat in linguistic



Semantic associations: A foreword 

co-texts and its implications for the construction of orthonyms, (iii) the study of eat in the discursive context and its relations to the polysemous construction of meaning. Christine Hénault’s article about eat uses a different method. Focusing on a diachronic approach (with a blend of synchrony for the unscripted languages of the sample), she takes as a starting point the reconstructed meaning(s) in the protolanguages. She overcomes the risk of false etymologies by comparing the data to synchronic data within one and the same phylum and also by comparing them with a small sample of genetically and areally unrelated languages. It is noteworthy that the three articles dedicated in this volume to the concept of eat, whatever the method used, all point to a number of recurring semantic associations, and an ambivalence as regards to the control or non-controlled feature of the semantic extensions of eat, leading to cases of enantiosemy which seem to be polygenetic, but not a cognitive constant. Two sets of semantic relations are examined by Pascal Boyeldieu: those connected with the concepts of meat/animal and that of drink. His sample shows that the terms for “meat” and “animal” are identical (or similar) in a fair number of African languages, as well as in some languages of south-east Asia, a fact which strongly suggests a cultural motivation: the importance of game in (former) hunter societies, and certainly not a lexical universal. As for “drink”, it is commonly related to a number of main semantic fields: “smoke”, “drink alcohol immoderately”, “absorb” (non-living matter), “catch, get” (in a passive way), “be subjected to, suffer”. The latter three semantic fields point to the “passive, non-controlled” feature, which distinguishes drink from eat in the language sample under study. But the “control” feature of eat is far from being universal, as shown in the articles of Family, Bonvini and Hénault in this volume (as well as in Pardeshi 2006), and both “control” and non-controlled” features might even co-occur within one language. The joint study by Sergueï Sakhno and Nicole Tersis about the semantic fields of social relations, exemplified by friend and enemy, focuses mainly on Indo-European languages from a diachronic point of view, and on Inuktitut from a synchronic point of view. It shows that they are quite commonly cognates of words meaning “other”, “second”, “follow”, “nearness”, “opposite”, “matching” or “one’s own”. Some of them originally denoted a more specific kind of companionship, as in travel, business, lodging, bringing up. Their study also demonstrates that other semantic links, which seem at first sight quite remote such as “deceive” or “ghost”, are in fact connected with the semantic field of “friend” through the concept of “duality”. Their claim is that the notion of “duality” is to be integrated in a broader concept, that of “complementarity” which is particularly important in some cultures (“friend” as a part of a “whole”). They also show how the semantic networks of friend and enemy are deeply intertwined, and lead to several enantiosemic patterns that recur crosslinguistically. These semantic fields (with a few others discussed in this volume) also proved particularly interesting by putting to the fore the limits of a rigid approach of the

 From Polysemy to Semantic Change

lexicon: it is sometime necessary to compare lexical items in one language with a grammatical morpheme in another when one wants to understand and fully account for the semantic and cognitive networks in natural languages. The search for semantic universals also meets research on grammaticalization processes. After the works of Sweetser (1990), and Evans & Wilkins (2000), the issue of the semantic associations between the lexicon of sensory and cognitive perceptions is again investigated in Martine Vanhove’s article in a sample of 25 languages. It deals more specifically with the notions of “hear”/“listen”, “see”, “feel”, and their extension into the domains of internal perception and cognition: “heed”, “obey”, “learn”, “understand”, “know”, etc. They are also compared with some semantic extensions of “take”. It confirms for new phyla and areas (various African, Oceanic, Sino-Tibetan and Eskimo languages) the regularity of the semantic shifts already noted in other works, and the highly polysemous terminology and the consequences thereof for cognitive linguistics. Furthermore, the analysis of the data suggests a possible semantic and cognitive universal which groups, synchronically or diachronically at the lexical level, and independently of cultural factors, mental perceptions at large with the hearing sense, but far less systematically with sight, as an Indo-European biased cognitive approach could suggest. Michel Masson’s article provides a very deep insight into culturally based semantic parallels. He examines the recurrent associations between cats or monkeys and small insects in Indo-European languages, and concludes that they appear to stem from the cross-culturally recurrent conception of these living beings as connected to supernatural powers, giving rise to semantic shifts such as “scarecrow”, “frighten”, “devil” or “have the gift of witchcraft”. Our greatest hope is that this volume will fulfil its main aim, that is stimulating further crosslinguistic studies on the lexicon and semantics, a still under-developed domain of typological research.

Acknowledgements We are most grateful to Julienne Doko, who translated part of the chapters published in this book: that of Bonvini, Boyeldieu, Hénault, Pottier, Sakhno & Tersis, and to Margaret Dunham who was responsible for the translation of Gaume, Duvignaud & Vanhove, and of Robert.

References Evans, N. & Wilkins, D. 2000. In the mind’s ear: The semantic extensions of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language 76(3): 546–592.



Semantic associations: A foreword 

Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M., Vanhove, M. & Koch, P. 2007. Typological approaches to lexical semantics. Linguistic Typology 11(1): 159–185. Pardeshi, P. et al. 2006. Toward a geotypology of EAT-expressions in languages of Asia: Visualizing areal patterns through WALS. Gengo Kenky 130: 89–108. Sweetser, E. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics. Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: CUP.

part i

State of the art

Approaching lexical typology Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm University of Stockholm

The paper aims at situating the research direction presented in the volume within the larger domain of typological research in general. It gives a short summary of what is meant by typological research, discusses the relation between semantic and lexical typology and the general premises for lexical-typological research. The bulk of the paper is devoted to the three main lexical-typological research foci – what meanings can(not) be expressed by a single word, what different meanings can be expressed by one and the same lexeme or by words derivationally related to each other, and what cross-linguistic patterns there are in lexicon-grammar interaction. The paper ends up with the general discussion of the urgent methodological problems facing lexical typology as a field. Keywords:  lexical typology; lexicon-grammar interaction; linguistic categorization; motivation; semantic typology

1.  Introduction The aim of the present article is to situate the research direction presented in the volume within the larger domain of modern typological research in general. As witnessed by the title of the volume, “From polysemy to semantic change: Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations”, three key words are crucial here – typology, lexical and semantic. The paper starts by a short summary of what is meant by typological research in general, then discusses the relation between semantic and lexical typology and points out several different groups of questions asked within lexical-typological research, its different foci. Section 3 touches on the general premises for lexical-typological research – possible words, semantic generality vs. polysemy, and the meaning of “meaning”. Sections 4–6 are devoted to the three main lexical-typological research foci introduced in Section 2 – what meanings can(not) be expressed by a single word, what different meanings can be expressed by one and the same lexeme or by words derivationally related to each other, and what cross-linguistic patterns there are in lexicon-grammar interaction. Each of these chapters considers numerous examples of research and the various methodological and theoretical issues relevant for it. The whole paper ends up with the general discussion of the urgent methodological problems facing lexical typology as a field.

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Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

2.  Typology, semantic and lexical typology The term “typology”, as is well known, has many different uses. What primarily matters for the present volume is typology understood as “the study of linguistic patterns that are found cross-linguistically, in particular, patterns that can be discovered solely by cross-linguistic comparison” (Croft 1990: 1). Typology can also refer to typological classification of languages into (structural) types on the basis of particular patterns for particular phenomena. Typological research is driven by the persuasion that the variation across attested (and, further, possible) human languages is severely restricted, and aims therefore at unveiling systematicity behind the whole huge complex of linguistic diversity. In pursuing their tasks, typologists raise – and often try to answer – important theoretical questions, such as the ones listed below. – – – – – – –

According to what parameters does a specific phenomenon vary across languages, in what patterns do these parameters (co-)occur? What generalisations can be made about attested vs. possible patterns? What is universal vs. language particular in a given phenomenon, what phenomena are frequent vs. rare? How are various linguistic phenomena distributed across the languages of the world? Which phenomena are genetically stable and which are subject to contact-induced change? How can the attested distribution of the different patterns across languages be explained? How can the attested cross-linguistic patterns/generalizations be explained?

The papers in the present volume do in fact focus on linguistic patterns that can be discovered only by cross-linguistic comparison – cross-linguistically recurrent patterns of polysemy, heterosemy and semantic change – and are therefore examples of typological research. The domain of research shared by the papers in the volume is, however, somewhat outside of the main interests of modern typological research, that has so far primarily focused on grammatical and, to a lesser degree, phonetic/phonological phenomena under the labels of “grammatical typology”, “syntactic typology”, “morphological typology”, “morphosyntactic typology” (or, quite often, just “typology”), “phonetic typology” and “phonological typology”. None of those would suit the direction of the volume. We are dealing here, first, with lexical and, second, with semantic phenomena – which are the primary objects of lexical vs. semantic typology. The terms “semantic typology” and “lexical typology” are often used as if there were self-explanatory, but are only rarely explicitly defined. According to Evans (forthc.), semantic typology is “the systematic cross-linguistic study of how languages express meaning by way of signs”. What can be meant by lexical typology is, however,



Approaching lexical typology

less clear, apart from the evident fact that it involves cross-linguistic research on the lexicon. Many linguists will probably agree with Lehrer’s (1992: 249) widely quoted definition that lexical typology is concerned with the “characteristic ways in which language […] packages semantic material into words” (cf. the excellent overviews in Koch 2001 and Brown 2001). Viewed as such, lexical typology can be considered a sub-branch of semantic typology concerned with the lexicon, as this is done in Evans (forthc.). Other definitions of lexical typology focus on “typologically relevant features in the grammatical structure of the lexicon” (Lehmann 1990: 163) or on typologically relevant vs. language-specific patterns of lexicon-grammar interaction (Behrens & Sasse 1997). I think that a reasonable way of defining what can be meant by “lexical typology” is to view it as the cross-linguistic and typological dimension of lexicology. The probably most updated overview of lexicology as a field is found in the two volumes (Cruse et al. eds. 2002, 2005), the title of which (“Lexicology. An international handbook on the nature and structure of words and vocabularies”) underlines the special orientation towards the two core areas which makes of lexicology an autonomous discipline, namely, the characterization of words and vocabularies, both as unitary wholes and as units displaying internal structure with respect both to form and content (Cruse et al. eds. 2002, 2005: viii–ix).

In the same vein as lexicology in general is not restricted to lexical semantics, lexical typology can include phenomena that are not of primary interest for semantic typology. Likewise, since lexicology is not completely opposed to either phonetics/phonology, morphology or syntax, cross-linguistic research on a number of word- and lexiconrelated phenomena is – or can be – carried out either from different angles and with different foci, or within approaches that integrate several perspectives, goals and methods. There are different kinds and groups of questions that can be addressed in typological research on words and vocabularies, or lexical typology, and that can therefore be considered as the different foci of lexical typology. Some of them (the most important ones, as I see them now) are listed below, but there are undoubtedly many others. The questions are often interrelated with each other, a point that will be stressed in the ensuing presentation. – What is a possible word, or what can be meant by a word? Possible vs. impossible words in different languages, different criteria for identifying words and interaction among them, universal vs. language-specific restrictions on possible, impossible, better and worse words. – What meanings can and cannot be expressed by a single word in different languages? Lexicalizations and lexicalization patterns, “universal” vs. language-specific lexicalizations, categorization within, or carving up of lexical fields/semantic

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Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

domains by lexical items, the architecture of the lexical fields/semantic domains (e.g., basic words vs. derived words). – What different meanings can be expressed by one and the same lexeme, by lexemes within one and the same synchronic word family (words linked by derivational relations) or by lexemes historically derived from each other? Cross-linguistically recurrent patterns in the relations among the words and lexical items in the lexicon – a huge and heterogeneous category with many different subdivisions, a large part of which can be subsumed under the various aspects of motivation (for details see Koch 2001: 1156–1168 and Koch & Marzo 2007), e.g., semantic motivation (polysemy, semantic associations/semantic shifts) and morphological motivation (derivational patterns, including compounding). – What cross-linguistic patterns are there in lexicon-grammar interaction? The lexicon of a language is, of course, a dynamic and constantly changing complex structure where new words emerge, old words disappear or change in one or another way. Lexical-typological research has, thus, both synchronic and diachronic dimensions. Historically oriented lexical typology studies semantic change, grammaticalization and lexicalization processes (the latter understood as “a process by which new linguistic entities, be it simple or complex words or just new senses, become conventionalized on the level of the lexicon”, Blank 2001: 1603) as examples of diachronic processes showing cross-linguistically recurrent patterns. The lexicons of most languages show different layers of origin with many words coming from “outside” – as direct loans, loan translations, etc. A particularly interesting aspect of historical lexical typology is the search for cross-linguistically recurrent patterns in contact-induced lexicalization and lexical change, e.g., differences in borrowability among the different parts of the lexicon and the corresponding processes in the integration of new words, or patterns of lexical acculturation (i.e., how lexica adjust to new objects and concepts). Lexical-typological research can also be more local, e.g., restricted to a particular lexical field, a particular derivational process, a particular polysemy pattern, or more general, with the aim of uncovering patterns in the structuring of the lexicon that are supposed to have a bearing on many essential properties of the language. The latter includes various approaches to the issues of “basic” vs. non-basic vocabulary, or suggestions as to how characterize, compare and measure the lexical-typological profiles of different languages. In fact, some people prefer using the term “typological” (e.g., typological properties) for referring to what is considered as the more essential, central, or general properties of a language. In this understanding, a large portion of crosslinguistic research on words and vocabularies will not count as typological (Lehmann 1990) (this applies, among others, to what is called “local” lexical-typological research immediately above) – we will briefly discuss this position in Section 6.



Approaching lexical typology

In the ensuing sections I will give examples of lexical-typological research along these different lines, try to make generalizations on the state of art and, finally, point out some recurrent problems and directions for the future. Because of space restrictions, issues such as possible words or degree of borrowability will only be allotted a brief mention here.

3.  General premises: Words and meanings 3.1  Possible words As any introductory textbook in linguistics will tell us, “word” can denote different things. The huge issue of what can be meant by word, or what is a possible word across languages will only be touched upon in this paper – and mainly from the semantic point of view. Traditional morphological typology, with its focus on how much and what kind of morphology is allowed in words across languages (cf. isolating vs. polysynthetic languages, etc.), represents one way of comparing possible words cross-linguistically. The issue is, however, much more complex and requires a truly integrating approach, where morphological (and further grammatical), phonetic, phonological and semantic criteria are all relevant, as well as psycholinguistic considerations (holistic storage and processing), and sociolinguistic and pragmatic factors (e.g., degree of conventionalization). The important contributions include Aikhenvald & Dixon (2002) and the ongoing project “Word domains” within the research programme “Autotyp” (directed by Balthasar Bickel and Johanna Nichols, http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~autotyp/projects/ wd_dom/wd_dom.html) which both focus on words as phonological and grammatical domains;1 a useful discussion of compounds as words across languages is found in Wälchli (2005: 90–134). A new and promising way of investigating the question of “possible words” in a human language is laid out in Greville Corbett’s (2007, forthc.) “canonical approach” to inflection, that evaluates the various formal ways in which the word forms of one and the same lexeme can be related to each other. Since definitions of linguistic phenomena normally evoke several different criteria, the basic idea behind Corbett’s “canonical approach” in typology is to take definitions to their logical endpoint, where the different criteria converge and together produce the best, clearest, indisputable “canonical” instance of the phenomenon. Real “canonical” instances are rare or even unattested, but they serve as a point from which the actual phenomena can be evaluated in the theoretical space of possibilities. In the particular case of inflection we can,

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Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

thus, evaluate agglutination vs. flection, various kinds of syncretism or suppletion, and, in general, various kinds of exceptions in inflectional morphology. Now, since much of the discussion in the present paper will deal with the link between words and their meanings, of primary concern here will be words as carriers of lexical meanings. Several interrelated distinctions are important for understanding the kinds of questions usually asked here and the controversies surrounding possible answers to them. These include the distinction between semantic generality and polysemy (Section 3.2.) and the various understandings of “meaning” – denotation vs. sense, and approximate vs. precise (Section 3.3.).

3.2  Semantic generality vs. polysemy, or when are meanings lexicalized? A classical issue in lexical semantics concerns the distinction between semantic generality and polysemy. Consider Table 1 for the English and Russian verbs designating motion in water (aquamotion). Table 1.  Aquamotion verbs in English and Russian

English Russian

Passive motion (‘float’)

Self-propelled motion of animate figure (‘swim’)

Motion of vessels and people aboard (‘sail’)

float

swim

sail plyt’/plavat’

English distinguishes among three different verbs – float, swim and sail. Float designates passive motion; swim – active, self-propelled motion of animate figure, and sail – active motion of vessels and people aboard. To simplify matters, we can say that we have three different meanings, or concepts here – ‘float’, ‘swim’ and ‘sail’ – each of which exists as the meaning of a particular lexeme in English, or is lexicalized. Russian has two aquamotion verbs plavat’/plyt, where the main difference is directionality of the designated motion – plavat’ is multidirectional, while plyt’ is unidirectional. Since each of these two verbs corresponds roughly to the same situations as the three English verbs together, we will for the sake of simplicity concentrate on just one verb, plyt’. The question is now whether the three meanings ‘float’, ‘swim’ and ‘sail’ are lexicalized in Russian. There are at least three theoretical and methodological possibilities here, e.g., semantic generality, polysemy and agnosticism. First, semantic generality: it could very well happen that plyt’ is semantically general and does not distinguish among “float”, “swim” and “sail” at all. In that case we could say that Russian does not lexicalize the differences among “float”, “swim” and “sail” in having just one and the same word (or one word couple) covering all the three meanings. The second possibility, polysemy, would mean that plyt’ does in fact distinguish at least among the three different meanings “float”, “swim” and “sail”. In that case we



Approaching lexical typology

could still say that each of these meanings is lexicalized in Russian – however, not as the meaning of its “own” particular lexeme, but rather as the meaning of a particular lexical unit. A lexical unit is, in turn, defined as the pairing of a single specifiable meaning/sense with a lexical form (Cruse 1986: 77–78), so that a polysemous word is a lexeme consisting of several lexical units. Fig. 1 visualizes the difference between potential semantic generality vs. polysemy in the case of plyt’. Each of the double-headed arrows represents a lexical unit (LU); the lexical form {plyt’} covers all the inflectional forms that together constitute the formal side of this lexeme.

a. Polysemy ‘float’ LU1

b. Semantic generality ‘swim’

LU2 plyt’

‘sail’

meaning

LU3

‘float / swim / sail’ LU

form

plyt’

Figure 1.  Representing polysemy (a) vs. semantic generality (b).

The third possibility is to leave aside the problem of semantic generality vs. polysemy and to remain agnostic about the correct semantic analysis of a particular word. This is the “default” interpretation of the data in Table 1. Under this view, what matters is the fact that Russian has only one lexeme (or, rather, a couple of directionalityrelated lexemes) corresponding to the three different English ones. There are various tests for distinguishing between semantic generality and polysemy, e.g., the distinct meanings within a lexeme having different syntactic properties. On the basis of this particular test it can be argued that each of the two Russian verbs plavat’/plyt’ distinguishes among several meanings, very much along the lines of the English system (cf. the analysis in Rakhilina 2006 and in Koptjevskaja-Tamm et al. forthc.), and that Fig. 1a gives a more faithful representation than Fig. 1b. Thus, when describing inanimate objects moving with water (≈ ‘float’), plyt’ has to combine with an overt indication of the path normally expressed by a combination of po “on” and the reference to the surface, as in (1a); no indication of the source or goal of the motion is allowed. Whenever plyt’ designates self-propelled motion of animate entities (≈ ‘swim’), it has to combine with an overt indication of either the source or goal of the motion, to the exclusion of the “surface” where it takes place, i.e., path (ex. 1b). Finally, when plyt’ refers to the motion of vessels (≈ ‘sail’), it can take either indications of the source/goal of the motion, or of the surface (path); in addition, both can be combined in one and the same sentence, as in ex. (1c).



 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

(1) a.

Po rek-e ply-l-i želt-ye on river-dat.sg “plyt”-pret.pl yellow-nom.pl



list’-ja (*k bereg-u). leaf-nom.pl (*towards shore-dat.sg)



‘Yellow leaves were floating in the river (*to the shore).’

b. On ply-l k bereg-u (*po rek-e) he.nom “plyt”’-pret.m.sg towards shore-dat.sg (*on river-dat.sg) ‘He was swimming towards the shore (*in the river).’ c.

Korabl’ ply-l po Volg-e do Kazan-i ship.nom.sg “plyt’”-pret.m.sg on Volga-dat.sg to Kazan-gen.sg ‘The ship was sailing on the Volga river to the town of Kazan.’

Distinguishing between semantic generality and polysemy is, on the whole, a tricky business. Opinions on what polysemy amounts to and how to search for it differ considerably among different semantic theories and practices (such as dictionary entries), not to mention language users (see Riemer 2005 for a recent overview of the problem). In general, decisions on what should count as several meanings of one and the same lexeme vs. one more general meaning require sophisticated analyses and tests, difficult enough within one language, hard to carry out in several and impossible in many. The current practices of cross-linguistic lexical studies seem to take a fairly pragmatic stance on the choice between the three options represented by Table 1 and Fig. 1a-b, choosing the one that suits best the questions asked in a particular study (and also asking reasonable questions given the available data). Suppose that we are interested in the question of whether ‘swim’, ‘float’ and ‘sail’ belong to the universally lexicalized meaning. For this kind of question it hardly matters how exactly these meanings are expressed – as separate lexemes, as the different meanings of one and the same lexeme, or as words derivationally related to each other. So even if Russian does not have different words for ‘swim’, ‘float’ and ‘sail’, it still lexicalizes these meanings. On the other hand, the very fact that one and the same word plyt’ corresponds to the three different words in English is very interesting too: according to the common-sense interpretation, driven by considerations of iconicity, this is an indication of their semantic similarity. Further interpretations of this first impression may differ – whether we are talking about the cross-linguistic variation in carving up, or categorizing the corresponding conceptual domain, on the one hand, or about lexical semantic associations, on the other – but the fact of the semantic affinity remains and has to be accounted for. Consistent application of semantic tests may, in fact, lead to a huge proliferation and splitting of the meanings within a lexeme (cf. with some of the practices within the cognitive semantics). This richness is often of marginal interest for crosslinguistic and typological comparison, which is, by nature, reductionistic and tries to maintain a reasonable balance between language-specific details, on the one hand, and cross-linguistically applicable generalizations, abstractions and simplifications, on the



Approaching lexical typology

other hand. Here again, what is represented as one meaning vs. several meanings in cross-linguistic comparison tends to be governed by pragmatic considerations. To take an example, one of the meanings of the verb to sail (in combination with a human figure and a direct object) is “to control the movement of a boat or ship”, rather than just “to go in a boat or ship”. Even if this distinction is interesting per se, it can either be brought to the fore or neglected depending on what a particular study focuses on. The method of semantic maps that has been successfully used in cross-linguistic comparison of grammatical semantics is explicitly agnostic about the distinction between polysemy and semantic generality (cf. Haspelmath 2003: 231), the same position is advocated by François (this volume) for cross-linguistic studies of lexical associations and is (implicitly) taken in cross-linguistic studies of categorization of conceptual domains based on multidimensional scaling (Levinson & Mejra 2003; Majid et al. 2007; Wälchli 2006/2007; see also Section 3.3. in the present paper).

3.3  Th  e meaning of “meaning”: Denotation vs. sense, approximate vs. precise meaning definitions The meaning of “meaning” is a key issue in semantics, where opinions vary. For our purposes the main and generally recognized partition goes between denotation/extension vs. intension/(descriptive) meaning sense. The relations between the two are complicated, and the emphasis on the one or the other can have different implications for a cross-linguistic comparison. Consider the domain of temperature. The Swedish adjective ljummen (“lukewarm”) covers a narrow and well-defined range of temperatures, “neutral” temperatures, those corresponding to the temperature of the human skin and feeling neither warm nor cold. The Russian adjective teplyj, whose standard translation into English is warm, also denotes a relatively restricted range of temperatures, the greater portion of which is covered by ljum(men). From the denotational point of view, the two adjectives are, thus, fairly similar to each other, with the denotational range of teplyj slightly exceeding that of ljummen, as is schematically visualized in Fig. 2. Denotation / extension

teplyj

+37°C +35°C +33°C

(Descriptive) meaning / sense

ljummen

defined via direct reference to the human body

defined via neutrality of perception

Figure 2.  Extension/denotation vs. (descriptive) meaning/sense for the temperature adjectives ljummen (Swedish) and teplyj (Russian).



 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

The descriptive meanings of the two adjectives, however, appear very different, as argued in (Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Rakhilina 2006: 259) and as also visualized in Fig. 2. First, teplyj does have a clear “warming” orientation: an entity qualified by its comparative form (bolee teplyj, teplee) has a HIGHER temperature than the one it is compared to. Ljummen often lacks this clear orientation. Thus, depending on pragmatic factors, an entity qualified by its comparative form (mera ljummen, ljummare) can have either a HIGHER (as in Hans öl är ljummare än min “His beer is more lukewarm than mine”) or a LOWER (as in Mitt te har svalnat, hans är ännu ljummare “My tea has cooled down, his is even more lukewarm”) temperature than the one it is compared to. In addition, teplyj is often used with body-part terms and has very positive connotations in metaphorical uses – e.g., teplye slova, čuvstva, otnošenija “warm (positive, friendly) words, feelings, relations”. On the basis of these observations we have chosen to define the meaning of teplyj via direct reference to the (human) body. Teplyj designates temperatures that correspond to or are not significantly higher than the temperature of the human body/skin or that maintain the temperature of the human body without too much effort on the part of the human being, and therefore cause an agreeable sensation of comfort and coziness. Ljummen, on the other hand, never qualifies body-part terms and lacks any positive connotations in metaphorical uses – e.g., ljumma känslor, reaktioner “weak, neutral feelings, reactions”. Thus, while teplyj covers temperatures that are “normal” with regard to the human body, that feel warm, but not exceedingly so, the meaning of ljummen lacks direct reference to the body, but evokes “neutrality” of perception. Although for many serious semanticists, lexicographers and lexicologists semantic analysis stands for coming to grips with descriptive meanings, or senses, the enterprise is far from obvious even in the researcher’s native tongue and gets easily insurmountable in other languages. As a consequence, much of cross-linguistic comparison is based on meanings defined as denotations, with various methods for eliciting, defining and evaluating expression-denotation couples (pictures, videoclips, Munsell colour chips, etc.). In other words, the question of “what meanings can be or cannot be expressed by single words in a language” often amounts to “what are possible/impossible denotational ranges of single words in a language”. There are various reasons for why such approaches are insufficient, including Quine’s (1960: 29) famous “gavagai”-problem (if a person whose language you don’t know says gavagai when a white rabbit appears in front of you both, how can you be sure about what (s)he really means?). Another big problem is that many meanings – or, rather, many conceptual domains – hardly lean themselves to being investigated via denotation-based techniques: for instance, how do you get at the meaning of “think” or “love”? (cf. also Evans & Sasse 2007). Other ways of dealing with the meaning in cross-linguistic lexical studies make use of “translational equivalents” found in dictionaries and word lists, questionnaires



Approaching lexical typology 

and parallel corpora. These are, again, problematic in various ways. In particular, dictionaries are a favourite object of ridicule in theoretical work on semantics and lexicography, for providing vague and circular definitions. We will come back to the issue of approximate vs. precise meaning definitions (and cross-linguistic identity of meanings, cf. Goddard 2001: 2–3), which is, in fact, crucial in cross-linguistic studies. Denotation-based techniques for data collection, questionnaires and parallel corpora effectively neglect the issue of semantic generality/polysemy, discussed in the previous section. They provide often a number of contexts, or “an etic grid” for capturing (logically) possible distinctions within a domain, with the results that the meaning of a word can easily become reduced to the set of its uses (an “etic definition”). The logical step from an etic definition to an emic one (i.e., finding out the commonalities behind the different uses and, ideally, arriving at a reasonable characterization of the descriptive meaning) goes hand in hand with deciding what constitutes one meaning, i.e., distinguishing between semantic generality and polysemy (cf. Evans forthc. for the discussion of etic vs. emic definitions in semantic typology). A central complication for cross-linguistic studies on the lexicon – and, further, in most cross-linguistic research where meaning is involved – is created by the problem of a consistent meta-language for representing meanings within and across languages. This, in turn, is related to the general enormous gap between theoretical semantics and theoretical lexicology, on the one hand, and actual lexicographic practices. The most serious candidate on the market is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage, originally advocated by Anna Wierzbicka. The proponents of the NSM take polysemy very seriously, strive for comparing descriptive meanings rather than denotational ranges, and aim at providing precise meaning definitions by means of reductive paraphrases based on a principled set of “universal semantic primitives” (see, for instance, Goddard & Wierzbicka (eds.) 1994; Goddard 2001; Wierzbicka 1990, 2007). The theory has both positive and negative sides (cf., e.g., the discussion in Krifka (ed.) 2003; Riemer 2002 and Evans forthc.), but on the whole it enjoys less popularity and attention in the typological enterprise than it deserves.

4.  What meanings can and cannot be expressed by a single word? What meanings can be or cannot be expressed by a single word in different languages, or what word meanings are universal, frequent, possible, impossible? Are there any universal (or at least statistically predominant) restrictions on the meanings that can or cannot be expressed by single words across languages, or are languages more or less free to choose here? This section will be devoted to research that focuses on the issues of cross-linguistically recurrent and typologically relevant aspects of lexicalizations and lexicalization patterns. Underlying it is the tension between two opposing

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

hypotheses on linguistic categorization, among others, on the concepts expressed by words. One hypothesis holds that categorization is universal, at least when it comes to basic, universal and daily situations, so that lexical meanings “originate in nonlinguistic cognition, and are shaped by perceptual and cognitive predispositions, environmental and biological constraints, and activities common to people everywhere” (Majid et al. 2007: 134). The other suggests that lexical meanings “do not reflect shared nonlingustic cognition directly, but are to some extent linguistic conventions that are free to vary – no doubt within limits – according to historical, cultural, and environmental circumstances” (Majid et al. 2007: 134, see also the references there). In this section we will look at studies dealing with categorization within, or carving up of lexical fields/semantic domains by lexical items.

4.1  C  ategorization within lexical fields and conceptual domains: A couple of examples to start with The basic idea underlying cross-linguistic research on categorization within lexical fields and conceptual domains (coherent segments of experience and knowledge about them) is that human experience is not delivered in nicely pre-packed units, categories and types, but has to be chunked, organized and categorized by human beings themselves. Categories correspond to experiences that are perceived to have features in common. When experiences are systematically encoded by one and the same linguistic label (e.g., by the same word) they are, most probably, perceived as being fairly similar to each other; that is they are taken to represent one and the same class, or to correspond to one and same concept or lexical meaning. A simple example of what can be meant by different ways of categorizing, or carving up a conceptual domain across languages is given in Table 2, which shows how the inventories of body-part terms in six languages differ in the extent to which they distinguish between hand vs. arm, foot vs. leg, and finger vs. toe by conventionalized, lexicalized expressions (“labels”). Table 2.  Hand vs. arm, foot vs. leg, finger vs. toe in English, Italian, Rumanian, Estonian, Japanese and Russian English

Italian

Rumanian

Estonian

Japanese

Russian

hand arm foot leg finger toe

mano braccio piede gamba dito

minaˇ brat, picior

käsi käsi(vars) jalg

te ude ashi

ruka

deget

sõrm varvas

yubi

palec

noga



Approaching lexical typology 

The table above follows the same practice of representing “lexicalization” in a fairly unsophisticated way as Table 1 in Section 3.2., without asking the question of whether ruka in Russian or yubi in Japanese are polysemous or semantically general. What matters here is simply how many different lexemes there are and how they partition the domain. A somewhat more complicated example, partly introduced in Section 3.2., is given in Table 3, which shows the verbs used for talking about water-related motion (aquamotion) in three languages – Swedish, Dutch and Russian. The table includes both motion of water itself (“flow” in English) and motion/location of other entities (other figures) with water as ground. Here, again, the Russian verbs plyt’/plavat’ are treated as one semantic unit, rather than two sets of different senses. Flyta in Swedish appears, however, at two different places – this does not per se imply any strong conviction that the case is much different from the Russian verb couple, but demonstrates problems with two-dimensional representations. Table 3.  A part of the aquamotion domain in Swedish, Dutch and Russian (based on Koptjevskaja-Tamm et al. forthc.)

Sw

Active motion of an animate Figure

Sailing boats

Motor-driven vessels

Rowing boats

simma

segla

(no specific aquamotion verbs)

Motion of vessels and people aboard

zeilen

Du zwemmen

Canoes

Motion out of control

Neutral motion/ Location

ro

paddla

driva

flyta

roeien

paddelen

varen

Ru plyt’/ plavat’ pod parusami

Passive motion; location on water

plyt’/plavat’ gresti

Motion of water

flyta, rinna

drijven

stromen

nestis’

teč, lit’sja

As these examples show, languages differ considerably as to how many different lexemes they have for talking about comparable domains and how exactly these words partition the domains. It is therefore reasonable to ask whether there is any systematicity underlying the obvious cross-linguistic variation. Whatever the answer is, it requires explanation. Only a handful of conceptual domains typically encoded by words (rather than by grammatical means) have been subject to systematic cross-linguistic research on their semantic categorization, primarily colour, body, kinship, perception, motion,

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

events of breaking and cutting, dimension (and posture not considered here).2 The list can be made slightly longer, if we include words and expressions with more grammatical meanings, such as indefinite pronouns (Haspelmath 1997), various quantifiers (cf. Bach et al. 1995; Auwera 2001; Gil 2001), interrogatives (Cysouw 2004), phrasal adverbials (Auwera 1998) and spatial adpositions (Levinson & Meira 2003) – these won’t be considered below.

4.2  Domain-categorization studies: Language coverage and focus The standard textbook example of underlying systematicity behind the striking crosslinguistic diversity, colour, remains, probably, the most widely researched on domain in lexical typology, in terms of the languages covered in systematic comparison by means of comparable and elaborated methodology, and the intensity, diversity and depth of theoretical discussions. Kay & Maffi’s (2005) chapter on colour in the World Atlas of Language Structures is based on 119 languages, the data coming primarily from Berlin, Kay & Merrifield’s World Color Survey in 1976–78, but there are many more languages the colour inventories of which have been subject to systematic research and which have figured in linguistic discussions (the relevant literature is too extensive for being listed here, cf. MacLaury 1997, 2001 and Payne 2006 and the references there, also http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/wcs/for the World Color Survey Site). Kinship terminologies have for a long time been a favourite semantic field among anthropologists and anthropologically oriented linguists. Detailed and systematic descriptions of the domain are available for many hundreds of languages, and there is a long tradition of classifying the resulting systems into a small number of types. As a rule, such classifications do not consider the whole kinship systems, but concentrate only on their subparts. Probably the cross-linguistically most systematic study, Nerlove & Romney (1967), focuses on sibling terminologies in 245 languages. For the body domain, the most comprehensive – in terms of the number and representativity of the included languages – studies are the two chapters by Brown (2005a-b) in the World Atlas of Language Structures. One of them classifies 617 languages according to whether they use the same or different words for hand and arm, the other one asks the same question for finger and hand in 593 languages. Crosslinguistic studies on categorization of the whole body cover a handful of languages – the milestones here are Brown (1976), Andersen (1978) and, in particularly, Majid et al. (eds.) (2006), with detailed and systematic studies of ten languages. The modern lexical-typological research on motion verbs is for many people firmly associated with the tradition stemming from Talmy’s seminal chapter (1985), .  For the latest developments on the latter concept see Ameka & Levinson 2007, cf. also Newman 2002.



Approaching lexical typology 

which focuses on the components of a motion event that are systematically encoded within motion verbs in different languages (lexicalization patterns). It is not quite clear how many languages have been systematically studied from this point of view – my impression is that they are not so many. Wälchli’s on-going research on motion events in general covers more than 100 languages (Wälchli 2006; Wälchli & Zúñiga 2006). Since the motion domain is, in fact, very complex and heterogeneous and is normally encoded by many different linguistic means, it is reasonable to split it into smaller sub-domains for meaningful and doable cross-linguistic studies. Ricca (1993) focuses on the distinction between the deictic motion verb (“come”) and the non-deictic verb (“go”) in twenty European languages, whereas the papers in Maisak & Rakhilina (eds.) (2007) present detailed and systematic studies of aquamotion verbs across 40 genetically, structurally and areally diverse languages. The most systematic cross-linguistic study of perception verbs has been carried out by Viberg (1984, 2001) on the basis of fifty languages (and further confirmed by the Australian languages in Evans & Wilkins 2000), whereas the domain of cutting and breaking events (Majid & Bowerman eds. 2007) has been investigated in 28 genetically and structurally diverse languages (covering 13 languages families, four isolates and a creole language). Finally, Lang (2001) presents a cross-linguistic comparison of dimension terms (like “wide”, “long”, etc.) in a sample of forty languages coming from Europe and Asia.

4.3  Methodology Research on domain-categorization – as lexical typology in general – has on the whole made relatively little use of secondary sources, but often relies on primary data. Some of the studies on kinship terminology (e.g., Nerlove & Romney’s 1967; or Greenberg 1980) largely utilize the available earlier descriptions of particular languages, but this, in turn, depends on the long descriptive tradition of the domain starting with Morgan’s (1870) early typology of kinship systems. Viberg’s study (1984, 2001) of perception verbs involves a combination of secondary data sources (dictionaries, word lists and more detailed descriptions) and systematic translation of sentences in a questionnaire; Ricca’s (1993) study of deictic verbs is mainly based on a questionnaire. The majority of cross-linguistic colour studies have all involved elaborated and systematic techniques for data collection largely inspired by data collection in psychological and psycholinguistic research – Munsell colour chips, salience tests, number of connotations per colour term, frequency in texts etc. (cf. MacLaury 2001 for an overview and references). The major part of the data underlying Andersen’s (1978) and Brown’s (2005a-b) studies of body seem to come from available dictionaries and word lists. A new step in the study of body is undertaken in Majid et al. (eds.) (2006), where the papers on

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

ten different languages are all based on a consistent application of multiple methods for data collection, such as collecting replies to a detailed questionnaire and drawing outlines of the various body-part terms on a picture of a human body. Elicitation of verbal descriptions for visual stimuli underlies a large portion of cross-linguistic work on motion (the pictures in the Frog Story, initially coming from the cross-linguistic work on child-language acquisition by Berman, Slobin and their colleagues, Berman & Slobin 1994, or video-sequences depicting moving objects), on dimensional adjectives (Lang 2001) and, most recently, on the cuttingbreaking domain (videoclips showing various types of material separation, Majid & Bowerman (eds.) (2007). The papers on aquamotion in Maisak & Rakhilina (eds.) (2007) contain detailed descriptions of particular languages by language experts, who have conducted their own in-depth studies (e.g., using corpora and dictionary searches, work with informants, introspection, etc.), while at the same time following the common checklist, or guidelines. Finally, comparison of parallel translations of one and the same text into different languages is becoming a popular tool in typology. Viberg has been carrying out “smallscale” lexical-typological (or, rather, contrastive) studies of several verbs using parallel corpora in a few European languages (e.g., Viberg 2002, 2005, 2006). Parallel texts in more than 100 languages (the Gospel according to Mark) underlie Wälchli’s “large-scale” lexical-typological studies of motion verbs (Wälchli 2006; Wälchli & Zúñiga 2006).

4.4  Questions and generalizations Domain-categorization lexical typology, as typology otherwise, is driven by the curiosity to understand what is variable and universal in a particular linguistic phenomenon. Of central concern here are therefore questions such as according to what parameters a specific phenomenon can vary across languages, in what patterns these parameters (co-)occur and what generalisations can be made about attested vs. possible patterns. One possible result of cross-linguistic studies is, of course, a classification of the obtained data into patterns, or types (and, in some cases, the corresponding classification of the languages). While classifications of phenomena and languages are useful on their own, their value increases if they can be related to other phenomena – both linguistic and non-linguistic ones. In Ricca’s (1993) study of deictic verbs, the twenty languages are classified into three groups depending on the extent to which they make a systematic distinction between verbs showing centripetal (to the deictic centre, normally the speaker) vs. centrifugal (from the deictic centre) motion. Interestingly, the distribution of the types across the sample languages is dependent on a combination of genetic and areal factors and can therefore contribute to our general



Approaching lexical typology 

understanding of genetically stable vs. borrowable (or diffusible) phenomena with further implications for research in historical linguistics. Thus, the fully deictic languages are mainly found in Southwestern and Southern Europe (Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Albanian, Modern Greek, with the two Finno-Ugric outliers Hungarian and Finnish), the non-deictic languages are Western and Eastern Slavic and Baltic, while the predominantly deictic ones are Germanic, French and the two Southern Slavic languages Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian. The next logical step to be taken from there would be to provide both a better coverage of the European language varieties and a broader nonEuropean sample. These will together contribute to a better understanding of the relative contribution of universal, genetic and areal factors in this domain (cf. Wilkins & Hill 1995 for similar considerations). Brown’s (2005a-b) body-part chapters in the World Atlas of Language Structures are further examples of classifications with interesting implications. First, they show different statistical asymmetries in the distribution of the types: while only 12% of the sample’s languages (72 languages of the 593 languages) use the same word for finger and hand, the corresponding share for the non-distinction of hand and arm is much higher – approximately 37% languages in the sample (228 languages of the 617 languages). Second, the chapters show that the skewings in the areal distribution of the languages in each category are not random, but correlate either with geography (languages without hand-arm distinction tend to occur more frequently near the equator) or with culture (languages without finger-hand distinction tend to be spoken by traditional hunter-gatherers or by groups having a mixed economy of cultivation and foraging). Brown suggests that the former can be dependent on the local clothing traditions (extensive clothing, sometimes also including gloves or mittens, greatly increases the distinctiveness of arm parts), whereas the latter can perhaps be explained by the greater use of finger rings among agricultural people which, in turn, makes fingers salient as distinct hand parts. In both cases, Brown’s explanation makes therefore appeal to the cultural practices. It should be remembered that the correlations are far from perfect: e.g., although Russian is being spoken in a much colder climate than Italian (and Russians are dependent on gloves and mittens to a much higher extent than Italians), the former uses one and the same word for hand and arm, while the latter has two. Some classifications might seem to play a more central, essential role in the linguistic system, they can thus be used as predictors for other linguistic phenomena and might have important implications outside of the language. Consider the impact of Talmy’s (1985, 1991) studies on the research on motion verbs. Talmy focuses on the different “conflations” of the motion meaning component with other meaning components, or different lexicalization patterns, where lexicalization is defined to be “involved where a particular meaning component is found to be in regular association with a particular morpheme” (Talmy 1985: 59). It is generally assumed that languages

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

tend to be consistent with respect to their lexicalization patterns in motion verbs (cf. the classification into path-conflating vs. manner-conflating vs. figure-conflating languages in Talmy 1985, its later modifications into satellite-framed vs. verb-framed languages in Talmy 1991 and even more radical reorganizations in Slobin & Hoiting 1994 and in Croft 2003: 222). The assumption is, thus, that lexicalization in this domain is not an issue of one particular meaning (or one particular combination of meaning components) being expressed via a word, but is more global – i.e., pertaining to the whole motion domain or, at least, to a major part of it. There is also ample research on possible connections between the lexicalization type of a certain language and, say, its discourse organization, child-language acquisition of the domain, even non-verbal communication such as gestures and “thinking for speaking”, i.e., mild cognitive effects of linguistic relativity (e.g., Slobin 2003; Slobin & Bowerman 2007; Kita & Özyürek 2003). In short, a language’s lexicalization pattern in the motion domain is often taken to belong to its typologically relevant properties. However, the role of the “Lexicalization Pattern” theory should not be exaggerated, since it is based on a limited number of languages, where, in addition, only a subset of motion verbs has been studied in detail. Wälchli’s (2006, 2006/7) on-going research on motion events based on parallel texts in more than 100 languages has already challenged some of the basic assumptions and predictions of the “Lexicalization Pattern” Theory. For instance, languages with a consistent (or predominantly consistent) “global” lexicalization-pattern type seem to be fairly unusual – the best examples are in fact found among the Eurasian and North American languages (exactly those that have figured prominently in Talmy’s seminal papers). Many more languages, however, turn out to show mixed behaviour. And in fact, even languages that are considered to fit into the Talmy-Slobin-Croft typology, often have verbs showing a deviant behaviour. For instance, the Path-conflating verbs ‘fall’ or ‘sink’ are present in many otherwise Manner-conflating languages like English and Swedish, while the otherwise Path-conflating language French has a general motion verb aller which does not conflate with any direction (Viberg 2006: 113). There are, therefore, asymmetries even among the verbs belonging to the same domain, which may be ordered rather than being random. As Viberg hypothesizes, Path-conflation might be most frequent with verbs for uncontrolled motion (down), least frequent with verbs for general direction (to/from) and intermediate with verbs for controllable motion (up/ down, in/out). These can be said to show a markedness hierarchy – the notion we will discuss shortly. Classifications become particularly interesting when they show various asymmetries – statistical preferences for certain combinations of parameters and the absence of attested though logically possible types. Consider Nerlove and Romney’s (1967) sibling terminologies. These are based on eight logical kin types as defined by three



Approaching lexical typology 

parameters (sex of ego, sex of sibling, relative age) – e.g., whether one and the same term is used for all siblings, whether there are two separate terms for ‘brother’ and ‘sister’, whether there are four different terms (‘younger brother’, ‘elder brother’, ‘younger sister’, ‘elder sister’), etc., which leads to 4140 logically possible types. However, only 10 of those are attested in more than one language in the 245-language sample! In a similar vein, even though, perhaps, less spectacularly, one of the five logically possible types is not attested in the kinship typologies focusing on the patterning of terms for parent / uncle /aunt (with the roots in Morgan 1870 and further modified by later research). Thus, languages can have the same term for ‘father’, ‘father’s brother’ and ‘mother’s brother’ (the “Hawaiian”, or “Generational” type), or the same term for ‘father’ and ‘father’s brother’, as opposed to ‘mother’s brother’ (the “Iroquois”, or “Bifurcate merging” type). However, no language has so far shown a system with one and the same term used for ‘father’ and ‘mother’s brother’, to the exclusion of ‘father’s brother’. The two kinship asymmetries cited above are examples of linguistic universals – generalizations on what is generally preferred/dispreferred (or even possible/ impossible) in human languages – the search for which has been a high priority on the typologists’ agenda for a long time. Linguistic universals within the lexical-typological research are often formulated in terms of lexicalization hierarchies/implications and lexical universals. The task is then both to unveil and to explain them. Continuing on the issue of the Morgan-inspired kinship terminologies – why is one of the five logically possible lexicalizations not attested? It has been suggested that the reason is cognitive: a definition of a term covering both ‘father’ and ‘mother’s brother’ would be cognitively more complex than the other four lexicalizations, since it will require disjunction (‘father’ or ‘mother’s brother’, cf. ‘male relative of one’s patriline’ for ‘father’ and ‘father’s brother’). It has also been suggested that the parent/aunt/ uncle terminology has the central role in predicting other properties in the kinship systems, such as, e.g., the sibling terminology (where the generalizations can be formulated as lexicalization implications); this, in turn, can be explained by the role of the corresponding relations in regulating marriage possibilities (for details cf. Evans 2001). Most lexicalization generalizations build on the unequal status of different words and other lexicalized expressions – either for encoding a particular conceptual domain, or in general. Some words are basic, while others are derived, some are less marked, whereas others are more marked – defined by various criteria stemming from Berlin & Kay’s (1969) classical study of colour terms, and the numerous publications by Greenberg (e.g., 1966), Brown (e.g., 1976) and by Berlin (e.g., 1992). One of Greenberg’s own examples nicely links to the discussion of kinship terminology in the preceding paragraph. Greenberg (1980) suggests that each of the different semantic

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components used for analyzing kin terms defines its own markedness hierarchy, as shown in Table 4: Table 4.  Markedness relations among kin terms according to Greenberg (1980) Less marked

More marked

Example

lineal consanguineal less remote (measured in number of generations) senior (including both seniority within one generation and the distinction ascending-descending)

collateral affinal more remote (measured in number of generations) junior

‘father’ < ‘uncle’ ‘brother’ < ‘brother-in-law’ ‘father’ < ‘grandfather’ ‘older brother’ < ‘younger brother’

Markedness, according to Greenberg, would manifest itself in – zero expression vs. overt expression for certain categories cf. the consanguineal vs. the affinal relation in such pairs as brother vs. brother-in-law; – defectivation, i.e., the absence of a term in the marked category which would correspond to an existing one in the unmarked category cf. *cousin-in-law; – neutralization of certain distinctions in some categories (cf. neutralization of sex reference in cousin as against brother and sister), and – higher text frequencies for unmarked categories. When all the individual markedness hierarchies are combined the least marked of all the kin terms turn out to be parental terms, which is further corroborated by various properties singling out these terms across languages (cf. Dahl & KoptjevskajaTamm 2001). Since the discussions of basic vs. non-basic terms in the domain of colour are by now well known and widely quoted, the reader is referred to the relevant literature. Let us look at a couple of other examples of lexicalization generalizations pertaining to perception verbs and body-part terminologies. Viberg (1984, 2001) suggests that perception verbs across languages follow the sense-modality hierarchy sight >

hearing >

touch >

   smell taste

Not only does the hierarchy conform to the standard markedness criteria, but it also restricts patterns of intrafield polysemy, or semantic extensions of perception verbs within the perception domain: for instance, in Russian the verb slyšat’ “to hear” is often used in combination with the noun zapax “smell” for reference to smelling (a verb normally relating to a higher sense modality extends its uses to lower modalities,



Approaching lexical typology 

whereas the opposite does not seem to be attested) (cf. also Vanhove this volume; for a possible exception cf. Maslova 2004). There is a relatively long tradition of cross-linguistic markedness generalizations about the inventories of body-part terms, starting with Brown (1976) and Andersen (1978) (and further developed in Brown 2001; Wilkins 1996), e.g.,: – If both hand and foot are labelled, they are labelled differently (cf. English and Italian in Table 2); – If there is a distinct term for foot, then there will be a distinct term for hand (cf. English, Italian, which have both, vs. Japanese and Rumanian, which have a distinct term for hand, but not for foot, and Russian, that lacks either in Table 2). Body-parts differ, obviously, in how they relate to each other and to the whole body; the nose is, for instance, a part of the face, which, in turn, is a part of the head, which, in turn, is part of the body. Body-part terminology is therefore interesting for crosslinguistic generalizations on the partonomic levels of depth, or ethnolinguistic partonomy. Andersen (1978) suggests, for instance, that – there are never more than six levels of depth in the partonomy relating to body part terminology, and – there will be distinct terms for body, head, arm, eyes, nose and mouth The ten language descriptions in Majid et al. (2006) challenge a high portion of the earlier cross-linguistic research on categorization and linguistic/conceptual segmentation of the body. Thus, Lavukaleve, a Papuan language isolate spoken on the Russell islands within the central Solomon islands (Terrill 2006: 316) has one and the same word, tau, for both arm and leg, contradicting the claim that arm is always lexicalized by a distinct term. In addition, Lavukaleve has a distinct simple word, fe, for reference to foot, but nothing comparable for hand – contradicting therefore another of the claims above. Lavukaleve (as well as some of the other languages in the volume, e.g., Savosavo, another Papuan language in the Solomon islands, cf. Wegener 2006) shows also that linguistic evidence for partonomic relations between subset of body part terms can be difficult to achieve and that languages do not necessarily show any multi-level conceptualization in this domain, thus contradicting some of the universals proposed in Brown (1976) and Andersen (1978).

4.5  Explanations Linguistic typology in general seeks explanations for two different kinds of observed facts and generalizations – first, for the observed patterns in the linguistic phenomena themselves and, second, in their distribution across languages. A few examples of the

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latter have been given above (e.g., in connection with deictic/non-deictic verbs and the hand/arm vs. finger/hand distinctions). Examples of the former are, for instance, the standard explanations for the possible colour-term systems as governed by the neurophysiology of vision (Berlin & Kay 1969; Kay & McDaniel 1978; Kay & Maffi 2000). Vision itself is also dominant among the sense modalities, as is well established within cognitive psychology and neurophysiology, which explains its highest position in the hierarchy for perception verbs (Viberg 2001: 1306–1307). Biology-rooted factors (e.g., perceptional discontinuity and other properties derived from perception), as well as functions have also been suggested as underlying segmentation of the body across languages (Brown 1976; Andersen 1978; also Enfield et al. 2006 for the discussion of the explanations and some counterexamples). The unmarked status of parental terms in the kin term systems follows, of course, from the unique biology-rooted status of parents (or at least of the biological mother) in any person’s life. All these examples, together with the earlier cognitive-based account for the cross-linguistically unattested lexicalization of ‘father + mother’s brother’ to the exclusion of ‘father’s brother’, suggest that lexical categories can be motivated – at least partly – by non-linguistic cognition and shaped by human perceptual and cognitive predispositions. There are also other possible explanations for cross-linguistic lexical preferences. We have already seen some examples of social and cultural practices as explanations for the cross-linguistically recurrent lexicalization patterns in connection with hand/ arm, finger/hand and parent/uncle/aunt kinship terminologies. Now, consider the above-mentioned cross-linguistic preference for conflation of path (down) and uncontrolled motion in verbs like fall or sink (Viberg 2006: 113). An obvious explanation here lies in the power of the omnipresent gravity in human environment: uncontrolled – and often unintended motion – under normal conditions in the default case means falling or sinking (in water). The long tradition of research on kinship has on the whole been an arena for hot disputes on the role of universal (biology-rooted) vs. social-construction explanations (see Foley 1997: 131–149 for an overview). Numerous examples of environmental, social and cultural explanations, combined with biology-rooted factors are found in the recent research on colour (e.g., Wierzbicka 1990; MacLaury 2001; Jameson 2005; Dedrick 2005; Paramei 2005 and the references there). Other possible explanations for cross-linguistically recurrent lexicalizations include the natural logic of events (rational and purposive connections among the components of the same event, e.g., Enfield 2007) and – last, but not least – innate concepts.

4.6  Universal vs. language-specific lexicalizations? Let’s come back to the initial questions asked in the beginning of Section 4. What meanings can be or cannot be expressed by a single word in different languages, or what word meanings are universal, frequent, possible, impossible? Are there any uni-



Approaching lexical typology 

versal (or at least statistically predominant) restrictions on the meanings that can or cannot be expressed by single words across languages, or are languages more or less free to choose here? It is in fact difficult to evaluate to what extent these questions have been approached and answered in the research up to now. Apart from the fact that very few concepts and conceptual domains have been studied at all, the different research traditions are hard to bring into line with each other, their results are often incommensurable and hardly mutually translatable. Take the hierarchy of perception verbs mentioned above. What does it actually mean for the universal-lexicalization enterprise? Does is imply that some languages will not lexicalize the meaning ‘to hear‘ and many more languages will not lexicalize the meanings ‘to taste’, ‘to touch’ and ‘to smell’? Conversely, if this is true (or at least partially true) – wouldn’t that imply that the word referring to hearing in a language which also has designated expressions for tasting, smelling and touching, will have a different meaning from the word that covers perception in all these modalities? Likewise, would the existence of the languages that merge ‘father’ and ‘father’s brother’, as well as ‘mother’ and ‘mother’s sister’ mean that biological parents do not correspond to universally lexicalized meanings? And how does this relate, in turn, to Greenberg’s markedness universals for kin-terms and the “parental prototype” suggested both there and in Dahl & Koptjevskaja-Tamm (2001)? As becomes clear, the answers to these questions are crucially dependent on what stance we take on the issues of polysemy and approximate vs. precise meaning identity discussed in Section 3. The overview in Goddard (2001; cf. also Brown 2001) which makes a serious attempt to take polysemy into consideration and aims at precise mean­ing definitions (in the NSM tradition), is probably the most updated one over suggested lexico-semantic universals; the important predecessors to the paper include the collective volume (Goddard & Wierzbicka 1994). As Goddard argues, “see” and “hear” seem to stand the proof of being universally lexicalized (at least as separate meanings within polysemous expressions). Some presumably basic and universal “concepts” seem to be doubtful as lexical universals or, at least, can only be viewed as approximate ones (e.g., “eat”, “give”). A few of the other surprises include the non-universal status of “water” and “sun” based on the fact that languages can have more than one word for each of those (cf. “hot water” vs. “non-hot water in Japanese, “sun low in the sky” vs. “hot sun overhead” in Nyawaygi, Australia). Emotions, contrary to many common assumptions, turn out to be highly culture- and language-specific. “Mother”, in its biological sense, has reasonable chances to survive as a lexical universal too, whereas “father’s” chances are considerably lower (since his role is much more subject to social factors). This, in fact, leads to interesting asymmetries in kinship terms, where “mother + mother’s sister” is supposed to be polysemous, whereas “father + father’s brother” is “allowed” to be semantically general – a fact not mentioned by Goddard (2001). All in all, according to Goddard, the best candidates for the universally lexicalized meanings

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turn out to be overwhelmingly found within the set of semantic primitives suggested within the NSM (which now covers about sixty items). However, opinions vary as to what can count as universal lexicalizations and on the kinds of evidence for or against them (cf. Brown 2001), also among the individual researchers who have contributed to the papers in Goddard & Wierzbicka (1994). Consider ‘want’, which the NSM considers a semantic primitive, lexicalized in all languages. A recent study casting doubts on the suggested universality of ‘want’ is Khanina (forthc.), who shows that language after language in a sample of 73 genetically, areally and structurally diverse languages merge this meaning with other meanings (often modal and mental-emotive) in one and the same lexeme. In fact, exclusively desiderative expressions are predominantly found in the languages of Eurasia, excluding South Asia, and those of Northern America, while two thirds of the desiderative expressions in Khanina’s sample show other meanings as well. In many of these, a case can be made for polysemy; in others, however, there do not seem to be obvious morphosyntactic differences between desiderative and other uses. This does not exclude that further analysis will not provide arguments for polysemy even there. However, the fact itself that ‘want’ relatively seldom has a “lexeme of its own”, but tends rather to share the same lexeme with other meanings, is significant and has to be taken into consideration in discussions of universally lexicalized meanings. Khanina’s own conclusion is that the status of ‘want’ is subject to cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variation, as many other concepts: in some cases it is an indivisible and indefinable salient concept of the culture, whereas in others it is not salient, but is treated only as particular type of a more general situation. It is not always clear how precise semantic identity is established cross-linguistically and to what extent it is interesting and important to achieve that degree of exactness. Many scholars take cross-linguistic semantic comparability fairly easily, without always being aware of this. This is, for instance, characteristic of the research areas presented in the next two sections. In certain cases this is undoubtedly justified by the task and aims of the research whereby a higher degree of semantic precision might render the task undoable and create obstacles for interesting generalizations; in other cases, on the contrary, semantic vagueness cannot be justified and can even be shown to be detrimental for an effective cross-linguistic comparison.

5.  W  hat different meanings can be expressed by one and the same lexeme or by words derivationally related to each other? What different meanings can be expressed by one and the same lexeme, by lexemes within one and the same synchronic word family (words linked by derivational relations) or by lexemes historically derived from each other? These questions can be



Approaching lexical typology 

approached from different angles. Most of the other contributions to the volume start with an individual lexical item, or with several items belonging to one and the same individual lexical field, and ask what other lexical or grammatical meanings can be expressed by the same form(s) or by forms derived from it/them. In the sub-sections below we focus on semantic relations between particular lexical units, or particular meanings – i.e., particular instances of semantic motivation. But we can also compare whole classes or groups of words where one of the classes contains words derived from, or formed on the words in the other one, and ask about the semantic relations associated with a particular word formation device. The focus here is on the regularities in lexical motivation seen as an interaction of formal (morphological) and semantic motivation (cf. Koch & Marzo 2007). The next two subsections will give a short overview of the current crosslinguistic research along the two lines. The bulk of examples come from the body domain, but we will also briefly touch upon some studies on derivational morphemes and compounding.

5.1  F  ocusing on semantic motivation: Another look at the body and outside When foot and head are used with meanings different from their normal body-part meanings in the expressions the foot of the mountain and the head of the department, they present clear cases of polysemy. In other cases two meanings do not coexist within one and the same lexeme, but are related diachronically. The Italian testa “head” has developed from the Latin word testa “splinter”, but does not show the original meaning any longer. On the other hand, such meanings of the German word Haupt as “head (of the department, delegation etc.)” and “top (of a mountain)” have developed from its earlier body-part meaning “head”, for which Haupt in Modern German has been more or less replaced by Kopf. A useful cover term for all these cases is semantic shift, which refers to a pair of meanings A and B linked by some genetic relation, either synchronically or diachronically. Diachronic semantic shifts can sometimes lead to heterosemy (rather than to polysemy), which refers to “cases (within a single language) where two or more meanings or functions that are historically related, in the sense of deriving from the same ultimate source, are borne by reflexes of the common source element that belong in different morphosyntactic categories” (Lichtenberk 1991: 476). The pair head (like my head) and ahead (ahead of me) is an example of heterosemy. It is useful to distinguish between intrafield semantic shifts, that relate two meanings belonging to the same semantic domain, and interfield, or transfield semantic shifts, that relate meanings belonging to different semantic domains (all those quoted above). What might count as intrafield polysemy of body-part terms is a difficult question which brings to the fore the problem of distinguishing semantically general meanings,

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on the one hand, from polysemy – cf. the discussion in sections 3.2. and 4. It has, for instance, been widely debated whether ruka “hand/arm” in Russian is semantically general or polysemous (cf. Wierzbicka 2007 for a recent hefty argumentation in favour of polysemy); it might very well turn out that a large portion (or even all) of the languages classified as neutralizing the hand /arm or the finger / hand distinctions in Brown (2005a,b) show in fact recurrent patterns of intrafield polysemy rather than semantic generality. I will not dwell on intrafield polysemy or on derivation of bodypart terms in this paper. There has been interesting cross-linguistic research on diachronic semantic shifts leading to the emergence of various body-part terms (both intra- and interfield shifts) – cf. Koch (this volume) and the references there. The best cross-linguistically studied cases of semantic associations pertaining to body involve body-part terms as grammaticalization sources for markers of spatial relations and reflexive-middle-reciprocal markers (in most cases leading to heterosemy). Various cross-linguistically interesting generalizations on grammaticalization body-parts → spatial relations and explanations for them are found in Svorou’s (1993) cross-linguistic study covering 55 languages of the world, and Heine’s (1989) and Bowden’s (1992) studies of the numerous African vs. Oceanic languages. Thus, frontregion relations are often expressed by markers coming from terms for eye, face, forehead, mouth, head and breast/chest, while those for back-region relations often emerge from body-part terms for back, buttocks, anus and loins (Svorou 1993: 71–72), e.g.,

(2) Examples of development body-parts → spatial relations (Svorou 1993: 71–72)

a. Halia (Austronesia, Oceanic, NW and Central Solomons)   i matana “in front of ” < i “in, at” + mata “eye” + -na (adv.suf) b. !Kung (Khoisan)   tsi’i “in front of ”

<

ts’i “mouth”

c. Navajo (Na-Dene)   bi-tsi “in front, at”

<

’atsii’ “head, hair”

d. Basque (Isolate)   gibelean “in back of ”

<

gibel “back” + -ean (loc)

e. Papago (Aztec-Tanoan)   -’a’ai “in back of ”

<

’a’at “anus”)

There are significant cross-linguistic differences here: terms referring to one and the same body-part can sometimes give rise to different developments; in addition, languages can also differ in their preferences for using particular body-part terms as sources for spatial markers. For instance, in Svorou’s sample, ‘head’ gives rise to markers of back-region in 12 cases and to markers of front-region in 2 cases, while ‘back’ gives



Approaching lexical typology 

rise to markers of back-region in 15 cases, of top-region in 3 cases and of bottomregion in 1 case. There are interesting explanations for these facts, based on universal preferences and on areal/genetic factors. Some of the differences in the semantic developments of “comparable” body-part terms have been interpreted as consequences of two different models, according to which anatomy is mapped into spatial relations – the anthropomorphic model (corresponding to the canonical upright position of a standing man with his/her back oriented backwards), and the zoomorphic model (corresponding to the canonical position of an animal standing on its four legs with its back oriented upwards) (Svorou 1993: 74–76; Heine 1997: 37–49). The anthropomorphic model is cross-linguistically preferred in being found more often across languages; in addition, even languages with predominantly zoomorphically modelled spatial concepts have at least some that emerge from the human body (Svorou 1993: 72–75; Heine 1997: 40). This is, of course, not particularly surprising given the general human predilection for anthropocentricity and embodiment in its different aspects. Zoomorphically modelled spatial concepts, on the contrary, seem to have a clearly areal and genetic distribution. There are also remarkable “areal differences in the relative weight given to the three major body regions” (i.e., head, trunk, and extremities, Heine 1997: 43. The proportions among the relevant semantic shifts in the Oceanic languages (Bowden 1992) more or less correspond to those in Svorou’s global sample in that the ‘head’ and the ‘trunk’ each provide about 49% of the sources. The African languages (Heine 1989), on the other hand, significantly differ in the proportions between the ‘head’ (38%) and the ‘trunk’ (60%) with the ‘belly’ as the more prominent source for spatial orientation in Africa than elsewhere in the world. The brief presentation above shows, thus, that the cross-linguistic studies on the grammaticalization path body-parts → spatial markers “live up” to such expectations of modern typological research as proposals of explanations for the cross-linguistic patterns and for the asymmetries in their distribution across a large sample of languages. Another relatively well-studied group of shifts with body-parts as source is involved in grammaticalisation of reflexive-reciprocal-middle markers. Schladt’s (2000) cross-linguistic study based on 150 languages shows that ‘body’ constitutes the absolutely most frequent source for reflexive markers, while ‘head’ is one of the other major ones. Since reflexive markers in turn tend to develop further into reciprocal and middle markers, ‘body’ and ‘head’ may also grammaticalize into those as well (cf. Heine & Kuteva 2002 for discussion and numerous examples). Although Schadt’s sample is geographically biased (and contains many more African languages than languages from the other parts of the world), it seems sufficient for manifesting interesting areal differences in the distribution of the grammaticalization sources. Thus, the reflexive markers in the African languages are derived much more frequently from ‘body’ and ‘body parts’ than elsewhere; in addition, within this category, ‘body’ is the much more preferred option

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than ‘head’ in Africa than in Asia and Europe, whereas the languages of Northern America use exclusively ‘body’. There are other well-known grammaticalization paths from body-part terms attested across languages, but studied in a less systematic cross-linguistic way, e.g., the following ones: Body-parts → numerals, in particular, ‘hand’ → ‘five’ (e.g., lima “hand, five” in Samoan and all over Austronesian). As Heine & Kuteva (2002: 166) suggest, “[n]ouns for ‘hand’ probably provide the most widespread source for numerals for ‘five’ in the languages of the world”, but it is not quite clear what sample underlies this generalization. ‘Finger’ sometimes occurs in expressions for ‘six’, such as ‘a finger passes hand’, while ‘foot’ may occur in expressions like ‘two hands, one foot and one finger’ for ‘sixteen’ (Harald Hammarström p.c.); ‘hand’ → possession, for which Heine & Kuteva (2002: 167) give a few examples from African languages and suggest that this is an areally induced process. However, Estonian demonstrates a similar grammaticalization path (Ojutkangas 2000) – incidentally, several body-part terms in Estonian have also grammaticalized into spatial postpositions (related phenomena have a wider attestation in Finnic and even Finno-Ugric, Bernhard Wälchli p.c.). It is rather striking that none of the numerous cross-domain semantic extensions from body-part terms not leading to grammaticalization and attested all over the world, has been studied in a systematic cross-linguistic way, at least remotely comparable to the studies reported on above. A particularly interesting topic is the use of body-part terms in conventionalized descriptions of emotions and mental states, a phenomenon found all over the world, e.g., (3) Lao (Tai-Kadai) (Enfield 2002: 87) a. aj3-hòòn4 b. caj3-dii3 c. caj3-kaa4 heart-hot heart-good heart-daring ‘impatient, hot-headed’ ‘nice, good-hearted’ ‘daring, courageous’ (4)

Kuot (isolate, “Papuan”, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea) (Lindström 2002: 162) gigina-m [dal’p a] heavy-3pl stomach.nsg 3m.poss ‘he is worried/sad’ (lit. ‘his stomach is heavy’)



(5) Yélî Dnye (isolate, “Papuan”, Rossel island, Papua New Guinea) (Levinson 2006: 237) a nuu u tpile my throat his/its/her thing ‘A thing I really like it’ (lit. ‘My throat its thing’)

As the examples above demonstrate, languages can differ significantly in which body-parts can be seats for which emotions: the majority of emotional descriptions



Approaching lexical typology 

in Lao, Kuot and Yélî are based on ‘heart’ vs. ‘stomach’ vs. ‘throat’. Some areal tendencies have been suggested: thus, Lao seems to be representative for the languages in Southeast Asia (Matisoff 1986), which often use the word for ‘heart’ or ‘liver’ in most emotion descriptions. Enfield & Wierzbicka (2002) contain a number of enlightening papers on different languages, and a first important step towards a more systematic cross-linguistic comparison is provided by the volume on the role of heart in expressions of emotions (Sharifian et al. eds. forthc.). Large-scale crosslinguistic comparisons in this area are, however, still lacking – and are badly needed, in particular, given the prominent role of both body and emotions in the current cognitively-oriented semantic theories. The methodological and theoretical problems for such comparisons are, however, overwhelming. On the one hand, as we have seen, categorization of the body itself is subject to significant cross-linguistic variation. On the other hand, unveiling and describing the meaning of emotion expressions even in one’s native language is a much more difficult enterprise than in many other domains, emotions are to a high degree culture-specific, and systematic cross-linguistic comparison of emotion expressions has hardly begun (the very interesting papers in Harkins & Wierzbicka (2001) contain descriptions that are not directly comparable to each other). Some types of semantic associations involving body-part terms are probably restricted to certain linguistic areas or to particular linguistic families. Among the recurrent features of Australian lexical systems Evans (1992: 479) mentions examples of “synecdoche, by means of which animals or plants are named for their most salient body-part”. Thus, ‘tooth’ is extensively used in such names, leading to the polysemy of muyiny in Wadyiginy “dog, wild asparagus”, or to the different meanings within “the set of cognates of *waartu including Umbugarla waartu “mosquito”, Yolngu wart:u “dog”, Kayardild waardu “sandfly” and wardunda “mangrove rat””. The typical recurrent Australian metaphors include extensions of ‘eye’ to any point-like entities, including ‘star’, ‘well’, ‘small hole in ground’ and ‘bullet’, and the use of ‘ear’ as the seat of intelligence and apprehension, e.g., ‘ear-bad’ or ‘ear-without’ = ‘crazy’, etc. The cross-linguistic research on semantic associations and semantic shifts in domains other than body is even less systematic. The best-studied cases involve again heterosemy and grammaticalization from different sources (e.g., motion and posture verbs, “give”, “acquire”, etc.; cf. also the discussion of “want” in Section 3.6. – cf. Heine & Kuteva 2002 for the numerous examples and references). One of the notable few exceptions is the research on perception verbs developing cognitive meanings (Sweetser 1990; Evans & Wilkins 2001, cf. also Vanhove this volume). Brown (2001) reports on several other cross-linguistically recurrent connections (‘wood’ vs. ‘tree’, ‘seed’ vs. ‘fruit’, ‘wind’ vs. ‘air’), for which social and cultural factors have been suggested. Thus, speakers of languages where there is polysemy between ‘wood’ and ‘tree’ (two thirds of the languages in a big sample) usually live in small-scale, traditional

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

societies, while speakers of languages separating them usually live in large nation states (cf. also Section 4.3 for the potential body-part examples).

5.2  Formal motivation and its semantic correlates The preceding section has dealt with cross-linguistic studies on particular instances of semantic motivation. In this section we will briefly touch on the issue of the regularities in lexical motivation seen as an interaction of formal (morphological) and semantic motivation (cf. Koch & Marzo 2007). The issues we discuss here include the following: – what meanings correspond to “more basic” vs. “regularly derived” words?, – what formal (primarily morphological) devices are there in a language for forming words from other words, or lexical units from other lexical units – e.g., derivation, compounding?, and – what meaning relations can be expressed by these devices? Three examples of recent large-scale typological studies will give a flavour of how these questions can be approached and answered. The first of them, Nichols et al. (2004) approaches the issue of more basic vs. regularly derived words and how it interacts with the formal word-forming devices in a language. Given two sets of words such that the words in one set are semantically almost identical to those in the other apart from one and the same meaning component (or, put differently, the words in the two sets are related to each other by means of one and the same meaning relation), are there systematic formal relations between the words in the two sets and if yes, which of the words will be formally more basic vs. derived from the others? The two other studies, Juravsky (1996) and Wälchli (2005), focus on a particular word-forming device, derivation of diminutives and co-compounding, and ask the third of the questions stated above, namely, what meaning relations can be expressed by them. Although both studies concentrate on languages that have these devices, Wälchli (2005) is also interested in the question of absence vs. presence and, generally, of uneven distribution of cocompounding across languages, i.e., in the second of the above stated questions. The first example of large-scale cross-linguistic study that takes regularities of lexical motivation seriously is an important recent contribution by Nichols et al. (2004). It presents a typology of 80 languages based on their treatment of what the authors view as semantically basic and almost universal intransitive verbs such as ‘sit’, ‘fear’, ‘laugh’, ‘fall’ and their transitive counterparts (all in all 18 pairs). The list of verb pairs takes into consideration various parameters that are known or supposed to have an impact on derivational processes (animacy, agency, resistance to force), to be sufficiently common and easily found in lexical sources and/or translatable, and to show a wide spread in lexical semantics.



Approaching lexical typology 

The main question is whether the two sets of words are formally related to each other and if yes, how – i.e., which of the classes contains words derived from the words in the other one. It turns out that languages tend to be consistent in whether they treat intransitives as basic and transitives as derived by means of causative morphology (transitivizing languages), whether they derive intransitives by means of anti-causative morphology (detransitivizing languages), whether both intransitives and transitives are encoded by the same labile verb (neutral languages) or whether both intransitives and transitives have the same status (indeterminate languages), cf. Table 5. Table 5.  Examples of the types of lexical valence orientation illustrated by the derivational relations between the intransitive and transitive ‘hide’ (based on Nichols et al. 2004).

‘hide’ (go into hiding) ‘hide’ (put into hiding)

Chechen: transitivizing

Russian: detransitivizing

Thai: neutral

Nanai: indeterminate

dwa+lechq’ dwa+lechq’a-d-

prjatat’-sja prjatat’

àop àop

siridjaja-

The study is, thus, based on a principled sample of lexemes, and the resulting language types stem from their frequencies in the principled global sample of languages – which, as the authors themselves claim, defines this work as piece of lexical typology. There are also further various statistically significant generalizations on the “inner logics” of the types themselves, on their correlation to other linguistic phenomena (grammatical and lexical, e.g., alignment and voice alternations, complexity, aspect and Aktionsart) and on their distribution across the languages of the world – in the robust tradition of the standard modern large-scale typological research. Nichols et al. (2004) builds on a long tradition of cross-linguistic and typological studies on causatives, anti-causatives and, more generally, transitivity alternations (the cumulative results of which could be profitably used for constructing the list of verb pairs) – which does not reduce the groundbreaking character and the value of the study itself. Jurafsky (1996) and Wälchli (2005), each focusing on one particular wordforming (derivational vs. compounding) device across a large number of languages, are rather of a more exploratory nature, even if they both have theoretical and methodological predecessors (partly coming from the same tradition as Nichols et al. 2004; e.g., Kemmer 1993; Haspelmath 1987, 1993). Juravsky (1996) focuses on one particular derivational category – diminutives – identified via their ability to mean at least ‘small’. Wälchli (2005) studies co-compounds (dvandva compounds, pair words, copulative compounds) – compounds like ‘fathermother’ for parents, ‘milk-butter’ for ‘diary products’, etc., which are opposed to subordinate compounds, like ‘fingertip’ or ‘apple tree’, in which there is an asymmetric relation between the two parts (the head and its modifier). Each of these categories can be expressed by a variety of morphological devices – e.g., affixation, shifts in consonants,

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

vowels or lexical tones, and changes in noun-class or gender for diminutives. Each of them has also a number of different meanings and uses and, in addition, is not universal at all, even though both diminutives and co-compounds exist in many languages. It is instructive to compare how the two studies approach their object. Juravsky’s main interest lies in the amazing variety of semantic functions expressed by diminutives, in addition to the meaning ‘small’, e.g., ‘child/offspring’ (Tibetan dom “bear” vs. dom-bu “bear cub”), small-type (Ewe hɛ̄ “knife” vs. hɛ̄-vi “razor”), “imitation” (Hungarian csillag “star” vs. csillagocska “asterisk”), intensity/exactness (Latin parvus “small” vs. parvulus “very small”), approximation (Greek ksinos “sour” vs. ksinutsikos “sourish”) and individuation (Yiddish der zamd “sand” vs. dos zemdls “grain of sand, Juravsky 1996: 536). They are also known to easily acquire connotations (or uses) of affection, sympathy and endearment or, conversely, of contempt, and are extensively used for various pragmatic functions, such as politeness. The main question is then what other meanings and uses can be attributed to the diminutive marker and what is the rationale behind this. To account for this, Jurafsky proposes a structural polysemy model (inspired by Lakoff ’s radial-category notion) in which the different senses displayed by diminutives are modelled together with the metaphorical and inferential relations among them. The model has both synchronic and diachronic applications, where the latter cover, among others, possible lexical sources for the category itself (words semantically or pragmatically linked to children). Juravsky’s study leaves many questions. A major problem is the lack of “standard typological” systematicity in the account for the data and for the analysis, even though the study is based on extant grammars and work with consultants for more than 50 genetically, structurally and areally diverse languages. Thus, the different meanings and uses underlying the radial category are merely presented by illustrations from one or several languages, without any overview over their distribution. We do not know which of the functions are cross-linguistically more or less common, and what kinds of genetic, areal or other patterns there are in the distribution of diminutives and of their various meanings and uses. Grandi (2002) shows, for instance, that diminutives and augmentatives are an interesting areal phenomenon in the Mediterranean languages, with some properties distinguishing them from the other genetically related languages. The rationale behind Jurafsky’s semantic map is not quite clear either, as opposed to the logic of semantic maps common in typological research (Haspelmath 2003, François this volume). All this makes the use of “universal” in the title somewhat doubtful, but compared to the majority of studies anchored in cognitive semantics with its inclination to allegedly universal claims, Jurafsky does provide ample crosslinguistic data and opens opportunities for future research. Wälchli (2005) concentrates on several aspects of co-compounding. Cocompounds occur in several semantic types and functions, show a variety of formal patterns and considerable differences in frequencies of textual occurrences. Some



Approaching lexical typology 

languages lack co-compounds, even those that have productive noun-noun compounding (e.g., modern Germanic languages); another group use them sparsely (in just a few functions and relatively infrequently, e.g., Mari or Hindi); finally another group, like Vietnamese and Tibetan, are highly co-compounding – they show a very high frequency of co-compounds in texts and use them in many different functions. All these parameters of variation are subject to Wälchli’s investigation which involves several kinds of data, with the bulk of the data coming from texts – both original and parallel texts (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Gospel according to Mark) in a large number of predominantly Eurasian languages. The data give rise to various generalizations on the patterning of co-compounds and their distribution across languages. Thus, for instance, it turns out that the meanings expressed by cocompounds in a language (its semantic profile) are intimately linked to their textual frequencies. On the other hand, the distribution of co-compounding across languages (including their semantic types and text frequencies) shows a macro-areal pattern of distribution, with a significant and steady decline from continental East and Southeast Asia westward in Eurasia. Wälchli’s study contains many interesting generalizations and explanations, a number of which are of primary methodological and theoretical relevance for future research, also on co-compounding (e.g., in non-Eurasian languages).

5.3  Lexical semantics in cross-linguistic research on motivation As shown by the discussion of universal lexicalization in Section 4.6., there are very few meanings that can easily translate among languages, in particular if precise semantic identity is required. This fact is normally not explicitly considered in cross-linguistic research on motivation that usually takes meanings for granted, self-evident, and easily identified across languages and in a particular language. Consider the grammaticalization paths hand → five, attested in various languages, including Samoan (Polynesian, Austronesian) and Turkana (Nilotic, Nilo-Saharan), and hand → possession, attested, among other languages, in Kono (Mande, Niger-Congo), Zande (Ubangian, Niger-Congo) (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 166–167) and Estonian (Finno-Ugric, Uralic). Since all these languages use the same lexeme for ‘hand’ and ‘arm’, how would we know that it is ‘hand’ that has been the grammaticalization source rather than, say, ‘arm (excluding hand)’ or ‘arm (including hand)’? A strict proof for the case would include, first, arguments in favour of polysemy ‘hand’/‘arm’ rather than semantic generality in all these languages and, second, evidence for the grammaticalized meanings being based on ‘hand’ to the exclusion of ‘arm’. I am not aware of any serious attempts to do anything along these lines and doubt that there have been any. The interpretation of these particular examples and the postulation of these particular semantic links are, most probably, founded on common sense and intuition rather than on strict

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

argumentation, and on parallels with other languages which clearly distinguish between ‘hand’ and ‘arm’. Likewise, almost none of the 18 verb pairs used in Nichols et al. (2004) and viewed by the authors as semantically basic and almost universals, belongs to Goddard’s (2001) list over lexico-semantic universals (with some, like ‘sit’ and ‘fear’, being explicitly excluded from it). The exact semantics and precise semantic identity of the verbs on the list is, however, not a point here: the 18 verb pairs have been chosen on pragmatic grounds, as representing certain combinations of general parameters, corresponding to frequently encoded situations and having approximate translational equivalents in many languages. Stricter requirements on semantic comparability would in fact create obstacles for achieving the principal objective of the study. Obtaining one-word expressions with the same semantics for 18 events (and, in addition, representing the various combinations of interesting parameters) in 80 languages is hardly conceivable, while choosing word combinations with the right semantics would most probably conceal the basic derivational relations. In other cases, the relatively low degree of semantic precision in the definitions is less justified and can be impeding for deeper insights and effective cross-linguistic comparison. Among the various grammaticalization paths building on motion verbs several are often defined as starting with ‘come’ and ‘go’ (cf. in Heine & Kuteva 2002 for examples). The English verbs “come” and “go” as semantic metalabels are not totally felicitous; among other things, they encode the deictic distinction between centripetal and centrifugal motion, absent from many languages of the world (see Section 4.4. for the discussion of Ricca 1993) and neutralize the distinction between motion on foot vs. in a vehicle (cf. also Goddard 2001: 28). Descriptions like come → continuous, or go → habitual are therefore too vague for understanding the underlying logic of the development – they do, however, fulfill functions as preliminary crude classifications and as guidelines for future research. The lack of consensus on the appropriate semantic meta-language and the form of meaning definitions creates obstacles for evaluating cross-linguistic connections even between studies of high semantic and lexicographic quality. Consider Enfield’s (2003) excellent book on the striking pattern of multi-functionality (polysemy and heterosemy) involving the verb ‘to acquire’ and shared by the languages of mainland Southeast Asia. The study suggests a fine-grained classification of the different meanings, illustrated by numerous relevant examples and provided with detailed semantic explications. Viberg (2002, 2006) also presents excellent studies on the semantically comparable verbs in European languages, primarily få in Swedish and get in English. In particular, få in Swedish shows an amazing diversity of uses, which has a clearly areal distribution (being replicated by its Norwegian cognate få and the etymologically unrelated verb saada in Finnish). Viberg (2006: 125) writes that “[e]ven if få has a relatively language-specific pattern of polysemy with respect to European languages in



Approaching lexical typology 

general, it is not without parallels in other parts of the world” and mentions Enfield’s study. He concludes that “there is no exact parallel between the meanings of få and Lao daj4 [“acquire”, MKT] but at a more general level the paths of extension are similar” (Viberg 2006: 126). I wish I could understand what this means. The very different ways of classifying phenomena and representing their meanings in Enfield’s and Viberg’s studies make it, in fact, very difficult to evaluate the degree of (dis)similarity between the two polysemy patterns (cf. Auwera et al. forthc. for a semantic map comparing parts of the relevant polysemy patterns – the North-European and Southeast Asian acquisitive modals, i.e., modals based on ‘get’/‘acquire’).

6.  W  hat cross-linguistic patterns are there in lexicon-grammar interaction? Lehmann (1990: 163) defines lexical typology as research which focus on “typologically relevant features in the grammatical structure of the lexicon”, rather than on “the semantics of individual lexical items, their configurations in lexical field or individual processes of word formation” (Lehmann 1990: 165), i.e., the issues that have been considered as definitely belonging to lexical typological in the preceding sections. Lehmann’s definition partly stems from a somewhat narrower understanding of typology than the one(s) suggested in Section 2. Typology, in this view, has to be based on essential properties that “vary regularly in the population under consideration” (Lehmann 1990: 165). As Lehmann explains this, the lexicon contains all that is completely idiosyncratic – and that does not therefore fit the premises for typological research – but also many regularities. It is a complex structure built upon categories and relations, with items falling into a number of lexical classes that are intimately connected to grammar. It is these typologically relevant features that are the primary object of the lexical typology. In a similar vein, Behrens & Sasse’s programmatic sketch (1997) promotes Lexical Typology (refers to a specific research framework), the aim of which is “to investigate cross-linguistically significant patterns of interaction between lexicon and grammar”, and mentions, among others, the following: Viewed in the context of comparative linguistic research, the concept of lexicogrammar leads to the assumption that we can expect, in different languages, quite divergent patterns of interaction between lexicon and grammar, and that these divergences are of great typological significance. It is therefore proposed that lexical semantics and its repercussions on grammar be assigned a central role in typological investigations. To this end, we will lay much emphasis on the discovery of principles of ambiguity and compositionality. These principles are presumably universal on a higher level of abstraction but typologically variable in their concrete individual manifestations. They therefore strongly influence the make-up of an individual language’s grammar and lexicon (Behrens & Sasse 1997: 1–2).

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

A number of various cross-linguistic studies can be attributed to lexical typology understood as a search for typologically relevant features in the grammatical structure of the lexicon, or as typologically significant correlations between lexicon and grammar. They vary in how and to what extent they fit into the typological research framework and tradition(s), and in how and to what extent they consider lexicon. On the whole, there is very little awareness that the relevant studies do focus on lexical phenomena. Some are restricted to lexicon-grammar interaction for a particular conceptual domain/lexical field or even for a particular lexical meaning, e.g., body-part terms in adnominal possession and in special syntactic constructions such as possessor ascension/external possession and body-part incorporation (Chappell & McGregor 1996; the literature is too extensive to be listed); kin terms in grammar (Dahl & Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2001); ‘give’ and argument linking (Haspelmath 2005a; Kittilä 2006), different classes of complement-taking verbs and the structure of complementation (Cristofaro 2003) ‘want’ and the structure of desiderative clauses (Haspelmath 2005b; Khanina 2005). Veselinova’s (2006) large-scale study of suppletion in verb paradigms is an excellent example of lexicon-grammar interaction: it shows that suppletion tends to be linked to verbs with particular lexical meanings (e.g., motion), with different meanings picked up by suppletion according to different grammatical categories (e.g., tense-aspect-mood, or imperative). But many other traditional grammatical phenomena can be viewed as lexical. First of all, consider the issue of word classes which has been subject to much debate and disagreements (with the relevant works being too numerous to be listed here). Word classes present an example par excellence of interaction – and significant correlation – between lexicon and grammar. The jump from individual language descriptions to large-scale cross-linguistic research tends, however, to reduce lexical information to very few representatives for each “presumptive” word class (like ‘big’ and ‘good’ for potential adjectives), not always systematically checked and/or completely comparable across the languages in the sample. Nonetheless, in a number of cross-linguistic works word-class behaviour is studied with more attention to lexical semantics and against the background of relatively fine-grained lexical distinctions. Thus, Dixon (1977) and later Dixon & Aikhenvald (2004) approach the problem of adjectives by breaking up the vague class of property concepts into a number of much more coherent semantic types (dimension, colour, physical properties, human propensities, etc.) which differ in their propensity to be lexicalized as “adjectives proper”, as verbs, as nouns or in still other ways. The suggested semantic classification and the labels for the semantic types are, in fact, less important than the much longer concrete lists of notions used more or less systematically across all the contributions in Dixon & Aikhenvald (2004). The specific language chapters provide various pieces of evidence that the notions included into one and the same semantic type vary in their propensity to be lexicalized as adjectives “proper” or in other ways, and a more fine-grained semantic classification might hopefully grasp the cross-linguistic systematicity here.



Approaching lexical typology 

A radically “lexicon-based” stance is taken in Pustet’s (2003) study of copulas in a global 131-language sample. Earlier work, primarily Stassen (1997), has suggested that copulas across languages show different inclination to combine with/to be required with different kinds of predicates along the hierarchy nominals > adjectivals > verbals. In other words, the first place where copulas occur in a language will be sentences like “Peter is a boy”, followed by “Peter is big”, with sentences like “Peter goes” having copulas rather infrequently. Pustet combines these generalizations with the various parameters suggested in earlier research as underlying the distinctions between verbs, adjectives and nouns (primarily in Croft 1991) and tests to what extent these are compatible. A part of her study is based on checking the behaviour of the items in large lexical samples (ranging from 530 to 850 items) as predicates in ten genetically, areally and structurally diverse languages. The lexical items fall into fourteen lexical classes based on various combinations of the three parameters of valence, transience and dynamicity which together define a three-dimensional semantic space and correlate with the presence vs. absence of copulas in a more principled and refined way than the earlier suggested hierarchy formulated in terms of word classes. It turns out that the majority of the lexical items in the sample represent just a small number of specific feature bundles – which, by and large, correspond to, or define the lexical prototypes of “entity”, or prototypical nominals (valence 0, –transient, –dynamic, e.g., ‘house’ and ‘old man’), “property”, or prototypical adjectives (valence 1, ±transient, –dynamic, e.g., ‘big’), and “event”, or prototypical intransitive and transitive verbs (valence 1 or 2, + transient, + dynamic, e.g., ‘to go’ and ‘to buy’). The items within these each of these classes tend to show uniform behaviour with respect to copularization in a particular language. Lexical items from the other feature combinations, e.g., ‘smart’, ‘hand’ and ‘son’ (valence 1, –transient, –dynamic), ‘to rain’ (valence 0, +transient, +dynamic), ‘to love’ and ‘to know’ (valence 2, ± transient, – dynamic), share the behaviour of the “semantically adjacent” major classes, but only to a certain extent – the exact cuts-off between copularizing and non-copularizing lexemes are quite language-specific, even though governed by universal considerations (defined by the position of an item in the semantic space). The fact that language-specific vocabularies include numerous minor (and normally small in size) classes, whose semantic profile does not coincide with those of prototypical nominals, adjectivals and verbals, is, thus, brought to the fore and taken seriously in Pustet’s study. One of the theoretically important implications is also an identification of zones that show cross-linguistically recurrent overlaps in their wordclass attribution, often even within one and the same language – e.g., terms denoting nationalities (‘French’), emotional states (‘to love’), bodily states (‘to be tired’). Pustet’s principled sample can be used for further work on word classes and on their interaction with various grammatical categories. And in general, future research on word classes will certainly benefit from taking lexical semantics seriously and working with more fine-grained lexical classes than what has often been done.

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

Cross-linguistic variation in categorization within major word classes also offers many opportunities for research on cross-linguistically significant patterns of interaction between lexicon and grammar. Verbs can be categorized in many different ways, for instance, depending on their argument structure, on how it is linked to a particular sentence structure and to what extent it can be subject to various valence alternations. The literature here is extensive and diverse, but is, in fact, very seldom explicitly linked to lexical phenomena, rather than being considered as primarily syntactic. As Nichols et al. (2004: 183) put it, “[i]f ergativity, for instance, were viewed as lexical, an ergative language would be one exhibiting ergativity as the default option or majority pattern in some broad category of verbs (e.g., all transitives, or some category of transitives), based on a standard sample of glosses. Stative-active alignment, viewed lexically, is lexically conditioned split intransitivity as Merlan (1985) presents it” (cf. Section 4.2. for the overview of Nichols et al.). A nice exception is Bossong’s (1998) study of experiencer constructions (like “I am cold”, “I am sorry”, “I see X”). It is built on the standard list of ten experience-denoting expressions across the European languages and shows significant genetic and areal differences in frequencies of the different syntactic patterns in which these expressions occur (among others, singling out the specific Standard Average European pattern). A huge research domain of primary relevance for verbs focuses on the categories of aktionsart, aspect and tense. Although it is generally acknowledged that all these categories are very sensitive to the differences in the semantics of different verb classes, the valid cross-linguistic generalizations here are still quite few. Most modern research on aktionsart has its roots in Vendler’s (1967) verb classes (states, activities, accomplishments, achievements), whereas “[a]n urgent desideratum is the investigation of the role of lexicon, in particular the subcategorization of situation types”, as Sasse puts it in his overview of the recent development in the theory of aspect (2002: 263). Tatevosov’s (2002) study is a very promising step in this direction. It is based on a principled list of 100 “predicative meanings” (normally expressed by verbs or verb-based expressions) coming from several cognitive domains (from being and possession, motion, physical processes and changes, to phasal and modal verbs) and covering the “basic” verbal lexicon; these are checked for all possible combinations with the verbal tense-aspect categories and their resulting meanings in four genetically unrelated languages – Bagwalal (Daghestanian, NE Caucasian), Mari (Finno-Ugric, Uralic), Tatar (Turkic) and Russian (Slavic, Indo-European). Already this comparison falsifies the common assumptions “that notions on which Vendlerian classes are based are logically universal, hence are not subject to crosslinguistic variation” and that verbs or verb phrases with “similar meanings” in different languages (i.e., translational equivalents) will belong to the same verbal class as their English equivalents (Tatevosov’s 2002: 322). “Actionality”, used by Tatevosov instead of “Aktionsart”, turns thus out to be a parameter based on a universal set of elementary semantic distinctions, but allowing



Approaching lexical typology 

for different settings in different languages. Different languages show therefore their own language specific subcategorizations of the verb lexicon that can only be discovered via empirical investigations rather than taken for granted. A particularly beautiful example of the latter comes from Botne’s (2003) cross-linguistic study of die and its correspondences in 18 languages. ‘Die’ is always quoted as the prototypical example of Vendler’s achievement verbs (telic, or bounded, and punctual) in that it refers to the acute point demarcating life and death. Botne shows, however, that languages can differ in their lexicalization of the different stages in the process leading to death, which, in turn, has important consequences for the aktionsart categorization of the corresponding verb in a particular language. Cross-linguistic variation in categorization within nouns also offers many interesting topics for research on lexicon-grammar interaction. For instance, subcategorization of nouns according to their interaction with the category of number, involves various fascinating and cross-linguistically still poorly understood issues such as count-mass distinction, collectives, singular vs. pluralia tantum, etc. (for some examples see Corbett (2000); Wierzbicka (1988); Rijkhoff ’s (2002) notion of “Seinsarten”, Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli’s (2001) areal-typological study of pluralia tantum in the Circum-Baltic area against a broader European context, Lucy (1992), Behrens (1995) and Koptjevskaja-Tamm (2004) on count-mass distinctions across languages). Table 6 gives a flavour of how differently count-mass categorization can work in relatively closely related languages (and, in addition, in cognates). Table 6.  Some examples of count-mass differences in Russian, German, Swedish and Italian Count (+) or mass (–) strawberry fruit hair furniture

Russian

German

Swedish

Italian

– klubnika + frukt + volos – mebel’

+ Erdbeer – Obst ± Haar + Möbel

+ jordgubbe ± frukt ­– hår + möbel

+ fragola + frutto + capello + mobile

Possible implications of such variation for the lexical semantics of the items under consideration are very rarely explicitly acknowledged and discussed in cross-linguistic studies on lexicon-grammar interaction. Consider Botne’s (2003) conclusions following his cross-linguistic study on the aktionsart categorization of the correspondences to die: This small, exploratory study has shown that … achievement verbs, though unified by the punctual, culminative nature of ther nucleus, may be conceptualized in

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

different languages as encoding durative preliminary (onset) or postliminary (coda) phases in addition to the punctual nucleus. Consequently, die verbs frequently have a complex temporal structure and do not simply encode a point of transition … [T]he same “concept” will not necessarily be encoded with the same phases in every language. Consequently, appropriate cross-linguistic comparison and analysis of these kinds of verbs will perforce require a close analysis of a particular verb in each language (Botne 2003: 276).

But if languages differ as to which of the phases leading to death they encode in their ‘die’-verbs, can we still view them as encoding “the same concept”? Likewise, the meaning of the German mass noun Obst is hardly identical to that of the Russian count noun frukt, even though they constitute translational equivalents to each other. Crosslinguistic identification of phenomena based on “approximate”, rather than “precise” semantic identity, can be justified when the primary focus of the cross-linguistic research is not on the lexical semantics per se (cf. with the discussion in Section 5.3.). However, it is also reasonable to take the next step and use the cross-linguistic variation in grammatical behaviour as evidence for the lexical-semantic differences. It is now widely acknowledged by various linguistic theories that a large portion of grammatical phenomena is rooted in the lexicon. Lexicon-grammar interaction will surely provide lots of challenges for the future lexical-typological research.

7.  Lexical typology: Past, present and future It is impossible to cover all the aspects of lexical-typological research in one paper. One important group of questions that have not been touched upon concerns crosslinguistically recurrent patterns in contact-induced lexicalization and lexical change: e.g., differences in borrowability among the different parts of the lexicon and the corresponding processes in the integration of new words, or patterns of lexical acculturation (i.e., how lexica adjust to new objects and concepts). The important contributions here include Brown (1999) and the on-going project on “Loanword Typology: toward the comparative study of lexical borrowability in the world’s languages” at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (coordinated by Martin Haspelmath and Uri Tadmor, http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/files/lwt.html), which modify various traditional assumptions (like non-borrowability, or at least, “relative” non-borrowability of the items on Swadesh” “basic vocabulary” lists), come up with new cross-linguistic generalizations and suggest methodology for future research. Issues related to the “basic vocabulary” (in various understandings) and the “lexico-typological profile” of a language figure also in other connections in cross-linguistic research with lexical-typological ambitions (Viberg 2006; Koch & Marzo 2007; Kibrik 2003). There are also interesting questions on the interaction between lexicon and



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phonology, overall principles of taxonomic categorization or the organization of the lexicon, and surely many others. Possible theoretical implications of lexical typology are vast – for theoretical linguistics in general (cf. Koptjevskaja-Tamm et al. 2007 for some details) and for broader issues such as child-language acquisition (with Melissa Bowerman and Dan Slobin as the leading authorities) and “Linguistic Relativity”. In other words, there are numerous diverse and fascinating questions for the future lexical-typological research. Its basic and most urgent problems are primarily methodological. For instance, we need to: –

–

refine the existent methods of data collection and develop new ones, improve standards in cross-linguistic identification of studied phenomena and in their (semantic) analysis, achieve a reasonable consensus on the meta-language used for semantic explications and on the ways of representing meanings.

To start with the first issue, the methodology of data collection. Morphosyntactic typology has been largely dependent on secondary data sources, with reference grammars as the undoubtedly most often used data source, in many cases complemented by sporadic consultations with native speakers and/or language experts. Studies in morphosyntactic typology are typically a “one researcher’s job”: even when data collection involves filling in questionnaires and responding to other data elicitation stimuli, the people doing that part of job normally count as consultants, rather than co-authors (some of the exceptions being the tradition of the Leningrad/St.Peterburg Typological School, or the numerous collections edited by Aikhenvald and Dixon). For lexical typology, on the contrary, secondary sources are of marginal importance, in particular, if we take the three groups of questions that have been the main subject matter of this paper – categorization within conceptual domains, semantic and formal motivation, lexicon-grammar interaction. Relevant data are normally scattered across different kinds of secondary sources: a thesaurus might provide information on categorization within conceptual domains, while a “normal” dictionary may have something on the polysemy patterns and other formal-semantic relations within word families. Some information on lexicon-grammar interaction might be occasionally given in a reference grammar (which seldom lists all the words showing a particular grammatical behaviour), some might be appear in a dictionary. A desideratum would be to have a source that for every word in a language would give a precise meaning definition, show both its exact relations to other words and define its grammatical properties. There are a few attempts on the market towards this desideratum for the better described languages – e.g., “The interpretational-combinatorial dictionary” with roots in the Moscow School of Semantics (cf. Iordanskaja & Paperno 1996 for the excellent treatment of the Russian body-part terms in this tradition), the Berkeley

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

FrameNet project based on Frame Semantics (http://framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu/index. php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1)3 or the expanding enterprise of WordNet for several European languages (http://www.globalwordnet.org/).4 However, the lexicon for most languages of the world is – and will remain – relatively poorly described, at least for the purposes of consistent cross-linguistic research. Most lexical-typological research is therefore in need of constantly inventing, testing and elaborating its methods of data collection. Even more, the different methods are not easily transmittable among different research areas, even those that ask comparable questions. For instance, visual stimuli for eliciting words referring to cutting and breaking events can certainly serve as a model for research on some other conceptual domains involving dynamic situations with clearly visible actions and results (say, dressing / undressing, or putting). But already moving to domains based on other perceptual modalities is far from trivial – sounds, temperature, taste are still awaiting good data collection techniques and guidelines – whereas the emotional and mental world is even harder to cover with perceptual stimuli (cf., however, Pavlenko 2002 for a comparison of emotional descriptions in Russian and English narratives elicited through the same short film). The extent to which parallel texts can be used in lexical-typological research is, of course, extremely dependent on the object of study and on the genre of the parallel texts and is best suited for frequent phenomena. Thus, while motion verbs frequently occur in the New Testament, and generic statements in the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights, which are the easiest available texts in many languages, these sources will be of restricted value for the study of pain expressions, even though such examples do occasionally occur in the former. However, for a more limited number of languages other parallel texts have been successfully used in lexical-typological work (“Le petit prince” and “Harry Potter” belong to the favourites here). Finally, word lists, as we have seen, may well be used for some purposes (e.g., for checking the word-class categorization of “property” words or the aktionsart categorization of verbs, etc.), but are of marginal value when too little is known about the lexical meaning of phenomena under consideration or when the phenomena involve too many language-specific lexical idiosyncrasies. Consider pluralia tantum, e.g., nouns that only occur in the plural form, like scissors, and are very unevenly distributed across languages. In Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli (2001) we used two principled samples of lexemes that are encoded by pluralia-tantum nouns in Lithuanian vs. Russian for collecting comparable data across forty European languages. Since the distribution of pluralia tantum in a language is highly idiosyncratic, we hypothesized that

.  Last visited on April 26th 2007. .  Last visited on April 26th 2007.



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the degree of overlapping in the distribution of pluralia tantum across languages could be used as a measure for their contacts, in this case, the languages in the Northeastern part of Europe. While the two samples turned out to be useful for this particular end, the same fact (lexical idiosyncracies of pluralia tantum) causes difficulties for crosslinguistic studies of pluralia tantum in general. Although they do often occur in comparable domains (e.g., heterogeneous substances, like leftovers, diseases, like measles, festivities, like Weihnachten “Christmas” in German), they are very language-specific when it comes to the lexical meanings, which rules out the use of a consistent word list for cross-linguistic data collection. In my opinion, successful lexical-typological research should in most cases build on a collaborative work involving language experts (and, possibly, other specialists as well). The work on lexical universals within the NSM tradition (Goddard & Wierzbicka 1994), the different domain-categorization studies co-ordinated from the Max-Planck Institute in Nijmegen (Levinson & Meira 2003; Majid et al. eds. 2006; Majid & Bowerman eds. 2007), the project on aquamotion verbs directed by Moscow linguists (Maisak & Rakhilina 2007) are all examples of excellent semantic-typological research based on the methodology that had been elaborated, tested and improved by the group of language experts, who have further collected and analyzed the data in close collaboration with native speakers. The issue of data collection is, of course, intimately related to the issue of cross-linguistic identification of studied phenomena, which is a key concern for cross-linguistic and typological research in general. We have to be sure that we compare like with like, rather than apples with pears. However, another key concern for cross-linguistic and typological research is to find a reasonable level of abstraction, at which the richness of language-specific details can be reduced to manageable patterns. The two concerns interact in various ways; most importantly, what counts as “like and like” is often dependent on the research object and goal. In the course of this paper we have had several occasions to discuss the different levels of semantic precision appropriate for different types of lexical-typological research (e.g., domain-categorization vs. semantic motivation vs. lexicon-grammar interaction). It should be mentioned here that the grammatical typology on the whole hardly ever cares about precise semantics: the only prerequisite is that we can roughly identify linguistic phenomena across languages via certain conditions that they have to meet, e.g., via a certain function that has to be expressed by a construction. Thus, for instance, an possessive NP is recognized by its ability to refer to legal ownership (Peter’s bag), to kin relations (Peter’s son) or to relations between a person and his body-parts (Peter’s leg). The fact that the same construction in English can occasionally refer to temporal and local relations (yesterday’s magazine, London’s museums), whereas many other languages are much more restrictive in this respect is of marginal interest for the cross-linguistic identification of possessive NPs themselves. There are, of course, certain limits to the semantic

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vagueness that can underlie systematic cross-linguistic identification of phenomena. I find it difficult to set up good methods for testing universality of some suggested metaphors cross-linguistically, like, for instance, anger is heat (Kövecses 1996). What can probably be done is to test some of its specific manifestations, e.g., whether the words for anger (and other emotions) can be described by temperature terms. Finally, in order to achieve a reasonable consensus on the meta-language used for semantic explications and on the ways of representing meanings is an urgent need – both in theoretical semantics, in semantic and lexical typology and in lexicography. Let’s hope that the contributions in this volume will be good points of departure for numerous future projects in lexical typology.

Acknowledgements This paper has a long prehistory. Parts of it have been presented in different versions at the Annual Meeting of the Finnish and Estonian Linguistic Society in Tallinn (May 2004), at the conference “Lexicon in linguistic theory” (Åbo/Turku, November 2004), at the workshop ”Semantic parallels in a cross-linguistic perspective” (Paris, December 2004), in lectures at the universities of Stockholm, Gothenburg, Lund, Pavia, Turin and Tübingen. I am grateful to the audiences for their questions and comments. I would also like to thank several friends and colleagues who have provided intellectual and humane support, inspiration and feedback in my work on the paper: Melissa Bowerman, Grev Corbett, Östen Dahl, Nick Enfield, Nick Evans, Giannoula Giannoulopoulou, Cliff Goddard, Olesya Khanina, Seppo Kittilä, Peter Koch, Christian Lehmann, Eva Lindström, Galina Paramei, Ekaterina Rakhilina, Edith Moravcsik, Carita Paradis, Frans Plank, Farzad Sharifian, Jae Jung Song, Martin Tamm, Martine Vanhove, Ljuba Veselinova, Bernhard Wälchli. All the faults remain mine. There is a certain overlapping between this paper and Koptjevskaja-Tamm et al. (2007). This concerns primarily parts of Section 6 and Section 7.

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 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm special issue on Lexicon in a Typological and Contrastive Perspective, G. Giannoulopoulou & T. Leuschner (Eds) 59(2): 253–269. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M., Vanhove, M. & Koch, P. 2007. Typological approaches to lexical semantics. Linguistic Typology 11(1): 159–186. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M. & Wälchli, B. 2001. The Circum-Baltic languages: An areal-typological approach. In Circum-Baltic Languages: Their Typology and Contacts, Ö. Dahl & M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm (Eds), Vol. 2, 615–750. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Krifka, M. (Ed.). 2003. Natural Semantic Metalanguage. A special issue of Theoretical Linguistics 29(3). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kövecses, Z. 1996. Anger: Its language, conceptualization, and physiology in the light of crosscultural evidence. In Language and the Cognitive Construal of the World, J. Taylor & R. MacLaury (Eds), 181–196. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lang, E. 2001. Spatial dimension terms. In Haspelmath et al. (Eds), 1251–1275. Lehmann, C. 1990. Towards lexical typology. In Studies in Typology and Diachrony. Papers Presented to Joseph H. Greenberg on his 75th Birthday, W. Croft, K. Denning & S. Kemmer (Eds), 161–185. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lehrer, A. 1992. A theory of vocabulary structure: Retrospectives and prospectives. In Thirty Years of Linguistic Evolution. Studies in Honour of René Dirvén on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, M. Pütz (Ed.), 243–256. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Levinson, S. 2006. Parts of the body in Yélî Dnye, the Papuan language of Rossel Island. In Parts of the Body: Cross-linguistic Categorization, N. Enfield, A. Majid & M. van Staden (Eds), special issue of Language Sciences 28: 221–240. Levinson, S. & Meira, S. 2003. “Natural concepts” in the spatial topological domain – adpositional meanings in cross-linguistic perspective: An exercise in semantic typology. Language 79(3): 485–516. Lichtenberk, F. 1991. Semantic change and heterosemy in grammaticalization. Language 67(3): 475–509. Lindström, E. 2002. The body in expressions of emotion: Kuot. In Enfield, & Wierzbicka (Eds), 159–184. Lucy, J.A. 1992. Grammatical Categories and Cognition: A Case Study of the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. Cambridge: CUP. MacLaury, R.E. 1997. Color and Cognition in Mesoamerica: Constructing Categories as Vantages. Austin TX: University of Texas Press. MacLaury, R.E. 2001. Color terms. In Haspelmath et al. (Eds), 1227–1251. Maisak, T. & Rakhilina, E. (Eds). 2007. Glagoly dviženija v vode: leksičeskaja tipologija (Aquamotion Verbs: Lexical Typology). Moskva: Indrik. Majid, A., Enfield, N.J., & van Staden, M. (Eds). 2006. Parts of the body: Cross-linguistic categorization. Language Sciences 28(2–3): 137–360 (special issue). Majid, A. & Bowerman, M. (Eds). 2007. Cutting and breaking events: A cross-linguistic perspective. Cognitive Linguistics 18(2): 153–177 (special issue). Majid, A., Bowerman, M., van Staden, M. & Boster, J.S. (Eds). 2007. The semantic categories of ‘cutting and breaking’ events across languages. Cognitive Linguistics 18(2): 133–152. Maslova, E. 2004. A universal constraint on the sensory lexicon, or when hear can mean ‘see’? In Tipologičeskie obosnovanija v grammatike: k 70-letiju professora Xrakovskogo V.S. (Typological Foundations in Grammar: For Professor Xrakovskij on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday), A.P. Volodin (Ed.), 300–312. Moscow: Znak. (Also http://www.stanford. edu/~emaslova/Publications/PubFrame.html)



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Matisoff, J. 1986. Hearts and minds in Southeast Asian languages and English: An essay in the comparative lexical semantics of psycho-collocations. Cahiers de linguistique Asie Orientale 15(1): 5–57. Merlan, F. 1985. Split intransitivity: Functional oppositions in intransitive inflection. In Grammar Inside and Outside the Clause: Some Approaches to the Theory from the Field, J. Nichols & A. Woodbury (Eds), 324–362. Cambridge: CUP. Morgan, L.H. 1870. Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity. (Reprinted in 1997, Lincoln NB: University of Nebraska Press). Nerlove, S. & Romney, A.K. 1967. Sibling terminology and cross-sex behavior. American Anthropologist 74: 1249–1253. Newman J. 2002. The Linguistics of Sitting, Standing and Lying. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Nichols, J., Peterson, D.A. & Barnes, J. 2004. Transitivizing and detransitivizing languages. Linguistic Typology 8: 149–211. Ojutkangas, K. 2000. Grammatical possessive constructions in Finnic: Käsi ‘hand’ in Estonian and Finnish. In Facing Finnic. Some Challenges to Historical and Contact Linguistics [Castrenianumin toimitteita 59], J. Laakso (Ed.), 137–155. Helsinki: Finno-Ugrian Society – Dept. of Finno-Ugrian Studies of the University of Helsinki. Pavlenko, G. 2002. Emotions and the body in Russian and English. In Enfield & Wierzbicka (Eds), 207–241. Paramei, G. 2005. Singing the Russian blues: An argument for culturally basic color terms. Cross-cultural research 39(1): 10–34. Payne, D. 2006. Color terms. In Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics, 601–605. Oxford: Elsevier. Pustet, R. 2003. Copulas. Universals in the Categorization of the Lexicon. Oxford: OUP. Quine, W.V. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Rakhilina, E. 2006. Glagoly plavanija v russkom jazyke (Aquamotion verbs in Russian). In Maisak & Rakhilina (Eds), 267–285. Riemer, N. 2005. The Semantics of Polysemy. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Ricca, D. 1993. I verbi deittici di movimento in Europa: Una ricerca interlinguistica. Firenze: La Nuova Italia Editrice. Rijkhoff, J. 2002. The Noun Phrase [Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic Theory] Oxford: OUP. Sasse, H.J. 2002. Recent activity in the theory of aspect: Accomplishments, achievements, or just non-progressive state? Linguistic Typology 6(2): 199–271. Schladt M. 2000. The typology and grammaticalization of reflexives. In Reflexives: Forms and Functions, Z. Frajzyngier (Ed.), 103–124. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sharifian, F., Dirven, R., Yu, N. & Neiemier, S. (Eds). Forthcoming. Culture, Body, and Language: Conceptualizations of Internal Body Organs Across Cultures and Languages. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. Slobin, D.I. 2003. Language and thought online: Cognitive consequences of linguistic relativity. In Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought, D. Gentner & S. Goldin-Meadow (Eds), 157–191. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Slobin, D.I. & Bowerman, M. 2007. Interfaces between linguistic typology and child language research. Linguistic Typology 11: 213–226. Slobin, D.I & Hoiting, N. 1994. Reference to movement in spoken and signed languages: Typological considerations. BLS 20: 487–505. Stassen, L. 1997. Intransitive Predication. Oxford: OUP.

 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm Svorou, S. 1993. The Grammar of Space. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sweetser, E. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: CUP. Talmy, L. 1991. Path to realization – Via aspect and result. A typology of event conflation. BLS 17: 480–519. Talmy, L. 1985. Lexicalization patterns. In Language Typology and Synchrohic Description, T. Shopen (Ed.), Vol. 3, 57–149. Cambridge: CUP. Tatevosov, S. 2002. The parameter of actionality. Linguistic Typology 6(3): 317–401. Terrill, A. 2006. Body-part terms in Lavukaleve, a Papua language of the Solomon Islands. In Majid et al. (Eds), 304–322. Vendler, Z. 1967. Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press. Veselinova, L. 2006. Suppletion in Verb Paradigms. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Viberg, Å. 1984. The verbs of perception: a typological study. Linguistics 21: 123–162. Viberg, Å. 2001. Verbs of perception. In Haspelmath et al. (Eds), Vol. 2, 1294–1309. Viberg, Å. 2002. Polysemy and disambiguation cues across languages. The case of Swedish få and English get. In Lexis in Contrast, B. Altenberg & S. Granger (Eds), 119–150. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Viberg, Å. 2005. The lexical typological profile of Swedish mental verbs. Languages in contrast 5(1): 121–157. Viberg, Å. 2006. Towards a lexical profile of the Swedish verb lexicon. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung (STUF) 59(1): 103–129. (special issue on The Typological Profile of Swedish, Å. Viberg (Ed.)). Wälchli, B. 2005. Co-compounds and Natural Coordination. Oxford: OUP. Wälchli, B. 2006. Lexicalization patterns in motion events revisited. Ms. (http://ling.unikonstanz.de/pages/home/a20_11/waelchli/waelchli-lexpatt.pdf) Wälchli, B. 2006/2007. Constructing semantic maps from parallel text data. Ms. (http://ling.unikonstanz.de/pages/home/a20_11/waelchli/waelchli-semmaps.pdf) Wälchli, B. & Zúñiga, F. 2006. The feature of systematic source-goal distinction and a typology of motion events in the clause. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung (STUF) 59(3): 284–303. (special issue on The Lexicon: Typological and Contrastive Perspectives, T. Leuschner & G. Giannoulopoulou (Eds)). Wegener, C. 2006. Savosavo body part terminology. In Majid et al. (Eds), 344–359. Wierzbicka, A. 1988. The Semantics of Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wierzbicka, A. 1990. The meaning of color terms: Semantics, culture, and cognition. Cognitive linguistics 1: 99–150. Wierzbicka, A. 2007. Bodies and their parts: An NSM approach to semantic typology. Language Sciences 29: 14–65. Wilkins, D.P. & Hill, D. 1995. When GO means COME: Questioning the basicness of basic motion verbs. Cognitive Linguistics 6(2–3): 209–259.

part ii

Theoretical and methodological issues

Words and their meanings Principles of variation and stabilization Stéphane Robert

Llacan (Inalco, CNRS), Fédération TUL This chapter, entrenched in cognitive linguistics, proposes a multidimensional approach to the layering of the lexicon and its semantic organization, explicating the principles of variation and stabilization of lexical networks. Semantic variation is considered as inherent to language structure and driven by common universal cognitive mechanisms which are accounted for by a dynamic conception of meaning construal. Intra-linguistic plasticity of meaning echoes inter-linguistic variation. The discourse level is the seat of meaning construal mechanisms which contribute to the general polysemy of lexical units and to the stabilization of their meaning within a particular utterance. Units appear to be the seat of most variations, within and across languages, because meaning is construed in extremely varied ways according to common mechanisms. Keywords:  comprehension; discourse; meaning; polysemy

1.  Introduction* For both structural and cognitive reasons, natural languages are characterized by their plasticity, by the ease with which the representations borne by the units composing them are subject to change. Polysemy and polyreference are the general rule among languages. A single unit can thus have several different meanings and point to several different referents. In English for example the word greens can refer to village commons, leafy vegetables or members of a political party. Inversely, different units can refer to the same thing, such as roe and caviar, or hepatitis and jaundice. One could even state that local synonymy (limited to a certain context) is what makes it possible to paraphrase a term or phrase using another. Thus reflect can be paraphrased by either “think” or “throw back light”. The ability to build equivalences is in fact a fundamental

*Our deep thanks go to Margaret Dunham for her precious help in translating and accommodating this paper to English.

 Stéphane Robert

property of language: equivalences between terms (synonymy) or between phrases (paraphrasing), but also between languages (translation). There is no one-to-one relation between form and meaning, either within a language or across languages. From this view point, variation within languages (polysemy, synonymy), echoes variation from language to language and raises the question of how it is possible to say “the same thing” differently. Whereas this plasticity in meaning ensures both the referential power of a language and a form of optimization for the system, it also entails another of language’s defining characteristics – ambiguity and its communicative corollary: misunderstandings. That communication remains nonetheless possible is because the factors of variation in language are submitted to processes of regulation and meaning stabilization. I will begin by attempting to highlight a certain number of variation factors at the level of the isolated units, then I will try to show that in language activity, virtual units undergo certain operations whereby they are incorporated into utterances, and to highlight this different operations of the sentence level, which permit a certain stabilization in meaning but also occasion communicative failures. We will take this opportunity to also question the causes of these language characteristics and possible consequences from a cognitive viewpoint. For language is the seat of tensions between opposing forces which can all be functionally justified.

2.  Language malleability and variation at the unit level There is no one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning in language: a form almost always has several meanings which vary according to context, and several forms can refer to a same item. This plasticity constitutes one of language’s fundamental principals. It is made manifest in different ways but follows consistent procedures. Units appear to be the seat of the most variation, within and across languages, not only because meaning is construed in extremely varied ways (categorizing and segmenting the world, selecting properties and reference pathways, cf. 2.1.), and because linguistic units are subjected to regular meaning changes (cf. 2.2.), but also because words contain what I have called a “depth dimension” (see below 2.3.), also extremely variable. Units thus show variable specificities depending on the language and on the culture, which most probably plays an important role in cognition’s access to reference. We will limit ourselves here to lexical units, but grammatical units also undergo regulated variation.

2.1  Different means of reference accessing (on synonymy) Linguistic reference is always mediated. Firstly because words are not things, they are substitutes for the reality they designate (independently of the nature of the reality),



Words and their meanings: Principles of variation and stabilization 

or more precisely they are the representatives of representations (Culioli 1990:  22). However, this reality does not constitute a pre-segmented, stable, given, for which words would be but the labels. Indeed, reality is presented to perception as a continuum, whereas language is composed of discrete units. Therefore it must segment the perceived or conceived reality, in order to build the referential values of its units, and this segmentation varies from language to language. Although traces of iconicity in language exist (i.e., resemblances between form and meaning), generally speaking, the relation between a form and its referent is arbitrary, which also contributes to inter-linguistic variation. This arbitrary character is moreover what makes languages so powerful: if words necessarily resembled the objects they designated, languages, which make sparing use of phonetic means, would be extremely limited. Thus the signifier (the form), is variable, and applies to meanings which vary from language to language.

2.1.1  Variable categorization, segmentation and construals To illustrate the variable segmentation carried out by languages, I will take examples from two domains which could a priori appear as the most constrained by physical and perceptive data, and thus the most stable: body parts and spatial reference. Despite the fact that the data is shared, the body is “segmented” into different referential units depending on the language. The word leg in English designates, following the referential scale,1 either the whole of the lower member, or the part below the knee, whereas in Wolof, tànk, in its wider sense, refers to the part below the knee, and in its narrower sense, to the foot. Thus the segmentation differs between the two languages. Some languages contain terms which refer to body parts that do not exist in other languages, so the body cannot be considered a specific language unit. Contrary to French and English, Ibo (a Kwa language spoken in Nigeria) and Langi (a Bantu language spoken in Tanzania) do not lexically differentiate arm from hand. Moreover, language can view body parts in relation to each other or in relation to outside elements in various ways. Mandarin Chinese establishes a link between the terms leg, thigh and foot, as there is a common term for the three: tuǐ. But Chinese can also specify whether the “leg” is a “small tuǐ ”, xiǎo tuǐ, or to refer to the thigh as “big tuǐ ”, dà tuǐ. Contrary to English, French establishes a link between the “fingers of the foot” doigts de pied, and the “fingers of the hand” doigts de la main (on body parts, see Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm’s article, in this volume and Brown 2005a and 2005b). Sanskrit uses the same term, pradeśinī, to refer to the forefinger or the corresponding toe. Thus our body, which is the same for everyone physically speaking, is not conceived of in the same way by all languages. Furthermore, these differences in segmentation affect the grammar.

.  On scale of predication, see Langacker (1991b: 283).

 Stéphane Robert

Certain African languages for example classify objects according to whether they occur in pairs (hands, eyes, feet…), and these objects are grouped into one category (“class”), with a specific grammatical agreement. In many languages, the fact that body parts are inalienable possessions triggers specific syntactic constructions. Thus in French one says je lave ma voiture (lit. “I am washing my car”) but je me lave les mains (lit. “I am washing me/myself the hands”). Spanish includes clothing in constructions for inalienable objects, contrary to French. Concerning spatial orientation, languages show three major reference systems: an absolute reference system, like the cardinal points; an anthropomorphic reference system such as right and left which are defined with respect to the observer, and a relative (or intrinsic) reference system which takes one object as a reference point for locating another (“on the roof ”, “near the house”…). Languages generally use all three systems but apply them along varying scales. Thus in French, to situate a building, one tends to use the relative/intrinsic referential system (“the post office is on the corner” or “beside the town hall”) whereas in the US one tends more to use absolute references (“it is north of the campus”), which French usually reserves for a larger scale, to locate one city in reference to another (“Amiens is north of Paris”). One could be tempted to think that these reference systems are universal, but such is not the case. Some languages, such as Malagasy and most Austronesian languages, use only one system, namely absolute reference, independently of scale. In these languages, one never says “the book is on your right”, but “the book is to the north (or south) of the table” (cf. Ozanne-Rivierre 1999). Lastly, the cardinal point system is also variable: some American Indian languages have not four cardinal points but six, as they also include the zenith and the nadir as spatial references. Thus, even though the physical properties of the world allow one to make certain predictions as to linguistic categories, one sees that these are not absolutes, because in language, everything is constructed, and therefore variable. Let us add one last example of the variable categorization in languages. Even a tool which may seem as fundamental as “yes/no” is not universal: certain languages (such as French and German) have a third term (si in French, doch in German), which serves to contradict a negative sentence; others, such as Latin and Chinese, have no words for “yes” or “no”. However, let us make it immediately clear that the fact that a concept has no corresponding linguistic category in a given language does not imply that its speakers cannot conceive of it or perceive it. Berlin and Kay (1969) show that speakers’ color perception does not depend on the (very variable) number of color names in their language. Just as languages which have no word for “yes” or “no” still have means for signifying agreement or contradiction, but using other processes, for example by repeating just the verb with or without negation (“eat”/“not eat”), or yet by using the verb “to be” (“that be yours?” answer: “be”). Let us mention in passing that in this way Chinese has several negation possibilities: the notional negation marker bú and the



Words and their meanings 

event negation marker méi (see also the Greek mè and ouk). Thus these languages use different linguistic categories for expressing these shared notions. Languages therefore show equivalency relations, although construals and reference constructions are extremely variable. Firstly because of the previously mentioned segmentation and linguistic categorization, but also because of a second fundamental mechanism. To gain access to a same referent, languages construct variable reference pathways.

2.1.2  Property selections and referential paths The meaning of a word is not limited to its referential value, i.e., the referent it designates. Languages usually choose one of the referent’s properties to designate it, for example a physical or functional characteristic. So, to come back to body parts, the index in French, or German, is the finger used for pointing (Zeigefinger), whereas in Greek it is the one which is used to lick (likhanós). In both cases, a different functional property is selected to designate the same referent. Access to reference therefore follows a different path in each language, a variable “referential path” (Corbin & Temple 1994).2 These examples show that the referential path chosen by a given language is both motivated (here linked to the functional properties of the referent) and therefore non-random, but since only one property is chosen, the choice is also arbitrary, or at least not strictly deterministic. Thus English designates a “used car” not by the fact that it is something one buys under favorable financial conditions, as in French (une voiture d’occasion), but rather by the fact that it was previously owned (or previously owned by only one other person as in a second-hand car). Therefore the property retained varies from language to language and probably refers to the trait considered the most salient for a given culture at a given point in time. But this does not imply that the meaning of the term is reduced to this one property: the referential path is just one means of reference accessing. The variability of referential paths across languages, as well as inside a given language, is due to a more general property of language, as claimed by cognitive linguistics, namely its ability to “construe” a particular situation in different ways (Langacker 1991a). The construction of different construals and variable referential paths to designate a referent explains the existence of synonyms within languages, such as voiture and automobile (“car”) in French. In the case of voiture (from the Latin vehere) the trait retained is that of being useful for “transporting” people or objects, whereas the trait retained for automobile is that of “being able to move on its own”. Just as record player and turn-table refer to the same thing, but after having followed different referential paths – the first term referring to the function and the second to the instrument’s

.  See also Langacker (1991b: 284) on compositional path.

 Stéphane Robert

mechanical apparatus (cf. Corbin & Temple 1994:  10 on électrophone and tournedisque in French). The fact that only one of a referent’s diverse properties is retained also explains the polyreference of certain terms. This is because very different objects can present a common property and thus be designated by a same term referring to that property. That greens can refer at once to expanses of grass, members of a political party and vegetables is due to the fact that English has chosen to designate these referents by a common property (the color green) which is considered salient and typical for each of the referents. In the same way, in French, the expression un bleu (“a blue one”) can designate a beginner, a new recruit, a work suit, a cheese, or a bruise, all of which have, in different ways, the common property of “being blue” (Corbin & Temple, ibid.). This economy in designation contributes to the referential power of words and makes it productive. One can easily imagine the language using the same term green to designate new referents presenting the same salient characteristic, as indeed it already does in compound nouns such as green-card. This process of constructing reference by selecting properties considered common to different referents is therefore the source of internal meaning variation phenomena. But the semantics of a term cannot be reduced to its referential value, it also encompasses dimensions other than the referential path, dimensions which are part of its meaning and also constitute variation factors.

2.1.3  The internal architecture of meaning and the referential background The manner in which the referent is designated also brings a complex semantic architecture into play. Designating an element generally entails the construction of a referential “background”. Thus the term hypotenuse usually designates the longest side of a right-triangle, which is opposite the right angle. The term refers to the side, designates it, but this designation only makes sense within the global representation implied by the right-triangle in the background (Langacker 1991a and b); the word tip refers to the extremity of an entity, but the meaning of the term takes into account the presence of the entity in the background (ibid). In the same way, concerning body-part terms, “essential to the characterization of expressions like head, arm, and leg is the position of the profiled entity relative to the body as a whole” (Langacker 1991b: 283). The same is true for the term uncle for example, which refers to a particular element within family relationships. The meaning of uncle encompasses both the designated element and the structure of parental relations that it is part of. It should be noted that the categorization of these parental relations varies from language to language: some languages, such as Wolof, distinguish between the maternal uncle and the other uncles and aunts; others, such as German and English, have a category which groups brothers and sisters together, independently of their gender (Geschwister “siblings”). The point which we find important here is that the meaning of a term is part of a hierarchical architecture, a sort of landscape which includes both a background,



Words and their meanings 

“ground” (in Talmy 1978), “fond” (in Vandeloise 1986) or “base” (in Langacker 1991b), and a salient sub-structure within the background, the “figure”, “cible” (“goal”) or “profile” (ibid). The “figure” represents the designated element and the “ground” the background into which the figure is inserted. The base and profile constitute two components of meaning, they do not have the same status but are linked in forming a term’s meaning. According to Langacker (ibid), the construal of a term’s meaning is an operation through which one profiles a sub-structure upon a base. The profiled element constitutes the referential value, it is part of the meaning, along with the base. Therefore there is an architecture of meaning, marked by a grounded structure. To gain access to a same referential value, languages may carry out profilings on different grounds.

2.2  Meaning’s malleability (polysemy and meaning shifts) Depending on the context, the meaning of a term varies. This variation is regulated by different mechanisms. There is always interaction between the terms present in the utterance (and between their respective properties). The association between one term and another, or even between a term and a given context, contributes in effect to the specification of its referential value. Thus a setting will not refer to the same thing depending on whether one is talking about a play or a ring. A tender steak is definitely not the same thing as a tender man. In both cases, the term’s application domain is different, which not only produces additional specifications but also “works” on the meaning of setting or tender which therefore are subject to deformation. We will come back to the modes of interaction a term has with its usage context (section 3). However, through these different values, the term presents a certain stability of meaning, manifested by the fact that the language considers it a single unit. Between a square foot and a square person there is both a shift in the adjective’s meaning, and semantic properties which are kept. The question then becomes to arrive at a description of the term’s unity, the nature of the relations between its different meanings as well as the mechanisms which produce the regulated variation.

2.2.1  Metaphor There are two well known major mechanisms which pilot these meaning shifts: metonymy and metaphor. These are not simply elements of rhetoric, but fundamental linguistic mechanisms which regulate the variation in the meaning of units.3 Metaphor is the transfer of properties from one domain to another to create a new referential value: some of a term’s semantic properties are selected (abstracted) and

.  I am speaking from the internal viewpoint of the meaning of units and not on the discourse level; the rhetoric of discourse distinguishes numerous figures of style for which an abundant literature exists, and which goes well beyond the scope of my paper here.

 Stéphane Robert

applied to another domain to designate a new entity in virtue of the properties considered shared by the two referents. For example, between a merchandise train and a train of thought, the word train does not have the same meaning, but the two meanings are linked together by a common semantic schema. Of the notion “train”, what is retained is the organization in successive units with identical function, linked to each other to form a complex unit. The shared properties are very abstract. They constitute a semantic schema that is present throughout all of the uses and which founds the semantic unity of the term. This is what Langacker (1991b) calls the “image schema”, Michaelis (1996) a “semantic super-structure” and Culioli a “schematic form” (Culioli 1990: 115–135). This schematic form can be applied to different domains that it will inform. In the case of train, for example, it is applied both to a vehicle (an element in space) and to a series of thoughts (elements in time): by switching application domains, the term switches referential values. The schematic form (or image-schema) is thus defined as a form which generates other forms, a sort of meaning-producing matrix. Similarly, the adjective square presents in its different uses an identical schema where an object takes on the shape of a square, where all sides are of equal length. When applied not to an object but to a person, having a certain shape but not being a geometrical shape, the meaning of the term shifts to the mental properties of the individual, conceived of as encompassing certain angles, certain boundaries, a certain rigidity. In general, one speaks of “metaphor” when the shift takes between one particular use (generally a concrete one), considered the primary meaning, and another (generally more abstract), through a process of selecting properties which are transferred from the primary domain to the other, which is probably the case for the two meanings of the adjective square, or yet for the temporal meaning of the verb to go, probably derived from its meaning as a verb of movement. However, it is not always possible to reconstruct the history of a word, nor to say exactly what the primary meaning was from which a schematic form was abstracted and then applied to another domain. It is probable that in certain cases the terms represent an abstract semantic schema from the start which, during a same period in the history of the language, is applied to different domains: there is no shift from a primary meaning to a metaphorical meaning, but from the beginning the word functions in various domains. This is the case of the word nú for example in Gbaya (Central African Republic) which designates the active part of an element, and can therefore refer to the tip of a pin, the edge of a field, the opening of a basket, embers of a fire, and language, conceived of as humans’ activity par excellence (Roulon-Doko 2003). Furthermore, metaphors can be dynamic (creative and perceived as transfers, as in the wings of desire) or fixed and lexicalized (waiting in the wings of a stage). In the variation mechanism we are attempting to describe, the different meanings of a term are linked together through a common semantic schema (schematic



Words and their meanings 

form or image-schema) which represents a set of shared abstract properties. The schematic form which serves as the foundation of the semantic unity of the term (train for example) is never bare, but is always instantiated in a particular domain and with a usage context which gives it its specific meaning (“train” in merchandise train or train of thought):

Metaphorical process: abstraction/ instanciation in a domain usage 1 meaning 1

semantic invariant: schematic form (does not appear)

usage 2 meaning 2

usage 3 meaning 3

Figure 1.  Schematic form and polysemous network (vertical relation).

Thus we would say that the semantic invariant (schematic form) represents the “signification” of the term and that its different usage values constitute its various “meanings”. Linguists present different models for organizing these meanings among themselves and in relation to the schematic form (see Kleiber 1999; Lakoff 1987). According to Langacker (1991b), the different meanings themselves are organized in a radial manner, with a more or less high degree of schematicity. Moreover, one of the meanings is often considered prototypical, i.e., it often appears as the best representative of the term’s values (for example the meaning “means of transportation” for the word train). One is thus faced with what I would call a “vertical” type of relation between the term’s different meanings. The relation in effect passes through a common relation to a schematic form which transcends all the meanings but never appears directly: to explain the shift from one meaning to another, one must go back to the schematic form which is at the base of the term’s semantic unity. From one usage to another, one does not find all of a term’s semantic properties,4 the properties specific to each use are linked to the term’s variable application domain (cf. 2.3. below) and to its particular properties (see the two meanings for pit in 4.1. below). Thus one sees that they are an important variation factor for a word’s meaning.

.  In certain cases the organization of the different meanings is more complex and combines metaphorical (vertical) relations and metonymical (horizontal) relations. See below 2.2.3.

 Stéphane Robert

Whether one calls it a metaphor or a schematic abstraction, the linguistic mechanism described here stems from a much more general and fundamental cognitive mechanism, that of analogy. Analogy rests on a homology between sometimes very different domains and on the perception of (abstract) properties seen as shared. From one meaning to the next, one finds both a common schema linked to these shared properties, and semantic properties specific to each usage, linked to the application domain. In metaphorical transfer, as shown by Lakoff & Johnson (1980), one transports a “form” but also inferences linked to the properties of the form.5 This is an important point in the case of scientific vocabularies which, far from escaping the metaphorical process, on the contrary have frequent recourse to it, notably because it makes it possible to take something known as a basis for describing and naming something unknown. The “milky way”, “electric current”, the “earth’s crust”, the “hammer” in the middle ear, “noise” in information theory are coded metaphors whose inferences are probably conscious and controlled because they are part of precise scientific models which strongly constrain their referential values and limit the transfer of inferences. Moreover one notes that it is the knowledge of the theoretical background (and therefore the term’s application domain) that stabilizes the meaning effects of these metaphors. When the context is unknown, as in pedagogical situations, inference transfers are probably very powerful and may lead to an important gap between the conventional meaning and the meaning construed by the public who very normally proceed by analogy. Thus, for example, the term black hole also rests on metaphor. It designates “cosmic objects so massive that they attract light rays, bend them in on themselves, prevent them from escaping, whence their absence of color, their “blackness” which makes them invisible”6 (Allègre 1995: 282, translation by Margaret Dunham). The astronomical metaphor rests on several shared properties between “holes” and these cosmic objects: both are containers, into which one falls, which are difficult to get out of and which trap you, furthermore they are black. But a “hole” supposes an emptiness which a priori risks being transferred (though inference) to the cosmic objects. Whereas for the latter, it is not their emptiness but rather their considerable mass which attracts

.  “Metaphor is a cross-domain mapping with preserved inferences”. Besides, for Lakoff, metaphors do not reside in words but in systems, as he showed in particular for mathematics (Lakoff 1993; Lakoff & Núñez 2000). .  “Des objets cosmiques si massifs qu’ils attirent les rayons lumineux, les courbent sur eux-mêmes, les empêchent de sortir, d’où leur absence de couleur, leur “noirceur” qui les rend invisibles”.



Words and their meanings 

objects and prevents them from escaping. The idea of mass and its physical effects are not part of the habitual meaning of “hole” where, on the contrary, emptiness plays the role of container-trap. To block this inference transfer, it is necessary to first set up the theoretical background of physics. It is not certain that the theoretician who created the neologism by metaphor to designate a new scientific object was aware of all the inferences transported by the metaphor. These can be very powerful and do actually play a structuring role in the scientific domain. For example, the computational theory of the mind which is prevalent in cognitive sciences rests on an initial metaphor, that of the mind seen as a computer (Bruner 1992). This metaphor has generated an entire theoretical apparatus (the brain’s “hardware” and “software”, “computation”, cognitive “pre-wiring”, “input”, “output”…). However the analogical process was erased: in the initial approach, it was a question of simulating mental processes using computers, it then became a case of describing them using computers, then it was a question of describing them using the computer as a model (metaphor), lastly, in a third stage, some began considering the brain as being a computer, a thinking machine (whence identification between the two domains, disappearance of the analogy). This founding metaphor whose heuristic process was erased, had considerable and often unwitting consequences, linked to the transfer of inferences. Thus, notably, because of the computer model, human thought has been seen as an autonomous system based on the manipulation of formal symbols which could be described in terms of logic and algebra, and everything that did not belong to the rational domain (emotions, perception) was removed from its workings. Because of the transfer of computer properties to thought, another shift took place, surreptitious but crucial, from the notion of signification to that of information (Bruner 1992). The problem of meaning in cognitive science has thus unconsciously been reduced to the domain of information processing. Information theory deals with the modalities of the transfer of information but not with those of constructing information, which was thereby removed from the field of cognitive science. Signification was then treated as a stable product (information to be transmitted), already a given in the input and thus not submitted to construction. The initial metaphor here had considerable impact on the definition of the object to be described and the model produced. When metaphorical denominations are new, their scientific impact is therefore not always quantifiable. Thus physicists trying to explain nuclear forces using properties associated with nuclear particles (one of which was even baptized gluon, meaning “that which sticks”), attributed qualities to them which represent inferences based on metaphorical transfers (quarks have “colors”, “flavors”, “charm”) for which the corresponding physical properties are not very clear (Allègre 1995: 230). It is therefore a question of thinking of a domain in terms of another by virtue of analogy and shared properties. But what the impact of the transfer of inferences in the construction of a model in particle physics will be, is difficult to say at the start.

 Stéphane Robert

So metaphors, in both the scientific domain and in general, are based on a fundamental cognitive mechanism which makes it possible to think of one domain in terms of another, through analogy. This process surely has heuristic and/or pedagogical virtues, and a certain cognitive efficiency. From a linguistic point of view, it allows a remarkable systemic economy and adaptability: a single unit gives access to several referents, an old term can be adapted to new realities or new concepts (on this last point, see the detailed studies carried out by Vidalenc 1997). But words are not concepts, they are “representation triggers” which present specific structural and functional properties and carry, along with their referential values, a whole fabric of structured relations (see 2.3. below on depth). Whence the “danger” which menaces language communication, that of the surreptitious import of representations and properties through inference. This danger is partly controlled, generally speaking, by the specification of a term’s meaning within the utterance (section 4), and in science through linking the term to a model which is most often explicit and constrained (through definitions, explicit descriptions of the properties and insertion in a specific model). The model constructs the value of the term in the background, and constitutes the term’s application domain. It is when the application domain is entirely specified that the term becomes a technical one, linked to a true scientific concept. It is therefore, in science as in ordinary language, first and foremost the articulation within a specific context which stabilizes the ambiguities in the meanings of a term.

2.2.2  Metonymy The second well known major mechanism for regulating meaning is metonymy. Traditionally speaking, metonymy is described as a shift in the referential value based on a relation of contiguity: the meaning of a term is transferred from one referent to another, by virtue of the contiguity relations between the two referents. Thus through metonymy, the blue helmets refer to the soldiers of the U.N. instead of referring to the helmets themselves; in to have a glass, the term glass can either designate the object or, through metonymical shift, its contents. These meaning shifts are based on the widespread mechanism of metonymy. Let us note that the term contiguity here is used in a very abstract sense; it can refer to relations of a variable nature such as the container for the contents (a glass), a part for the whole7 (a roof for a house), but also a cause for an effect (I like Schubert = I like Schubert’s works), the place of origin for the product (a Bourgogne), a place for the institution which resides there (the decisions of the White House), a body part for the moral properties associated with it

.  In this case it is called a synecdoche, but at this level of analysis, the distinction does not seem important as they both make use of the same mechanism.



Words and their meanings 

(have guts) … One can also consider as metonymical transfer the use of a brand name (or of an element of a category) to designate any element of that category, as in the case of fridge (Frigidaire in French) for refrigerator. Metonymy can take place through syntagmatic reduction: it is possible that the use of Schubert to refer to his works is based on the reduction of the phrase I like (the works of ) Schubert, the same for a (wine from) Bourgogne. Certain syntagmatic reductions are historically attested: thus the French term foie (“liver”) comes from the Latin expression iecur ficatum, a culinary term which originally designated the “liver (of a duck), iecur, fattened on figs, ficatum” of which only the beginning remained, ficatum (“enfigged”) > foie “liver” (Traugott & Hopper 1993: 81). Through metonymy, the term ended up designating not only this particular type of liver, but any liver. From the viewpoint of linguistic processes, the foie is therefore a variant of the refrigerator! The contiguity which links these different referential values is therefore always conceptual but is sometimes also accompanied by contiguity between the syntactic constituents. Beside these well known cases, Traugott & Hopper (1993: 80–93) mention a particularly interesting type of metonymy, where two meanings of a term are linked by a relation of inference. They give the example of the Germanic hwile (> wile) “time” which is the origin of the English while and the German weil (“because”). The adverbial phrase “at the time when” which uses this term (along with a distal demonstrative in the accusative and an invariable subordinator equivalent to “that” which were later morphologically reduced), first expressed the simultaneity of two events then, through inference, a causal link between the two events. Thus in Old English, in the sentence corresponding to “that disaster lasted the nineteen winters while (wile) Stephen was king”, the subordinate took on the meaning of “because Stephen was king”. From concomitant links one infers a link of causality. It is this value that was lexicalized in the German weil, which comes from the same hwile with a temporal meaning (as in Weile “moment, time”, verweilen “stay”) but which lost its temporal origins and no longer has any meaning but the causal one of “because”. In Tswana (Bantu), the verb “to get up (in the morning)” also functions as an auxiliary meaning “do (something) the next day”. D. Creissels (2001) analyzes the emergence of this second meaning through a process of semanticization (or lexicalization) of pragmatic inferences, linked to the fact that humans tend to make the alternation sleep/wake coincide with the alternation night/day. So if a human says “when I get up” one can, in the absence of contrary indications, infer that the person is referring to “tomorrow morning” because the prototypical getting up is the getting up which follows the night’s sleep. From the meaning “to get up doing something” one passed, through the lexicalization of the pragmatic inference, to the meaning “do something the next morning”. The semantic shift was accompanied by a syntactic reanalysis (auxiliarization process), but also belongs to the domain of metonymy from a semantic view point: the contiguity link is not simply a physical contiguity between the two referents but a contiguity of events.

 Stéphane Robert

Which is why I will follow here the more general definition given by Kövecses & Radden (1998: 39), following Lakoff: “Metonymy is a cognitive process in which one conceptual entity, the vehicle, provides mental access to another conceptual entity, the target, within the same domain”. The first important point in this definition of metonymy is that this linguistic mechanism is defined as a cognitive process and that it is described in terms of “access” to a conceptual entity. As for metaphors, it is not just a question of relations between words and things, but a question of the relations between the conceptual representations carried by words, as is shown by the diverse contiguity relations described here (part/whole, cause/effect…). Words are representation triggers and metonymy is a cognitive process which makes it possible for one word to trigger access to a new representation. It is noteworthy that in the case of metonymy, there is a dissymmetry: one of the representations is the vector for the other, it is the entrance point through which the target is accessed; therefore it functions as a salient feature of the second representation8 and the contiguity link between the two representations constitutes the referential path which gives access to the second one. The second important point is that, contrary to metaphors which are based on the transfer of properties from one domain to another, metonymy operates within the same domain: it allows the transfer of referential values within a single semantic domain. Which is why I propose to describe the metonymical links between a term’s two meanings as relations of a “horizontal” type; one must note however that, there too, the relation between the two meanings is mediated by an abstraction process that here is not based on analogy (as for metaphors) but rather on a link between properties of a single referent: metonymical process: conceptualization of contiguity

The blue helmets meaning 1 = part

The blue helmets meaning 2 = U.N. soldiers

Figure 2.  The metonymical link (horizontal relation).

.  For a more detailed analysis of the different types of metonymy as well as the cognitive processes at work, see the article by Kövecses & Radden (1998).



Words and their meanings 

Metonymical shifts can happen repeatedly in the history of a word. Thus the French term bureau initially designated a piece of rough cloth (bure) placed on the table where one worked. Then, through metonymy, it designated the table itself (“desk”), before, through a second metonymy, coming to designate the room where the table is found (“office”). It is probably undergoing further metonymy in designating the activities carried out in the room, as in des horaires de bureau “office hours”. Similarly, the term pen, from the Late Latin penna “feather”, first served to designate a feather object for writing (“quill”), then the pointed metal object which replaced the feather, then the stylistic qualities of those using the instrument (a witty pen). One can see through this example that the referential value of a term can survive its demotivation (loss of the link between the object “feather” and the value “writer”). We will see in the following section, with the example of fox (and also in 3.1. for the example of souris), that metaphor and metonymy can also be combined.

2.2.3  Combining metaphor and metonymy Interestingly, metaphor and metonymy can combine in the polysemous network. For instance a fox can refer to the wild animal, but also to its fur (metonymy), a coat made of its fur (second metonymy) as well as to an attractive woman (metaphor). As mentioned by Balbachan (2006), Lipka (1990a and b) “identifies two typical processes where metaphors and metonymy take place, showing a general schema as a lexical rule for semantic shift or transfer: radial shift and chaining shift”. To illustrate these two types of networks, he gives the example of two polysemic words: English head which shows a radial shift and English volume which manifests a chaining shift, as illustrated in the following figures (3 and 4).

S5

ym on

y

S3

et m metonymy m et ap ho r

S4

metaphor

S1

or

et ap h

r ho ap et m metaphor m

S2

metaphor

S9

S7

S8

S6

sememe

Meaning

‘head’

S1

upper part of human body

S2

seat of intellect

S3

life (cf. it cost him his head)

S4

image of head on one side of coin

S5 S6

knobbed end of nail foam on top of liquor

S7

top of page

S8

fully developed part of boil

S9

end of table occupied by host

Figure 3.  Radial shift (from Balbachan 2006).

 Stéphane Robert metonymy S1

metonymy S2

metaphor S3

S4

sememe

Meaning

‘volume’

S1 S2

roll of parchment (disappeared) book tome

S3

size, bulk of a book

S4

size, bulk of other things

Figure 4.  Chaining shift (from Balbachan 2006).

2.2.4  Active zones and contextual interactions Let us further mention an important factor in the semantic variation of terms: interaction with the context. Plasticity in terms is also largely conditioned by their interaction with the verbal and situational contexts, which produce a veritable “work” on the meaning of lexical units, defining landmarks, attractors and “active zones”, producing coercion, semantic shifts or semantic layerings. These processes will be presented in section 3. because they contribute to the stabilization of the word’s meaning in language use. 2.3  The depth dimension of language 2.3.1  Semantic universes: Frames and scenarios So far, we have described semantic structures and mechanisms allowing meaning shifts, but the meaning of linguistic units is not limited to these meaning matrices. Linguistic units, in effect, are linked to semantic universes, to representational backdrops which contribute to the value of a term’s meanings and which themselves can be highly structured. The terms buy and sell for example, designate a particular action between two participants which implies a history of variable but codified mercantile relations depending on the language and culture, which Fillmore has called “frames” or “scenes” (Fillmore 1977, 1982).9 However, these extra-linguistic factors have an impact, either direct or indirect, on the semantics of the terms and on their use; the notion of “frames” is intended to capture useful chunks of encyclopedic knowledge relevant to the usage of linguistic units (Goldberg 1995: 26). Thus the term bachelor is often defined as a man who is not married. But this definition is not sufficient for rendering either its values or its usage; the term implies a precise cultural background

.  See Martin (2001) for an elaboration on the notion of “frame” and its role in polysemy.



Words and their meanings 

which explains why one would not easily say that the Pope or a hermit is a bachelor. The term weekend of course profiles a certain part of the seven-day cycle, but a full understanding of its meaning implies to know a larger semantic (and cultural) frame by which Saturday and Sunday are non-working days therefore associated with leisure, sport, camping … (Fillmore 1982). Furthermore, the notion of frame often explains the difference between two synonyms: for instance the words roe and caviar refer to the same entity but are associated with different frames, anatomical or gastronomical (Langacker 1987: 164–65). In Ibo (a Kwa language of Nigeria), one thus finds eighteen terms for “to buy” depending on the nature and conditioning of the object, but also on the circumstances of the sale, the particular gesture associated with it, the quantity or fractioning of the object, whether the seller is obliged to travel, if the person one asks to buy will pay or not, etc. … (Chukwe 1997). The different customs in the background directly intervene in the semantics of the verb as they are categorized in the language. And one sees that the scenarios underlying the signification of a meaning are culture-dependant. But these scenarios can also be indirectly linked to the term’s meaning. Thus in English, white is associated with marriage because of particular customs, namely the marriage ceremony and the color of the bride’s dress. The presence of this scenario in the background has the effect of generating connotations associated with this color; it induces diverse “resonances”: it is a positive color, it evokes purity, virginity, the intact nature of an entity, its innocence (white as snow for “innocent”). Again, the associated scenarios and the connotations stemming from them vary from culture to culture: in China, red is the color of weddings and white that of mourning; white therefore will not have the same connotations as in English, and will certainly not evoke virginity. These connotations linked to background scenarios are indeed part of the term’s meaning, and play an important role in a term’s stylistic effects and meaning variations within utterances. We have seen that linguistic units often function through the selection of one of the referent’s properties to designate it, which leads to a property being used to designate several different referents (cf. greens or bleu). Linguistic units thereby constitute access paths to a complex representation fabric or network. Through its different values, a single term refers to different scenarios: that greens can refer to vegetables reflects the fact that the tops, the leaves, of vegetables are of that color; that greens can refer to members of a political party is due to the fact that they tend to use green banners; in British and American history, greens were pieces of land reserved for common use in each village, first for grazing purposes, then for recreational uses. Thus one sees that these scenarios are historically and culturally grounded. In certain cases, when a scenario no longer has historical validity, it becomes demotivated, and can even disappear. This is the case for the French bleu, which, among many other meanings, referred to young army recruits who usually showed up wearing their blue work clothes. With the end of obligatory military service, this term may eventually fall into disuse.

 Stéphane Robert

However, history has given us new oppositions, as with the greens (ecologists) and the reds (communists), which are probably metonymic designations (“who bear green banners”, “who bear red banners”). There are also new background scenarios which lead to the emergence of new referential values, such as un blanc which formerly in French referred to a royalist soldier (whose uniform was white), but now belongs to a different paradigm linked to completely new reference values referring to wine.

2.3.2  Connotations As we saw above, languages create network relations within the semantics of words (metonymic or metaphorical relations between meanings, relations between a schematic form and its different instantiations, relations between different referential values, different scenarios or semantic universes), but they also associate various connotations with a term’s meaning. As we saw with the example of white, a term’s connotations vary from culture to culture, and also according to its different uses. These connotations explain certain synonymic variations: car, automobile and jalopy are synonyms but are distinguished by their different registers and connotations, as is also true for jaundice and hepatitis. These connotations serve to signal a social role (which can be momentary) played by the speaker, or the speaker’s belonging to a specific social group. Similarly, using the expression father to designate a priest signifies that the speaker is a practicing catholic, contrary to using priest or clergyman. In the same way, using the heat for “policeman” signals belonging to a certain age group and general ideology. In fact, choosing a term for its connotations allows speakers both to situate themselves intersubjectively (as regards the group) and to express one’s position, one’s judgment on what is being talked about. On the discourse level, connotative choices permit argumentative strategies based at least partly on identification phenomena, largely exploited by publicists (see Honeste 1997; Grunig 1990). Certain connotative values can be more generally associated with words, so that they carry uncontrolled resonances in a given culture. Such is the case for the term North for example. For many French people, the term calls up thoughts of cold, grey, wet weather, and for Parisians, the daily grind, which are all negative values; moreover it is opposed to diverse positive representations of the South: sun, joy, feeling good, vacation, because of seasonal habits which are quite specifically French. Therefore avoidance strategies are developed for example by the departments and institutions in the North of France. The Artois University Press has thus been prettily renamed “Septentrion Press”. The term septentrion is a synonym for North, but has neither the same distribution (usage contexts) nor the same semantic resonances; it is an old term, associated with a poetic and literary universe which calls up all sorts of other associations. These two terms then have the same referential value but not at all the same meaning. And if the department Côtes du Nord successfully changed its name to Côtes d’Armor, it was both to avoid the negative associations with the North and to



Words and their meanings 

endow itself with a more fitting denomination, both geographically and culturally: the Côtes d’Armor are in the north of Brittany rather than in the north of France, moreover they have a specific history which the term Armor positively evokes. This new name, in effect, is wound up in a very different network of associations and connotations: it not only brings to mind the Celtic legends, but also the formal echoes between Armor and Amor.

2.3.3  The depth dimension of language: Fabric of networks To the fabric of diverse semantic relations which units enter into (Armor and Celtic legends), one may also add a network of formal relations, either etymological or not (Armor and amor), between units. These relations vary greatly from language to language, and probably even from one individual to another because they are built on both social and individual experiences, and each one generates diverse association representations. For the present writer, the term uncle of course calls up the domain and structure of kinship relations, but also the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and her own uncle who had a house in the Alps and hence the memory of winter sports, and so forth. The cognitive reality of these formal relations between non related terms is also visible both in slips of the tongue and in puns. I will not go into the details of the diverse morphological relations that are set up in the paradigms here (cf. Robert 2003). These morphological relations (etymological or not) thereby produce echo phenomena between the terms of a language (amor – Armor): the formal relationship induces semantic relationships between the different notions, connotations or values associated with each of the terms. Depending on the language, words resonate in an extremely variable way, depending both on the physical and cultural contexts and on the rest of the language’s lexicon. The linguistic units trigger representations which are caught up in a complex network of relations, at once language internal and external, semantic and formal. This web of relations and associations that links linguistic to extra-linguistic matter, constitutes what I call “the depth dimension of language” (“l’épaisseur du langage”, Robert 1999, 2003). Depth constitutes a third dimension in language, as opposed to the syntagmatic dimension (relations between the utterance’s terms) and the paradigmatic dimension (relations between the terms that may potentially occupy the same spot in the utterance); it is what makes the meaning “subjective and open-ended” (Lichtenberk 1991).10 This depth dimension constitutes the semantics of a term, and in a way represents the extremely variable harmonics that the semantic-structure-as-fundamental-frequency

.  “A term may have a primary meaning, but its total meaning subsumes not only this primary meaning, central designation, but also all the other more or less peripheral aspects of the situations in which the term is used.” (Lichtenberk 1991: 480).

 Stéphane Robert

gives rise to. The depth of language is a complex area where linguistics associates both with linguistic and extra-linguistic matter and which plays an important role in the construal of an utterance’s meaning (Robert 1999). Table 1 below, which is certainly far from being exhaustive, lists the different components of the meaning of linguistic units that we have highlighted here. They gather together variation factors that are at once internal (within languages) and external (from language to language): Table 1.  Processes involved in the words’ meaning –  world segmentation and categorization –  referential paths –  profiling: internal architecture (figure and ground) –  plasticity and meaning shifts (metaphor, metonymy) –  referential scales –  variable application domains (instantiation) –  depth: –  scenarios and semantic universes –  networks of formal and semantic relations between terms –  connotations –  associations between linguistic and extralinguistic representations

3.  The problem of transparency and referential accessibility 3.1  Motivation Thus far, we have examined the different mechanisms for constructing the meaning of terms, such as property selection and referential paths, transfer processes through metaphor or metonymy. In these different cases, meaning is construed through a referential process which is indirect but also transparent and motivated. This motivation most probably plays a role in how these terms are stored in the memory (by linking different meanings together or by linking a meaning with the physical and cultural properties of the referent) as well as in the cognitive accessibility of the referent. However, this referential transparency varies within a language as well as from language to language. Within languages, the semantics of terms is not always motivated and the modalities of reference accessing may be opaque for different reasons (see below). Furthermore, referential efficiency among terms may vary within languages, as well as from language to language, for the “same” term. Thus languages present varied strategies for reference accessing which are partially linked to their morphological, and therefore formal, properties.



Words and their meanings 

The specific problems raised by technical term translation and terminological creation are particularly interesting on this head, as they bring to light the necessity for efficient designations, whether it be a question of procedures to follow in case of emergency, translating traffic regulations, instruction manuals, or even school books and teaching materials. It is most probably necessary to introduce as much motivation in the designations as possible. This entails either transparency in the referential paths, or retaining the most salient properties within the culture to designate the referent. Thus to indicate the blinking cursor which shows its position on a computer screen, French used, in succession, first curseur then souris (“mouse”). The term curseur has fallen into disuse because visibly connected to an era when screens had a different presentation, and rested on a metaphor linked to a slide rule and to the movement of a mobile element along the ruler. The term souris (“mouse”) is based on a metaphor then on a metonymical extension. It began by designating the element which serves to transmit the hand’s movements to the screen: the metaphor was based on the shape of this element (small and oval) and on the (rapid) movements it made possible; then, through metonymy, the term souris (“mouse”) came to signify not the element moved by hand, but the element it affected on the screen. The salient properties that made this metaphorical shift of the term souris (“mouse”) possible were the size and movements of the object. While trying to create terminology in Banda (Central African Republic), as described by M. Diki-Kidiri, for the same element it was the term for firefly that was retained; the salient properties which seemed the most suggestive being size and luminosity on a dark background (as were the screens at that time). These privileged paths are certainly linked to the cultural world. In fact, the cognitive efficiency of metaphors is often based on the existence of a world of wider cultural references which are not always transposable from one language to another. As J.L. Vidalenc showed (1997: 143), the metaphorical expression scientific frontier, used in American scientific presentations, refers more to Westerns and to the American “frontier” culture associated with them than to the sources usually called upon in scientific communications. Such an expression would certainly not have the same meaning for a French public. Certain general metaphors do not exist in all languages. In English, up and down are associated with turning a machine on and off, as in the expression to shut down the computer. This analogy between movement and turning something on or off is not the same in French, where downward movement is rather associated with something falling, and probably breaking. This association is so strong that it prevented me for a long time from using the entry shut down in the scroll menu on my computer, for fear of breaking something. … In other words, we are faced with an apparent paradox: it is probably by taking what is most typical culturally in a language that one is able to construct the best

 Stéphane Robert

“equivalences” between languages and not by taking universal invariants conceived of as having a minimum of common contents. It would certainly be interesting to carry out experiments on the possible existence, in different cultures, of privileged access paths to reference: spatial trajectories, functional property selection (cf. index above) or tactile properties (linked for example to manipulability which probably plays a role for certain classifiers in Chinese), visual properties (it is because of their long and thin shape that the terms “fish”, “stick”, “street” and “necklace” in Mandarin have the same classifier tiáo). The olfactive properties of referents seem to be more rarely selected as salient. Corbin & Temple (1994) note however the French term fenouillette which designates a variety of apple whose smell evokes that of fennel (French fenouil). But the degree of transparency in terms also depends on language specific morphological factors. German presents a remarkable degree of transparency in compound words, transparency which is linked to the clarity of its compositional rules and the flexibility of its particles (Pérennec 1997). Furthermore, specialist vocabularies in German, much more than in French, with English somewhere in the middle, make widespread use of so-called folk roots. One can compare the German Unterhaut (lit. “under-skin”) to its English equivalent derm, or Einbaumboot (lit. “one-tree-boat”) to its English equivalent monoxyl canoe (also known as a dugout in everyday speech). The German terms thus show a remarkable referential transparency as compared to English. Although the semantic interpretation still necessitates recourse to encyclopedic knowledge, the mode for accessing the referent is transparent. Concerning this last example, one notes that the precision of the reference path or its explicit character do not necessarily imply that the reference is accessed more quickly. The English monoxyl is a constructed term which is explicit in its referential path (“made of a single piece of wood”) but it makes use of (Greek) roots which are opaque for most speakers. Similarly, most chemistry terms, such as cupritetramine and desoxyribonucleic are analytical terms, explicit and free of ambiguity, but opaque for non specialists. Because referential accessibility implies not only an explicit (analytic) reference path but also knowledge of the theoretical background, i.e., the term’s application domain. Depending on the speaker’s knowledge, the referential path may be transparent even though the reference is opaque. Inversely, a vague term may be referentially efficient, because of its usage conditions.

3.2  Opacity and accessibility All terms in a language are not always “constructed words” or “defined descriptions” which furnish the speakers with (always partial) descriptions of the referent. In effect, there are, within languages, different strategies for accessing references, especially through analytical processes (as with the preceding examples) or “direct” processes.



Words and their meanings 

Of course referenciation is always mediated as it is transmitted via units which refer to representations constructed by the language, but access to the reference can be carried out either through constructions (analytic processes), or through encoded units as such, which are unanalyzable (as with proper names for example, or more generally, mono-elementary units such as table or glass), which form meaning blocks. Let us quote the famous distinction proposed by Frege between the different denominations for a single planet: Venus, which is a proper name and constitutes a mono-elementary unit, the evening star, or the morning star (to which one could add the shepherd’s star), which constitute definite descriptions, i.e., analytical ones. The same is true for the Castafiore and the Milanese Nightingale. In strategies of reference construction, the referential path may be opaque, either because the coded unit is not analyzable (table) or because demotivation has taken place, and the compound meanings have been lost. This is the case for example for turkey, a term which originally designated a fowl from Turkey, but with the fowl becoming widespread, the metonymical path was lost. The American states of Louisiana, Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas all bear testimony to the monarchs ruling at the time of their conquest. The name Alsatia (“Alsace”), literally “other seat”, designated a foreign settlement, referring to the Germans who had settled west of the Rhine. The fact that this area was considered a sort of enclave led to the term being used derogatively in London to refer to the White Friars precinct which had become a sanctuary for debtors and law breakers, and thus an asylum for criminals. This complicated path followed by the semantic shift is totally opaque nowadays (Shipley 1984: 344). The case of grève in French is another nice example of demotivation. This name has two meanings: (1) it designates a “beach strand or river bank” and (2) it refers to one of France’s national specialties, namely “strikes” (to be on strike). Originally, these two meanings were linked by a double metonymy: the “place de Grève” (lit. The Strand place) was the name of a place in Paris, close to the Seine’s bank; at a certain time in history, the workers would meet in this place to protest against their working conditions. Hence, the phrase “être en (place) de grève” took on the meaning “to stop working and go to this place for protesting”. Later, this expression became autonomous (as in une grève importante “an important strike”) and the link with the particular geographical place was lost: the metonymic shift was demotivated and the two meanings appeared to belong to two homophonic terms, corresponding to what Lichtenberk (1991) calls a case of “heterosemy”.11 Today, the referential path of grève is opaque. But its meaning is not.

.  “In heterosemy, the semantic (as well as the formal) properties of the elements are too different to form a single conceptual category. Rather, the category has only a historical basis: what unites its members is their common ultimate source” (Lichtenberk 1991: 480).

 Stéphane Robert

In fact, opacity of the referential path does not necessarily imply opacity of the term’s referential value, nor its inaccessibility, just as the path’s transparency does not guarantee transparency of reference. In effect, most acronyms such as LASER, AIDS or DNA represent opaque referential paths for most speakers. However, their referents remain accessible (at least to a certain degree), especially as these objects are part of a familiar universe; the term then functions as a sort of coded unit within the language. Similarly, the referential value of a term generally survives its demotivation, as is the case for example for the plumber (from the French plomb “lead”) which still designates the same category of workers even though they no longer repair lead piping. Another interesting example is also given by Lee (2001: 10) which is the case of the English bug (1. “insect”, 2. “fault in a computer program”). This term was first used when a problem with one of the early computers was found to be due to the presence of a dead insect in its innards and therefore used in its original sense concerning a problem with the computer. However, this situation involved the activation of a new frame (computer programming), which was the source of new semantics for the term that came to refer to any fault in a computer program, even when unrelated to the presence of an insect in the machine. The rate of the (formal) evolution in words does not necessarily follow that of their referents. This discrepancy does not hinder speakers because the relationship between form and meaning is fundamentally arbitrary and coded, even if occasionally motivated. What is crucial is that the term have meaning for the speakers, namely that it permit access to a common representation; if the relationship between the linguistic form and the representation attached to it is most often arbitrary as concerns the system of the language, from the speaker’s viewpoint, it no longer is from the moment the representation is acquired: a table is a table. It is therefore most probably when it is a question of gaining access to a new representation, as in the case of terminology creation, that motivation and transparency in the referential path are the most important. But path transparency and referential accessibility do not necessarily go together. This discrepancy between path opacity and referential transparency can be explained, in my view, by a more general linguistic mechanism. I think that on the discourse level, namely when units are used in an utterance, there are two modes for forming meaning: by quotation or by construction. In fact, from a structural point of view, discourse makes use of different types of units: either simple units (table), constructed units (be they derived: dancer, compounded: pillowcase or phrases: head of hair). These different structures probably give rise to different modes of constructing meaning and reference access, in the production or comprehension of the utterance: on one hand certain junctures are formed at the time of speaking (construction formation mode); on the other hand, certain structures function as fully fledged units (“coded units”), stored in the memory as wholes and used more or less as such in the sentence (quotation formation mode). These two utterance modes are most



Words and their meanings 

probably both necessary for speech. The first ensures the creativity and plasticity necessary for language, the second ensures economy in individuals’ efforts and interpersonal comprehension. However, it seems to me that these two meaning production modes do not necessarily follow the linguistic structure of the units being used: some complex units may, from the point of view of production and reference access, function as simple units, produced through citation and not construction. The expression head of hair probably usually functions as a simple unit and the speaker (and listener) probably do not construct its meaning by analytically following the term’s referential path. Just as in toothbrush one does not necessarily hear tooth, and in an instrument’s mouthpiece one does not necessarily activate the term mouth. This is why transparency of reference paths does not necessarily go hand in hand with the accessibility of the referent: it all depends on the reference construction mode during discourse. These two construction modes also apply to structures larger than the word, and even entire sentences. Proverbs (April showers bring May flowers) and certain set expressions (hard as Job, to smoke like a chimney, to keep a stiff upper lip) generally belong, on one count or another, to the quotation mode: when speakers use them, they do not usually build them up from their individual components, but quote them as fully formed units. However, the latent referential path of set expressions can be reactivated. This is often what happens in puns or advertisements which frequently consist in bringing to the surface opaque referential paths. The varying activation of component meanings then depends on the specific dynamics of the sentence.

4.  Construing meaning in discourse: Stabilization mechanisms Linguistic units present ambivalences and potential semantic overloads due to their polysemy and their representational depth, the complex fabric of relations they enter into. However, in language activity, units never appear on their own, but always in a verbal and situational context, inserted in utterances where all of their values are not present. Following the tenets of cognitive semantics (Langacker 1987 and 1991; Talmy 2000), we consider that “instead of thinking in terms of words as expressing “concepts”, we should think of them as tools that cause listeners to activate certain areas of their knowledge base, with different areas activated to different degrees in different contexts of use” (Lee 2001:  10). Being used in discourse, the context “acts on” the meaning of the units and constrains their interpretation. More generally, discourse, through different relating mechanisms, makes it possible to progressively build the reference frame and “verbal scene” (Victorri 1997) which will specify both the meaning of each unit and that of the sentence. Thus reference is always construed contextually through a dynamic process, for which we will mention a few of the mechanisms here.

 Stéphane Robert

These meaning construal mechanisms in discourse contribute both to the general polysemy of the term and to the stabilization of its meaning within a particular utterance.

4.1  Application domains, meaning attractors and semantic isotopics 4.1.1  Application domains In their different uses, words are always invested, instantiated in “application domains” which define their semantic incidence and contribute to creating their referential value and contextual meaning. Incidence domains are important for terms because they contribute both to the variation (plasticity) of their potential meanings and to their stabilization in the utterance. A change in the application domain and semantic universe of a term can produce a meaning shift and a radical change in its referential value. As mentioned by Sinclair (1998: 7), the meaning of white when followed by wine (as in white wine), refers to a different color range (from almost colorless to yellow, light orange or light green), than when it is not so followed. Furthermore, depending on the context, a term can be linked to a different semantic universe, while keeping its profile. This is the case for example of the word pit, which refers both to a hole or cavity in the ground and a certain seating area in a theatre or auditorium. In both cases, it represents an element of the same general shape as well as certain shared functional properties (it is usually hollowed out with the intention of containing people or objects, and is usually below ground or below the level of surrounding people) but its application to different semantic universes entails a completely different referential value in either case, as well as wholly divergent associated properties (negative as in the saying “it’s the pits!” and positive as being some of the best seats for seeing the scene in the theatre). The different semantic universes the terms are linked to are therefore the source of the variation in the units’ meanings, but also play the inverse functional role in disambiguating the construal of a term’s meaning in discourse. How are these application domains and semantic universes specified? By the verbal context (the relationships between the sentence constituents and the relationship between the sentence and what precedes it) and by the situational context (extra-linguistic factors pertaining to the discourse situation): these together construe different reference points which steer the term’s meaning. 4.1.2  P  rimitive meaning attractors (prototypes, personal attractors and discourse situations) The terms we use are caught up in the representation depth that we mentioned earlier where extremely diverse relational networks are woven and which vary according to the cultures and individuals, as they are bearers of an individual’s experiences, both material and psychological. However, this representation depth affecting words is crossed by different reference-concentrating areas, landmarks or anchoring points, which serve as “interpretative attractors” or “meaning attractors”, i.e., elements which



Words and their meanings 

attract/steer a term’s interpretation in a particular direction. The prototype is one such element. Individuals also have their own meaning attractors: out of context, a linguist will tend to interpret the word instrumental in its grammatical meaning (that of a morpheme serving to indicate that the complement corresponds to the instrument of the process) whereas for musicians, the first thing to spring to mind will be their violins or pianos. The discourse situation also functions as a factor specifying a term’s application domain and as a meaning attractor: depending on whether one is at a concert, in a bakery or at a Chinese restaurant, the French term baguette will be connected to the semantic domain construed by one’s location and will refer either to a conductor’s baton, to a loaf of bread or to chopsticks. The discourse situation therefore functions as the default “meaning attractor”: it calls up a reference domain that the terms used will naturally be connected to. The reference domain acts as the backdrop or ground against which the figure defined by the term’s signification will be profiled, the figure and ground together constituting the contextual meaning of the unit. The pragmatic context (i.e., the situation where the utterance is produced) can also lead to a variety of meanings on the grammatical level which overthrow the meaning of the whole sentence: in the French sentence je vous coupe la tête (lit. “I am going to cut you the head”), depending on the situation, the personal pronoun vous (“you, for you”) has two different possible values (benefactive or applicative), so that the sentence as a whole takes on a completely different meaning: if you are at a fishmonger’s, it would mean “I’m going to cut the (fish’s) head for you” (benefactive), whereas if you are under threat from a mad man, it would mean “I’m going to cut off your head” (applicative). A term’s meaning is construed through interpretative mechanisms which are conditioned by different factors. Communication is only possible because the reference points of the verbal context take precedence over the rest. But interference between the different “meaning attractors” is always possible, as is shown for example by misunderstandings and puns (see e.g., Arnaud 1997).

4.1.3  Contextual meaning attractors: Semantic isotopics The most important reference points for communication are those which are created by the verbal context, e.g., by the creation of relationships between a given term and the rest of the utterance, and between the utterance and those preceding it. The relationships between the terms of a sentence is notably governed by a fundamental mechanism of “semantic isotopic”12 which consists in linking a term’s meaning to the semantic universe of the preceding term to create interpretative continuity in the line

.  The concept is from Greimas (1966: 96). It was further elaborated by diverse linguists. For a detailed analysis of the different types of isotopics, see Rastier (1987: 87–141) for example.

 Stéphane Robert

of thought. Thus, in the absence of particular contextual indications, in the sentence the pilot pulled back on the stick to fly higher, the terms pilot and fly lead to interpreting stick as an “airplane control handler” and not as a “tree branch”. Through this isotopic process, concatenation draws a guiding thread through the depth dimension of language, which orientates the meaning of a term towards an interpretation congruent with the semantic field established by what precedes it. It thereby contributes to removing the potential ambiguities inherent to linguistic units due to their polysemy. I consider that the same principle of semantic isotopic comes into play in the disambiguation process evoked by Paprotté (1998: 248) concerning the two meanings of port in English: “safe harbor” or “red wine”. Thus two different isotopics are created in the following two examples (Fig. 5): The violent hurricane did not damage the ships which where in the port isotopic1:

sea world

→

sea world

→

harbor

Deceived by the identical color, the host took a bottle of Barolo instead of one of port isotopic2:

color

→

beverage

→

wine

Figure 5.  Two different isotopics for port.

This disambiguation process which draws a guiding thread through the depth dimension of language can be schematized as in Figure 6:

language depth

isotopic

utterance Figure 6.  Semantic isotopic and language depth.

Setting up contextual relations creates interpretative landmarks and semantic fields which, apart from specific psychological situations which lead to the interference of personal attractors (preoccupation, fatigue, obsession), prevail over the other meaning landmarks and attractors.

4.2  Contextual linkage and multiple landmarks The meaning of a word in context is the result of a multifactor process. In effect, all of the factors, contextual, lexical and grammatical, constantly intervene in the progressive



Words and their meanings 

construal of an utterance’s meaning and in the specification of the values of its terms. When it appears in a sentence, a unit is linked, concomitantly, to elements at different levels: in relation to the verbal context and preceding situation, in relation to the other lexical elements, in relation to the syntactic structures. Everything is linked in language and the relational mechanisms produce meaning through constant interaction between the elements involved. Putting words into sentences thereby activates one or another of its latent meanings and produces a contextual linkage (it clears a pathway through the forest of meanings). In the following sections we will first present the different linguistic components interacting at the utterance level in order to specify the meaning of a word (4.2.1., 4.2.2. and 4.2.3.), we will then mention some of the main mechanisms characterizing these interactions (4.2.4.).

4.2.1  Lexical interactions Linking a term to various elements (the context, linguistic units and structures) does not constitute a simple filter among a unit’s possible values (as in the example cited for pit), it produces a veritable working over of the term’s meaning, which is construed by interactions. Thus in a floury hand and a floury pear, the adjective always refers to the fact that the object in question at a certain point in time presents certain qualities linked to flour (which is its meaning), but its meaning varies considerably as it designates in one case an object covered with flour and in the other, the texture of flour (Corbin & Temple 1994). However, this specification of the value floury is not foreseeable outside of the connection of the adjective to the particular nouns it determines. Similarly, it is the specific values of steak and man that will inform the variable values of the adjective tender in a tender steak or a tender man, while at the same time tender will specify the steak or man in question. We also saw that the shift in the meaning of square in a square person or a square foot is brought about by the interaction between the nominal referent’s properties and those of the determinant. Moreover, in some cases the precise meaning of a word or phrase is determined more by the verbal environment than by the parameters of the lexical entry, as in the case of white in white wine (cf. supra 4.1.1.), which is what Sinclair (1998: 6) calls a “semantic reversal”. From a linguistic point of view, these semantic shifts can be at least partly predicted by a corpus-based analysis of the word’s collocations (cf. Sinclair 1998; Deignan 2006). 4.2.2  The framing role of the verbal context Thus the simple linking together of two notions produces an effect on their semantic values, due to their respective properties. In the examples we have looked at, the term which triggered the variation and meaning specification of the adjective was identifiable and located in the immediate vicinity since it involved a noun determined by the adjective. But there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between the elements which interact and it is not always one unit which acts upon another unit. In effect, a

 Stéphane Robert

preceding utterance (no longer simply a preceding unit) can orient the value of a following term or utterance: the meaning of setting in I’m going to change the setting will vary according to whether it follows the sentence your ring looks very old-fashioned or this scenery doesn’t seem quite right for Shakespeare. Similarly, the verbal context can largely constrain the value of a unit or a whole phrase. Thus the whole meaning of he laid the table will vary according to whether one is talking about a child or a woodworker. Even if the terms “child” or “woodworker” were not explicitly mentioned in the context, the context nonetheless functions as a thematic landmark.

4.2.3  Interactions between syntax and semantics Grammatical factors also affect terms’ values. To mention only a few examples, in French word order plays a role in specifying the meanings of units, as can be seen in the opposition between un homme grand “a tall man” (physical value of the adjective) and un grand homme “a great man” (appreciative value of the adjective), the place of the adjective thus plays a semantic role in French which constrains its behavior (shown by the fact that *la verte herbe lit. “the grass green” is impossible, the adjective can only follow the noun as in l’herbe verte whereas English shows the exact reverse) and produces meaning shifts: because of the adjective’s location, in un bel imbécile (“a great fool”), bel does not designate a physical quality but serves as an intensifier for imbécile (as in English, where to obtain a positive reading for great, it would have to follow the noun: this fool is great). Similarly, the plural can also produce semantic linkage. Thus in English the word term has numerous possible meanings: it can designate a “word” (as in the expression a technical term) or an “end” (as in to put a term to one’s life), it can also refer to an expected end, a qualitative meaning (to be born at term) (cf. Robert 1999). The simple use of the plural, terms, produces semantic effects as it implies fragmentation which renders the word countable, and thus leads to its taking on the meaning “relations” as in to be on good terms with someone, or “conditions”: the terms of the contract. As terms referring to a quality are not fragmentable (cf. *whitenesses), the plural thus eliminates the qualitative interpretation of term. In general, lexical and grammatical factors interact and mutually condition each other. For a construction 〈verb + to + complement〉, the nature of the introductory verb constrains the choice and the grammatical category of the complement: take to sub-selects an activity, whereas go to sub-selects a place. The semantics of the verb thus limits the choice of complement by creating both syntactic constraints (for take to to be able to select an entity as complement, the preposition could not directly follow the verb, as that position would be occupied by the beneficiary; He took John to the zoo vs. He took to swimming in the morning) as well as “semantic isotopics”. However, as these examples show, the lexical semantics (the value of the introductory verb) also specifies the semantic value of the syntactic construction (value of the complement introduced by to). These interactions between semantics and grammar are also visible



Words and their meanings 

in the syntax of metaphors, as shown by Deignan (2006) through analysis of a large corpus. For instance in Spanish (Balbachan 2006), the metaphorical expression matar el tiempo (lit. “killing time”) implies both a selectional constraint violation and a syntactic anomaly (the absence of the preposition “a”). In French, depending on whether they are used metaphorically or not, the following movement verbs have different syntactic constructions, with different prepositions: one says courir vers la maison “run towards the house” but à la victoire “(run) to victory”, nager en piscine “swim in a pool” but dans le bonheur. lit. “(swim) in(to) happiness”. As shown by Yaguello (1998: 98–106), figurative expressions have their own syntax: although in French one can say elle a l’oreille fine (lit. “she has a fine ear”, meaning “she hears well”) or elle a le coeur gros (lit. “she has a big heart”, meaning “she is sad”), the constructions son oreille est fine (lit. “her ear is thin”) or son coeur est gros (lit. “her heart is big”) are impossible with a figurative reading, whereas they are acceptable if the terms are taken literally: son oreille est fine (“her ear is thin”) which is constructed, and interpreted, in the same way as ses yeux sont bleus (“her eyes are blue”). What is at play here is that in the figurative sense, it is not the body part which presents the predicated property, but rather the quality associated with it, hearing for ear or feelings for the heart. However, body parts, as we mentioned above, belong to the category of inalienable possessions having specific syntactic properties which are not found in the metaphorical or metonymical uses of body parts in French (cf. 2.1.1. je me suis lavé les mains/j’ai lavé ma voiture). Similarly, whereas by metonymy one may say in French il a la gâchette facile (lit. “he has an easy trigger”, meaning “he is trigger-happy”), one cannot really say *sa gâchette est facile (lit. “his trigger is easy”). Thus the figure leaves a trace in the syntactic constraints. More generally, the corpus-based analysis of Hunston & Francis (2000) and Deignan (2006) have shown an interesting point for the disambiguation of polysemy: the different meanings of polysemous words have a tendency to be realized in distinctive grammatical patterns. Let us note that the interaction between syntax and semantics can happen retroactively. In French, pied-de-biche rouillé (lit. “foot-of-doe rusted” meaning “rusty crowbar”), the (postponed) adjective retroactively converts the preceding expression from a genitive construction into a compound noun referring to a tool. Thus the factors that determine the meaning of a term vary in their nature. They can be either linguistic or pragmatic, and generally belong to an incidence domain which is also variable: their scope can cover a word, a group of words, or a whole sentence. The diversity of a term’s specifying factors (context, units, grammatical constructions, sentences) and their variable scope (incidence on the following unit or on the sentence as a whole) present a difficulty when one tries to model the processes of construing meaning in discourse. However, the different factors that specify a term’s meaning in discourse follow regular processes which are based upon a general mechanism that Culioli calls “repérage” (anchoring) (Culioli 1982). This anchoring is most

 Stéphane Robert

probably a fundamental cognitive mechanism, also at work in construing the figure and ground, topic and focus in language, as well as in visual perception. The anchoring process sets up a relationship between two terms through which one of the terms is taken as an anchor point for localizing (in its abstract sense) the other term. Thus a term is located in reference to another term which serves as its reference point and this relative localization of one term in reference to another produces new determinations. These “terms” can be of varying natures and dimensions: notions (through the different elements in the lexicon, such as a name in relation with an adjective for example), temporal reference points (a moment in time), or subjective ones (a subject) but also topic and focus, propositions, sentences, or even a word’s prototypical meanings (in relation to its contextual meaning). These reference relations between an utterance’s terms produce contextual links, activate meaning attractors, create semantic isotopics and specify word meanings.

4.2.4  Some semantic mechanisms at the utterance level One can characterize some of the different semantic mechanisms operating at the utterance level and producing semantic variations. The following list is, of course, not exhaustive. Profiling active zones As shown by Langacker (1991a: 189–201), different semantic components of a word can be activated, depending on the context. For instance, in the following two sentences, different parts of the window are activated:

(1) He cleaned the window



(2) He opened the window

Because of the semantics of the verb, (1) refers more specifically to the glass of the window, whereas (2) draws more attention to the frame of the window. Therefore, two different zones of the word’s meaning are profiled in the different sentences, for which two different synonyms could be used. Constructions and coercion The grammatical context can at times cause the language-user to reinterpret all or parts of the semantic features of a lexeme that appears in it. This phenomenon has been referred to by computational and generative linguists as “coercion” and was mainly studied for aspectual shifts (Pustejovsky & Bouillon 1996; De Swart 1998). Consider a sentence like (3), taken from DeVelle (2003):

(3) The tourist photographed the sunset until nightfall.



Words and their meanings 

The verb to photograph normally refers to a punctual event, as well as the singular object (the sunset); however, the adverbial until implies duration. The conflict between the two different aspectual specifications causes the verb to be reinterpreted as referring to an iterative process. This repetitive effect is absent both from verbs referring to a durative activity such as in The tourist watched the sunset until nightfall and in the other uses (i.e., without the adverbial until) of the verb to photograph. The aspectual value of to photograph has been coerced by the durative adverbial. In cognitive semantics, this phenomenon is considered an effect of a more general principle: (grammatical) constructions have meanings distinct from those of words and these meanings interact with the meaning of the words (see Goldberg 1995).

(4) As they have waved us along the raised causeway and into the rocky cleft …

In this sentence, the particular interpretation of the predicate as “to signal permission to move to a place by waving” is produced by the so-called “caused-motion” construction applied to the verb to wave. Michaelis (2003) considers that there is a general override principle stating that “if lexical and structural meaning conflict, the semantic specifications of the lexical element conform to those of the grammatical structure with which that lexical item is combined”. This principle is illustrated by the interpretation of a sentence like They have good soups there. The nominal construction which licences the combination of a noun and a plural suffix –s requires that its nominal head denote a count entity. While soup, as a liquid, is prototypically viewed as a mass, the noun soup, when combined with the plural construction as here, receives the individual construal associated with count entities, and is thereby seen as denoting a portion or type (Michaelis 2003: 172). Semantic shift More generally, Talmy indicates that ‘when the specifications of two forms in a sentence are in conflict, one kind of reconciliation is for the specification of one of the forms to change so as to come into accord with the other form. This change of accommodation is termed a shift.’  (Talmy 2000: 324)

Talmy (2000: 324–336) distinguishes different types of shifts and also various other processes for resolving semantic conflicts (blends, juxtapositions, schema juggling). I would like to mention just one example of semantic shift which enabled me to represent the connections at work between the linear axis of the sentence and the depth dimension of language (Robert 2003).

 Stéphane Robert

When Balzac describes Eugenie Grandet as a poor rich heiress (une riche et pauvre héritière), the reader reinterprets the two contradictory adjectives either by displacing the contradiction temporally (she is potentially rich as a future heiress but is currently poor), or by giving poor a subjective reading (“unhappy”) instead of an objective one (“who isn’t rich”), i.e., by displacing the adjective’s meaning onto the modal plane. The reader thus carries out a change in the reference point which shifts the meaning of the adjective from one plane onto another. This reference change makes it possible for the meaning to follow another path in the depth of language. This semantic process can be schematized as in Figure 7:

language depth

utterance shifting Figure 7.  Shift in language depth.

4.3  Semantic layering Because of the polysemy of words and the “depth dimension” of language, in some utterances it is possible to activate several meanings of the same word. This sort of semantic layering is the mainspring of rhetoric, puns, and also of advertising, as Grunig (1990) has shown, from whom the following examples are taken. One example is the advertisement for a brand of pochettes d’emballage (wrapping bags): Ces sacs qui nous emballent, literally “Those bags that wrap us up”, which can also figuratively mean “Those bags which delight us”. The advertisement thus plays on the two meanings of the French verb emballer, which has a literal meaning, that of wrapping something up, and the figurative one of delighting someone, similar to the slightly different English figurative meaning of wrap as in They’re completely wrapped up in each other. A possible English rendering of the advertisement would be “Wrap yourself up in these bags”. A second example is an advertisement for an oven which runs Mettez-lui une grosse tarte, which means “Put a big pie in it” but also “Give it a big slap”. These phenomena of semantic layering can cover several terms: this entails several isotopics being constructed within a single sentence. The following advertising slogan, which actually pertains to a type of car, thus plays on a double isotopic (see Fig. 8): Quand je vois du trafic, je sors mon automatique, which can be almost directly translated into English by “When I see traffic, I take out my automatic”.



Words and their meanings  Quand je vois du trafic, je sors mon automatique contrebande (“contraband”) circulation (“traffic”)

revolver automobile

Figure 8.  Semantic layering (activation of two isotopics).

Note that the two meanings are not actually activated at once: it takes time for the (French) reader to realize that the intended meaning (car) is not the first one that came to mind (gun) (as the word trafic is not usually applied to driving conditions, contrary to English). In advertisements, the illustration often triggers the activation of the second meaning as is the case in this example. The second isotopic is certainly the least probable as the meaning of trafic for “too many cars” remains marginal in French, just as the nominalization of the adjective automatique (again, contrary to English), but this isotopic is activated by the illustration that accompanies the advertisement: the association between the universes of the two isotopics is probably not without psychological effects. Thus the two paths activated in the depth of language interact (Fig. 9): language depth

isotopic 1 isotopic 2

utterance Figure 9.  Activation of two paths in the language depth.

Another kind of semantic layering is produced by replacing a word in a set expression such as a proverb, the title of a movie or a famous song. One example is the advertisement for a cigarette brand called Kool: Some like it Kool which is a play on the title of the film Some like it hot. Another example is the advertisement for “Dim” hosiery: en avril ne te découvre pas d’un Dim, based on an alliterative French proverb warning against the sudden return of cold weather in springtime, en avril ne te découvre pas d’un fil “in April, don’t remove a stitch (of clothing)”. The insertion of a single term (Kool or Dim) in the utterance activates two utterances, the actual slogan and the backgrounded proverb, thereby creating layers of meaning with semantic interaction between the two utterances. Thus we can see that the end of the utterance is the privileged location for what I call “semantic bombs” whose effects are not additional as they induce phenomena of meaning restructuring, resonance, diffusion and layering: on the different non linear meaning factors, one may consult Robert (1999 and 2003).

 Stéphane Robert

5.  Conclusion Because of the absence of one-to-one relations between forms and meanings in language, linguistic units are by nature polysemous; furthermore they are caught up in a fabric of various associations (the language depth) and serve as representation triggers; lastly, linguistic units are semantically deformable: when they are inserted in an utterance, the verbal and situational contexts act upon their meaning. This plasticity of meaning in words makes for a functional optimality of linguistic systems by conferring upon them remarkable referential power and adaptability. It probably also plays a role of cognitive optimization through memory storing economy. This deformability of linguistic units comes nonetheless with an important drawback for communication as it generates ambiguities, sources of misunderstandings. It is then through the progressive construal of meaning over the whole utterance that the meanings of terms are stabilized, through relation processes which constantly intervene during discourse. But this meaning stabilization makes use of a construction dynamic and interpretative adjustments whose results are never guaranteed. Which shows that language is the seat of opposing forces which confer a particular power upon it, and where the speaker is at once the driver and the passenger.

References Allègre, C. 1995. La défaite de Platon ou la science du XXe siècle. Paris: Fayard. Arnaud, P.J.L. 1997. Les Ratés de la dénomination individuelle: Typologie des lapsus par substitution de mots. In C. Boisson & P. Thoiron (Eds), 307–332. Balbachan, F. 2006. Killing time: Metaphors and their implications in lexicon and grammar. metaphorik.de 10 (http://www.metaphorik.de/10/index.htm). Berlin, B. & Paul, K. 1969. Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. Boisson, C. & Thoiron, P. (Eds). 1997. Autour de la dénomination [Travaux du C.R.T.T]. Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon. Brown, C. 2005a. Hand and arm. In Haspelmath et al. (Eds), 522–525. Brown, C. 2005b. Finger and hand. In Haspelmath et al. (Eds), 526–529. Bruner, J. 1992. Acts of Meaning. Harvard MA: Harvard University Press. Chukwu, U. 1997. Les verbes ibo pour [acheter]. In C. Boisson & P. Thoiron (Eds), 71–106. Corbin, D. & Temple, M. 1994. Le monde des mots et des sens construits: catégories sémantiques, catégories référentielles. Cahiers de lexicologie 65(2): 5–28. Creissels, D. 2001. Auxiliarisation et expression de significations aspecto-temporelles en tswana, conference at the Rivaldi seminar, Paris, France, 14 juin 2001. Culioli, A. 1982. Rôle des représentations métalinguistiques en syntaxe [Collection ERA 642]. Paris: Université Paris 7. Culioli, A. 1990. Pour une linguistique de l’énonciation. Opérations et représentations, Tome I.  Paris: Ophrys.



Words and their meanings 

Deignan, A. 2006. The grammar of linguistic metaphors. In Corpus-Based Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy, A. Stefanowitsch & S.T. Gries (Eds), 106–122. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. De Swart, H. 1998. Aspect shift and coercion. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 16: 347–385. DeVelle, S. 2003. On-line effects of semantic coercion: Simple versus enriched compositional processing. Paper presented at the 14th Australian Language and Speech Conference. The University of Queensland. Fillmore, C. 1977. Scenes-and-Frames Semantics. In Linguistics Structures Processing, A. Zampolli (Ed.), 55–81. Amsterdam: North Holland. Fillmore, C. 1982. Frame semantics. In Linguistics in the Morning Calm. Linguistic Society of Korea (Ed.), 111–38. Seoul: Hanshin. Goldberg, A. 1995. Constructions. A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press. Greimas, A.J. 1966. Sémantique structurale. Paris: Larousse. Grunig, B.N. 1990. Les mots de la publicité. Paris: Presses du CNRS. Haspelmath, M., Dryer, M., Gil, D. & Comrie, B. 2005. The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS). Oxford: OUP. Honeste, M.L. 1997. De la dénomination aux stratégies argumentatives. In C.  Boisson & P. Thoiron (Eds), 279–306. Hunston, S. & Francis, G. 2000. Pattern Grammar: A Corpus-driven Approach to the Lexical Grammar of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kleiber, G. 1999. La sémantique du prototype. Catégories et sens lexical. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Kövecses, Z. & Radden, G. 1998. Metonymy: Developing a cognitive linguistic view. Cognitive Linguistics 9(1): 37–77. Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. 1993. The contemporary theory of metaphor. In Metaphor and Thought, A. Ortony (Ed.), 202–251. Cambridge: CUP. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. & Núñez, R.E. 2000. Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being. New York NY: Basic Books. Langacker, R.W. 1987 and 1991a. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, 2 Vols. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Langacker, R.W. 1991b. Cognitive grammar. In Linguistic Theory and Grammatical Description, F.G. Droste & J.E. Joseph (Eds), 275–306. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lee, D. 2001 [2004]. Cognitive Linguistics. An Introduction. Oxford: OUP. Lichtenberk, F. 1991. Semantic change and heterosemy in grammaticalization. Language 67(3): 475–509. Lipka, L. 1990a. An Outline of English Lexicology. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Lipka, L. 1990b. Metaphor and metonymy as productive processes on the level of the lexicon. In Proceedings of the XIVth International Congress of Linguistics, W. Bahner, J. Schildt & D. Viehweger (Eds), 1207–1210. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Martin, W. 2001. A frame-based approach to polysemy. In Polysemy in Cognitive Linguistics [CILT 177], H. Cuyckens & B. Zawada (Eds), 57–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

 Stéphane Robert Michaelis, L. 2003. Word meaning, sentence meaning, and syntactic meaning. In Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics, H.  Cuykens, R.  Dirven & J.R.  Taylor (Eds), 163–210. Berlin: Mouton de Guyter. Ozanne-Rivierre, F. 1999. Spatial orientation in some Austronesian languages. In Language Diversity and Cognitive Representations, C. Fuchs & S. Robert (Eds), 73–84. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Paprotté, W. 1998. Word sense disambiguisation. In Contrastive Lexical Semantics, E. Weigand (Ed.), 243–262. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pérennec, M. 1997. Le mot complexe en allemand. In C. Boisson & P. Toiron (Eds), 205–220. Pustejovsky, J. & Bouillon, P. 1996. Aspectual coercion and logical polysemy. In Lexical Semantics. The Problem of Polysemy, J.  Pustejovsky & B.  Boguraev (Eds), 133–162. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rastier, F. 1987. Sémantique interprétative. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Robert, S. 1999. Cognitive invariants and linguistic variability: From units to utterance. In Language Diversity and Cognitive Representations, C.  Fuchs & S.  Robert (Eds), 21–35. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Robert, S. 2003. L’épaisseur du langage et la. linéarité de l’énoncé: Vers un modèle énonciatif de production. In Parcours énonciatifs et parcours interprétatifs – Théories et applications, A. Ouattara (Ed.), 255–274. Paris: Ophrys. Roulon-Doko, P. 2003. Les parties du corps et l’expression de l’espace. In Perspectives synchroniques sur la grammaticalisation. Polysémie, transcatégorialité et echelles syntaxiques, S. Robert (Ed.), 69–84. Leuven: Peeters. Shipley, J.T. 1984. The Origins of English Words. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Sinclair, J. 1998. The lexical item. In Constrative Lexical Semantics, E.  Weigand (Ed.), 1–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Talmy, L. 1978. Figure and ground in complex sentences. In Universals of Human Languages, Vol. 4, J. Greenberg, C. Ferguson & E. Moravcsik (Eds), 625–649. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Talmy, L. 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics (I & II). Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Traugott, E.C. & Hopper, P. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. Vandeloise, C. 1986. L’Espace en français. Paris: Le Seuil. Victorri, B. 1997. La polysémie: Un artefact de la linguistique? Revue de sémantique et pragmatique 2(2): 41–62. Vidalenc, J.L. 1997. Quelques remarques sur la métaphore comme outil de dénomination dans un corpus d’histoire des sciences. In C. Boisson, & P. Thoiron (Eds), 133–156. Yaguello, M. 1998. Petits faits de langue. Paris: Le Seuil.

The typology of semantic affinities Bernard Pottier

Université Paris Sorbonne, Institut de France, Fédération TUL Following previous research by the author, this chapter shows how semantic proximity (or proxemy) may result from meaning divergence in one lexical item (polysemy) or from meaning convergence of different lexical items (parasemy). Polysemous variations are explained by the interplay of several parameters: domains of instantiation, synaesthesic fields, and universal visualized cognitive schemas. In parasemy, a referential domain is conceived and uttered through several optional solutions, i.e., polysemiosis, within one and the same language as well as crosslinguistically (e.g., correspondences between proverbs in spite of distinct cultural environments). The paper shows how taxemic paradigms are expressed by roots, stems, classifiers, determiners, a compromise between the necessary multiplicity of lexical items and memory limitations. Keywords:  cognitive schema; conceptualization; mental imagery; noeme; parasemy; polysemiosis; polysemy; proxemy; taxeme

1.  Introduction The (relatively) recent interest of American linguists such as Fillmore & Kay (1996), Lakoff & Johnson (1980), Langacker (1990) or Talmy (2000) for cognitive research, as well as the European tradition initiated by Gustave Guillaume as early as 1920, which propose an indepth semantic reflection about grammatical mechanisms, and, later on, lexical mechanisms, put to the fore the prevalence of the mental level within the enunciative process. The studies of individual languages provide a very rich data of phenomena which, although specific to certain areas, disclose, nevertheless, general tendencies at a certain level of abstraction. Such is the case of semantic affinities between grammatical and lexical elements all along their historical evolution as well as in their synchronical interrelationships. In line with previous works (Pottier 1955, 1992, 1999, 2000), the present study offers a catalogue of the different mental processes at work in the domain of semantic affinities that can be a useful tool for crosslinguistic comparison in future research. Each process is named, described, visualized by use of dynamic graphs whenever possible, and exemplified.

 Bernard Pottier

“Semantic affinities” may result from a divergence (i.e., when a sign has several values, that is polysemy) or from a convergence (i.e., several signs share several common values, that is parasemy). This general phenomenon is called proxemy (or semantic proximity, cf. Gaume et al., this volume.), and can be represented and illustrated as follows (Fig. 1):

Si 1 Si

**

Sds POLYSEMY (of one sign)

Si 2 Si 3 PARASEMY (of several signs)

PROXEMY Signified relations top: of the stairs, of the milk, of a bottle

to spoil ~ to damage ~ to ruin

Figure 1.  Representation of proxemy.

2.  Semantic divergence or polysemy 2.1  Polysemy and homonymy Let us consider the utterance: Iˉputˉtheˉfileˉwithˉtheˉplane

The co-occurrence of two polysemous terms leads to a reciprocal selection of likelihood: file: “tool”ˉratherˉthanˉ“folder” plane:ˉ“tool”ˉratherˉthanˉ“tree”ˉorˉ“aircraft”

The semic affinities between these two terms, which lead to a likely interpretation, are called semic harmony or isosemy. It is interesting to note that the semic density plays a part in the phenomenon of polysemy in which the terms that are less dense and those that are very dense are the



The typology of semantic affinities 

most subject to variation. The first ones, because their intension is weak, have a great extension and the second ones which are full of imagery, are easily metaphorically transposed (Fig. 2): —

+

to go, to work, to put, to run

consult, perforate

my hat has gone to put an end colour that runs in the wash the lift isn’t working

burst, feed

her heart was ready to burst to feed the mind

Figure 2.  Representation of semic density.

Polysemy is called homonymy when the signifieds have no connected semantic relations (Fig. 3):

Si

file

kind of tool folder

Sd 1 Sd 2 plane

kind of tool tree

Figure 3.  Representation of homonymy.

When comparing the lexicon of several languages, one notices that words share a number of “semantic molecules” which correspond to the intersection of two semantic domains (cp. in François, this volume, where the term colexification is proposed, and the example of English straight and French droit).

2.2  The role of cultural habits Cultural habits are situated between the Universal and the Individual. The Universal refers to the mental imagery linked to nature’s phenomena, the human body, the “whole/part” relations, everyday objects, fundamental actions. The Individual depends on each person’s own history (even the existential traumas). The Cultural characterizes groups, and concerns colours, forms, beliefs, good and evil, life cycles. The prototypical representations, such as the essential forms of the moon or of a bottle, evoke cultural orthomorphy.

 Bernard Pottier

So do the connotative semes included in the signified of certain signs: “Friday the thirteenth” (ill-fated), “to have a yellow streak” (bad), “touch wood” or “knock on wood!” (good). They are latent elements of the virtueme of any sign: “to have two left feet” (bad), “touch wood!” (good).

2.3  The parameter of the domains of instantiation A morpheme (be it a lexeme or a grammeme) can alter according to the domains of instantiation it applies to. These variations are characterized by their use on a regular basis, e.g.,: Existential Spatial Temporal Notional Modal

theˉvaccineˉtook Johnˉtakesˉaˉbook itˉtookˉmeˉtwoˉhours toˉtakeˉaˉdecision IˉtookˉyouˉforˉanˉEnglishman

Iˉsawˉhimˉinˉperson inˉJapan inˉtheˉnight expertˉinˉeconomics inˉmyˉopinion

2.4  The parameter of synaesthesic fields This parameter concerns the numerous lexemes (often belonging to the adjectivisation category) whose values depend on the sensorial modality which is highlighted: Sight Smell Taste Hearing Touch

douxˉauˉregardˉ(fr.) unˉdouxˉparfum uneˉpommeˉdouce uneˉdouceˉmélodie laˉpeauˉdouce

(soft) toˉsmellˉsweet sweetˉcream sweetˉtoˉhear (soft)

2.5  Mental schemas Mental schemas, as cognitive studies have repeatedly shown, are an essential element of the semantic path which leads to polysemy. As I proposed in former studies,1 looking for more abstract representations than the highly iconic ones of the American cognitive tradition, four types of mental schemas (Fig. 4) can be distinguished, even though it is not always easy to oppose them. They are referred to as dominants, and they are useful for the understanding of the mental phenomena.

.  Many of the concepts already proposed in Pottier (1955) meet current research in cognitive linguistics: “schèmes représentatifs” is parallel to mental schemas, “mouvement” to trajector, “limite” to landmark, “point de visée” to viewpoint. For event conceptual schemas, see Pottier (1992).



The typology of semantic affinities  VISUEME

IDEEME

NOEME

SCHEMA

entity

abstraction

morphodynamic

event

bridge

middle

separate

modify

+ –

Figure 4.  Mental schemas.

2.5.1  The visueme A visueme is a mental representation which selects, among the semic constellation of an entity or its characterizations (properties, activities, location) a semantic feature meant to be metaphorical and considered to be salient. Cultural prototype is a particular instance among others, e.g.: Theˉhouseˉdoor theˉmiddleˉofˉtheˉcentury Toˉshutˉtheˉdoorˉonˉanyˉdiscussion I’mˉinˉtheˉmiddleˉofˉreading

In several writing systems, the pictogram of “water” (three undulating lines in parallel), makes us understand why a same sign can refer to “ water”, “tears”, “hair”, “grass”.

2.5.2  The ideeme The ideeme, as a notional concept, is a mental representation based on a typical abstraction that evokes properties, activities, general relations and can be represented as in Figure 5. ‘pend-’ pendant la séance (Fr.) la solución queda pendiente (Sp.) the pending authorization o nosso caso continua pendente (Ptg.) ‘from’ In several languages a same sign can mean ‘trunk’, ‘beginning’, ‘source’, ‘because’

‘duality’ In several languages polysemies are mentioned: ‘two’, ‘opposed’, ‘rival’, ‘companion’ can be expressed by a same sign (cf. Sakhno & Tersis, this vol.). Fr. ‘contre l’amiral’ (as opposed to), ‘contre-amiral’ (‘next to’ in military rank) nú

‘active part’ nú (Gbaya Roulon p.c.)

Figure 5.  Representation of ideemes.

man’s mouth edge of knife selvage of woman’s wrap point of needle

 Bernard Pottier

2.5.3  The noeme The noeme is a component of a noemia, or a kinetic and often a dynamic three phase mental schema (the trimorph) of the morphology of an event. It is useful for numerous instantiations, whether lexemic or grammemic, such as in the following examples (Fig. 6): 1

2

3

1 to enter

2 3 to stay to leave

Figure 6.  Representation of noemes.

Below in Figure 7 are examples of noemes and their metaphorizations: frôler (Fr.) ‘to skim’

S: frôler un mur (to brush against a wall) N-M: frôler le ridicule (to border ridicule) T: frôler les 10 secondes au 100 mètres (to run a 100 metres in under 10 seconds)

to catch

S: to catch something (‘grasp’) N-M: to catch the wind (‘benefit’) M: I caught a few words (‘understand’)

+

Figure 7.  Examples of noemes and their metaphorizations.

2.5.4  The analytic schema The analytic schema (AS) is a mental representation of a conceived event, from the most simple to the most complex, which combines noemes. The following are some graphic representations together with the corresponding examples (Figure 8): A

A+

>>>> a

b (A turns red) a to become b

====== B A to cut B

A

A

A to wish ([A] to leave) A+

A A to drink a beer A to drink in somebody’s words

A to eat a cake A to eat one’s words

Figure 8.  Examples of analytic schemas.

The following example from Latin: pugnas bibit aure vulgu (bibit = “drinks”) “the crowd is all ears to the battle narratives” is also an illustration of the left part of the above graphic representation.



The typology of semantic affinities 

The difference between the above mentioned two types of activities can be characterized as follows: ReceptiveˉpositionˉofˉA

ActiveˉpositionˉofˉA+

The Chinese word miè: “turn off, eliminate, be stifled, erase the traces, annihilate …” reminds Portuguese apagar which means “erase the blackboard” as well as “turn off the light” or “eliminate a memory” (Fig. 9): A+

>> /existence/ → /non-existence/ Figure 9.  The analytic schema of Chinese miè and Portugese apaga.

3.  Semantic convergence or Parasemy 3.1  From referentiality to signs: Polysemiosis When the enunciator uses a referent ℜ (entity or event), it undergoes a process of conceptualization (Co). Conceptualizations may be numerous and therefore may lead to choosing, in an utterance or a chain of utterances, several signs, successively, for a same referent (coreferentiality). We deal here with polysemiosis. Polysemiosis may concern the lexicon, leading to cases of polynomies as in the following example: “It’sˉaˉsortˉofˉbrochure,ˉofˉleafletˉaboutˉtheˉcityˉmainˉmonuments” or it may concern different syntactic constructions, named polysyntaxies, for equivalent conceptualizations as in: “-ˉLook!ˉItˉstoppedˉraining. -ˉFinally! -ˉYes,ˉitˉisˉnotˉrainingˉanymore”

All co-referential signs in a particular discourse form some sort of a paradigm that corresponds to the parasemiosis phenomenon (Fig. 10).

3.2  Semiotization Semiotization corresponds to the need to give a name to conceptualized referents. “Immediate”, spontaneous naming, for instance when we call dog an animal accompanying a blind person to guide him, shows a relation of orthonymy.

 Bernard Pottier Coa

Sign a

Cob

Sign b

ℜ

PARASEMY

POLYSEMIOSIS Figure 10.  Representation of polysemiosis.

Some parasemies, i.e., when several signs have several common values, are every day rhetorical figures (including tropes), such as metonymy (London rejects the treaty), metaphor (the elder daughter of the Church stands for France, land of the free for America), hyperonymy and hyponymy (this dog is a mammal whose breed is the spaniel), or peronymy (the baker’s oldest son). For the receiver, in a given environment (situation, context, co-text), if a signified appears to be “immediate”, it is referred to as orthosemy (London for the city where the Tower Bridge is located). Any other intention causes a metasemy (London for the U.K.). Parasemy is clearly explained by the polynomy of a noeme or of a conceptual schema: to spring up, to emit, elocution, to talk ‘impassable’ opaque, waterproof, watertight, airtight (“not allowing x, y, z to pass”)

to come close, to near, to skim to skim through a book to come very close to the 5 meter mark (sports) the country is nearing disaster; my book is nearing completion “il était difficile de passer de l’un à l’autre sans friser une chute qui pouvait entraîner dans l’abîme commun” (G.Sand, in Frantext) ([N.d.T.] “it was difficult to go from one to the other without being on the verge of falling into the common abyss”.) Figure 11.  Polynomy of a noeme.

The same phenomenon also occurs with grammatical elements: Descartes

→ x (x) accordingˉto Descartes; selonˉDescartes,ˉd’après Descartes, suivantˉDescartes,ˉàˉlaˉsuiteˉdeˉDescartesˉ(Fr.)



The typology of semantic affinities 

In the context of dictionaries, parasynonymic series can be found, either in dictionaries of synonyms, or in monolingual dictionaries that have cross references (i.e., to get damaged, to go bad, to spoil, to ruin), or in bilingual dictionaries where there is an attempt to grasp the semantic field of the word to be translated by using several terms in the target language. Signs whose signifieds have in common one conceptual element show a common parasemy as in e.g., to grow, to increase, to raise. This common parasemy could be written as follows: /goes towards the +/. In certain constructions, there is a possibility to alternate between lexemes: anxietyˉgrows/raises/increases,

while in others, the alternation is not accepted or hardly: Peterˉgrowsˉ(*increases) Theˉpricesˉareˉincreasingˉ(*areˉgrowing)

In French, the term voire functions as a semantic reagent of signified affinity and organizes terms on a progressive axis, similarly to “even” in the English translations: ilˉcomprend l’admiration séculaires

voire voire voire

approuveˉ(heˉunderstands,ˉheˉevenˉapprovesˉofˉit) l’éblouissementˉ(admirationˉevenˉbedazzlement) millénairesˉ(centennialˉevenˉmillennial)

This use is comparable to that of “pour ne pas dire” (“if not to say”) in the following examples: “avarié, pour ne pas dire pourri” (spoilt, if not to say rotten), “passionné, pour ne pas dire exalté” (passionate if not to say elated). A similar case is found in English with “indeed”: I’m astounded, indeed disgusted I feel that he is right, indeed I know he is He was happy, indeed delighted, to hear the news.

The parasemic path from parasemy (also known as parasynonymy) to synonymy can be represented as follows, where Signified 1 is included in Signified 2. Si 1

Si 2

⊃

Sd 1

Sd 2

Parasemy ‘to spoil ~ to damage’

Figure 12.  Representation of parasynonymy.

Synonymy French = franco-(phone)

 Bernard Pottier

3.3  The fields homology: Co-hyponymy and co-semy When a concept is applied to different domains, the selected terms are in a co-hyponymic relationship with the concept because they share, at least, the nuclear content of this concept. Thus,//to bring something back into its initial (good) state//which corresponds to a minimal analytic schema, can be formulated by the metaterm (ad-hoc hyperonym) //REPAIR//, and be realized, in the language, by co-semic lexemes such as: toˉcure toˉmend toˉrestore toˉresole ______ _______ ________ _______ MED. SEWING BUILD. SHOE

toˉbrightenˉup _______ COLOR

In the same way, the concept of//FILIATION//(an element stemming from a whole keeps some of the properties of the whole) may be formulated in different languages such as: “telˉpère,ˉtelˉfils”ˉ(Fr.) “deˉtalˉpalo,ˉtalˉastilla”ˉ(Sp.) “suchˉasˉtheˉtreeˉis,ˉsuchˉisˉtheˉfruit”

The /a little while ago/ concept is found in various adjectival constructions such as: Freshˉpaint,ˉfreshˉnews,ˉfreshˉtroops Newˉborn,ˉtheˉnewˉrich Inˉrecentˉyears,ˉhisˉmostˉrecentˉbook

Furthermore, the fields’ homology can be very abstract. It can be based on a synaesthesic backgroup, more or less clear depending on the culture, as is the case in the Taoist philosophy which contrasts two complementary principles: YANGˉ(+):ˉtheˉsun,ˉhard,ˉdry,ˉstable,ˉawaken,ˉman,ˉreality,ˉwhite,ˉdayˉ… YINˉ(–):ˉtheˉmoon,ˉsoft,ˉhumid,ˉvariable,ˉasleep,ˉwoman,ˉdream,ˉblack,ˉnightˉ…

3.4  Paradigmatic parasemy: The taxeme The taxeme is an element of sense recurring over a large paradigm whose forms are related by a minimum of semantic affinities. Crosslinguistically and within one language, the taxeme can be expressed by different forms. a. The taxeme can be represented by a root or a stem, what I call the morphosemy phenomenon. Such is the case of the consonantal roots in Semitic, such as the root KTB in Arabic: KaTaBa: “heˉwrote” KiTāB: “book”

KāTiB: “secretary,ˉwriter” ma-KTūB: “written”

and of the stem in many Indo-European languages: read,ˉreader,ˉreading,ˉreadable,ˉreadership



The typology of semantic affinities 

b. The taxeme can also be a word, which acquires a generic value when used in compound forms: open-:ˉopen-door,ˉopen-handed,ˉopen-hearted,ˉopen-necked,ˉopen-plan

In Chinese, the compound words clearly reveal the intersections of the signifieds. e.g., duì is part of the composition of a whole series of forms which have in common the concept of “duality”: duìchènˉ“symetric” duìdĕngˉ“equivalent” duìfāngˉ“adversary” duìhuàˉ“toˉenterˉintoˉdialogue” duìmiànˉ“across” duìshŏuˉ“rival” duìliánˉ“distich” duìzhàoˉ“toˉcompare”

c. The taxeme can also be a classificatory element, i.e., classifier, determiner, which applies to a whole series of lexemes. Chinese, numerous African and Amerindian languages are well known examples. A similar phenomenon occurs in European languages when the introducer of series of entities is selected as in the following examples: aˉbundleˉof:ˉfiles,ˉletters,ˉtickets,ˉsticks,ˉclothes,ˉnewspapers aˉwadˉof:ˉdocuments,ˉbanknotes,ˉtobacco aˉsliceˉof:ˉbread,ˉsausage,ˉmeat,ˉcake,ˉcredit,ˉluck,ˉaction,ˉfilm,ˉplay,ˉbook

In the individual and discursive realizations, a great variation can appear. In French, for instance, to indicate a very small quantity of concrete or abstract entities, the word zeste (zest) is attested in Frantext (http://www.frantext.fr/) in combination with the following words: citron,ˉfierté,ˉraison,ˉpassé,ˉdétritus,ˉcouperoseˉ(lemon,ˉproud,ˉreason,ˉpast,ˉlitter, blotches)

and soupçon (hint) with: rouille, réserve, détachement, désir, pleurésie, sourire, vitriol (rust, reserve, detachment, desire, pleurisy, smile, vitriol)

Both are found, together with larme (tear), in the following excerpt from Françoise Chandernagor’s novel L’Allée du Roi (1981; p. 293): “Ninon disait trouver elle-même dans ses “caprices”: un soupçon de désir, un zeste de plaisir et, au pis, une larme de repentir”.2

.  [N.d.T.] “Ninon said that even she could find in her own “whims”: a hint of desire, a zest of pleasure and, at the worst, a drop of repentance”.

 Bernard Pottier

A suffix can determine a specific characteristic of the lexeme: Sp.:

-adaˉ(cuttingˉobjects):ˉcuchillada,ˉestocada,ˉlanzada -azoˉ(bluntˉobjects):ˉcodazo,ˉmartillazo,ˉlatigazo

The capital letter at the beginning of proper names can be considered to be a class mark as well: Rose, Martin (a rose, a martin) and, without any possible opposition, Manchester or Cyprus. d. The above-mentioned Arabic root in (a) suggests a morphemic motivation of the invariable element KTB for a whole semantic field. Conversely, this semantic field is expressed in English by words without any formal link such as write, book, secretary, office, library. Such a phenomenon may be called lexemic dissemination which can be considered as an implicit taxeme, well perceived by the enunciator. French offers a good example of dissemination for the taxeme which alludes to /the sense of sight/. /∢/: v oir, regarder, miroir, lunette, télescope, œil, ophtalmologiste, loupe, observer, optique, aveugle, spectateur, scruter … (to see, to look, mirror, glasses, telescope, eye, ophthalmologist, magnifying glass, to observe, optical, blind, spectator, scrutinize …)

This is not mere speculation: we can notice that in the texts, there is a cooccurrence of many of these terms, as in the following example from Frantext: “Le médecin des yeux eût rougi de s’appeler œilliste (…); déjà la qualification d’oculiste, insuffisamment barbare, humilie ses prétentions: il est ophtalmologue”3  (Remy de Gourmont). “Ce regard jeté à la loupe sur mes moindres détours de pensée, cette scrutation (P. Bourget, Le Disciple 1889; p. 85). continue de mon être le plus caché …”4

4.  Conclusion Even though reflection and thought are built on theoretical reasoning, it is only when languages are embodied in texts that the detailed study of examples throws light on and justifies the initial hypotheses.

.  [N.d.T.] “The eye doctor would have been ashamed of being called eyeist (…); the designation oculist, not barbarian enough, already is a humiliation for his pretensions: he is ophthalmologist.” .  [N.d.T.] lit. “My thoughts being looked through a magnifying glass in the smallest detail, this continuous scrutinizing of my deepest inner self …”



The typology of semantic affinities 

The operations of semantic choice concern both the enunciator and the interpreting receiver, and these are constructed through mental schemas, several of which can be visualized on graphs. These schemas are approximations that can be compared with the ideograms of several ancient or modern writing systems, the catastrophe schemas in mathematics (Thom 1974), or the symbolic forms of various cultures. The specificity of each individual language does not contradict the supposedly universal thought mechanisms. Semantic typology is ground in the to-ings and froings between these two extreme poles.

References Base textuelle Frantext, (http://www.frantext.fr/) Fillmore, C.J. & Kay, P. 1996. Construction Grammar. Ms, University of California at Berkeley, Department of Linguistics. Guillaume, G. 1919. Le problème de l’article et sa solution dans la langue française. Paris: Hachette. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 1980 [2003]. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Langacker, R.W. 1999. Grammar and Conceptualization. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Pottier, B. 1955. Systématique des éléments de relation. Paris, thèse. (Also 1962; Paris : Klincksieck) Pottier, B. 1992. Sémantique générale. Paris: PUF. Pottier, B. 1995. Le cognitif et le linguistique [Acta Romanica Basiliensia, ARBA 3], Linguistique et modèles cognitifs: 175–199. Pottier, B. 1999 [1997]. Mental activities and linguistic structures. In Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Linguists, Paris 20–25 July 1997, B.  Caron (Ed.), paper No. 7. Oxford: Pergamon (Elsevier Science, CDRom). Pottier, B. 2000. Représentations mentales et catégorisations linguistiques. Louvain: Peeters. Talmy, L. 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Thom, R. 1974. Modèles mathématiques de la morphogenèse. Paris: Union Générale d’Editions.

Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change Around the eye* Peter Koch

University of Tübingen Using the methodology of diachronic cognitive onomasiology, as developed in two projects at Tübingen University, the study discusses polygenetic semantic parallels in semantic change, focussing on those that are due to fundamental cognitive constants. The cognitive and formal relations between a source and a target concept are identified through a two-dimensional grid. The approach is exemplified for the semantic domain of eye (eyelash, eyebrow, eyelid, and eyeball). The study provides a list of all the cognitive solutions to create lexical innovations chosen in the language sample. Together with cultural and linguistic categorization, it also explains the different options chosen by the languages for lexical conceptualisation and gives insight to the ongoing debate on linguistic relativity. Keywords:  body parts; cognition; contiguity; frame; metaphor; metonymy; onomasiology; polygenesis; semantic change; semantic parallels; typology

1.  Theoretical and methodological preliminaries 1.1  The search for semantic parallels Cognitive semantics has not only given a fresh impetus to synchronic, but also to diachronic linguistics, in so far as cognitive approaches to the description of metaphor, metonymy, subjectification, etc. shed new light on well-known problems of semantic change (cf. Blank & Koch 1999). As Lakoff & Johnson (1980) and Traugott (cf. recently Traugott & Dasher 2002) have shown mainly for vocabulary, and as Heine & Kuteva (2002) have shown mainly for grammar, but in part also for vocabulary, certain paths of change are of particular interest, especially those which are followed again and again when it comes to semantic change in language, and which therefore seem to point

*I would like to thank Martine Vanhove for her helpful suggestions as well as Sam Featherston for the stylistic revision of this paper.

 Peter Koch

to constant cognitive factors. Presumably these factors intervene in linguistic change like an invisible hand (in the sense of Keller 1994) and time and again produce similar results in a polygenetic fashion. If this were true, it would be much easier to predict lexical change (cf. Koch 1997; 2000: 75–81, 89–92; 2001a: 8–17, 25–31; 2003: 154–162, 2005a; Blank 2003). My paper is intended to show how diachronic cognitive onomasiology proceeds in this domain and what insights it offers. From both a theoretical and a methodological point of view, it is first of all necessary to discuss several questions: – – – – –

What would the results have to look like if the term “polygenesis” is to be applied legitimately (see immediately below and 1.2.)? Will our approach be semasiological or onomasiological (1.2.)? On the basis of what kinds of data can our hypotheses be checked (1.3)? What is lexical change (1.4.)? What kind of lexicological model are we to adopt (1.5.) to account for a realistic conception of lexical change (1.4.)?

When we began to study the designations of parts of the human body, we first established a project limited to Romance languages (decolar)1 and intended to analyse 14 languages or varieties in total in order to document the cognitive types present in the Romance area as completely as possible. Our second project, LexiTypeDia,2 is based on a worldwide sample of languages, and here, within the domain head, we describe designations of body parts with a different aim in mind: We check for semantic parallels in languages all over the world. According to our hypothesis, semantic parallels between languages may be due to fundamental cognitive constants (a). However, it is obvious that semantic parallels may also be triggered either by genetic kinship of languages (b) or by linguistic and cultural contact (c). Especially in case (c), we suppose semantic parallels to show a significant areal distribution. Since it is rather trivial to find semantic parallels in cognates belonging to genetically related languages (b), and since it is quite natural to find them in languages in contact (c), we have to radicalize our starting hypothesis: Semantic parallels arouse

.  The DECOLAR sample comprises the following Romance languages/language varieties/ language states: Catalan, Engadinian, Old French, Modern French, Friulian, Galician, Italian, Ladin, Occitan, Portuguese, Romanian, Sardinian (Campidanian), Sardinian (Logudorian), Spanish. For DECOLAR cf. Blank et al. (2000); Gévaudan et al. (2003). .  The data of LexiTypeDia will be presented and interpreted in Steinberg (in prep.). For LexiTypeDia cf. Koch & Steinkrüger (2001); Koch (2003); Mihatsch & Steinberg (2004) (especially Koch 2004a; Mihatsch & Dvořák 2004).



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

our interest only in so far as there is a chance of these having been triggered by cognitive constants and of being independent of linguistic kinship as well as of language contact. So we have to search for semantic parallels that are likely to be polygenetic in nature. In order to find this kind of results, we have to stick to a rigorous methodology, as described in 1.2.–1.5.

1.2  Onomasiology Our starting point has to be an onomasiological one. Onomasiology is like a sieve filtering out everything that corresponds to a pre-established criterion – the fact of designating a given concept – without our being able to manipulate the results. So we have to accept everything that is filtered out, whether it confirms our hypothesis or not. Onomasiology has a second advantage: It enables us to discover material that is interesting independently of any etymological relationship. In this way, we can postulate a potentially polygenetic evolution even within one and the same language family: (1) a. b. c.

LateˉLat.ˉciliumˉeyelashˉ<ˉLat.ˉciliumˉeyelid (henceˉtheˉdenominationsˉforˉeyelashˉinˉmanyˉRomance languages:ˉFr.ˉcil,ˉIt.ˉciglio,ˉetc.;ˉcf.ˉAppendixˉI) Occ.ˉparpèlhaˉeyelashˉ<ˉLat.ˉpalpebraˉeyelid Rom.ˉgeanăˉeyelashˉ<ˉRom.ˉgeanăˉeyelid

There is no etymological relation between the words Late Lat. cilium (1a), Occ. parpèlha (1b), and Rom. geană (1c), taken from three  – otherwise related  – Romance languages. Prima facie, their only common denominator is the fact that they designate the concept eyelash.3 Making some provisional reservations (might there be a typical “Romance” cognitive pattern eyelash ← eyelid?), we can consider these examples as cases of polygenetic semantic change (as we will see in 3.2., these reservations will turn out to be unnecessary). A further important advantage of our onomasiological approach is its conformity with the innovating speaker’s perspective (inasmuch as speakers innovate).4 Speakers do not intend to change the vocabulary of their language (cf. Coseriu 1958: 112, 116f., 127f.; Keller 1994: 24f., 112f.). They sometimes just innovate using a trope that makes communication more efficient, that improves their personal image, etc. (only in some cases will this innovation afterwards be adopted by the speech community). Speakers use innovating tropes to designate a particular concept, not to change the

.  Concepts are set in small capitals here. .  In fact, that is what they constantly do, even though I would insist myself on the fact that there are also hearer-induced innovations: cf. Koch (1999a: 155f.; 2001b: 226–228; 2004b: 42–45); Detges & Waltereit (2002: 155–169).

 Peter Koch

meaning of a word (cf. Koch & Oesterreicher 1996: 77f.; Koch 2001a: 8–11). So the motivation behind speaker-induced innovation is to express something and not to give an expression a different interpretation (even though the expression concerned actually undergoes a different interpretation). Consequently, the linguist who adopts the onomasiological perspective and asks him- or herself from which cognitive source a given lexical innovation was taken, puts him- or herself exactly in the innovating speaker’s place.

1.3  Language samples A second important aspect of our methodology is the reference to a pre-established sample of languages. The adequacy of the sample depends on the specific aims of a given project. In the DECOLAR project, as I have already noted, we want to document the cognitive types present in our Romance sample (in the following: “rom”; cf. n. 1) as completely as possible. Here, then, the focus is on diversity. If we discover potential polygenetic material, as exemplified by the examples in (1), so much the better, but we have to check it against the material of the LexiTypeDia project. In this latter project, we try to guarantee a worldwide distribution corresponding to typological criteria. There are certainly some limitations due to the need to find sufficient lexicographical documentation including etymological or at least comparative data. So a certain European bias is nearly inevitable, but as will be seen later on, we are trying to reduce it to a minimum. The worldwide sample has not yet been totally evaluated. So the results I am going to present in sections 2. to 4. are based on a more limited and somewhat differently designed sample used in Mihatsch (2005) and comprising 24 languages worldwide (in the following “ww”).5

1.4  Change of designation and types of lexical change Let us consider once again what an onomasiological starting point means in detail (cf. Koch 1999b: 331–334; 2000: 77–81; 2001a: 11–17; Gévaudan 2003; 2007: 31–34). In our first example (Fig. 1), the dotted lines represent the fact that the lexical item Vulg.Lat. *carrellu, which meant cart, became OSp. carrillo meaning jaw.6 This is .  The “ww” sample, as used in Mihatsch (2005), comprises the following languages: Albanian, Bahasa (Indonesia), Bambara, Chinese (Mandarin), English, Estonian, Gaelic (Scottish), German, Hausa, Hopi, Hungarian, Japanese, Lahu, Nahuatl (Istmo-Mecayapan), Nepali, Quechua (Highland Chimborazo), Russian, Sotho (Northern), Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Tibetan, Tzeltal, Yir Yoront. .  The labelling of L and C is, in principle, arbitrary, but it is not undesirable that Cs may be read as “source concept” and Ct as “target concept”.



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

the semasiological description of a lexical change focussing on meaning change with respect to the lexical item Ln. Cs  OSp. carrillo < Vulg.Lat. *carrellu Ln

   with respect to Ct

  with respect to Ln

Ct 

Lat. maxilla Lm L = lexical item C = concept Figure 1.  Change of designation and change of meaning.

The change in meaning described went hand in hand with another one (represented by the solid lines in Figure 1) that only an onomasiological perspective reveals: The concept jaw (Ct) was expressed by maxilla (Lm) in Latin and by carrillo (Ln) in Old Spanish. This is the description of a change of designation with respect to the target concept jaw (Ct). Every meaning change is necessarily accompanied by a change of designation, but the opposite does not hold – a fact we can only grasp from an onomasiological perspective. As shown in Figure 2, in another part of the Romance area there is still another change of designation that has taken place with respect to the target concept jaw (Ct): OFr. maiscele (Lm), taken over from Lat. maxilla, was replaced by OFr. maschoire > ModFr. mâchoire (Ln), which was derived from the verb maschier “to chew” (Lo). So, in this case too, we have a target concept Ct (jaw) and a source concept Cs (to chew). However, the lexical process leading us from the source concept to the target concept is not a change of meaning, but a process of word-formation (suffixation). More generally speaking, we can then say that a change of designation involving a target concept Ct and a source concept Cs can come about in very different ways with regard to the formal properties involved: –  by changing in Ct the meaning of a formally identical lexical item (Ln) that originally expresses Cs (see Figure 1); –  by forming a new lexical item Ln – expressing Ct – via a process of word-formation based on a lexical item Lo expressing Cs (see Figure 2, displaying a case of

 Peter Koch OFr. maschier Lo

Cs TO 

OFr. maschoire > ModFr. mâchoire Ln

- of Ln on the basis of Lo

   with respect to Ct

Ct 

OFr. maiscele Lm
suffixation; obviously, other types of word-formation, such as prefixation, composition, etc. are used for the same purpose); –  by forming a new lexical item Ln  – expressing Ct  – via a process of conversion, i.e., change in word class, based on a lexical item Lo expressing Cs (see below example (2); conversion may even be considered as a border-line case of word-formation); –  by forming a new lexical item Ln – expressing Ct – via a process of number change based on a lexical item Lo expressing Cs (see below example (3); this is definitely different from plain word-formation); –  by forming a new lexical item Ln – expressing Ct – via a process of gender change based on a lexical item Lo expressing Cs (see below example (4); this is different from plain word-formation as well); etc. (2) Ctˉ=ˉbacksideˉ(ofˉaˉperson): Lm = Lat.ˉpodex Ln = It.ˉ(il)ˉsedereˉ(noun) Lo = It.ˉsedereˉ(infinitiveˉformˉofˉtheˉverb) Csˉ=ˉtoˉsit (3) Ctˉ=ˉback: Lm = Lat.ˉdorsum Ln = Port.ˉcostasˉ(pl.) Lo = Port.ˉcostaˉ(sg.) Csˉ=ˉrib



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

(4) Ctˉ=ˉgreatˉtoe: Lmˉ=ˉLat.ˉpollexˉ(pedis) Lnˉ =ˉGal.ˉdeda Loˉ =ˉGal.ˉdedo Csˉ=ˉtoe,ˉfinger

1.5  A two-dimensional lexicological approach The considerations in section 1.4. enable us to recognize two dimensions of lexicological description. Firstly, we have to identify the cognitive relation Rc between the target concept Ct, e.g., jaw in Figure 2, and the source concept Cs (to chew, in our example). Since the jaw is a body part whose purpose it is to chew, we can speak of a relation of contiguity. Secondly, we have to specify the formal relation Rf between the target expression Ln (maschoire in Figure 2) and the source expression Lo (maschier). In this case, there is a derivational relation of suffixation. So we always have to identify these two dimensions, the cognitive one and the formal one. In example (2), the cognitive relation between the target concept Ct (backside of a person) and the source concept Cs (to sit) is contiguity as well, because people sit on their backside. The formal relation is conversion. In example (3), the cognitive relation between the target concept Ct (back) and the source concept Cs (rib) is once more contiguity, because the posterior portion of the ribs is part of the back. The formal relation is number change. In example (4), the cognitive relation is taxonomic subordination between the target concept (great toe) and the source concept (toe), since great toe (Ct) is a special case of toe (Cs). The formal relation is gender change. In the case of Figure 1, the cognitive relation between the target concept Ct (jaw) and the source concept Cs (cart) is one of metaphorical similarity (in a very expressive metaphor, the jaw is seen as a (strong) vehicle). On the formal level, we get the particular constellation of Ln being identical to Lo (i.e., formal identity despite the change of meaning). That is why Lo is lacking in Figure 1. These two dimensions of description constitute the basic framework of our lexicological grid represented in Figure 3 (cf. Blank 1995, 1996, 1997a, 1997b, 2000, 2003; Koch 1995, 1999a: 257–159, 1999b: 335f., 2000:  81–89, 2001a: 17–25, 2005b; Gévaudan 1999, 2003, 2007:  58–61, 165–177). The horizontal axis corresponds to the cognitive relations Rc, the vertical axis to the formal relations Rf.7 The numbers .  I shall just mention a possible third (“stratificational”) dimension of this lexicological model, where the “stratum” is opposed to borrowings  – a very important distinction for diachronic lexicology (cf. Blank 1995; Koch 2000: 84, 88f.; 2001a: 21f., 25; Gévaudan 2003; 2007: 34–38, 141–163, 177–185; Grzega 2004a: 136–150). Thinking of things such as loan translations, loan blends, and, in general, any kind of calque, we easily understand that “borrowing” is not a simple

 Peter Koch

appearing in Figure 2 (viz. 01, 02, etc., 10, 11, etc., 21, 22 etc.) are purely arbitrary and only serve as a means of identifying the different squares in the table.

formal identity →change of meaning tone change reduplication number change gender change voice change conversion (change of word class) suffixation prefixation blend morphological composition serial verb syntagmatic composition idiom ... ...

concepmetapho- cotaxotaxonom. taxonom. tual contiguity rical nomic superor- suboridentity similarity similarity dination. dination 00 01 02 03 04 05

... ...

10

11

12

13

14

15

...

20 30

21 31

22 32

23 33

24 34

25 35

... ...

40 50 60

41 51 61

42 52 62

43 53 63

44 54 64

45 55 65

... ... ...

70 80 90 100

71 81 91 101

72 82 92 102

73 83 93 103

74 84 94 104

75 85 95 105

... ... ... ...

110 120

111 121

112 122

113 123

114 124

115 125

... ...

130 ... ...

131 ... ...

132 ... ...

133 ... ...

134 ... ...

135 ... ...

... ... ...

Figure 3.  A two-dimensional grid for diachronic lexicology.

On the one hand (horizontal axis of Figure 3) we have a universal and languageindependent closed inventory of cognitive relations (Rc) based on the fundamental associative relations of contiguity (α) and similarity (β):8

additional category, but that there must be the possibility of “multiplying” a whole stratificational dimension by the categories of the two-dimensional grid presented in Figure 3. But this is not our concern here, because, as I have already said in 1.1., language contact bringing about borrowings rather rules out the probability of polygenetic developments in the lexicon. .  This is a closed inventory, even though it is not represented completely in Figure 3. I have omitted everything concerning the relation of contrast (the logical counterpart of similarity, as for example in hard–soft), because it is not present in the material analysed in this article. For further details, cf. Blank (1997a: 220–229; 2000: 68).



– – –

– –

–

Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

identity as an extreme case of similarity (β). contiguity (α), i.e., the relationship between frames and their elements, e.g., vein– blood or between two or more elements of the same frame, e.g., backside–to sit.9 metaphorical similarity as the type of similarity (β) which  – deliberately cutting across frames and taxonomies – maps concepts on to others, e.g., ball–eye (cf. e.g., Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Liebert 1992: 14, 28–82; Croft 1993; Koch 1994: 209–214; Blank 1997a: 160–169; Geeraerts 1997: 75–76, 96–98; Croft & Cruse 2004: 194–204). cotaxonomic similarity as the type of similarity (β) which connects concepts of the same hierarchical level within a taxonomy, e.g., thumb–ring finger. taxonomic superordination as for example thumb–finger or ring finger– finger. The taxonomically superordinate concept emphasizes the similarity (β) between subordinate concepts at the expense of at least some of the contiguities (α) specific to them (part-whole relationships, properties, etc.). taxonomic subordination, i.e., the reverse of taxonomic superordination, e.g., finger–thumb or finger–ring finger. In relation to the superordinate concept, the taxonomically subordinate concept foregrounds contiguities (α) (part-whole relationships, properties, etc.) specific to the subordinate concepts and backgrounds similarity (β) with concepts that are taxonomically at the same level (for taxonomic relations in lexical change, cf. Koch 1995: 30–34; 2005b: 173–185; Blank 1997a: 190– 217; 2000: 67f.; Geeraerts 1997: 68–74, 77–78, 94–96; Nerlich & Clarke 1999).

On the other hand (vertical axis of Figure 3) we have an open inventory of formal relations (Rf ) corresponding to different lexical devices according to the typological make-up of different languages of the world: formal identity, tone change, reduplication, number change, gender change, voice change, conversion, suffixation, prefixation, blend, morphological composition, serial verbs, syntagmatic composition, idioms, etc. Thus, our example in Figure 1 (OSp. carillo) corresponds to the type 02, because it displays a metaphorical similarity cart–jaw alongside with formal identity. Our example in Figure 2 (OFr. maschoire) corresponds to the type 71, because it is based on a contiguity relation to chew–jaw alongside with suffixation. It. sedere (2) is an example of type 61 combining a contiguity relation to sit–backside with conversion. Port. costas (3) is type 31 (contiguity rib–back and number change) and Gal. deda (4) type 45 (taxonomic subordination toe–great toe and gender change).

.  For “frame” and related concepts in Cognitive Linguistics, like “domain”, “script”, etc. cf. Fillmore (1975; 1985); Barsalou (1992); Taylor (1995: 87–92); Ungerer & Schmid (1996: 205–217); Croft & Cruse (2004:  7–14). For the relevance of frames, domains, etc. for contiguity and metonymy, cf. Croft (1993); Taylor (1995:  125f.); Ungerer & Schmid (1996:  128); Radden & Kövecses (1999: 19–21); Koch (1995: 29, 40f.; 1999a: 144–153; 2001b: 202–204, 214–218); Blank (1997a: 89); Waltereit (1998: 16–26); cf. also Geeraerts (1997).

 Peter Koch

From the cognitive point of view, the advantage of this approach lies in the fact that it reveals cognitive constants across languages even in cases where there is a complete diversity on the level of the formal devices:10 (5) a.

Hopiˉpuvùpwpi(’at)ˉeyebrow
b. Lat.ˉsuperciliumˉ(-a)ˉeyebrow
Rom.ˉsprânceanăˉeyebrow
The examples in (5) show three completely different formal devices producing lexical items that express the concept eyebrow: formal identity, i.e., meaning change in (5a), a kind of morphological composition in (5b), and a blend in (5c). Nevertheless, in all these cases, there is one underlying cognitive constant: the contiguity relation between eyebrow and eyelid. And this is what we are interested in when we compare diachronic processes in the vocabulary of different languages.

2.  A look at the data 2.1  A first exemplification: The target concept eyelash Since those body parts that raise problems of conceptualisation and whose denominations are often less stable seem particularly interesting, I have chosen concepts that are a little bit different from the body part concepts studied in general: eyelash, eyelid, eyebrow, and eyeball.11 Our onomasiological starting point and the fact that our analysis is based on a language sample imply that we have to accept everything that is filtered out by our .  Within the bracket format <x5.x5< the cognitive relation between the target concept (Ct) and the source concept (Cs) is in the first position, and the formal relation between the corresponding lexical items (Ln and Lo) is in second position (“zero” indicating a case of meaning change, i.e., Ln = Lo). For this bracket format, cf. Koch (2000: 85–89; 2001a: 22–25); Gévaudan et al. (2003: 7f.); Gévaudan (2003; 2007: 63–67). .  For comparative and/or diachronic semantics of body-part terminology, cf. Brown (1976); Andersen (1978); Matisoff (1978); Wilkins (1996).



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

“sieve”, be it welcome or not. This is a salutary principle, since it prevents us from too rash generalisations. If we actually discover polygenetic parallels under these circumstances, they are all the more significant; if not, we have to accept this. Appendix I contains the data for the target concept (Ct) eyelash that will be our starting point. They are based on the one hand on the Romance sample “rom” characterized in 1.3. and in n. 1, on the other hand on the somewhat provisional worldwide sample “ww” described in 1.3. and in n. 5. For the time being, we keep these two samples separate, even though it would be legitimate to integrate the data of at least one Romance language into the “ww” sample. Apart from one case of apparent stability in some Romance languages (Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, and Spanish),12 we find different types of designation, i.e., different triples Rc (Ct, Cs). A very important type corresponds to the source concept (Cs) hair, as exemplified by Bahasa Indonesia: (6) BahasaˉIndonesiaˉbuluˉmataˉeyelash 
The head of the composition (bulu, in this case) conceptualizes eyelash through a taxonomic subordination to hair (as for the modifier mata, see 3.1., (6ʹ)).13 This type of taxonomic subordination to hair is polygenetically represented. We have two attestations in the “rom” sample (Engadinian and Occitan14) and 11 attestations in the “ww” sample (Bahasa Indonesia, Bambara, Chinese, Hausa, Hopi, Japanese, Lahu, Nahuatl, Swedish, Tamil, Tzeltal). Another polygenetic type is exemplified by Russian: (7) Russ.ˉresnicaˉeyelash <metaphoricalˉsimilarity.x5 >ˉcognates:ˉcatkin 

(comparativeˉdata)

This is an interesting case from a methodological point of view. For many languages, the “depth” of accessible diachronic evidence is not sufficient to establish relevant

.  The lexical items in question are Cat. pestanya, Sp. pestaña, Gal. pestana, Port. pestana, pointing back to a (reconstructed) VulgLat. *pestanna “eyelash” of uncertain etymology. .  Obviously, all the binary lexical devices, such as (morphological or syntagmatic) composition, serial verbs, idioms etc. relate the target concept (Ct) at the same time to two source concepts (Cs): see 3.1. .  Unlike all the other languages cited here, Occitan does not recur to a composition, but uses the word pelisson that originally means little hair. Nevertheless, the cognitive procedure of taxonomic subordination is the same as in the other languages.

 Peter Koch

diachronic filiations. In these cases, etymological dictionaries display reconstructed forms with reconstructed (proto-)meanings. Now, it has been shown that proto-meanings of this kind do not represent epistemologically legitimate “data” of a diachronic cognitive onomasiology, all the more if one wants to draw farther-reaching conclusions regarding polygenesis (cf. Koch & Steinkrüger 2001: 537–541; Koch 2003: 164–166; 2004a: 84–96). But even in these cases, we do not have to abandon the idea of cognitive onomasiology. The analysis simply has to be based not on a diachronic filiation, but on synchronic comparative data. Thanks to the repertoire of cognitive relations (cf. 1.5. and Figure 3), we are always able to establish semantically interesting and relevant connections between the meanings of cognates, which are the synchronic result of diachronic lexical processes in related languages and thereby ultimately reflect the cognitive relations involved. As example (7) shows, this does not only apply to languages without any written tradition, but also, for instance, to Indo-European languages, insofar as non-documented portions of their diachrony are concerned (Proto-Slavonic or Proto-Indo-European, in the present case). Even though the notation has to be a little bit different in the case of comparative data,15 the relevant cognitive relation that holds between the two concepts involved emerges clearly from a comparative datum and makes the diachronic and the comparative material commensurable to a certain extent. In example (7), we have a metaphorical similarity between the concept eyelash and the concept catkin. This comparative datum can be related to a more general metaphorical model, realized in diachronic data of various languages, that is based on the similarity between eyelash and s.th. hairy: panicle (Estonian at an earlier stage: see n. 20), wool (Quechua), burnt end of a wick (Swahili), and wing/feather (Tibetan). All in all, then, this metaphorical model is polygenetically attested in the diachronic or comparative data of 5 languages of the “ww” sample (4 languages without the earlier stage of Estonian). A third relatively important polygenetic type is exemplified by Swedish: (8) Swed.ˉögonfransˉeyelash <metaphoricalˉsimilarity.morphologicalˉcomposition< fransˉfringeˉ(+ˉögaˉeye)

The head of the composition (frans, in this case) conceptualizes eyelash through a metaphorical similarity to fringe (as for the modifier öga, see 3.1., (8ʹ)). In a broad sense, this type is attested four times in the “ww” sample (Swedish = (8); Engl. eyelash:

.  In order to express the non-directional comparative relations involved, the diachronically intended notation explained in n.10 is replaced by a symmetrical bracket format <x5.x5>, where the indication of formal relations is lacking, because these may vary between cognates in different languages.



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

head = flexible part of a whip; Sotho nts˘hi brink of a river, shore, edge, Nepali parelo with cognates meaning fence, sheath). We neglect for the moment the remaining parts of Appendix I and especially the details of the contiguity-based solutions (cf. 3.2.) in order to discuss here and now what we can realistically expect from our data. There will never be one overall solution, but if we get different solutions that are attested polygenetically in more than one language, this is already a good result (cf. also Mihatsch & Dvořák 2004). In the Romance languages, where we get an overall picture of a language family, we discern the possibility of conceptually identical solutions in several languages that are nevertheless based on the same etymon. In these cases, it would be misleading to count separately every occurrence of the identical conceptual solution based on the same etymon. This is the reason why it is counted only once, and this is indicated by a sign of equality between the names of two or more Romance languages. Thus, the indication “Galician=Occitan” in the “contiguity” portion of Appendix I (Romance languages column) points to the following facts: (9) a.

Gal.ˉperfebaˉeyelash
b. Occ.ˉparpèlhaˉeyelash
cf.ˉ(1b)

In contrast to this, disconnected (blocks of) Romance language names appearing in the same field of Appendix I correspond to intra-Romance cognitive parallels on the basis of different etymons, as exemplified in (1). All in all, we observe that the Romance languages are “well integrated” into the general picture that emerges from the “ww” sample, since – apart from one case of apparent stability (s. above and n. 12) – they adopt not all, but some of the solutions that are present in the “ww” sample.

2.2  Extending the analysis: The concepts eyelid, eyebrow, and eyeball As already announced at the beginning of section 2., the other three target concepts we want to include in this overview are eyelid, eyebrow, and eyeball (Appendices II-IV). We find roughly the same general picture as for the concept eyelash (though with some little peculiarities in Romance for eyelid and eyebrow; but we will not go into these idiosyncratic details here). As for the concepts eyelid and eyebrow (Appendices II-III), the situation resembles very much what we saw in the case of eyelash. Among the different taxonomic, metaphorical and contiguity-based solutions, there are at least two that are well represented in a variety of languages distant enough to admit an interpretation in terms of polygenesis: taxonomic subordination to skin, flesh for eyelid (cf. examples 15, 16, and 17), metaphorical similarity with veil, wrapper, lid for eyelid (cf. the comment

 Peter Koch

on Eng. lid in example 20), taxonomic subordination to hair for eyebrow (cf. example 14), metaphorical similarity with fringe, line, edge for eyebrow (cf. examples 8 and 10), etc. (10) Scott.ˉGaelicˉmalaˉeyebrow <metaphoricalˉsimilarity.x5 > cognates:ˉmountain,ˉhill,ˉedge  (comparativeˉdata)

The target concept eyeball presents an even more uniform picture. Even if there are different conceptual solutions as well, they overwhelmingly recur to metaphors that exploit the very salient roundness of this body part, as for example the following: (11) a. Jap.ˉme-damáˉeyeball <metaphoricalˉsimilarity.morphologicalˉcomposition<   damáˉballˉ(+ˉmeˉeye) b. Quechuaˉñahuiˉlulunˉeyeball <metaphoricalˉsimilarity.morphologicalˉcomposition<   lulunˉeggˉ(+ˉñahuiˉeye)

We will come back to this issue in section 4.

3.  Refining the analysis 3.1  Dependent and independent conceptualisation With respect to a relatively well delimitated and profiled conceptual domain as the human body, there are logically two types of conceptualisation that can be activated to denominate the concepts corresponding to its parts: we can distinguish dependent and independent conceptualisation. Dependent conceptualisation of body parts involves other body parts either via contiguity or via taxonomic relations (mainly taxonomic subordination). As for contiguity, we may think here of Wilkins’ “intra-domain metonymies” (1996:  274). In this sense, any of the examples (1a-c), (5a), and (9a,b) illustrates dependent conceptualisation via intra-domain metonymy. But thanks to the formal dimension of our two-dimensional lexicological grid (Figure 3), we are able to widen the range of contiguity-based procedures of dependent conceptualisation. We can include additionally, for instance, cases of number change like (3) or of blend like (5c), and we have to take into account in particular cases of composition. Formally speaking, a morphological or syntagmatic compound consists of a head displaying the grammatical properties of the whole compound and a modifier. The compound expresses a target concept Ct, whereas the head and the modifier express two source



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

concepts, Cs1 and Cs2 respectively. Cognitively speaking, the relations connecting Ct with Cs1 may be of different kinds, and the same for Ct and Cs2. Thus, our example (6), Bahasa Indonesia bulu mata that we take up here, displays a relation of taxonomic subordination for Ct – Cs1 (eyelash is a kind of hair) and a relation of contiguity for Ct – Cs2 (eyelash belongs to the frame eye): (6ʹ) BahasaˉIndonesiaˉbuluˉmataˉeyelashˉ(=ˉCt)
With respect to contiguity, Indonesian bulu mata is a case of dependent conceptualisation inasmuch as its modifier mata spells out the frame (eye = Cs2) to which the target concept Ct belongs. As for dependent conceptualisation via taxonomic subordination, a case in point is example (4), where Ct = great toe is related to Cs = toe (formally realized by gender change). In order to include composition as well, we may cite once more (6ʹ). As already described in section 2.1., the head of the compound, bulu, spells out the taxonomic subordination to hair. Since the latter is a body-part concept, this is a case of dependent conceptualisation, too. So, then, Indonesian bulu mata displays even double dependency of conceptualisation. Independent conceptualisation corresponds, in short, to all other types of conceptualisation, i.e., those that are not based on contiguity nor on taxonomic relations and/or those that do not involve other body parts. Accordingly, examples (2) and (7) are cases of independent conceptualisation, as related to concepts outside the human body (to sit or catkin respectively), albeit via contiguity in the case of (2). As for composition, we can take up our example (8). Swed. ögonfrans is based on a relation of metaphorical similarity for Ct – Cs1 (eyelash is like a fringe) and on a relation of contiguity for Ct – Cs2 (eyelash belongs to the frame eye): (8ʹ) Swed.ˉögonfransˉeyelashˉ(=ˉCt) <metaphoricalˉsimilarity.morphologicalˉcomposition< fransˉfringeˉ(=ˉCs1)
This is dependent conceptualisation as for the modifier öga  – exactly like in (6’)  –, but it is independent conceptualisation with respect to the head frans, which neither involves another body part nor is based on contiguity nor on taxonomic relations. The data collected from our samples clearly demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of denominations for the four concepts we are dealing with here are based at least in part on dependent conceptualisation. As we will see more in detail in 3.2., a first type of dependent conceptualisation consists in shifts within the frame eye. Another solution that underlines the conceptual dependency upon the

 Peter Koch

frame eye concerns especially compounds whose modifier – not explicitly analysed in the appendices – expresses a contiguity to the concept eye (6ʹ, 8ʹ, 11a, 11b, 14, 16, 17), but the modifier may bring into play also one particular part of this frame, as e.g., eyelid for eyelash (12). The languages concerned are marked by § in the appendices. (12) Tamilˉkaṇṇ-imaiˉmayirˉeyelashˉ(=ˉCt)
So the concepts under consideration here are largely considered as parts of the conceptual frame eye (via contiguity to the frame as a whole or to one of its parts). A further type of conceptual dependency, often overlapping with the preceding, is represented by derivatives or compounds whose head16 involves taxonomic subordination to concepts like hair for eyelash (6ʹ, 12, 13) or eyebrow (14), skin/flesh for eyelid (15, 16, 17) etc. (languages displaying this type of dependent conceptualisation are marked by * in Appendices I-IV). This is well attested in our sample: (13) Occ.ˉpelissonˉeyelash
All in all, the – sometimes double – conceptual (and perceptual) dependency of the four concepts under consideration seems to be a cognitive constant.

.  Note that the Occitan examples (13) and (15) are based on a kind of derivation whose head is the lexeme and not the suffix (originally diminutives: “little hair” (13; “little skin” (15)).



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

3.2  Typical shifts within the frame eye There is an interesting problem with the target concepts eyelash, eyelid, and eyebrow: Nearly17 every language has a denomination for these concepts, but the concepts themselves do not seem to be very salient. According to observations on several languages and dialects by different linguists18 (and according to my personal experience as well), speakers sometimes hesitate or get confused, when they have to denominate one of these concepts, even when speaking their mother tongue. Consequently, “confusions” of denomination are not very surprising in this domain. In fact, the lower parts of the Tables in Appendices I-III document some – sometimes reciprocal – conceptual solutions that involve one of the other three concepts under consideration here. We have already noted these shifts as one type of dependent conceptualisation in section 3.1. The shifts occurring in our samples can be summarized like in figure 4 (p.124) (the direction of the arrows represents the directions of shift attested; every (pair of) arrows is labelled with the relevant cognitive relation). As some of these shifts are exemplified in (1), (5), and (9a,b), I will confine myself here to examples that illustrate the remaining shifts (the number of each example appears as a label at the appropriate place in Figure 4): (18) a.

Tibet.ˉmigˉspuˉeyelash
b. Swahiliˉukopeˉeyelid
Sard.ˉpibiristaˉeyelid
d. Tibet.ˉrdziˉma/gziˉmaˉeyebrow
(Northern)ˉSothoˉthakaˉyaˉleihlôˉeyelid
.  Within the “ww” sample, there is one language, Yir Yoront, that seems to lack a word for eyelash. Needless to say that the four concepts under examination (eyelash, eyelid, eyebrow, and eyeball), although well represented in our language sample, are not necessarily universal. They are of course lacking in Wierzbicka’s 55-(or 56-) item-list of semantic primes, excluding even the more fundamental frame concept eye (cf. Wierzbicka 1996: 35–111; Goddard 2001b: 1192). Note however that at least eye(s) is considered as a relatively simple concept with respect to its derivation from semantic primes (cf. Wierzbicka 1996: 218f.) and that it figures on the list of 101 potentially universal “meanings” discussed in a critical survey by Goddard (2001a: 9, 16f.). .  Cf. EDD, s.v. bree sb.1; Jaberg (1917: 98f.); DSSPIL, s.v. 4.206 eyebrow; Norri (1998); Grzega (2004a: 235ff.; 2004b: 22, 29). Grzega calls this effect “onomasiological fuzziness” (cf. also Blank 1997a: 388–390; 1999: 77).

 Peter Koch  (18a) cotaxonomic similarity



(18c) contiguity

(18d) (18f)

(5)

(18b) contiguity (1), (9)

 (18e) contiguity 

Figure 4.  Qualitative overview over types of shifts of denominations around the eye.

f1. (Northern)ˉSothoˉnts˘hiˉeyelash ˉnts˘hiˉeyelid f2. (Northern)ˉSothoˉnts˘hiˉeyelid ˉnts˘hiˉeyebrow f3. (Northern)ˉSothoˉnts˘hiˉeyebrow ˉnts˘hi eyelash [Sothoˉnts˘hiˉmeaningˉadditionally,ˉandˉperhapsˉoriginally,ˉbrink of a river, shore,ˉedge] (18f1ˉtoˉ18f3ˉallˉcomparativeˉdataˉinˉpolysemy)

As shown by these examples, the main cognitive relation triggering these shifts is contiguity (1, 5, 9, 18b, 18c, 18e, 18f). The local “neighbourhood” within the frame eye provides speakers with a means of denomination where they are uncertain. It is only in the case of eyelash – eyebrow that cotaxonomic similarity seems to be more salient (18a, 18d, 18f3). Both body parts similarly constitute a kind of hair, while there is no immediate “neighbourhood”. But as the concepts eyelash and eyebrow nevertheless belong to the same frame eye, their (loose) contiguity may also have a role to play here. In several cases, we also have a triple linking between eyelash, eyelid, and eyebrow, as illustrated for synchronic polysemy by examples (18f). The shifts represented in Figure 4 have a considerable impact on the lexical data of the two samples that can be quantified as follows:19

.  “1 ww” means “1 attestation in the “ww” sample”, etc. “1 rom” means “1 attestation in the “rom” sample”, etc. “=” indicates attestations of reciprocal shifts/identical denominations between the three concepts eyelash, eyelid, and eyebrow.



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

Table 1.  Quantitative overview over types of shifts of denominations around the eye Target concept (Ct)

Source concept (Cs) eyelash

eyelash eyelid eyebrow

2 ww 1 ww

eyelid

eyebrow

3 ww, 3 rom 3 ww, 1 rom 2 ww = 2 ww = 1 rom 1 ww

eye(ball)

2 ww

3 ww, 1 rom 3 ww, 2 rom 1 rom = 1 rom

The polygenetic frequency of the shifts between eyelash, eyelid and/or eyebrow is due to a fundamental cognitive fact: the relatively low degree of salience of these interwoven concepts. The concept eye(ball), occurring only as a source concept in this context – and only with respect to eyelid – stands rather apart as being considerably more salient.

3.3  Redundant compounds Another phenomenon that seems to be related to problems of salience concerns the cognitive, and at the same time, formal make-up of compounds figuring as denominations in the domain under consideration. Everywhere in our sample, there are examples of the two types of compound illustrated in (6ʹ) and (8ʹ):

(6ʹ) head:ˉCs1ˉbasedˉonˉtaxonomicˉsubordinationˉ(Indon.ˉbuluˉhair) modifier:ˉCs2ˉbasedˉonˉcontiguityˉ(Indon.ˉmataˉeye) (8ʹ) head:ˉCs1ˉbasedˉonˉmetaphoricalˉsimilarityˉ(Swed.ˉfransˉfringe) modifier:ˉCs2ˉbasedˉonˉcontiguityˉ(Swed.ˉögaˉeye)

Cross-linguistically, these are two of the most common cognitive types of composition (cf. Blank 1997b; Gévaudan 1999: 18–20). Now let us consider the following example:20 (19) Est.ˉsilmaripseˉeyelashˉ(=ˉCt)
In this case, the contiguity relation introduced by the modifier surprisingly concurs with an identity relation represented by the head (cf. Gévaudan 1999: 20f.; Mihatsch 2006: 85). From a strictly logical point of view, these are “redundant compounds”, since the head is conceptually identical to the whole compound and the modifier simply explicates frame knowledge already inherent in the head (one of the cases of dependent

.  At an earlier stage Est. ripse meant panicle (cf. 2.1. and Appendix I).

 Peter Koch

conceptualisation explained in 3.1.). Surely, in some cases redundant compounds may serve to remedy homonymy or polysemy: (20) Engl.ˉeyelidˉeyelidˉ(=ˉCt)
Engl. lid having survived in its non-metaphorical, central sense “that which covers an opening”, a clear distinction between the two senses of this (polysemous? homonymous?) word is desirable. But even if the denomination of one of these concepts is totally isolated in synchrony, as for instance Germ. Braue (that nowadays simply has no other sense than eyebrow),21 we observe redundant compounds: (21) Germ.ˉAugenbraueˉeyebrowˉ(=ˉCt)
So the reaction to these “accidents” of polysemy, homonymy or lexical isolation are only a by-product of a more general problem with the concepts eyelash, eyelid and eyebrow. Their relatively low degree of salience produces a to-and-fro of demotivation and remotivation. Their denominations, be they of metaphorical or of a different origin, tend to become opaque with respect to their metaphorical – or whatever – conceptual origin as well as to the concept eye. The conceptual access will then be facilitated anew by a redundant compound that remotivates the denomination by spelling out the frame involved, i.e., eye. The high degree of salience of the concept eyeball, by way of contrast, nearly everywhere stimulates vivid metaphorical creations (cf. section 2.2.) that remain strongly motivated and therefore have to be (re)settled, through non-redundant compounds, in the frame eye in order to avoid confusion with the still perceptible literal meaning of the metaphorized word: (11bʹ) Quechuaˉñahuiˉlulunˉeyeball <metaphoricalˉsimilarity.morphologicalˉcomposition< lulunˉegg
.  The case of Engl. eyebrow, though being similar from the point of view of word-formation (not on etymological grounds: cf. OED, s.v. brow1!), is different from Germ. Augenbraue, because brow has developed additional senses (especially “forehead”, which in the meantime has even overridden the old sense “eyebrow”). So there has been the problem of distinguishing different – old or new – senses, just like with Engl. eyelid. But all these details are secondary with respect to the problem of conceptual salience that will be discussed in the following.



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

These reflections underline the fact that the difference in salience between eyeball on the one hand and eyelash, eyelid and/or eyebrow on the other is decisive. In fact, the denomination of the much more salient concept eyeball is never remotivated by redundant compounds in our two samples, whereas this procedure is fairly widespread for the other three concepts: Table 2.  Redundant compounds Target concept (Ct)

Attestations of redundant compounds

eyelash eyelid eyebrow eyeball

3 ww, 1 rom 3 ww, 1 rom 3 ww –

(cf. also Appendices I-III, where redundant compounds are indicated by “! identity”, which is totally lacking in Appendix IV).

4.  Typology and lexical change We have seen in section 2. that certain types of source concepts for certain target concepts are attested cross-linguistically so that a polygenetic origin is probable. This would point to fundamental cognitive constants. At the same time, we had to recognize that there will never be a unique overall solution and that we will get, at best, different options that are attested polygenetically in several languages. Now the question arises whether such polygenetically distributed concurring options of conceptualisation are totally random. Mihatsch (2005) has shown on the basis of the “ww” sample, used here as well, that different options of this kind may be explained by typological parameters. In the domain under consideration these are related to the problem of object classification. Imai & Gentner (1997) have demonstrated in psycholinguistic experiments that the results of object-classification tasks partly depend on the conceptualisation “style” of different languages. It is well known that in languages like English count nouns prevail, whereas in languages like Japanese and Chinese all nouns are transnumeral. Indeed, in object-classification tasks American speakers tend to classify simple objects such as wooden cubes or glass pyramids mainly in terms of shape, whereas Japanese speakers give preference to a classification in terms of substance. Mihatsch (2005) found out that something similar can be observed on the basis of the diachronic and comparative data concerning the denominations of the concepts eyelash, eyelid, eyebrow, and eyeball within the “ww” sample. She divides the languages of the sample into three classes according to typological-conceptual differences

 Peter Koch

in the noun system (the corresponding abbreviations figure in Appendices I-IV to characterize (groups of) languages):22 [+pl] languages with an obligatory plural marking [–pl] languages without obligatory plural marking [±pl] mixed cases (they require further analysis and are not included in Mihatsch’s evaluation)

As represented in Table 3, [+pl] languages conceptualise eyelash, eyelid, and eyebrow nearly exclusively in terms of shape (6 attestations for eyelash, 8 for eyelid, 7 for eyebrow, against only one attestation in terms of substance, namely for eyelash). The shape solutions typically are based on metaphorical similarity to concepts such as fringe (example 8), edge (example 10), etc. Table 3.  Conceptualisation in [+pl] languages [+pl] languages

eyelash

conceptualisation in terms of shape conceptualisation in terms of substance

6 1

eyelid 8 0

eyebrow 7 0

eyeball 8 0

In contrast to this, [–pl] languages, as represented in Table 4, conceptualise eyelid, eyebrow, and eyelash preferentially in terms of substance (7 attestations for eyelash, 6 for eyelid, 6 for eyebrow, against only 2 attestations in terms of shape, namely for eyelid). The substance solutions typically are based on taxonomic subordination to concepts such as hair (examples 6, 12, 14), skin (example 17), etc. Table 4.  Conceptualisation in [–pl] languages [–pl] languages conceptualisation in terms of shape conceptualisation in terms of substance

eyelash 0 7

eyelid 2 6

eyebrow 0 6

eyeball 9 0

Very differently, the extremely salient concept eyeball (cf. 2.2., 3.2., 3.3.), whose salience resides just in its shape (roundness), is actually conceptualised in terms of shape by both classes of languages (8 attestations for [+pl] and 9 for [–pl]: cf. Tables 3 and 4). The data do not display any case of conceptualisation in terms of substance here.

.  The Romance languages are throughout characterized as [+pl] in the appendices, but they are not part of Mihatsch’s study.



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

These results suggest that conceptualisation preferences inherent to grammatical systems may have a considerable impact on fundamental options for lexical conceptualisation, which, consequently, can not be considered as totally random. These insights are also a contribution to the discussion concerning linguistic relativity.

5.  Conclusion As we have seen, it is possible to detect cognitive constants that induce polygenetic patterns of lexical change. In order to get valid results, we have to establish criteria in advance: a welldefined sample of languages, an onomasiological starting point, and a (domain of) target concept(s). A given target concept Ct leads us to the corresponding denomination in a given language, a lexical item Ln. Thanks to our two-dimensional lexicological grid (Fig. 3), we are able to identify, on the one hand, the formal relation Rf holding between Ln and its diachronic antecedent Lo and, on the other hand, the cognitive relation Rc linking Ct to the source concept Cs expressed by Lo. From the perspective of polygenesis, it is important to discover – for a given Ct, and independently of different formal relation Rf linking Ln to Lo – triples of the form Rc (Ct, Cs) that occur crosslinguistically in the sample, without genetic kinship or linguistic contact explanations of this parallelism (Cs corresponding to a specific concept or to a more abstract type of concept). According to this method, we have actually detected, for the conceptual domain around the eye, some cognitive constants. Our data revealed several typical relations holding between one of the target concepts and particular (types of) source concepts, such as taxonomic subordination to hair for eyelash and eyebrow, metaphorical similarity with fringe or the like for eyelash, metaphorical similarity with s.th. hairy for eyelash, metaphorical similarity with ball (or something else characterized by its roundness) for eyeball, etc. (section 2.). In general, we observed, for all four concepts, a tendency to dependent conceptualisation, especially within the frame eye (section 3.1.). A remarkable type of conceptual dependency emerges in the form the reciprocal shifts and confusions between eyelash, eyelid, and eyebrow that do not seem to be very salient concepts, whereas eyeball is clearly more salient and independent from the other three concepts (section 3.2.). The general lack of salience of eyelash, eyelid, and eyebrow was confirmed by the existence of redundant compounds denominating these concepts (section 3.3.). The considerably higher degree of salience of eyeball, due to the roundness of this body part, also strikingly interferes with typological facts: whereas the conceptualisation of eyelash, eyelid, and eyebrow in terms of shape vs. substance seems to depend largely on the conceptualisation “style” of a given language, inherent in its

 Peter Koch

nominal system as a whole (count vs. transnumeral nouns), the shape-induced conceptualisation of eyeball rules out these typological options (section 4.). To sum up, cognitive onomasiology is able to contribute decisively to the investigation into typology and universals in the lexicon and to our understanding of cognitive constants in particular conceptual domains. Appendix I: target concept (Ct): eyelash (as for the indices * and §, cf. section 3.1.) Cognitive relation

Source concept (Cs)

Languages worldwide

∑ “ww”

stability? taxonomic subordination

hair (cf. (6), (12), (13))

metaphorical similarity

s.th. hairy (cf. (17))

fringe etc. (cf. (18))

→

→ →

eyelid (cf. (1a), (1b=9b), (1c), (9a), (18f1))

→

contiguity

cotaxon. similarity

eyebrow (cf. (18a))

! identity (cf. 3.3.)

eyelash (cf. (19))

Swedish*§ [+pl] Bambara*§ Hausa*§, Hopi* [±pl] Bahasa*§ Chinese*§ Japanese*§ Lahu*§ Nahuatl*§ Tamil*§ Tzeltal*§ [–pl] Estonian§ (cf. n. 20) Russian Swahili [+pl] Quechua§ Tibetan§ [±pl] English§ Sotho Swedisch§ [+pl] Nepali [±pl] Albanian Gaelic [+pl] Hopi [±pl]

11

Romance languages [+pl]

∑ “rom”

Catalan = Galician = Portuguese =Span­ish Engadinian*§ Occitan*

1

Engadinian =French=Friulian =Italian=Ladin =Occitan =Portu­guese =Sardin­ianCamp. Galician=Occitan Romanian

3

2

4 (5)

4 3

Gaelic Sotho [+pl]

2

German [+pl] Hopi Tibetan [±pl] Estonian§ [+pl] Tibetan [±pl] Hungarian§ [–pl]

3

Sardinian

1

3

Friulian§

1



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

Appendix II: target concept (Ct): eyelid (as for the indices * and §, cf. section 3.1.) Cognitive relation

Source concept (Cs)

Languages worldwide

taxonomic subordination

skin, flesh (cf. (15), (16), (17))

metaphorical similarity

strip of leather bark, peel veil, wrapper, lid

Bambara*§ Hausa*§ Quechua*§ Tibetan*§ (2x) [±pl] Chinese*§ Hungarian*§ Lahu*§ Nahuatl*§ Tzeltal*§ YirYoront*§ [–pl] Nepali§ [±pl]

(diverse)

Bambara§ [±pl] Albanian English§ (cf. 3.3.) Gaelic§ German§ (cf. 3.3.) Russian Swedish§ [+pl] Bahasa§ Japanese§ [–pl] Estonian§ Sotho (2x) [+pl]

∑ “ww” 11

2

 1  8

Engadinian§ Engadinian§ =Ladin§ =Sardinian§

1 1

 3

SardinianLog.§

1

Romanian Catalan =Engadinian =French =Friulian =Galician =Occitan =Spanish

1 1

Romanian

1

Sardinian

1

Engadinian§

1

 1

→

→

→

→

cotaxon. similarity ! identity (cf. 3.3.)

Hopi [±pl] Gaelic Sotho [+pl]

1 2

Gaelic Swahili [+pl]

2

Sotho [+pl] (cf. (18f2/f3)) eyebrow (cf. (18c)) eyelid English§ (cf. (20)) German§ [+pl] Tamil§ [–pl]

∑ “rom”

Occitan* Sardinian*§

onomatopœia to palpitate contiguity

to sleep eye, eyeball (cf. (18e)) cheek eyelash (cf. (18b))

Romance languages [+pl]

1

3

 Peter Koch

Appendix III: target concept (Ct): eyebrow (as for the indices * and §, cf. section 3.1.) Cognitive relation

Source concept (Cs)

Languages worldwide

taxonomic subordination

stability hair (cf. (14))

Russian [+pl] Hopi*(§) (3x) Tibetan*§ [±pl] Bahasa*§ Chinese*§ Japanese*§ Lahu*§ (2x) Nahuatl*§ YirYoront*§ [–pl] Quechua§ [±pl] Albanian Gaelic Sotho Swahili Swedish§ [+pl] Bambara§ Quechua§ [±pl]

metaphorical similarity

contiguity

cockscomb pepper visor eyehill eye eyelash (cf. (18d))

→

→ →

Estonian [+pl] Hungarian [–pl] Hopi Tibetan [±pl] Tzeltal [–pl] (cf. (18f2/f3)) Sotho [+pl] Hausa [±pl]

→

cotaxon. similarity

wool fringe, line, edge, etc. (cf. (8),(10))

contiguity

! identity (cf. 3.3.)

eyelid (cf. (5a), (5b))

× (cf. (5c)) eyebrow (cf. (22))

∑ “ww”

Romance languages [+pl]

∑ “rom”

1 11

 1  7

 1  1  3

SardinianLog. Sardinian Occitan

1 1 1

Portuguese Occitan

1 1

Catalan=Friulian =Galician=Italian =Ladin=Occitan =Portuguese =SardinianLog. =Spanish Engadinian =French =Galician =Italian=Occitan =Portuguese Romanian

2

 2

English German [+pl] Hopi [±pl]

3

English§ German§ [+pl] Tibetan Nepali§ [±pl]

4

1



Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change 

Appendix IV: target concept (Ct): eyeball (as for the indices * and §, cf. section 3.1.) Cognitive relation

Source concept (Cs)

taxonomic subord. metaphorical similarity

s.th. round ball, globe (cf. (11a))

egg (cf. (11b)) fruit, plum, apple nut, pip, grain

(precious) stone etc.

Languages worldwide

English§ Swedish§ [+pl] Hopi§ [±pl] Bahasa§ Hungarian§ Japanese§ [–pl] Estonian§ [+pl] Quechua§ [±pl] German§ Russian§ [+pl] Tibetan§ [±pl] Albanian Sotho§ [+pl] Bambara§ Tibetan§ [±pl] Nahuatl§ Lahu§ Tzeltal§ [–pl] Gaelic§ [+pl] Chinese§ Tamil§ [–pl]

∑ “ww”

Romance languages [+pl]

∑ “rom”

SardinianLog.*§

1

Latin§ (and calques in many Rom. lang.) Friulian§ =Italian§

2

3

Occitan§

1

7

Friulian§

1

Latin§ (and calques in many Rom. lang.) Galician§

2

6

2

3

protuber­ ance of a plant full moon

contiguity

circle pupil

Yir Yoront§ [–pl] Nepali§ [±pl] Hausa [±pl]

1 1 1

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Mapping semantic spaces A constructionist account of the “light verb” xordæn “eat” in Persian Neiloufar Family EHESS, Paris

Within the framework of Construction Grammar, the author develops an analytical tool to map semantic regularities in semantic spaces. This is illustrated with the study of the semantic spaces of the Persian “light verb” xordæn “to eat”. The light verb’s semantic space is populated by “notional islands” where groups of light verb constructions, expressing similar notions, combine the light verb with a restricted, but large, class of preverbs. The analysis shows that each notional island possesses linguistic and cognitive properties that allow intuitive disambiguation. It provides new results about meaning construction, productivity, and compositionality, and the basis of crosslinguistic investigations for processes of verb formation as they have evolved in different languages. Keywords:  compositionality; Construction Grammar; eat; light verbs; meaning construction; notional islands; productivity; semantic space

1.  Introduction “Eat”, or xordæn, is a common light verb (LV) in Persian, one of a dozen that form the core of the Persian verbal system. They can occur by themselves, but in far more instances they appear combined with an often nominal preverbal element to express verbal meanings that are usually far from their original meanings. Most such notions are expressed by simple verbs in other languages. In this study I will concentrate on the LV xordæn eat, in order to portray the type of structures that emerge in the semantic spaces of these verbs. These spaces consist of networks of what I have termed “notional islands” which include linguistic and cognitive parameters. Verb production is a semantic process, not syntactic, and a comprehensive analysis reveals semantic proximities between the verb eat in Persian and in languages which have different syntactic structure (See Bonvini; Boyeldieu; Hénault, this volume).

 Neiloufar Family

2.  The Persian verbal system One of the striking characteristics of the Persian verbal systems lies in its deceptively small number of simple verbs (for a comprehensive grammar of Persian see Lambton 1961; Lazard 1992; Mahootian 1997). There are less than two hundred simple verbs in this language, as opposed to several thousand in English or French. However, a limited set of around twenty of the simple verbs in Persian can occur as LVs in light verb constructions,1 producing myriads of verbal notions. Light verb constructions (LVCs) in Persian consist of a preverbal element (PV, usually a nominal, though it can also be an adjective, adverb, preposition, or prepositional phrase) followed by an LV2 (Vahedi-Langrudi 1996; Karimi-Doostan 1997; Megerdoomian 2002). The resulting meaning often deviates from the simple semantic sum of the original meaning of each of the constituents (Karimi 1997; Goldberg 1996). dæstˉZÆDÆN xæmiyazeˉKE∫IDÆN dustˉDA∫TÆN gu∫ˉDADÆN hærfˉZÆDÆN negahˉDA∫TÆN emailˉZÆDÆN taypˉKÆRDÆN qoseˉXORDÆN

handˉhit yawnˉpull friendˉhave earˉgive soundˉhit sightˉhave emailˉhit typeˉdo griefˉeat

applaud,ˉtouch yawn like/love listen talk keep sendˉanˉemail type grieve

Due to the quasi-compositional structure of the LVC (since the forms are not fully idiomatic, but motivated from the meaning of the constituents), the system presents an ideal architecture for exploring theories that attempt to link natural language semantics and underlying cognitive representations. Furthermore, this system provides ample data to study fundamental linguistic properties, such as compositionality, productivity, and polysemy. These properties are general properties, common to all languages and possibly the human conceptual system, but especially accessible for study given the structure of this system. Persian LVCs are not fully compositional. As can be seen in the examples above, there isn’t always a clear algorithm that allows the meaning of the whole to be derived

.  The verbs that occur in these constructions include, but are not limited to, zædæn hit, ke∫idæn pull, xordæn eat, gereftæn obtain, dadæn give, amædæn come, da∫tæn have. .  The syntactic behavior of these constructions is also particular, though not the focus of this study. Suffice it to say that the two elements tend to be inseparable in a sentence, though it is not uncommon for them to be separated by grammatical elements in some contexts (e.g., adverbs, verbal affixes, prepositional phrases, etc).



Mapping semantic spaces 

from the meaning of the parts. For example, using xordæn as our prime example, the term ∫æm∫ir xordæn (lit. sword eat) means “to be stabbed and wounded by a sword.” In this case, the idea of being penetrated by the weapon and being wounded does not come directly from either of the lexical items. It would be superfluous to say that part of the meaning of xordæn is “to stab.” First, the general meaning of this and similar LVCs is much more nuanced, and can be described as follows: “to be penetrated and stabbed by a sharp hand held or projectile weapon like [preverb].” No natural language permits such nuanced meanings for particular morphemes. Second, such a claim would overlook the strict restrictions on the types of preverbal elements allowed in these constructions. The meaning of the LVC must be elsewhere. One proposition might be that each multi-word LVC is stored independently in the lexicon. But this would cause massive redundancy (e.g., the morpheme xordæn would be repeated hundreds of times, once for each LVC it occurs in), since each LV can form many LVCs. But, more importantly, such a proposition ignores the fact that LVCs are productive in Persian. Each time a new verbal notion needs to be expressed, a new LVC is constructed. In French or English, a morpheme is frequently used with verbal affixes to produce a verb (e.g., bottle- to bottle, email- to email). In Persian, new lexical items occur with an LV (e.g., quti kærdæn- can do- “can”, emejl zædænemail hit- “email”). Therefore, there must be an established mechanism linking form and meaning that allows the production and the unambiguous comprehension of new verbs. The LVs cannot be polysemous, because this would require highly idiosyncratic meanings like the ones mentioned above, and this wouldn’t explain productivity. On the other hand, proposing that the LVs are semantically bleached does not resolve the problem either, since the PV would end up carrying the burden of a highly idiosyncratic and context dependent meaning. As we will see later, the different meanings expressed in LVCs based on a single LV are not totally unrelated, which indicates that the LVs contribute some semantic content. The meaning of each construction is motivated by both of its elements, but the specific nuances arise at a different level, namely, that of the construction. The approach taken in this study provides a new perspective from which this type of linguistic structure can be analyzed. Before presenting the methods of this analysis, an outline of different meanings and uses of the verb xordæn will be presented.

3.  The verb xordæn Historically, the meaning of this verb has been to ingest, or to eat, and sometimes to waste. According to two dictionaries of Modern Persian, xordæn has a dozen different meanings: eat (usually after chewing), drink, gnaw, devour, waste or spend, corrode,

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cause itching, make appear as used, being in the line of damage, receive, be beaten, take and never give back, hit, strike, touch, fit, match, be synchronized, and ending up somewhere (Haim 1995; Afshar et al. 2002). Persian speakers can usually differentiate the full verb definitions in the above list of dictionary entries. The other, seemingly unrelated definitions are simply vague post-extractions of the meanings from a number of LVC uses of xordæn. Persian lexicographers and dictionary writers have great difficulty in clearly separating LV and full usage, and this produces inadequate entries for the verbs in question. This generates a poor rendition of the richness of the verbal system in Persian, given that there aren’t many simple verbs and the entries for LV uses are incomplete. The contexts in which these meanings emerge are not given. We will see below that categorizing the meanings produced by these verbs requires a different method than listing some vague meanings that emerge in LVC contexts without specifying the restrictions on their interpretation. However, we will first examine uses of xordæn in non-LVC contexts, without trying to provide a comprehensive description of the vast amount of polysemy that occurs. The full verb polysemy of xordæn is beyond the scope of this article. When asked for the meaning of xordæn, Persian speakers unanimously and immediately answer to eat. When expressing the action of ingesting, xordæn is transitive and takes a volitional subject, or in Dowty’s terms3 (Dowty 1991), a proto-agent argument. It also takes a second nominal phrase (NP) as the object that is being ingested: XORDÆNˉ(EAT) Syntax:ˉNP1ˉNP2ˉXORDÆN (1) Ali nan-ra4 xord Ali bread-acc ate ‘Aliˉateˉtheˉbread’

.  In his article, Dowty suggests that traditional thematic roles (agent, patient, etc) are too rigid to be applicable to certain empirical data. He proposes proto-roles (proto-agent and protopatient). Most proto-agents have the property of having a volitional involvement in an action, having sentience or perception, causing an event or change of state in another participant, or moving (relative to the position of something external). Proto-patients, on the other hand, undergo changes of state, are causally affected by another participant, or are stationary relative to the movement of another participant. Arguments might have traits that correspond to both these role types, but are assigned the proto-role from which they take most of their traits. I adopt this type of role assignment when discussing the arguments of the verbal elements under study. .  RA = accusative or object marker. This morpheme usually marks a definite object of the verb, though its detailed definition has been investigated in several studies (Lazard 1970; DabirMoghaddam 1990; Ghomeshi 2003; Roberts 2005). Only in certain specific LVCs can the PV accept this morpheme. In the large majority of cases, the PV is a non-definite entity.



Mapping semantic spaces 

In Modern Persian, the verb for drink, nu∫idæn, is progressively being replaced by the verb xordæn, especially in less formal registers of the language. As with languages such as French, the verb for drink, xordæn, can also mean to drink alchohol in excess (xejli xorde – much eaten/drank- he has drank in excess) (see Boyeldieu this volume). Xordæn can also mean to cause irritation, or more precisely to eat away at (e.g., a material). In French, the word for itch is also derived from the verb eat, manger (démangeaison) (see Hénault this volume): (2) in boluz-e5 pæ∫mi tænæm-ra mi6-xor-æd this blouse-gen wool body.1sg-acc prog-eat-3sg ‘Thisˉwoolˉblouseˉirritatesˉmyˉskin’

After ingesting, the second most popular and general definition of the verb xordæn is to collide or hit (French: entrer en collision, être heurté). In these cases it is an intransitive verb taking a proto-patient argument that collides with another entity (expressed in the propositional phrase headed by [be] “to”): XORDÆNˉ(HIT) Syntax:ˉNP1ˉtoˉNP2ˉXORDÆN (3) dæst-æm be miz xord hand-1sg to table hit ‘Myˉhandˉhitˉtheˉtable’

This same syntactic structure is used when xordæn expresses to match or fit and complement: (4) ræng-e in kerevat be pirahænet mi-xor-æd color-gen this tie to shirt-2sg prog-hit-3sg ‘Theˉcolorˉofˉthisˉtieˉcomplementsˉyourˉshirt’

This structure is also used in the more colloquial use of xordæn, expressing reaching a position in space: (5) in xijaban be otoban mi-xor-æd this street to highway prog-hit-3sg ‘Thisˉstreetˉhitsˉtheˉhighway’

Though the two different argument structures don’t seem to be related, the meanings each expresses is polysemous. For the purpose of this study, it is important to note

.  This morpheme, -e, is called the ezafe marker, expressing the genitive case, or possession. The use of this nominal marker has also been investigated at length (see Samiian 1994; Ghomeshi 1997). .  prog = progressive.

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that the full verb xordæn is highly polysemous, like its counterparts in most other languages. Hence, the somewhat vague translation of xordæn with the word eat in English is for convenience only, and does not represent any global equivalence between the two lexemes in Persian and English. As the reader has been familiarized with the lexeme xordæn, for clarity we will note the LV use of xordæn as XORDÆN, since the exact translation is not possible. The problem of classification goes beyond one of classical polysemy in LV uses of xordæn, where it occurs with a particular PV that contributes to the meaning of the whole construction. Xordæn adopts and conveys new meanings when it combines with particular types of PVs. These meanings are not directly related to its full verb meanings and are often difficult to isolate from the construction itself. Initially, it is daunting to discern how speakers construct and decipher such varied constructions, such as: qæzaˉxordæn afsusˉxordæn tækanˉxordæn t∫aquˉxordæn

foodˉXORDÆN sorrowˉXORDÆN movementˉXORDÆN knifeˉXORDÆN

eat beˉsorrowful jerk,ˉshake,ˉwag getˉstabbed

Except for a handful of prepositions and prepositional phrases that form more idiomatic LVCs, only nominal PVs combine with xordæn. Our compiled corpus indicates xordæn as the basis of over 200 verbal notions, expressing meanings from eating to being embarrassed and shaking. Xordæn produces mostly intransitive LVCs where the subject is a proto-patient undergoing a change of state or experiencing a state. The meanings of the actions expressed by this LV are generally ones of being effected, and usually have a negative connotation. Xordæn is an inchoative verb, that can be either telic or atelic,7 depending on the type of action it expresses (undergoing an action or experiencing a state). The LV doesn’t seem to have retained any of the lexical content of the full verb xordæn, but rather a figurative or metaphorical extension of the original meaning. The eat meaning of xordæn serves as a basis for an extension expressing the idea of undergoing an atelic action. In other cases, the notion of collide gives rise to undergoing telic or sudden actions. Some of these constructions are close to pure idioms, where the meaning is strictly non-compositional and its productivity limited. The term idiom can be defined so that it covers only totally frozen expressions. The meaning of these expressions can’t be remotely discerned from the meaning of its parts and are stored individually in the lexicon.

.  A complete action, or one that expresses an action that occurs “in X” time, is a telic action. On the other hand, an incomplete action, or one that occurs “for X” time, is atelic.



Mapping semantic spaces 

jaˉxordæn pærseˉxordæn ju∫ˉxordæn kafurˉxordæn

placeˉeat poorˉeat boilˉeat campherˉeat

beˉsurprised,ˉshocked beˉforcedˉtoˉbeg beˉanxious becomeˉimpotent

There is also a set of truly transparent LVCs, where the meaning is compositional. The LV expresses its full verb meaning, eat, and the PV expresses a food. For example, any type of food occurring with xordæn will mean to ingest that type of food. nanˉxordæn abˉxordæn qæzaˉxordæn

breadˉeat waterˉeat foodˉeat

eatˉbread drinkˉwater eatˉfood

These two types of LVCs, idiomatic (semantically opaque) and compositional (semantically transparent), are marginal cases. The majority, and most interesting LVCs occur between these two extremes of semantic transparency, where most often, the contribution of the two parts cannot be fully discerned. The meaning of the forms is constrained by syntactic and sometimes idiosyncratic semantics, but the forms display more freedom (syntactic and semantic) than conventional idioms, allowing for productivity. These constructions have a status between idioms and grammatical phenomena, and are semi-transparent. paˉxordæn xisˉxordæn otuˉxordæn lizˉxordæn

footˉeat wetˉeat ironˉeat slideˉeat

beˉsteppedˉon beˉsoaked beˉironed toˉslip

Karimi (1997) concludes that the majority of LVCs are idiomatic combining expressions whose idiomatic meanings are composed on the basis of the meaning of their parts (Karimi 1997: 23). She discusses certain non-productive LVCs with opaque meanings (the term CV refers to compound verb, or what we call LVC): Let us examine châne zadan (chin hitting=to negotiate) and xar kardan (donkey doing=to fool someone) with regard to their compositionality. Once we learn the meaning of these idiomatic CVs, we can see the relation between their parts. That is, châne zadan involves figuration indicating that negotiation requires moving the chin. Xar kardan, on the other hand, becomes transparent on the basis of the idiomatic meaning of xar “donkey” which implies foolishness and stupidity: there is an apparent relation between the concrete and the abstract meaning of xar that provides the idiomatic meaning of the CV xar kardan. (Karimi 1997: 24)

For xordæn, LVCs often portray images of swallowing, or being penetrated or pierced by something, or undergoing some process. More often than not, this process is to the detriment, and out of the control of the subject.

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∫æm∫irˉxordæn dæstˉxordæn zæxmˉxordæn

swordˉXORDÆN beˉwoundedˉbyˉaˉsword handˉXORDÆN beˉtouched,ˉaltered woundˉXORDÆN beˉwounded

As mentioned in the previous section, it would be counter-intuitive to analyze each of the constructions as a separate lexical entry. By examining the large data8 set closely, we can see that certain patterns emerge. Namely, groups of LVCs with the same LV and a particular type of PV cluster together to express highly correlated notions. In other words, clusters form “notional islands” in the semantic spaces of each LV. In the next section, we will discuss the development of the methodology used to explore these semantic spaces.

4.  Theoretical methods Faced with the massive data set from the Persian verbal system, with some verbs producing over 500 LVCs, an appropriate framework is needed to capture the emerging patterns. Exploring the mechanisms underlying meaning construction requires an approach that can accommodate idiosyncrasy, compositionality, productivity, and polysemy. Cognitive linguistic approaches, especially Construction Grammar (CG) (Fillmore & Kay 1996; Goldberg 1995), provide an adequate framework for such studies. Formal theories only take into account the abstract structure of linguistic units and do not necessarily include all the semantic and pragmatic information associated with the structure. Cognitive linguistic theories focus on the cognitive processes involved in language processing and understanding. Rather than focusing only on abstract and formal structures in language, cognitive linguists incorporate other areas of cognition into the study of language. These perceptual and conceptual parameters include space, time, and force-dynamics. In this view, language is a means through which humans, confined to physical bodies in particular environments, are able to express a range of phenomena, both perceived and conceived. In other words, language must be explained through other capacities other than just purely linguistic ones. The basic tenets of CG include the following (Goldberg & Jackendoff 2004): 1. There is a cline of grammatical phenomena from the totally general to the totally idiosyncratic.

.  The data set used for this study was compiled using several dictionaries and texts. No set is ever comprehensive, since, as we will see, new forms are always possible.



Mapping semantic spaces 

2. Everything on this cline is to be stated in a common format, from the most particular, such as individual words to the most general, such as principles for verb position, with many subregularities in between. That is, there is no principled divide between “lexicon” and “rules.” 3. At the level of phrasal syntax, pieces of syntax connected to meaning in a conventionalized and partially idiosyncratic way are captured by constructions. The pairings between form and meaning in CG are often called constructions. These can be as small as words or affixes, or they can be whole sentence structures. Crucially, constructions include both universal and general knowledge as well as idiosyncratic and language-specific information. Accordingly, a construction exists if one or more of its properties cannot be strictly predicted from the inherent properties of the lexical elements within it. The description of a construction specifies the types of elements that can occur within it, as well as how they will interact with the construction. Constructions are similar to idioms. Idioms are listed in the lexicon with a syntactic structure, a meaning, and often phonological information. Importantly for the present study, in verbal constructions, the verb alone does not determine the argument structure of the sentence. Rather, the argument structure results from the composite effects of the verb and the construction. This property of constructions allows for great reduction of verbal polysemy in the lexicon. Most properties of constructions are based on semantic and syntactic information. However, CG also leaves room for experiential knowledge and its effect on the construction meaning. Real knowledge includes information a human has of how the world functions and what types of actions are pragmatically plausible. Constructions can occur in “families,” where a group of constructions share some syntactic and/or semantic properties. These families can be partially productive, based on semantic or pragmatic parameters. No claim is made that constructions or the parameters used to construct them are innate or universal, although there are presumably strong universal constraints. This approach avoids redundant entries in the lexicon, as well as multiple and idiosyncratic senses for certain verbs: the reason for postulating constructions is analogous to the reason why other researchers have wanted to postulate a lexical rule: in order to capture generalizations across instances. Moreover, it is claimed here that what is stored is the knowledge that a particular verb with its inherent meaning can be used in a particular construction. This is equivalent to saying that the composite fused structure involving both verb and construction is stored in memory. By recognizing the stored entity to be a composite structure, we gain the benefits […] over a lexical rule account. For example, we avoid implausible senses such as “to cause to receive by kicking.” It is the composite structure of the verb and construction that has this meaning. We also allow other syntactic processes to refer to the inherent lexical semantics of

 Neiloufar Family

the verb. Thus we do not lose the information conveyed by the verb, because the verb (Goldberg 1995: 140) is not changed into a new verb with a different sense.

An analytical tool was developed, inspired by such approaches, to map semantic regularities in the semantic spaces of each LV in Persian. Our analysis implies that an LV’s semantic space is populated by “notional islands” where groups of LVCs expressing similar notions appear by combining the LV with a constrained, but large, class of PVs. Each island possesses linguistic and cognitive properties that allow intuitive disambiguation. Similar studies have been done for English. Wierzbicka (1982) provides a detailed sketch of the different have a V constructions and then compares them with each other. If the complement of the verbal complement belongs to one of the categories defined in a construction, the meaning of the whole can be predicted from the meaning of the construction. The existence of these types of constructions allows for productivity, since the type of complement that occurs with have in each of the constructions is highly specific and defined within the construction. One can imagine making new forms based on this structure. Another study related to this issue deals with the productivity and acceptability of certain complements with a given LV in English (Stevenson et al. 2004). Stevenson et al. find that the complements that occur in particular constructions belong to a particular semantic class. In other words, the constructions are again found to partially depend on and partially determine the type of complement that combine with the LV. In analyzing the list of Persian LVCs of a given LV in our corpus, the first task was to discover semantic resemblances and sets of constructions, as with the different have constructions in English in the above study. Variation of the type of PV, as defined by their common properties, results in a variation of the meaning of the LVC. Conversely, variation of the LV also results in the variation of the meaning of the LVC. It is essential to look both for PVs that combine with multiple LVs on one hand, and single LVs and their possible PVs on the other, to obtain clues as to how the meanings change in different environment. Once the content of the construction is unraveled, productivity is explained (new verbs form based on the structure of the construction). Focusing on individual LVs, we can more easily isolate groups of LVCs in what we call islands (Family 2006). These islands are clusters of LVCs which express similar verbal notions based on the same LV, and a specific type of PVs. The islands seem to form based on certain, but not all, inherent attributes of the PV. In other words each PV has attributes which activate certain meanings of the LV and the LV in turn contributes relevant features inherent to it, creating a meaning different from the meaning of either component. Each island of LVCs has an underlying construction that encodes this information. The result is an LVC with a meaning that’s not necessarily predictable from the meaning of its parts. The LVC will belong to an island with other LVCs that share PVs with similar common attributes and that serve to express similar verbal concepts. Constructions encode semantic as well as syntactic structure.



Mapping semantic spaces 

We will illustrate the patterns that allow for island formation through concrete examples from xordæn. Xordæn has at least fifteen identifiable islands, each described in detail in the next section. Xordæn has some islands that express more abstract or emotional notions, or notions that can’t be defined solely through physical or perceptual attributes. For example, one of xordæn’s islands takes a PV expressing a continuous, irrepressible, negative feeling that has to be suffered as the result of ones personal actions or state of mind. The subject is affected negatively by this feeling. æfsusˉxordæn regretˉXORDÆN ænduhˉxordæn sorrowˉXORDÆN tortureˉXORDÆN æzabˉxordæn

regret grieveˉaˉlostˉchance/opportunity sufferˉheavily

(6) sohrab æz dæst dadæn-e rostæm xejli æfsus xord Sohrab from hand give-gen Rostæm much regret ate ‘SohrabˉheavilyˉregrettedˉtheˉlossˉofˉRostæm’

While the meaning extensions from the full verb are difficult to define, we can’t conclude that xordæn must have multiple meanings completely independent of its full verb meaning. For instance, if it actually meant to suffer, we would also assign an abundant number of other meanings to account for the data. Further, we would expect the verb xordæn to be utilized in every instance of the expression of suffering, which is not the case. An example of a context in which suffering is expressed and where xordæn does not appear is an island formed with some LVCs of ke∫idæn “to pull.” This island expresses continuous sufferance without necessarily being the result of an action, but rather of injustice. æzabˉke∫idæn rænjˉke∫idæn entezaarˉke∫idæn

tortureˉKE∫IDÆN rageˉKE∫IDÆN waitingˉKE∫IDÆN

grieve,ˉbeˉtortured suffer longˉfor

(7) æz duri-e dust-æm æzab ke∫id-æm from distance-gen friend-1sg torture pulled-1sg ‘Iˉsufferedˉfromˉbeingˉfarˉfromˉmyˉfriend’

Another piece of evidence, supporting the fact that the LVs don’t have numerous unrelated and different meanings that surface in each LVC, is that Persian speakers will only utter the core meaning of these words when asked for them out of context. Thus, if asked for the word for suffer, xordæn would not be uttered, but rather different LVCs probably based on xordæn (or possibly ke∫idæn, as seen above). It is clear that xordæn has a special meaning that only shows up in specific constructions. Meanings embedded in xordæn are triggered by certain properties inherent in the PVs with which it combines and the construction in which they occur. Also, as can be seen from the description above, the meaning of the construction is more nuanced than to suffer.

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Islands are groups of LVCs where one type of PV combines with a particular LV to produce different LVCs with highly related meanings. Each island is assigned a construction that includes a specific LV, a type of PV (defined by common attributes, including physical, perceptual, semantic, and experiential knowledge), and the meaning contributed by the construction. This meaning portrays general aspectual and syntactic information, as well as idiosyncratic semantic information associated with it (not linearly predictable from the meaning of its constituents). It is important to note that not all the LVCs constructed with a specific LV are valid members of one of the islands of the LV. There are many LVCs with opaque meanings that can be considered idiomatic, as well as some transparent LVCs that don’t seem to fall into any of the islands. However, in most cases a motivation for the use of a particular LV in the LVC can be sought, even if isolated in the semantic space. As a visual aid, diagrams like the one below of the LV xordæn depict the semantic space of each LV in this analysis. The periphery of such a diagram represents the islands described above. The proximity of the islands (belonging to the same branch) express closer similarity of notions than islands further away. This configuration is one of several possible configurations, there is no strict metric on this space. Gorosnegi

[hunger] gij [dizziness] særma condition [cold] æzab [torment] qose [grief] emotion æsæf [regret]

sævari nozul [riding] [interest] re∫ve usurping [bribe]

rotation suffering

XORDÆN [to eat]

færib qæbn [trick] [cheat] affected

trick

gul [trick]

t∫æko∫ [hammer] instrument

potk [mallet]

weapon

sæt∫me [pellet] golule projec-tile ∫ælaq [bullet] tir [whip] hand held [bullet] kard [knife]

pit∫ [twist] qælt [sommersault]

tækan [motion] motion

general sekændari [stumble] vul [slither]

sædæme [damage] lætme hurt-ing damaging [damage] qat∫ modifying [chop] ængo∫t ju∫ [finger] [weld] væsle suzæn touching [connection] pit∫ [needle] fusing zærbe bæxiye reshaping [twist] naxon ta gere [shock] [stich] sili type of hit [nail] [fold] fer [knot] kotæk [slap] [curl] lægæd [beat] [kick]

Diagram 1.  Xordæn’s complete semantic space.



Mapping semantic spaces 

Furthermore, it is important to remember that there are no simple verbs in Persian with which to express the ideas expressed by the LVC islands. For example, the only way to express to fuse (bottom right in the diagram below) is to combine xordæn with the appropriate PV.

5.  xordæn’s islands In this section, we will present the LVCs and islands of xordæn in detail. For each island, we give the general meanings, the type of PV implicated, and elaborate details about the constructions (context and semantic nuances). The LVC islands of xordæn fall into four broad categories. These encompass meanings related to being affected, suffering, exploiting, and being agitated. These “meanings” branch off further into finer-grained classifications whose end nodes are the islands. usurping

suffering

XORDÆN [to eat]

motion

affected

Diagram 2.  Major branches in xordæn’s semantic space.

5.1  XORDÆN: Affected The richest branch, measured in terms of the number of associated islands, expresses undergoing or being affected by an action. The subject of these LVCs usually undergoes the action expressed. It is interesting to note that the group of islands that branch off to the right in the diagram are mostly used for inanimate objects, whereas those to the left are animate. Some of these LVCs can be considered as inchoative alternants of analogous LVCs constructed with zædæn.9 As we will see in the next section,

.  Each LV in the system has a similarly structured semantic space (networked islands). Many of the LVCs constructed with the LV xordæn have alternants with the LV zædæn “hit” (by alternants, I refer to LVCs that have a single PV occuring with different LVs to express similar but

 Neiloufar Family

XORDÆN [to eat]

færib qæbn [trick] [cheat] affected

trick

gul [trick]

t∫æko∫ [hammer] instrument

potk [mallet]

weapon

sæt∫me [pellet] golule projec-tile ∫ælaq [bullet] tir [whip] hand held [bullet] kard [knife]

sædæme [damage] lætme hurt-ing damaging [damage] qat∫ modifying [chop] ængo∫t ju∫ [finger] [weld] væsle suzæn touching [connection] pit∫ [needle] fusing zærbe bæxiye reshaping [twist] naxon ta gere [shock] [stich] sili type of hit [nail] [fold] fer [knot] kotæk [slap] [curl] lægæd [beat] [kick]

Diagram 3.  XORDÆN: Affected.

several xordæn islands correlate highly and alternate with a cluster of islands formed with zædæn.

5.1.1  XORDÆN: Affected: Modified: Fused Meaning: become fused or connected to parts of itself or to other entities usually through a natural process. PV: type of connection or instrument/material used for fusing or connecting. Remarks: Intransitive. These forms are used when the subject becomes fused or mended as a consequence of a natural process (rust, humidity, organic growth) and generally not the consequence of the actions of a conscience being. For example, the term kuk xordæn is rare, because stitching can only be done by a volitional external entity. Or, ju∫ xordæn “weld or fuse” can be used for a material when the fusion is the result of heat or rust or other environmental factors, but not directly when an entity has welded the items together (though if the speaker doesn’t know, care, or remember who welded it, but only assumes the action has taken place, this form can be used). In the LVCs expressing the fusion of two different entities, the second entity occurs as an indirect object. kukˉxordæn peyvændˉxordæn væsle-pineˉxordæn

stitchˉXORDÆN graftˉXORDÆN patchˉXORDÆN

beˉclosedˉupˉbyˉstitches beˉgraftedˉ(plants,ˉorgans) beˉpatchedˉup

related meanings). Alternations are systematic and can be considered as cases of shared islands, connecting two or more different LVs, and in this way inter-connecting all the verbs in the system. It is beyond the scope of this article to explore the dynamics between LV spaces.



Mapping semantic spaces 

(8) in lebas qæ∫æng æst hært∫ænd besyar væsle-pine xord-e æst this dress beautiful is despite much patch eat-ptcp is ‘Thisˉdressˉisˉbeautifulˉevenˉthoughˉitˉhasˉbeenˉpatchedˉupˉquiteˉaˉbit’

5.1.2  XORDÆN: Affected: Modified: Damaged Meaning: be damaged or deteriorated. PV: type of damage or wound. Remark: Intransitive. These forms express substantial physical damage sustained by the subject. This damage is usually incurred by effects of the physical environment and doesn’t necessarily involve an external, conscious agent. The damage usually diminishes the value and usefulness of the subject. asibˉxordæn zæxmˉxordæn lætmeˉxordæn

injuryˉXORDÆN woundˉXORDÆN setbackˉXORDÆN

beˉinjured,ˉbeˉdamaged beˉdamaged,ˉwounded sustainˉsetbackˉ(e.g.,ˉprogress)

(9) saltænæt pæræst-an dar enγelab lætmehaj-e ziyad xord-ænd royalty worshiper-pl in revolution setback-gen much ate-3sg ‘The royalists sustained much setback in the revolution’

5.1.3  XORDÆN: Affected: Modified: Topology Meaning: undergo an organized, topological change. PV: type of topological transformation. Remarks: Intransitive. The topological change expressed by these verbs is not imposed or directly inflicted by an external entity, but rather by the environment (natural process) or unintended consequence of an action. For example, one cannot use the term fer xordæn to refer to someone’s hair after a visit to the hair salon, though it could be used if the curls result from humidity in the air. The change usually damages the subject or at least results in an unwanted state. For example, one cannot say gere xordæn for a string that has been purposely tied into a knot, though the same form can be used to express a wire having gotten tangled from too much motion (a consequence of another action, e.g., a tangled telephone wire when one walks around while using the phone). taˉxordæn gereˉxordæn ferˉxordæn

foldˉXORDÆN knotˉXORDÆN urlˉXORDÆN

getˉcurled getˉtiedˉinˉaˉknot getˉcurled

(10) hengami ke kenar-e dærya resid-im mu-hay-e when that side-gen sea arrived-2pl hair-pl-gen ham-e-man fer xord all-gen-2pl curl ate ‘Whenˉweˉarrivedˉatˉtheˉbeach,ˉallˉourˉhairˉgotˉcurled’

 Neiloufar Family

5.1.4  XORDÆN: Affected: Modified: Surface Meaning: be touched with a hand or foot or an instrument, usually leaving a mark or imprint. PV: instrument doing the touching. Remarks: Intransitive. The instrument used for this action is usually sharp unless it is a body part (it can leave a non-negligible effect on the surface of the subject), and though the action doesn’t entail hurting, it might have negative or damaging effects on the subject. This effect is usually not the direct intent of an action, but a consequential result. In other words, someone might touch a surface, not meaning to leave an imprint, and so the imprint is not the intent of the action: the surface can be said to have been dæst xorde. dæstˉxordæn suzænˉxordæn paˉxordæn

handˉXORDÆN needleˉXORDÆN footˉXORDÆN

beˉtouched,ˉaltered beˉtouched/piercedˉwithˉaˉneedle getˉhitˉwithˉaˉfoot

(11) in æks æsl nist dast xord-e æst this picture original neg-is hand ate-PTCP is ‘Thisˉpictureˉisˉnotˉanˉoriginalˉitˉhasˉbeenˉaltered’

5.1.5  XORDÆN: Affected: Hurting: Weapon: Type of Hit Meaning: be hit with another entity’s hands, feet, or head. PV: type of hit. Remarks: Intransitive. This action must directly affect the subject in a hurtful manner. For example, one cannot say *hol xordæn (push eat), because the notion of push can imply acting on an entity without necessarily hurting it. An agent carries out the action, though not explicitly expressed. siliˉxordæn lægædˉxordæn mo∫tˉxordæn

slapˉXORDÆN kickˉXORDÆN fistˉXORDÆN

beˉslapped getˉkicked getˉpunched

(12) tæræf anγadr xode∫-o lus kærd ke yek sili xord guy so himself-acc pest did that one slap ate ‘Theˉguyˉmadeˉsuchˉaˉpestˉofˉhimselfˉthatˉheˉgotˉslappedˉinˉtheˉface’10

5.1.6  XORDÆN: Affected: Hurting: Weapon: Hand Held Meaning: be wounded or penetrated by a weapon. PV: a sharp, penetrating weapon, usually hand held. Remarks: Intransitive. The weapon must be sharp and directly penetrate the subject. For example, one can be wounded by a gun, but the form *tofæng xordæn

.  In French slang (argot), one can say “il s’est mangé un pain” (lit. he ate himself some bread) to express someone getting punched (Vanhove, personal communication).



Mapping semantic spaces 

(gun eat) does not exist, because it is not the gun that penetrates, but the bullets (see next island). xænjærˉxordæn t∫aquˉxordæn ∫æm∫irˉxordæn

sawˉXORDÆN knifeˉXORDÆN swordˉXORDÆN

beˉhitˉwithˉaˉsaw beˉstabbedˉwithˉaˉknife beˉstabbedˉwithˉaˉsword

(13) gozærkon væsæte mahlæke t∫aqu xord. passerby middle-gen melee knife ate. ‘Theˉpasserbyˉwasˉstabbedˉinˉtheˉmiddleˉofˉtheˉmelee’

5.1.7  XORDÆN: Affected: Hurting: Weapon: Projectile Meaning: be attacked by a projectile weapon. PV: a projectile weapon. Remarks: Intransitive. This island is similar to the previous island, but only differs in the type of weapon used. mu∫ækˉxordæn tirˉxordæn sæt∫meˉxordæn

missileˉXORDÆN bulletˉXORDÆN pelletˉXORDÆN

getˉhitˉbyˉaˉmissile getˉshotˉwithˉaˉbullet getˉshotˉwithˉpellets

(14) mohafez-e ræis jomhur tir xord guard-gen boss republic bullet ate ‘Theˉpresident’sˉguardˉgotˉshot’

5.1.8  XORDÆN: Affected: Hurting: Weapon: Blunt Meaning: be struck with a heavy or blunt instrument. PV: a blunt instrument used for striking. Remarks: Intransitive. The subject usually undergoes a quick blow or repetitive quick hits by the instrument. t∫æko∫ xordæn potk xordæn gu∫tkub xordæn (15)

hammerˉXORDÆN malletˉXORDÆN meat-hammerˉXORDÆN

beˉhammered beˉhitˉwithˉaˉmallet beˉhitˉwithˉaˉmeat-hammer

in ma∫in xeyli t∫æko∫ xorde æst this automobile much hammer eat-ptcp is (lit.ˉthisˉautomobileˉhasˉbeenˉhammeredˉquiteˉaˉbit) ‘Thisˉautomobileˉhasˉbeenˉrepairedˉoften’

5.1.9  XORDÆN: Affected: Hurting: Trick Meaning: be tricked. PV: trick. Remarks: Intransitive. The subject of these forms goes through a negative process. These islands are not productive, but represent an island since there are several forms that express a similar idea.

 Neiloufar Family

hoqqeˉxordæn kælækˉxordæn naroˉxordæn

trickˉXORDÆN trickˉXORDÆN double-crossˉXORDÆN

slight,ˉtrick trick double-cross

(16) bit∫are hæmi∫e sær-e bazi hoqqe mi-xor-æd helpless always head-gen game trick prog-eat-3sg ‘Theˉpoorˉguyˉalwaysˉgetsˉtrickedˉinˉgames’

5.2  XORDÆN: Suffering The following LVCs express suffering caused by a process or condition affecting a person physically or mentally. The cause of the suffering is usually an unintended result of an action. This is one of the only sets in the system that expresses abstract notions which otherwise mostly occur with the generic LV kærdæn “to do”. The LVCs in these islands are all atelic, activity verbs: they express durational conditions. gorosnegi

[hunger] gij [dizziness] særma condition [cold] æzab [torment] qose [grief] emotion æsæf [regret]

suffering

XORDÆN [to eat]

Diagram 4.  XORDÆN: Suffering.

5.2.1  XORDÆN: Suffering: Emotional Meaning: suffer from a negative emotion. PV: emotion of regret, sorrow or grief. Remarks: Intransitive. The LVCs express the durational suffering from an emotional burden. This emotion is a continuous, irrepressible, negative feeling that has to be suffered as the result of ones personal actions or experience. nedamætˉxordæn qoseˉxordæn ænduhˉxordæn

regretˉXORDÆN concernˉXORDÆN sorrowˉXORDÆN

regret worry,ˉbeˉconcerned grieve

(17) hæmi∫e qosey-e færda-ra mi-xor-æd always concern-gen tomorrow-acc prog-eat-3sg ‘She’sˉalwaysˉworriesˉaboutˉtheˉfuture’



Mapping semantic spaces 

5.2.2  XORDÆN: Suffering: Physical Meaning: suffer from a physical condition that could cause bodily damage. PV: a natural but uncomfortable condition that causes suffering or might entail more serious ailment. Remarks: Intransitive. These LVCs specifically express the condition or the process that causes the suffering, and not the symptoms. One cannot say *deldærd xordæn (stomach ache eat) since this is a symptom (e.g., of hunger) and not a condition that causes suffering. Nor can one say *særgije xordæn (vertigo eat) which is a symptom of dizziness gij xordæn. gorosnegiˉxordæn særmaˉxordæn gijiˉxordæn

hungerˉXORDÆN coldˉXORDÆN dizzinessˉXORDÆN

sufferˉfromˉhunger catchˉcoldˉ(fromˉtheˉcold) getˉdizzy

(18) u fekr mi-kon-æd æz særma særma xord-e æst he think prog-do-3sg from cold cold ate-pctp is ‘Heˉthinksˉheˉhasˉcaughtˉaˉcoldˉfromˉtheˉcoldˉweather’

5.3  XORDÆN: Usurping sævari nozul [riding] [interest] re∫ve usurping [bribe]

XORDÆN [to eat]

Diagram 5.  XORDÆN: Usurping.

Meaning: Exploit service or property. PV: the type of good that is being taken advantage of. Remarks: Intransitive. The LVCs in this island express the notion of taking advantage of another person’s labor or property. Here, the original meaning of xordæn, “eat,” emerges in a metaphorical expression denoting gluttony. re∫veˉxordæn nozulˉxordæn pulˉxordæn

bribeˉXORDÆN interestˉXORDÆN moneyˉXORDÆN

acceptˉaˉbribe chargeˉinterest embezzleˉorˉextractˉmoney

(19) hoquq-e kæm ba’es-e re∫ve xord-æn ziyad ∫od-e æst salary-gen small cause-gen bribe eat-inf much become-pctp is ‘Lowˉsalariesˉhaveˉbecomeˉtheˉcauseˉofˉmuchˉbribery’

 Neiloufar Family

5.4  XORDÆN: Agitated In these LVCs, the subject undergoes certain types of motion. The motion is usually unintentional on the part of the subject and often repetitive. pit∫ [twist] qælt [sommersault] rotation

tækan [motion]

XORDÆN [to eat]

motion

general sekændari [stumble] vul [slither]

Diagram 6.  XORDÆN: Motion.

5.4.1  XORDÆN: Agitated: General Meaning: move. PV: type of movement. Remarks: Intransitive. These LVCs express non-goal oriented movement, usually non-volitional. The movement results from an internal, uncontrollable condition or an external agent, such as twitching from muscle spasms (internal) or being shaken by someone to be woken up (external). tækanˉxordæn teloˉteloˉxordæn vulˉxordæn

movementˉXORDÆN swayˉXORDÆN fidgetˉXORDÆN

jerk,ˉshake,ˉwag sway fidget

(20) bæt∫e æz bihoselegi hæmæ∫ vul mi-xord child from boredom constantly fidget prog-eat-3sg ‘Theˉkidˉconstantlyˉfidgetedˉfromˉboredom’

5.4.2  XORDÆN: Agitated: Rotation Meaning: rotate. PV: type of rotational movement. Remarks: Intransitive. Similar to the previous island, this set of LVCs express uncontrollable motions, but involve the rotation or turning of the subject. pit∫ˉxordæn qæltˉxordæn mæl’æqˉxordæn

rollˉXORDÆN flipˉXORDÆN somersaultˉXORDÆN

(21) ma∫in-e mosabeqe seta mæl’æq xord car-gen race three somersault ate ‘Theˉraceˉcarˉflippedˉoverˉthreeˉtimes’

beˉrolled getˉflipped goˉintoˉaˉsomersault,ˉflipˉover



Mapping semantic spaces 

6.  Concluding remarks Each construction has strong restrictions on the lexical items that can occur within it. The idiosyncratic meanings of the constructions emerge from the interaction of the items in the construction with the construction itself. In other words, the construction is stored as a lexical entry, but its existence gives rise to the possibility of making new verbs. It also allows for a more efficient storage of the massive amounts of verbal notions produced by each LV. This type of meaning construction can be considered as a case of semi-compositionality, where the meaning of the whole is motivated by the meaning of the parts, but calculated in a more sophisticated way than summation of its components. Each construction encodes semantic information, as shown here, as well as elaborate syntactic constraints, which will be investigated in future studies. The exact contribution of each element is seldom clear, further analysis must be done to find an algorithm for verb formation in this system. It seems that we cannot observe any basic overarching traits unique to the LV xordæn. Only very general properties can be assigned to the majority of the islands: proto-patient subject, inchoative. However, these don’t differentiate xordæn from other LVs in the system that also have these properties, like gereftæn “to obtain,” or oftadæn “to fall.” For this reason, a bottom-up approach is crucial for understanding this system. Since no general properties can capture the global behavior of the LV, taking a top-down approach (by assigning general properties to each LV) would not produce significant patterns. Furthermore, individual LVCs have contradicting patterns within each data set of all the LVCs possible with a single LV. A top-down approach would not shed light on the correct contexts a particular LVC would occur in, nor would it allow for precise and unambiguous rules for productivity. Constructions like those presented in the previous section provide a basis for productivity, they are semi-productive. Semi-productivity occurs when a process displays systematic behavior, though the amount of productivity is constrained by semantic or other restrictions. In Persian, the fact that the constructions that define the islands involve particular semantic information signals semi-productivity. Production of new forms is limited by the LV and the restrictions on the PV. Furthermore, there are certain syntactic constraints on the PVs. For example, anaphora or pronominal elements cannot replace the PV in context. This shows that the semantics and syntax of the constructions are to a certain extent constrained, placing restrictions on productivity. Verb formation in languages such as English or French, follows syntactic rules. In Persian, it is semantically based. This study provides a basis for investigations comparing and analyzing processes of verb formation as they have evolved in different languages, especially its effects on acquisition (comparing the ease and patterns of acquisition). The result of this analysis has been a fresh insight into several general linguistic issues, such as meaning construction, productivity, and compositionality as they

 Neiloufar Family

are manifested in the Persian verbal system. The descriptions in the last section highlighted some of the main semantic components of the islands that populate the semantic space of the LV xordæn. Xordæn, or the notion of “eat” is common to all languages. In Persian, the same lexeme expressing this notion, has evolved to help express many different verbal notions. Some of these seemingly farfetched notions actually reemerge in totally unrelated languages for the same lexeme. This raises an important point for typological studies: languages grouped together with similar syntax might have little common semantic structure, whereas those with similar semantics might diverge in their syntactic structures. The cross-linguistic study of verbs like xordæn is necessary to gain a better understanding of the semantic structures common to different languages. This study also demonstrates that the distinction between the grammar and the lexicon is not very clear, or discrete, and that the space between the two poles is constantly being filled with new constructions. As these include both grammatical and lexical information, they further blur the distinction. Thus, only deeper and more thorough analysis of these types of phenomena will give us a better chance of understanding the cognitive processing involved. We would expect that inter-language comparative analysis would yield even more insights because it can highlight certain possible universal developments of such phenomena (see Bonvini; Boyeldieu; Hénault this volume). This is not a far-fetched expectation, since we know similar parallel developments in other human faculties across different cultures.

References Afshar, G., Hakami, N. & Hakami, N. 2002. Contemporary Persian Dictionary. Tehran: Farhang Moaser Publishers. Dabir-Moghaddam, M. 1990. On postposition ra in Persian. Iranian Journal of Linguistics 7(1): 2–60. Dowty, D. 1991. Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language 67(3): 547–619. Family, N. 2006. Explorations of Semantic Space: The case of Light Verb Constructions in Persian. Ph.D. dissertation, EHESS, Paris. Fillmore, C.J. & Kay, P. 1996. Construction Grammar. Ms, University of California at Berkeley, Department of Linguistics. Ghomeshi, J. 1997. Non-projecting nouns and the ezafe construction in Persian. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 15: 729–788. Ghomeshi, J. 2003. Plural marking, indefiniteness, and the noun phrase. Studia Linguistica 57(2): 47–74 Goldberg, A. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press.



Mapping semantic spaces 

Goldberg, A. 1996. Words by default: Optimizing constraints and the Persian complex predicate. In Berkeley Linguistic Society 22: 132–146. Goldberg, A. & Jackendoff, R. 2004. The English resultative as a family of constructions. Language 80: 532–568. Haim, S. 1995. The Larger Persian English Dictionary. Tehran: Farhang Masser Publishers. Karimi, S. 1997. Persian complex verbs: Idiomatic or compositional. Lexicology 3(2): 273–318. Karimi-Doostan, M.R. 1997. Light Verb Constructions in Persian. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Essex. Lambton, A.K.S. 1961. Persian grammar. Cambridge: UCP. Lazard, G. 1970. Etude quantitative de l’évolution d’un morphème: l’Enclitique ra en persan. In Mélanges Marcel Cohen, 381–388. The Hague: Mouton. Lazard, G. 1992. A Grammar of Contemporary Persian. Cosa Mesa CA: Mazda Publishers. Mahootian, S. 1997. Persian. London: Routledge. Megerdoomian, K. 2002. Beyond Words and Phrases: A Unified Theory of Predicate Composition. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Southern California. Roberts, J. 2005. Ra in Persian and information structure. In Proceedings SIL International. (http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/vanvalin/rrg.html) Samiian, V. 1994. The ezafe construction: Some implications for the theory of X-bar syntax. In Persian Studies in North America, M. Marashi (Ed.), 17–41. Betheda MD: Iranbooks. Stevenson, Fazly, A. & North, R. 2004. Statistical measures of the semi-productivity of light verb constructions. In 2nd ACL Workshop on Multiword Expressions: Integrating Processing, 1–8. (http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~suzanne/publications.html) Vahedi-Langrudi, M.M. 1996. The Syntax, Semantics and Argument Structure of Complex Predicates in Modern Farsi. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Ottawa. Wierzbicka, A. 1982. Why can you have a drink when you can’t *have an eat? Language 58: 753–799.

Semantic maps and the typology of colexification Intertwining polysemous networks across languages Alexandre François

Lacito (CNRS), Fédération TUL Building upon the model of Semantic Maps (Haspelmath 2003), which typologists have designed mainly for grammatical semantics, this chapter discusses methodological issues for a model in lexical typology. By breaking up polysemous lexemes of various languages into their semantic “atoms” or senses, one defines an etic grid against which cross-linguistic comparison can be undertaken. Languages differ as to which senses they colexify, i.e., lexify identically. But while each polysemous lexeme as a whole is language-specific, individual pairings of colexified senses can be compared across languages. Our model, understood as an empirical, atomistic approach to lexical typology, is finally exemplified with the rich polysemies associated with the notion “breathe”. Intertwined together, they compose a single, universal network of potential semantic extensions. Keywords:  breathe; colexification; etic grid; lexical typology; methodology; polysemy; semantic maps; sense; soul; spirit

1.  General issues of lexical typology* At first sight, the capacity of the human brain to detect analogies in one’s environment is infinite, and should logically result in lexical polysemy having no limits. And indeed, the more languages we explore, the more examples we find of unique metaphors and unexpected cases of semantic shift  – probably one of the most thrilling mysteries and charms of language discovery. But what generally happens is that we focus our

*I would like to thank Martine Vanhove, Maria Kotjevskaja-Tamm, Sergueï Sakhno and Françoise Rose for their precious comments on a previous version of this article.

 Alexandre François

attention on the most exotic cases, and overlook the information that is of most interest for the hunter of semantic universals: namely, that a great deal of lexical polysemies are in fact widespread across the world’s languages, and, as such, deserve to be highlighted and analyzed. This observation meets the agenda of lexical typology. Indeed, one of the mainstays of typological linguistics is precisely to show that cross-linguistic variation, far from being random and infinite, can in fact be reduced to a limited range of possible cases. And it is the purpose of this whole volume to show that the search for universals and typological tendencies, which has already proven fruitful in phonological or grammatical studies, may perfectly apply to the study of the lexicon too, provided the specific methodological issues it raises are properly addressed. Generally speaking, one central issue raised by linguistic typology is the necessity to ascertain the comparability of languages. Languages can only be contrasted with accuracy provided a standard of comparison is proposed, defining the common ground against which commonalities and differences can be observed across languages. Studies in grammatical typology have already begun to identify some of the relevant criteria for the comparison of grammar systems. They consist in the many functional features that emerge out of the observation of actual categories in natural languages: such notions as number, animacy, deixis, telicity, agentivity …, form a solid functional basis for the cross-linguistic analysis of specific points of grammar. But in the less explored domain of lexical typology, the comparability of languages seems less easy to delineate. Several reasons may account for this scientific gap. For one thing, there is still the widespread idea that grammars are tidy and regular, while lexicons would be openended, exuberant and idiosyncratic. With such a perception, it is deemed unlikely that the typological project might come up with any satisfying generalizations in the lexical domain as much as it does in the observation of grammars. Also, the accurate description of lexical data often requires taking into account the many functional properties of real-world referents, to say nothing of the pitfalls of culture-specific vocabulary; this seems to make the comparative project a difficult challenge. The aim of this article is to discuss and illustrate the possibility of comparing the world’s lexicons, by resorting to a methodological tool which has already proven its efficiency among grammar typologists: semantic maps. For a given notion taken as the map’s pivot, I will suggest a method for drawing a universal network of potential semantic extensions, following the observation of polysemies attested across the world’s languages. A useful concept for this study is the notion of colexification, which will be introduced in 3.2. Finally, the last part of this paper will illustrate the potentials of this method, by analyzing the complex semantic network associated with the notion “breathe”.



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

2.  Ensuring the comparability of lexicons 2.1  Monosemy vs. polysemy The first issue that has to be addressed when studying the lexicon, is the nature of the objects to be compared. Indeed, the comparative project will be directly affected by theoretical choices regarding the nature of the word, whether it is understood as intrinsically monosemous, or capable of genuine polysemy. This discussion relates to ongoing debates (see Geeraerts 1993; Nerlich et al. 2003; Riemer 2005) which I will only mention briefly here in relation to the present discussion. When Saussure defined the sign as the arbitrary pairing of a form (the “signifier”) and a concept (the “signified”), he insisted that each concept can only be characterized negatively, insofar as it contrasts with other words of the same language: “Concepts (…) are purely differential; they are defined not positively by their contents, but negatively by their relationship to the other elements of the system.”1 This conception of semantics has led to the structuralist view that the meaning of a given word in one language will never match exactly the meaning of its most usual translation in another language: its “semantic outline”, as it were, is unique to that particular system, and cannot be found identical anywhere else. In such a framework, the very project of a lexical typology, aiming to compare lexicons across languages, seems not only difficult, but simply out of the question. Directly inherited from this structuralist standpoint is the monosemist approach, whereby a polysemous lexical unit will be analyzed as fundamentally organized around a unique general meaning; its different attested senses in context are understood as resulting from the combination of that core meaning with the pragmatics of each specific speech situation. Conversely, the polysemist approach considers the multiplicity of meanings to form an intrinsic property of each polysemous word at the semantic level, with no necessity, or even legitimacy, to reduce this multiplicity to an artificial unity. Several attempts have been proposed to reconcile these two contrary approaches, for example, around the notions of “prototype” (Rosch 1973) or “radial categories” (Lakoff 1987). It is not the purpose of this article to solve such long-discussed issues. What is relevant here is to underline that each point of view is an attempt to handle the dialectic between unity and multiplicity, which is inherent to the paradox of polysemy. Now, it appears that cross-linguistic comparison can be carried out with more precision if the

.  “Les concepts (…) sont purement différentiels, définis non pas positivement par leur contenu, mais négativement par leurs rapports avec les autres termes du système” (Saussure 1972 [1916]: 162).

 Alexandre François

facts of polysemy are stated explicitly from the perspective of a multiplicity of senses. The idea that each polysemy is fundamentally underlied by a single abstract meaning, though intellectually appealing it may be, results in definitions that are difficult to apprehend with precision, and to test against actual data. To quote the words of Haspelmath (2003: 214), “general-meaning analyses are not particularly helpful if one wants to know in what way languages differ from each other.” Whatever theoretical viewpoint one adopts concerning polysemy, the only representation that really allows cross-linguistic comparison is therefore one that explicitly spells out the multiplicity of senses making up a word’s polysemy. The question whether these senses are to be understood as pragmatically defined contextual uses of a central meaning (monosemist approach), or as autonomous components at the semantic level (polysemist approach), is somewhat a secondary issue. What is essential is to find a method that will allow us to describe each polysemous network in the full detail of its internal components.

2.2  Overlapping polysemies A first illustration can be proposed, with the English word straight. Roughly speaking, this adjective may be broken into at least the following senses2 (see 3.1. for a discussion of the method): 〈rectilinear〉 〈frank〉 〈honest〉 〈classical〉

(a straight line) (straight talking) (a straight guy) (a straight play)

〈heterosexual〉 〈undiluted〉 〈directly〉 〈immediately〉

(gay or straight) (straight whisky) (straight to the point) (straight away)

Its closest translation in French, droit, shows a slightly different range of senses: 〈rectilinear〉 〈directly〉 〈honest〉 〈right-hand〉

(un trait droit) (aller droit au but) (un type droit) (le côté droit)

Now, a strictly monosemist approach would probably try to define the core meaning of straight by resorting to a general definition, sufficiently abstract so as to encompass all its contextual uses in English. Then it would also propose a unique definition for French droit; and because the meanings attested for these two words are so close to each other, it is likely that the two general definitions would end up being quite similar,

.  Throughout this paper, angled brackets 〈…〉 are used to represent senses, insofar as they form an element of a polysemous network.



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

and therefore unable to grasp clearly what is common and what is different between straight and droit. The comparison becomes much easier and clearer if the comparison is carried out at the level of the senses. It is then easy to observe that the two words share exactly three senses: 〈rectilinear〉, 〈directly〉, 〈honest〉; that French droit adds to these a sense 〈right-hand〉, while English straight adds a number of other senses which have no equivalent in French. This configuration may be illustrated visually in the form of two overlapping sets (Figure 1). The elements of the sets are the senses, presented here in no specific order. The sets themselves refer to the lexical units – the words – that happen to group these senses in their own polysemies. One may talk here of two “overlapping polysemies”.

〈undiluted〉 〈classical〉 〈heterosexual〉 〈immediately〉

〈frank〉 〈rectilinear〉 〈honest〉 〈directly〉

〈right-hand〉

Eng. straight

Fr. droit

Figure 1.  Overlapping polysemies: Eng. straight vs. Fr. droit.

In sum, the fine-grained comparison of lexicons across the world’s languages can be efficient provided each polysemous network is first broken down into its semantic atoms or “senses”. This may be done regardless of one’s theoretical preferences – whether these senses are taken as actual semantic sub-categories in the speakers’ minds, or merely contextual manifestations of a deeper meaning. This approach, whereby a given word is analyzed into its semantic atoms, is the first step before languages can be compared with precision, showing which senses each language lexifies together. In this new perspective, the primary unit of observation for lexical typology is no longer the word – a complex, highly language-specific entity – but the sense – a functionallybased, language-independent criterion (3.1.). These observations form the basic principles of the model I will introduce in the remainder of this article. Section 3 will first discuss the methodology for isolating senses, and for observing the way languages group them together; I will then introduce the concept of “colexification”. Section 4 will discuss the principles underlying the representation of lexical semantic maps, drawing on the principles set out by Haspelmath (2003). The model here delineated should provide empirical tools for the observation and analysis of polysemy across languages. Hopefully, it should also make it possible for future research

 Alexandre François

to detect certain typological tendencies among the lexical structures of the world’s languages, and eventually pave the way for the formulation of lexical universals.

3.  Towards a typology of colexification For each specific notion taken as the object of study (see 4.3.), the empirical method here adopted follows two steps: –– ––

First, select the word that lexifies this notion in one language, and identify the various senses which form part of its polysemy, in this particular language. Second, once a list of senses has been proposed for this first language, observe a second language, to see which of these senses are also lexified together (or “colexified”), and what new senses have to be added to the list. Then proceed to another language, and expand the list accordingly.

To use a chemical metaphor, one could say that the comparison of different molecules requires first to identify the nature of the atoms that take part in their structure (3.1.); and then, once each molecule has been broken up into its components, to observe the bonds that connect these atoms together (3.2.).

3.1  Senses: The atoms within each molecule Imagine we want to observe the various polysemies attested cross-linguistically around the notion “rectilinear”. The first step is to select, in any language, a word that may translate (“lexify”) this notion; for example, English straight. What now has to be done, before being able to compare it with a word from another language – or with another word of the same language – is to break down this lexical unit into its own various senses. Most of the time, this is done intuitively, as probably most dictionaries do: obvious functional considerations seem sufficient to analyze, say, 〈rectilinear〉 and 〈frank〉 as two distinct senses, deserving separate treatment. However, on some occasions one may object to the arbitrariness of such intuitive choices, when two senses appear to be so close, that their distinction might be an artifact of the linguist’s analysis. In the case of straight (2.2.), for instance, one may argue that the psychological senses 〈frank〉 and 〈honest〉 form in fact a single meaning for the native speaker of English, so that we are dealing with a case of vagueness 〈frank, honest〉 rather than a case of polysemy, strictly speaking, between two separate senses. Trying to resolve such a tricky debate with a definite answer might result in unverifiable and irreconcilable points of view. Luckily, there is one way out of this dilemma, which is to base all sense distinctions upon the empirical observation of contrasts between languages. For example, the fact that French lexifies 〈rectilinear〉 with 〈honest〉 but not with 〈frank〉 suffices to justify the choice of distinguishing between the two



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

latter meanings as if they were two separate senses. Even though this may fail to represent faithfully the language-internal perception of an English native speaker, at least this serves efficiently the purpose of cross-linguistic comparison: it becomes then easy to state the facts by saying that these two senses are treated the same in English, and not in French. The same reasoning would apply to 〈directly〉 and 〈immediately〉, which despite their semantic closeness, must be distinguished due to the different treatment they receive in French. The repetition of the same procedure, for each word under scrutiny, makes it possible to define with precision the list of its possible senses. This empirical method of defining senses based on cross-linguistic comparison has the valuable advantage that it helps “sidestep the vexing problem of distinguishing between polysemy and vagueness” (Haspelmath 2003: 231). Now, a corollary of this approach is that the list of senses for a given word is likely to evolve during the process of cross-linguistic comparison. Indeed, the more languages are considered, the more new distinctions are likely to be found, thereby resulting in the need to split up certain senses that were initially not distinguished. For example, suppose the examination of nine languages showed the meaning 〈horizontally rectilinear〉 to be always lexified in the same way as 〈vertically rectilinear〉: this would result in the initial grouping of these two meanings as a unique vague sense 〈rectilinear (horiz. or vertic.)〉, with no empirical reason for splitting it in two. But once a tenth language is considered that forces to make this distinction, then the former sense 〈rectilinear〉 will have to be cracked down into two separate senses, for the purpose of cross-linguistic comparison. As a result, the description given for each polysemous lexeme in the first nine languages may have to be revised, due to the introduction of a new semantic distinction after the tenth language has been examined. Note that this remark is not necessarily an issue for the semantic analysis itself: one will simply have to describe 〈horizontally rectilinear〉 and 〈vertically rectilinear〉 as two potentially separate senses, which simply happen to be formally indistinct in the first nine languages, but distinguished in the tenth. The problem rather arises at the practical level, if one thinks of setting up a typological database: for it means that the semantic descriptions made at a given point in time, during the constitution of the database, are likely to evolve as more and more distinctions are considered from new languages. This can entail the necessity for the first languages entered in the database to be reassessed again and again as the list of descriptive senses grows. When this takes the form of a semantic map (section 4), this also means our maps will have to integrate the capacity to evolve constantly, and adapt to whatever new input comes in. This is probably feasible, but likely to raise certain technical questions.3

.  In the grammatical domain, Haspelmath (2003: 231) reassures us on this point, by saying: “the typical experience is that after a dozen languages have been examined, fewer and fewer

 Alexandre François

Despite these potential issues on the practical side, it is important to see that this method, by basing every semantic distinction on empirical data, provides a safe antidote against the vagaries of intuition; it ensures that the whole process of semantic analysis is always verifiable – and therefore falsifiable.

3.2  Colexification: The bonds between the atoms In itself, the result of the preceding step pretends to be little more than a list of notions (senses). For one thing, these notions can be shown – using the cross-linguistic method described above – to be functionally distinct from each other; but at the same time, the way they were compiled implies that they are potentially linked together in at least some of the world’s lexicons. No particular claim is being made at this stage, except that this non-arbitrary selection of notions should provide a useful “etic grid” against which language-specific, “emic” categorizations are to be observed. But what is really relevant to our typological study is not so much these atoms per se, as the bonds that each particular language creates between them. Once a list of senses is arrived at, the phenomenon most relevant for the second stage of observation may be called colexification.

(1) Aˉgivenˉlanguageˉisˉsaidˉtoˉcolexifyˉtwoˉfunctionallyˉdistinctˉsensesˉif,ˉandˉ onlyˉif,ˉitˉcanˉassociateˉthemˉwithˉtheˉsameˉlexicalˉform4

For example, Figure 1 showed that English colexifies the senses 〈immediately〉 and 〈undiluted〉; 〈rectilinear〉 and 〈right-hand〉 are colexified in French; 〈rectilinear〉 and 〈directly〉 are colexified both in English and in French. One of the advantages of the term “colexification”, which I am proposing here, is to be purely descriptive, and neutral with respect to semantic or historical interpretations – contrary to the term “semantic shift”, chosen for example by Anna Zalizniak (this volume). One interest of the colexification model is to be readily exploitable for typological research. For example, one may want to check what proportion of the world’s languages colexify the two senses 〈rectilinear〉 and 〈honest〉, as French and English do: is this connection found only in a few scattered languages? Is it an areal phenomenon covering, say, Western Europe? Is it well represented in other parts of the world? Or is it universally common?

functions need to be added to the map with each new language.” It remains to be seen whether this comforting statement also applies to the richer realm of lexicons. .  The term “lexical form” may refer to a lexeme or a construction, or occasionally to a lexical root (but see below for a discussion).



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

Incidentally, because the list of senses is initially based on the polysemy of a specific word in a given language, it is logical that the first stage of the observation will show these senses to be colexified in the language under consideration. For example, because the initial sense list was built as the description of English straight, then it necessarily results that these senses are all “colexified” in English. At this stage of the research, due to a bias in favour of the language taken as the starting point, such an observation is circular, and has little interest. But these representations become rapidly more informative as other languages are considered. For instance, French adds to the list a new sense 〈right-hand〉, which is not lexified by English straight. As more languages are explored, and the list aggregates more and more senses, it will eventually come closer to a universal grid of potentially interconnected notions – with less and less risk of an ethnocentric bias in favour of a specific language.

3.3  Strict vs. loose colexification Strictly speaking, the notion of colexification should be understood as “the capacity, for two senses, to be lexified by the same lexeme in synchrony”. However, nothing prevents the model from being extended, so as to make provision for several – hierarchized? – levels of colexification. These may include the linking of two senses by a single lexeme across different periods of its semantic history (e.g., droit also meant “right, true” in Old French); their association in the form of doublets (e.g., Fr. droit and direct), or other etymologically related forms (Eng. straight and stretch); the impact of lexical derivation (Eng. straight → straighten; Fr. droit → droiture “honesty”) or composition (Eng. straight → straightforward); and so on. Ideally, for the sake of accuracy and future reference, the different types of formal relations should be kept distinct in the representation of the data, e.g., with the use of different symbols. In particular, “strict colexification” (same lexeme in synchrony) should be carefully distinguished from “loose colexification” (covering all other cases mentioned here). This will be done here formally, in tables (sections 5.2. and 7.2), with the use of respectively “+” vs “[+]” signs; and in maps (section 7.3.), with the use of solid vs. dotted lines. To take an example, one can represent the colexification of 〈rectilinear〉 and 〈honest〉 in English as “strict colexification”, because both can be lexified with exactly the same form in synchrony (straight). As for the sense 〈simple, easy to understand〉, it can also be said to be somehow part of the lexical field of straight, but only indirectly, through the compound form straightforward; in other words, English shows “strict colexification” between 〈rectilinear〉 and 〈honest〉, but “loose colexification” between 〈rectilinear〉 and 〈simple〉. Finally, in the framework of a typological survey carried out around a specific notion, I propose that the senses to be included in the universal list – and in the map derived from it  – should fill one condition: that is, they should only include those

 Alexandre François

senses that are attested to be in strict colexification in at least one language of the world. For example, supposing one language L1 were found where exactly the same form in synchrony might translate both senses 〈rectilinear〉 and 〈simple〉, then this would be a sufficient condition for the latter sense to be included in the sense list associated with 〈rectilinear〉. This being done, it will be possible to state that some languages – like L1 – colexify these two senses directly (“strictly”), while others  – like English – colexify them only indirectly (“loosely”), and others again do not colexify them at all. Conversely, if no language can be found where the two senses are strictly colexified, then it is probably a safe principle to exclude them from the sense list, to avoid the risk of widening and blurring indefinitely the boundaries of a polysemous network. This principle will be useful, for example, in 5.3.2., when discussing the relationship between “breathe” (Latin spīro) and “die” (Latin ex-spīro). Indeed, because these two senses often show some specific semantic relationship through lexical derivation, it would be tempting to include them in the same sense list, and consider them as indirectly colexified. However, because no language can be found – for obvious reasons – where these two senses are expressed by exactly the same form (“strict colexification”), it is preferable that the sense “die” be kept away from the sense list of “breathe”.

3.4  Interpreting colexification In principle, the colexification model itself consists first and foremost in stating the facts – that is, detecting and documenting the cases of colexification that are empirically attested across languages. The interpretation of these semantic connections, whether it takes a historical or a cognitive perspective or otherwise, arguably belongs to another phase of the study. For each pair of senses s1 and s2, several configurations may come out of the data, suggesting possible questions for the typological study of the lexicon. In case the colexification of s1 and s2 appears to be attested nowhere, this may be because the two senses are directly opposite – e.g., 〈rectilinear〉 vs. 〈curved〉; cognitively divergent  – 〈rectilinear〉 vs. 〈slow〉; or simply unlikely to be related  – 〈rectilinear〉 vs. 〈green〉. If two senses s1 and s2 are colexified in at least one language, this is normally the sign  – setting aside the case of accidental homophony  – that the human brain has proven able to perceive these senses as somehow “semantically connected”. This connection may be direct or indirect, via historical paths that may or may not be still perceived in synchrony. It is then the purpose of semantic or etymological studies, to propose a convincing explanation for that connection: is the relationship between s1 and s2 a case of metaphor, metonymy, hyperonymy, analogical extension …? Is it possible to reconstruct the direction taken historically by this extension (from s1 to s2,



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

or the reverse)? Is it useful to reconstruct a missing link5 between two senses whose relation is intuitively opaque? Sometimes one may want to take the reverse perspective, and try to answer the question why a language does not colexify two senses s1 and s2, that is, treats them separately, when other languages treat them alike. Most often, this state of affairs will be simply considered, just like many other linguistic features, to result from a chance distribution between languages. In some cases, however, hypotheses may be proposed that would draw a correlation between a specific case of colexification (or of non-colexification), and, say, the language’s environment. For example, Brown (2005a) suggests that the colexification of 〈hand〉 – 〈arm〉 may be influenced by the geographical situation of the community. According to him, the use of “tailored clothing covering the arm” in colder environments tends to make the contrast between the hand and the arm more salient, thus favoring the existence of two separate lexical items. Likewise, Brown (2005b) sees another correlation between the lexical distinction 〈finger〉 – 〈hand〉 and cultural practises in terms of farmers vs. hunter-gatherers.6 Regardless of the likelihood of these hypotheses, it is instructive to see that the facts of colexification may receive various sorts of functional explanations, whether semantic, historical, cognitive or cultural – thereby opening fascinating debates. It may be a subject for discussion, how one should interpret the statistics of colexification. That is, supposing the colexification of s1 and s2 is particularly widespread in the world’s languages, should we see this as a sign that these two senses are particularly “close”? that their semantic connection is – functionally or cognitively – particularly “tight”? This brings in the intuitively appealing notion of degrees of “closeness” in the semantic connection. For example, supposing 〈rectilinear〉 and 〈honest〉 turned out to be statistically more often colexified than, say, 〈rectilinear〉 and 〈right-hand〉, one may think that the first pair of senses is more deeply motivated than the second pair (?). Admittedly, however, it may be debatable whether semantic closeness should be measured, as I am tentatively proposing here, on statistics based on actual colexification data – rather than assessed, say, on the basis of each notion’s ontological properties.

.  For example, the spatial notion 〈rectilinear〉 is metaphorically associated with social normality (cf. the straight and narrow), as opposed to eccentricity or originality; hence such senses as 〈classical〉, 〈not homosexual〉, 〈not on drugs〉, etc. In this case, the meaning 〈satisfying the social norm〉 could be described as the missing semantic link  – whether in diachrony or in synchrony – between several members of this polysemous network. .  “Languages of farmers tend more strongly to lexically distinguish “finger” from “hand” than those of hunter-gatherers, which tend more strongly to use a single term to denote both “finger” and “hand” (Brown 2005b: 527). Brown’s rather unconvincing hypothesis resorts to the saliency of the finger in those societies which make use of finger rings; he claims that this cultural habit is more developed among farmers.

 Alexandre François

Crucially, the descriptive concept of colexification lends itself to just the same sort of observations, tests and representations as any other language feature. For example, specific pairings of senses may be represented in the form of geographical maps, using isoglosses or coloured spots.7 Instances of colexification may be attributed to genetic subgroups and protolanguages (see François forthcoming), or result from local innovations. They may also be borrowed through language contact, and take part in areal phenomena. They may change through time, be subject to analogical levelling, and so on and so forth. To take just one example, the senses 〈hear〉 and 〈feel〉 are colexified in several areas of the world: Catalan sentir, Italian sentire, Mwotlap yon̄teg, Bislama harem: – Knowing that Latin lexified distinctively sentīre “feel” and audīre “hear”, Catalan and Italian evidently illustrate a case of late semantic merger between the two words. Historically speaking, this is a parallel innovation in these two languages, whether due to areal or to typological convergence. – Conversely, the colexification 〈hear〉 – 〈feel〉 found in Mwotlap is also attested in all known languages of Vanuatu, and was demonstrably inherited from a similar pattern in their common proto-language: Proto North-Central Vanuatu *roŋo “hear, smell, feel” (Clark n.d.), from Proto Oceanic *roŋor. – Finally, the presence of exactly the same colexification in Bislama, the pidgin/creole of Vanuatu, historically results from language contact. The verb harem “hear, smell, feel”, despite reflecting English hear him in its form, borrows its semantics directly from the lexical structures of Oceanic languages, the vernacular substrate of Bislama (Camden 1979: 55–56). In sum, colexification may result historically from typological convergence, from genetic inheritance, or from contact-induced change … just like any other structural feature of a language.

3.5  Typological prospects The observation of colexification does not only provide insights on individual languages or language groups. In theory, one can also conceive the possibility of formulating typological hypotheses in this domain, just like in other domains of language research. The following paragraphs attempt not to state actual facts – most examples in this section being hypothetical – but to define the form that future research will be able

.  See Brown’s maps on the colexification of “hand”/“arm”, “finger”/“hand”, as well as Kay & Maffi’s on “green”/“blue” or “red”/“yellow”, in the World Atlas of Language Structures by Haspelmath et al. (2005).



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

to give to the formulation of universals, whether absolute or implicational, regarding the typology of colexification. An absolute universal would take the form (2), or its shorter equivalent (2ʹ):

(2) ‘Ifˉaˉlanguageˉlexifiesˉsenseˉs1ˉwithˉtheˉformˉX,ˉthenˉsenseˉs2ˉwillˉbeˉlexified ˉinˉtheˉsameˉway.’ (2ʹ) ‘Allˉlanguagesˉcolexifyˉtheˉpairˉofˉsensesˉs1–s2.’

An example of this – of course subject to empirical check – could be the pair 〈male fish〉 vs. 〈female fish〉, which is apparently never formally split in the world’s lexicons – as opposed to mammals, for which separate lexification is common. Interestingly, this theoretical case should normally not come up in the data, given the method chosen to distinguish between senses in the first place (3.1.): the condition was to retain only those sense distinctions that are attested in at least one language. Yet a lighter version of (2ʹ), in terms of statistical tendencies (“Most languages colexify…”) would be perfectly acceptable, as would its symmetrical counterpart (“Very few languages colexify …”). As for implicational universals, they can associate two cases of colexification:

(3) ‘Ifˉaˉlanguageˉcolexifiesˉs1ˉandˉs2,ˉthenˉitˉwillˉalsoˉcolexifyˉs3ˉandˉs4.’

For example, a likely assumption would suggest that if a language colexifies 〈arm〉 and 〈hand〉, then it will do the same for 〈leg〉 and 〈foot〉.8 Or if it colexifies 〈paternal uncle〉 and 〈maternal uncle〉, then it will also colexify 〈paternal aunt〉 and 〈maternal aunt〉 … A subtype of this formula would be (3ʹ):

(3ʹ) ‘Ifˉaˉlanguageˉcolexifiesˉs1ˉandˉs2,ˉthenˉitˉwillˉalsoˉcolexifyˉs2ˉandˉs3.’

For example, if a language colexifies 〈upper arm〉 and 〈hand〉, then it will probably colexify 〈forearm〉 and 〈hand〉 too. Or, if 〈word〉 and 〈language〉 are colexified, then 〈speech〉 should be able to take the same form. As these (fictitious) examples suggest, this sort of formula typically applies when the three senses can be conceived as showing some form of – logical, cognitive …  – ordering, so that s3 typically comes “between” s1 and s2: e.g., because the forearm is physically located between the upper arm and the hand, the colexification of the latter two makes it likely that the item in the middle should be lexified identically. The case of word < speech < language which I intuitively suggest here would illustrate a similar, but more figurative, case of ontological hierarchy between referents.

.  Counterexamples to this potential universal can however be found, such as Lo-Toga (Torres Is, Vanuatu, Oceanic group; pers. data), where 〈arm〉 = 〈hand〉, but 〈leg〉 ≠ 〈foot〉.

 Alexandre François

Another variant of this formula would be (4):

(4) ‘Ifˉaˉlanguageˉcolexifiesˉs1ˉandˉs2,ˉthenˉitˉwillˉnotˉcolexifyˉs2ˉandˉs3.’

–  whichˉmayˉbeˉalsoˉformulatedˉas:

(4ʹ) ‘Althoughˉthereˉmayˉexistˉlanguagesˉthatˉcolexifyˉs1ˉandˉs2,ˉandˉothersˉ thatˉcolexifyˉs2ˉandˉs3,ˉnoˉlanguageˉcolexifiesˉtogetherˉtheˉthreeˉsensesˉ s1–s2–s3.’

One possible example of such a formula would be: if a language colexifies 〈person〉 and 〈male person〉, then it will not colexify – that is, it will treat distinctively – 〈male person〉 and 〈husband〉. Indeed, one can think of many languages where 〈person〉 and 〈male person〉 go together (as with French homme), and many languages where 〈male person〉 is the same as 〈husband〉 (as with Latin vir), but none – until further research is done – where the three are lexified the same. Another kind of implicational universal would associate colexification with a criterion outside the lexicon, as in (5)–(5ʹ):

(5) ‘Ifˉaˉlanguageˉcolexifiesˉs1ˉandˉs2,ˉthenˉitˉwillˉhaveˉtheˉlinguisticˉpropertyˉP.’



(5ʹ) ‘IfˉaˉlanguageˉhasˉtheˉlinguisticˉpropertyˉP,ˉthenˉitˉwillˉcolexifyˉs1ˉandˉs2.’

An example of (5) could be a statement about parts of speech, such as: if a language colexifies 〈black〉 and 〈darken〉, then it treats adjectives as (a subclass of) verbs. A possible illustration of (5ʹ) would be something like: if a language doesn’t distinguish count nouns from mass nouns, then it will colexify 〈wood〉 and 〈tree〉. Needless to say, all these examples are intuitive, and would only make sense if confirmed by relevant empirical data. Finally, one could conceive possible correlations between certain instances of lexification and specific properties of the language’s environment. This would lead to universals – or at least tendencies – such as:

(6) ‘Ifˉaˉlanguageˉcolexifiesˉs1ˉandˉs2,ˉthenˉitsˉenvironmentˉwillˉhaveˉtheˉ propertyˉP.’



(6ʹ) ‘Ifˉaˉlanguage’sˉenvironmentˉhasˉtheˉpropertyˉP,ˉthenˉthisˉlanguageˉwillˉ colexifyˉs1ˉandˉs2.’

The term “environment”, used in a functional perspective, encompasses all properties that are not strictly linguistic, but which are somehow associated with the language or its speaking community. One could thus imagine the following sort of hypothesis: if a language colexifies 〈cow〉 and 〈bull〉 under a single term, it is likely that this language is used in a society where this particular gender difference is functionally less relevant  – that is, where cattle farming is not practiced traditionally. Similar types of correlation were mentioned in 3.4. above, with Brown’s cultural-cognitive interpretations of certain cases of colexification.



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

4.  Lexical semantic maps So far, the method here exposed has entailed the identification and manipulation of senses, in the form of unordered lists. The only visual representation proposed (Figure 1) took the simple form of overlapping sets, still with no specific internal organization. Yet the high number of senses involved, combined with the number of languages potentially explored, would ideally require defining a more sophisticated way of organizing and presenting the results of our semantic observations. This is what I will now propose to do, in a form suggested by current research in grammar typology,9 and systematized by Haspelmath (2003): semantic maps.

4.1  General principles of semantic maps Here is how Haspelmath (2003: 213) defines semantic maps: “A semantic map is a geometrical representation of functions in “conceptual/semantic space” that are linked by connecting lines and thus constitute a network.” Essentially speaking, a semantic map takes the form of a two-dimensional chart, and represents a selection of meanings (“senses” in my terminology, “functions” in Haspelmath’s). These meanings are ordered in space according to certain principles, and explicitly interconnected, thus forming a semantic network. In itself, this semantic map constitutes an etic grid which claims to be language-independent, “a coherent chunk of a universal network”. This universal grid then serves to visualize the “emic” categorizations which are made by each specific language: for a given form in a given language – usually understood in synchronical terms – it then becomes possible to identify, on the universal map, those meanings that are covered by this form, and those that fall without its scope.10 The whole methodology presented by Haspelmath is compatible with the model of lexical typology which I here propose to develop. The only difference is that he explicitly designs his model as a way to represent “the geometry of grammatical meaning”, while the present discussion deals with the lexicon. Yet, even if all his examples are taken from facts of grammar, he himself suggests that his model should theoretically be compatible with the lexical domain too (2003: 237). In a way, the following pages may be seen as an attempt to apply to the lexicon the principles defined by Haspelmath for drawing semantic maps.

.  See, for example, Anderson (1982) for the perfect; Croft et al. (1987) for the middle voice; Jurafsky (1996) for the diminutive; etc. .  For a visual illustration of this principle, see Figure 4, and the figures in Appendix 3.

 Alexandre François

Of course, several authors have already proposed to represent lexical semantics, and in particular polysemous networks, in the visual form of a diagram or map. But most often, their intention was to illustrate a pattern of polysemy specific to one language, or one group of languages.11 By contrast, the maps I propose to draw here claim to have a universal value, that is, to provide results that are virtually independent from any particular group of languages. This is coherent with the stance taken by Haspelmath for his grammatical maps: “The configuration of functions shown by the map is claimed to be universal” (2003: 217). Of course, the quality and precision of a map will depend on the number and genetic diversity of the languages observed. But essentially, whatever result comes out of such a study, should be able to claim universal relevance. An important consequence of this principle is that any new data from a natural language should therefore be able to falsify these results. As Haspelmath (2003:  232) puts it, “Every semantic map can be interpreted as making a universal claim about languages, that can be falsified easily.”

4.2  Connecting senses together In comparison with the simple format of a sense list, the main interest of semantic maps is to organize the polysemous network in a way that makes explicit the various semantic connections between these senses. This is shown visually, on the one hand, by the iconic grouping of close senses in contiguous areas of the map; and on the other hand, by the use of explicit connecting lines to visualize semantic paths. Judgments of closeness between senses are established in a dual fashion: first, by taking into account the ontological properties of each sense; second, by examining empirical data from various languages. The intrinsic ontological properties of each sense can legitimately be taken into account in order to suggest a semantically plausible ordering between senses. For example, suppose one came across an array of senses such as the one observed with the verb ōl in Mwotlap (François, in prep.):12 〈creak〉; 〈name a child so-and-so〉; 〈crow〉; .  Thus, the maps found in Matisoff (1978) intend to represent certain semantic associations specific to the Tibeto-Burman family; those in Evans (1992) or Evans & Wilkins (2000: 560) apply to Australian languages; Enfield (2003) to Southeast Asian languages; Tyler & Evans (2003 [2001]: 125) propose a semantic network specific to the polysemy of English over … Some projects aim at representing semantic associations at the level of the whole lexicon, but they are still, by definition, restricted to a single language – cf. Gaume et al. (this volume) for French; or software such as Thinkmap’s Visual Thesaurus® for English. (www.visualthesaurus.com) .  Even though this list of senses, as well as its representation in Figure 2, are drawn after the polysemy of just one word in one language, I propose that it is fictitiously understood, for the purpose of this demonstration, as if resulting from cross-linguistic comparison. Indeed the forms of reasoning that apply in both cases – whether we consider one polysemous network,



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

〈mention s.o.’s name〉; 〈yell〉; 〈invoke a divinity〉; 〈scream〉; 〈bark〉; 〈hail s.o.〉; 〈call s.th. such-and-such〉… This kind of simple list, presented in random order, makes it hard to identify the semantic links between these senses. But functional considerations allow certain senses to be grouped according to their common semantic properties. Thus, several senses refer to the emission of intense high-pitched sounds, whether by humans (〈yell〉, 〈scream〉), animals (〈crow〉, 〈bark〉 …) or objects (〈creak〉). Other senses refer to human social activities that consist in uttering the name of another person; this can be done for the purpose of calling out to someone (〈hail s.o.〉, 〈invoke a divinity〉), or for the purpose of referring to them (〈mention s.o.〉). Finally, the act of uttering a name may refer to the social act of giving a name to someone – typically a child – or to something. Semantic connections can then be proposed, which chain senses according to their functional similarities. These connections may then easily be represented in space, in the form a visual graph such as Figure 2: (cock) crow (dog) bark

(animal) cry (thing) creak

mention s.o. (s.o.) scream

(s.o.) yell

(s.o.) hail s.o.

call s.o.’s name

name a child so-and-so

invoke divinity

name s.th. so-and-so

Figure 2.  Senses may be linked based on functional properties.

Crucially, because the semantic connections here proposed are supposedly based on ontological properties of the notions referred to, this means they must normally be conceived as independent of any specific language. That is, even though the list of senses itself was initially based on the observation of actual languages, ultimately the fact that a sense s2 will be understood as forming the missing semantic link between s1 and s3, should not depend on any particular language, but simply on the intrinsic properties of each sense. For example, the act of “hailing someone (by shouting their name)” constitutes a logical transition between “shouting (in general)” and “uttering s.o.’s name”. This organization of meaning must be understood as driven not by idiosyncrasies of any specific language, but rather by universal characteristics of the real

or the intertwining of several such networks into one  – are fundamentally the same, at this particular stage of the study.

 Alexandre François

world – or more exactly, of the world as it is perceived by the human brain and filtered by human activities. This being said, it remains obvious that the connections proposed between each two senses, and more generally the semantic map that results from these connections, cannot be directly observed in the material world, and thus constitute hypotheses on part of the observer. This means that they must be amenable to proof or demonstration, that they are open to debate, and that they should be falsifiable. The problem is, at least some of these semantic hypotheses  – about how two senses should be connected – may ultimately depend on the linguist’s intuition. This is potentially an issue (see also the discussion in 3.1.), because the conscious representations of the world by an observer do not necessarily match the subconscious connections which are actually made by the speaker’s brain. It is therefore necessary to define a method of falsification that would rest on empirical observation. The method suggested by Haspelmath indeed resorts to observable data from actual languages. The basic idea is that senses should be arranged in space in such a way that each lexical unit in one language “occupies a contiguous area on the semantic map” (2003:  216). Furthermore, each specific connecting line should reflect the existence of at least one attested case of a direct lexical connection between these two senses, in any of the world’s languages. Thus, supposing one language were found that only colexified a sense si and a distant sense sj but none of the other senses tentatively proposed in-between, then the background map should be redesigned, and a “shortcut” connecting line added between these two senses. Conversely, if all words colexifying si and sj also include, in their polysemy, the various intermediate steps proposed along the functionally-based semantic chain, then the hypothetical map can be said to be confirmed by empirical data. Incidentally, it may happen, on some occasions, that two distinct paths may be defined in order to relate two senses on the map, with no strong reason for choosing between these two paths. We shall see precisely an example of this in 5.3.4., where two different semantic hypotheses will be shown to equally account for the colexification of 〈breath〉 and 〈supernatural power〉. Insofar as this sort of hypothesis is also supported by empirical data – in this case, the existence of two distinct sense chains attested in the world’s languages – nothing prevents us from representing this double path on the map.

4.3  Choosing a pivot notion In section 3 above, I briefly mentioned the necessity to choose a specific notion (sense) as the pivot of the map. This requires justification, especially because this principle seems to differ from Haspelmath’s (2003: 232) method for drawing grammatical maps. Choosing a specific sense (e.g., 〈hail s.o.〉) as the pivot entails that the empirical data to be observed must consist exclusively of lexical units that specifically include



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

this sense in their polysemy. This important requirement is a precaution against the risk of starting an open-ended map with ever-shifting boundaries. For example, consider the colexification of 〈hail〉 and 〈(animal) cry〉. If 〈hail〉 were not given any special status, nothing would then prevent us from including in the data words that encompass 〈(animal) cry〉 as one of their senses, yet having no connection with 〈hail〉: for example, a verb meaning “(animal) cry; (s.o.) cry out in pain; weep …” (cf. Eng. cry). If this were allowed, then the map would extend so as to include all the semantic connections associated with the sense 〈weep〉, and so on and so forth. Such a map with no center would shift indefinitely … so as to gradually enclose the whole lexicon. Despite the immense interest of potentially achieving a map that would represent the global “geography of the human mind” (Croft 2001), such a configuration would rapidly lead to uncontrollable results that would raise obvious technical issues, and whose significance in terms of scientific information would end up being questionable. It is therefore safer to circumscribe in advance the scope of the map that is to be drawn, by providing one sense with the special status of pivot or centre. Incidentally, I propose to translate typographically the special status of the pivot notion, by using small uppercase and braces – e.g., {hail} – as opposed to the other senses of the network – e.g., 〈bark〉. There is a corollary to this principle. If two senses s1 and s2 are attested to be colexified in the world’s languages, the map centered on s1 will be a different map from the one centered on s2. Thus, the choice of {hail} as the pivot will trigger a specific semantic network – one that can be called, in short, the “lexical map of {hail}” – which will tell a totally different story from the choice of {(animal) cry}. Quite logically, however, one can predict that these two maps will have a whole chunk in common  – that is, the connection between these two senses, plus whatever further senses are attested to colexify with these two senses together. Thus, supposing a language were found that colexified 〈(animal) cry〉 – 〈scream〉 – 〈hail〉 – 〈call〉, then each of the four semantic maps centered on each of these senses would necessarily have to include this particular chain of senses – along with other ramifications specific to each map. Finally, note that the status of pivot of a lexical map has nothing to do with the notion of prototype, which is only relevant to the description of individual lexemes. Thus, it is perfectly possible that a typological map centered on the sense {hail} incorporates a lexeme X whose polysemy encompasses only those senses that appear to the left of 〈hail〉 in Figure 2 above (〈hail〉, 〈scream〉, 〈creak〉, 〈(animal) cry〉 …). In this particular language, it is likely that a prototype-based approach would describe this word X as being built around the prototypical meaning “shout with high-pitched voice, scream”; the sense 〈hail〉 would be nothing more than a peripheral offshoot of that core meaning – regardless whether or not it is the pivot of the universal map that includes it. Another difference is that the definition of a prototypical meaning, in the (language-internal) description of a word, constitutes an interpretative claim about

 Alexandre François

this word that may be challenged or falsified. On the contrary, the selection of a given notion as the pivot of a (universal) lexical map entails no claim at all: it is simply an arbitrary choice, the starting point before any lexical map may even begin to be drawn.

5.  Elaborating a universal map for “breathe” In order to illustrate in full detail the typological method I am here advocating, I now propose to delve into a specific notion, and build the lexical semantic map that will best render the various polysemies associated with it in the world’s languages. This is what I will do in the remainder of this article, around the notion “breathe”. The notion “breathe” is here understood as the physiological activity of breathing characteristic of humans and animals. I will first observe, for each language of the corpus, the set of other senses with which this notion is colexified. Then I will attempt to draw the lexical map of the notion {breathe}. The final form taken by these two steps appear respectively as Table 2 and Figure 5 in Appendix 2. This small case study rests on a corpus of 16 lexical headwords in 13 genetically diverse languages. Each entry consists of either a single word, or a lexical root, in which case several words are encompassed under the same entry. In particular, it is frequent that the noun and the verb associated with the notion {breathe} differ formally from each other; in this case, I have organized arbitrarily the data in the appendices in such a way that the default headword is the noun, while the cognate verb, when formally different from it, has a secondary status (loose colexification).13 The lexical database presented in Appendix 1 shows a total of 114 words involved in the comparison. Of course, richer data, taken from more languages, would logically result in richer results, with even higher typological significance. However, the corpus here analyzed was judged at least sufficient for the purpose of illustrating the typological method here proposed.

5.1  A first overview of the verb “breathe” In Makonde, a Bantu language of Tanzania, the verb ku-pumula colexifies 〈breathe〉 and 〈take a rest〉. This semantic connection has a transparent motivation. In the first place, the physiological act of breathing becomes particularly significant – “cognitively salient” – after one has held his breath while making a physical effort. The act of sitting

.  This is why Table 2 shows plain “+” signs in the rows 〈act of breathing〉 and 〈puff of breath〉, but bracketed “[+]” signs, standing for loose colexification, in the first row 〈breathe〉. See also the isolectic sets in the maps of Appendix 3.



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

down for a minute after an intense effort, or even of resting for a whole day after a week of work, can be seen as a semantic expansion of this initial meaning, even when what is relevant is not so much the act of breathing per se, as that of ceasing an effort. If we add 〈pause for breath〉 as the missing semantic link (3.4.) between these two senses, the polysemy of ku-pumula can be represented using a string of three senses 〈breathe〉 – 〈pause for breath〉 – 〈take a rest〉. This is a classical case of colexification originating in semantic extension. Makonde is not the only language to have developed this polysemy. English shows a case of loose colexification (3.2.) between breathe and take a breather. The colexification, whether strict or loose, of 〈breathe〉 and 〈take a rest〉 is also attested in Sar (noun koo), in Arabic (root r.w.ḥ), in Nahuatl (verb imi’iyo), in Mwotlap (verb mōkheg), in Nêlêmwa (root horêâ-), in Russian (root *du[x]); but not in Latin, Greek or Inuit. This is enough evidence to propose this case of colexification as typologically significant. Interestingly, Mwotlap mōkheg can also equally be used for any period of rest, i.e., not only minutes of pause within hours of work, but also days of pause within months of work – that is, what we would call “take a vacation”. Since certain languages do not go that far in the semantic expansion of {breathe} (e.g., English would hardly describe a month-long holiday as take a breather), it is wiser to define formally not three but four different senses here: 〈breathe〉, 〈pause for breath〉, 〈take a rest〉 and 〈take a vacation〉. Out of these four senses, we will say that English colexifies only three, whereas Mwotlap covers them all. Incidentally, this proposal does not involve the claim that these senses are necessarily distinct for the Mwotlap speaker – and it is perfectly likely that 〈take a rest〉 and 〈take a vacation〉 should be grouped together under an emic approach. But what is relevant here, for the specific purpose of language comparison, is that these two functional situations are colexified in Mwotlap, but distinguished in English; hence the choice to treat them, in an etic perspective, as if they were distinct semantic units (see discussion in 3.1.). Incidentally, Russian otdyx, etymologically connected with dyšat’ “breathe”, means both “rest” and “vacation”. In a similar way, the Nêlêmwa verb horêân has added an extension to the meaning 〈take a rest〉, namely 〈stop doing s.th., cease〉 (e.g., Co horêân o khiiboxa pwaxim tavia “Stop beating your dog!”). This semantic offshoot clearly adds a new sense to the potential polysemy of {breathe}. The same observations can be made for other senses related to {breathe}. In some languages (e.g., Greek pneō), the same verb is used for 〈breathe〉, for 〈blow〉 (i.e., a person blowing actively into s.th., like a flute) and/or for 〈(wind) blow〉. A further connection that is sometimes attested is between 〈blow〉 and 〈whisper〉, with a shift towards the notion of articulated speech. Thus in Araki (François 2002), the verb sono connects the notions 〈blow, puff〉, 〈blow into s.th.〉 and 〈talk, tell a story〉 – see also the derived noun sonosono “speech, story; language”. Likewise, the French verb souffler means both 〈blow, puff〉 and 〈whisper, prompt〉.

 Alexandre François

But the latter example of colexification potentially raises an issue, because it involves the sense 〈blow〉 rather than 〈breathe〉 (“breathe” is m̈apu in Araki, respirer in French). Consequently, it should be kept aside from the semantic network of {breathe} strictly speaking, to avoid the risk of shifting the center of observation from one sense to the other, and thus expanding infinitely each polysemous network (see 4.3.). In other words, the evidence so far allows us to include 〈blow〉 among the senses directly connected to {breathe}, and 〈utter〉 among the senses directly connected to {blow}; but it does not illustrate any colexification between {breathe} and 〈utter〉. Of course, the conclusion would be different if we came across languages that did witness the colexification of these two senses. This is in fact the case with the noun horêâ- in Nêlêmwa, which means both 〈breath, breathing〉 and 〈spoken message〉. The English phrase I won’t breathe a word also illustrates the potential connection between 〈breathe〉 and 〈utter〉, arguably via a missing link 〈whisper〉 (as in breathe a prayer). These two examples finally legitimize the inclusion of 〈utter, speak〉 in the map of {breathe}.

5.2  From the sense list to the map Before going any further, it may be useful to recapitulate our first findings in a visual form. A simple way to do so would be to draw a table, based on the list of senses that have been observed to potentially colexify with the pivot notion {breathe}. Each column corresponds to one of the languages I have been reviewing so far, representing a subset of my corpus. This leads to Table 1, a partial representation of the sense list under construction here (see Appendix 2 for the complete table).14 Table 1.   Examples of colexification associated with {breathe}

breathe take a rest be on vacation cease to do (wind) blow (s.o.) blow whisper utter, speak

english breathe

russian du[x]

mwotlap mōkheg

nlmwa horêân

+ [+]

+ [+] [+]

+ + +

+ +

+ + + +

[+] [+]

araki  sono

french souffler +

+ + [+]

+ + +

+ + + +

.  The typographical contrast between plain plus “+” and bracketed plus “[+]” corresponds respectively to strict and loose colexification (see 3.2.).



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

Note that Araki sono and French souffler are included here for the sake of crosslinguistic comparison. However, as discussed above, they cannot take part in the corpus, because the sense {breathe} chosen as this study’s pivot (first row) does not belong to their polysemy. This representation in the form of a table has the advantage of being clear and straightforward. Yet, it has the drawback of treating all senses on the same level. It may be more interesting to underline the semantic links that relate certain senses with others, and which form functional subsets within the network (see 4.2.). For example, we have seen that the sense 〈be on vacation〉 is a semantic extension of the sense 〈take a rest〉, itself being closer to the more literal meaning 〈pause for breath〉; and that 〈cease to do〉 is another, independent offshoot of 〈make a pause〉. The chain 〈breathe〉 – 〈pause for breath〉 – 〈take a rest〉 – 〈be on vacation〉 thus has a coherence of its own, which is clearly distinct from the chain 〈breathe〉 – 〈blow〉 – 〈whisper〉 – 〈speak〉. A more informative and graphic representation would thus take the form of a semantic map, a diagram showing all the senses attested, together with the most likely semantic connections that link them. These connections are first based on intrinsic semantic properties, and are then checked against empirical data (see 4.2.).15 This brings about the tentative map of Figure 3. utter, speak

take a vacation

whisper

take a rest

(s.o.) blow (wind) blow

pause for breath

cease to do



Figure 3.  A first semantic map for {breathe}.

.  To be precise, the polysemy of Nêlêmwa horêâ- “breath, breathing; spoken message” raises an issue, because it does not include the senses (〈blow〉 and 〈whisper〉) which functional considerations suggest to posit as intermediate between 〈breathe〉 and 〈speak〉 (“whisper” in Nêlêmwa is nyomamat). In theory, a rigorous application of the principles exposed in 4.2. should trigger a shortcut line between these two senses. However, the strong functional motivation of 〈whisper〉 as a likely missing link, and the fact that the whole chain is empirically attested in other languages, suggests we may be dealing with a case I have not discussed yet: that is, the possibility that an initial chain of senses s1–s2–s3–s4 may have evolved historically so that some intermediate links got lost – via lexical replacement – and only s1 and s4 remained colexified. Although this is debatable, I choose to infringe the rule here, and to keep on the map the intermediate steps of the path, based on functional motivations. This is why the Nêlêmwa set appears as noncontiguous in Figure 4, in spite of the ideal design of semantic maps in Haspelmath’s terms.

 Alexandre François

Once it is established  – albeit incompletely  – a semantic map like Figure 3 constitutes a universal etic grid against which emic categories of specific languages may be described. Each lexical headword (word or root) selects a particular subset out of the total range of potential senses. This is made clear by Figure 4, which converts the data of Table 1 into graphic sets. By analogy with the concept of isoglosses, I propose to call these sets “isolectic sets”.

utter, speak Nêlêmwa horêâ-

take a vacation

whisper

English breathe

take a rest

(s.o.) blow

pause for breath

cease to do

Mwotlap mōkheg Russian *du[x]-

(wind) blow



Figure 4.  Some isolectic sets around the notion {breathe}.

The most instructive point here, in terms of typology, is that the array of crosslinguistic variation, far from being infinite and random, appears to be relatively limited. Of course, the more languages are considered, the more senses will appear in the chart. But even at the small scale of these first observations, the fact that the same patterns of polysemy recur again and again across language families is, in itself, of considerable interest in the search for potential language universals. This sort of cross-linguistic comparison can help see which patterns of polysemy are typologically more common than others (see 3.4.): for example, while the four languages presented here all share the colexification of 〈breathe〉 with 〈take a rest〉, only one has gone as far as to include the meaning 〈cease to do〉. Of course this result with only four languages is not significant; but the possibility of extending the observation to virtually hundreds of languages suggests the sort of research that may be carried out in the future.

5.3  Exploring the noun “breath” The preceding paragraphs have presented the principal cases of colexification associated with the verb “breathe” in my corpus. A much richer semantic network arises if one addresses the domain of nouns. Many languages possess a noun which is cognate with the verb “breathe” (Eng. breath) – I will call it here “the {breathe} noun”.



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

5.3.1  “Breath”, “breath of air”, “scent” … In some languages, as one would expect, this deverbal noun carries with it part of the polysemy of the verb “breathe”; but most often, languages provide that noun with its own polysemy, which warrants a specific description. Thus, to take the case of Mwotlap, the verb mōkheg “breathe; take a rest; be on vacation” has a directly derived noun nō-mōkheg, which means equally “breathing”, “rest” and “vacation”. But it also possesses a cognate noun nō-mōkhe with its own particular semantics: “breath”, “smell”, “breath of life”, etc. The literal meaning of the {breathe} noun is normally to designate the physical activity, or manner, of breathing (Eng. pause for breath; be short of breath). In some languages, it also expresses the portion of air inhaled or exhaled during the act of breathing, including its physical properties such as temperature or smell (hot breath; bad breath). By extension, the same word is sometimes used for all sorts of smells, even when unrelated to an actual process of human breathing: e.g., Mwotlap nō-mōkhe tētēnge “the scent (lit. the breath) of flowers”. Through a similar shift between man and nature, the human activity of breathing is sometimes colexified with natural phenomena involving motion of air, such as 〈breath of air〉, 〈wind〉 or even 〈cold air〉. These different senses seem to be articulated into two chains: on the one hand, a chain 〈human act of breathing〉 – 〈air in motion: breath of air〉 – 〈wind〉 – 〈cold air〉; on the other hand, a chain 〈human act of breathing〉 – 〈air coming from human mouth〉 – 〈smell coming from human mouth〉 – 〈smell, scent in general〉. To take just one example, Latin spīritus, derived from spīro “breathe”, is attested with all these meanings (except for 〈cold air〉). 5.3.2  “Life”, “spirit”, “mind”, “feelings” … But probably the most significant polysemy that is attested with {breathe} nouns is the lexical field of “life” and “soul”. This time, among the various properties associated with the act of breathing, the one which is most relevant here is a universal physiological observation: namely, that the phenomenon of breathing is the most salient property that distinguishes a live creature from a dead body. Thus, {breathe} nouns or verbs are frequently – perhaps universally – attested in phrases related to the semantic notions of “life” and “death”: see Eng. breath of life; draw one’s last breath; breathe life into s.th. … In Latin, the verb exspīro (from spīro “breathe”) means literally “breathe s.th. out”, but also serves as a euphemism for “breathe one’s last, die” (> Eng. expire). Russian iz-dyxat’ “die”, etymologically connected to the root du[x], is exactly parallel to Latin ex-spīro.16

.  The reason why the sense 〈die〉 is not represented on the final semantic map of {breathe} (Appendix 2) is because this meaning is always obtained indirectly, through lexical  – or

 Alexandre François

This is how certain languages have come to colexify 〈breath〉 and 〈life〉. More precisely, the {breathe} noun is often related, whether historically or synchronically, with a word whose meaning could be described as “the principle of life, insofar as it can be conceived as specific of an individual”. Indeed, while these languages often possess a separate noun for the abstract concept “life” (Greek bios, Lat. vīta, Arabic ʕaiša …), they also often make use of another term when it comes to embodying this abstract principle, as it were, into an individual being. This is how many – if not all – cultures around the world have elaborated the non-trivial notion of the soul or spirit: that is, the vital force of an individual, insofar as it is opposed to the inert body. Needless to say, a wide variety of conceptions can be carried by this notion of spirit, depending on cultures, religions, times and people. Despite the risk of simplification, this diversity can perhaps be reduced to a few prototypical concepts. At least, I shall mention here those concepts that are lexified, among the world’s languages, in direct connection with the notion {breathe}. In some languages, the {breathe} noun embraces the psychological activity of an individual, in its various manifestations. For example, Classical Latin animus17 is attested with the following meanings: 〈vital principle of an individual: soul〉; 〈seat of reason and intelligence: mind〉; 〈seat of will and desire: will〉; 〈seat of feelings and passions: “heart”〉; 〈seat of courage and vital energy〉; 〈strong passions: pride〉… The semantic range is not necessarily as wide as this, and is sometimes restricted to just a certain type of feeling. To take another Latin example, the noun spīritus, besides its other meanings mentioned in 5.3.1., is also attested with psychological senses; but as far as Classical Latin is concerned, these are essentially restricted to 〈pride, arrogance, self-importance〉. During the later history of Latin and of Romance languages, the set of psychological meanings related to spīritus has enriched considerably. Thus, French esprit has a wide polysemy of its own, which includes 〈mind, thought〉, 〈intelligence〉, 〈wit〉, 〈seat of feelings〉, 〈character, moral disposition〉, 〈frame of mind, mood〉. A few phrases illustrate these senses, such as garder à l’esprit “keep in mind”, avoir l’esprit vif “have a quick mind”, avoir de l’esprit “to be witty”, avoir l’esprit à rire “to be in

phraseological – derivation, but never directly (“strict colexification”). For obvious reasons, no language is found where 〈die〉 and 〈breathe〉 are expressed by exactly the same form in synchrony. As a principle, those senses which are attested nowhere in strict colexification with the pivot notion do not qualify for inclusion in its semantic map (see 3.3.). .  Admittedly, animus did not have 〈breathe〉 nor 〈breath〉 among its senses in the “synchrony” of Classical Latin. However, it is etymologically linked to Greek anemos “wind” and Sanskrit aniti “breathes”; and more importantly, it is closely cognate with the noun anima, whose wide polysemy does include 〈breath〉 and 〈wind〉. As a result, I take anima as the relevant headword for Latin (see 7.1.3.); animus is only included in the corpus by virtue of its synchronic cognacy with anima (“loose colexification”).



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

a mood for laughing”, dans l’esprit de l’époque “in the spirit of the age”, esprit d’équipe “team spirit”, retrouver ses esprits “to collect one’s wits” … Incidentally, because French esprit  – like Eng. spirit  – no longer shows any connection with {breathe} in synchrony, it can only be included in our corpus on a historical basis. In case we want to restrict our observations to synchronical polysemies, then the examination of this root should be restricted to Classical Latin spīritus, whose semantic array is already wide (7.1.3.). Similar semantic extensions can be found in other languages, including in the form of synchronically coexisting senses. For example, it is remarkable that Standard Arabic also translates some of the psychological senses of Fr. esprit with rūḥ a noun related to {breathe} (7.1.10.): e.g., rūḥ al-taʕ āun “team spirit”, al-rūḥ al-ḥarbiya “warlike spirit”. The polysemy of Russian dux also presents similar characteristics in synchrony – even more if one considers the whole set of words that form the cognate set of the root *du[x]18 (7.1.4.).

5.3.3  “Soul”, “spirit”, “supernatural being” … The group of senses just reviewed (〈spirit〉, 〈mind〉, 〈character〉 …) forms a branch of its own in the semantic map of {breathe}, covering the domain of psychological and mental qualities of the socialized person. It should be carefully distinguished from another concept: the soul. The semantic nuance is familiar to all Latinists, since it is formally distinguished in Latin as (masculine) animus vs. (feminine) anima. While animus describes the various faculties, feelings and emotions of individuals in their social activities, anima has a deeper existential meaning, as it refers to the primal faculty of being alive – see also the derived noun animal “living being”. Therefore, nouns like anima will be typically used in contexts dealing not with social behaviour, but with death. In this perspective, the soul can be described as “that part of an individual which leaves the body when death comes.” Depending on the cultural context, this separation from the body will be understood either as the complete disappearance of the soul, or, on the contrary, as its survival in different forms: migration of the soul to an invisible abode of the dead, restless wandering as a ghost in the present world, reincarnation (metempsychosis) into a new human body, or metamorphosis into a supernatural being. One may think that these cultural issues are not relevant for our linguistic study, but they are. Only the understanding of such religious beliefs makes it possible to define a satisfactory semantic path between, on one end of the semantic chain, the notion of breathing, and on the other end, the representation of ghosts and other supernatural beings, whether in an animist or a monotheist context. This polysemy can be

.  Amongst the various lexical items that are etymologically related with this root, the noun duša “soul, spirit …” has received special attention in Wierzbicka (1992: 31ff.).

 Alexandre François

illustrated again with Fr. esprit (< spīritus): besides the mental and moral senses used in a social context (taking over the semantics of animus), it can also refer to the soul of a living being (anima), including in the form of a ghost (e.g., croire aux esprits “believe in ghosts”). Finally, esprit can designate any supernatural being of divine nature (l’esprit du fleuve “the spirit of the river”), whether good (esprits célestes “heavenly spirits”) or evil (esprit malin “evil spirit”); and in the context of a monotheist religion, the same word may even come close to referring to the supreme divinity par excellence, as in le Saint-Esprit “the Holy Spirit”. This impressive range of “spiritual” meanings is not exclusive to the lexicon of Latin (animus, anima, spīritus) and of its daughter languages. Surprisingly similar patterns of polysemy are found elsewhere: Greek psūkhē and pneuma; Sanskrit ātman; Russian du[x]; Arabic rūḥ and nafs; Aleut anri; Nahuatl imi’iyo; and so forth (see Appendix 1).

5.3.4  Going from “breath” to “supreme spirit” To be precise, there are two ways one could account for the inclusion of supernatural beings in the semantic map of {breathe}. One hypothesis would involve a generalization process, whereby the soul of a human individual, insofar as it is said to survive after death in the supernatural form of a ghost, would serve as a model for all other supernatural creatures, even when they do not originate in a deceased person. In this case, the likeliest semantic chain would be: 〈breath〉 – 〈(breath of) life〉 – 〈vital force of an individual, s.o.’s spirit〉 – 〈immaterial part of an individual that survives death: soul〉 – 〈s.o.’s ghost〉 – 〈supernatural being, even when not of human origin; a spirit, good or evil〉

The likeliness of this scenario is confirmed by the existence of similar semantic shifts with other lexemes, though unrelated to {breathe}. For example, the Mwotlap noun na-tmat (François, in prep.), etymologically “dead person”, is a polysemous word that colexifies 〈deceased person〉 – 〈wandering soul of a deceased person, ghost〉 – 〈monster, spirit; any supernatural being, whether good or bad〉 – 〈theBiblical Devil〉. A second hypothesis would make a shortcut between the very act of breathing and the notion of divinity, with no need to posit 〈soul, ghost〉 as a missing link. Indeed, in many cultures, the immateriality of divine entities is metaphorically compared with an invisible breath of air, a magic wind. This divine wind may sometimes be “blown into” a thing or a person to endow it with holiness or supernatural power. This metaphor, for example, underlies the use of Eng. inspiration (for an artist, a poet, a prophet) from Latin inspīro “blow into”. Likewise, the Classical Greek pneuma, literally “breath, breath of air …” is attested with the meaning “divine breath”,19 but never with the sense “soul”

.  Historically speaking, this specific sense, despite being already attested in Plato’s works,



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

or “ghost”. Finally, a process of metonymy triggers the shift from 〈divine breath〉 to 〈the divine entity or supernatural being from whom a divine breath emanates〉. These examples would therefore rather advocate for a second semantic path: 〈breath of air emanating from a human person〉 – 〈divine breath: supernatural power emanating from an immaterial entity〉 – 〈supernatural being exhaling divine breath, divine spirit〉

Because both chains seem to be semantically likely and empirically grounded, I prefer not to choose between them (see discussion in 4.2.). Such ambiguity is not necessarily an issue, and may well depend on the specifics of each language or culture. It can be easily represented on the typological map of {breathe} by drawing two distinct paths leading from 〈breathing〉 to 〈supernatural being〉: see Figure 5 in Appendix 2.

5.3.5  From “soul” to reflexive marking Finally, a further extension from the sense 〈soul〉, 〈spirit〉 is the designation of an individual’s “person”, “essence” or “ego” – what one may define as one’s inner, deeper identity, as opposed, for example, to one’s social representation. This more or less corresponds to the semantics of English self. Even more interestingly, this quite abstract meaning has sometimes grammaticalized into a reflexive marker, in a way precisely parallel to English (know) your self > (know) yourself. This semantic path is witnessed in three languages in my corpus. In Sanskrit (7.1.1.), the famous concept ātman (etymologically “breathing”, from an“breathe”) has a wide semantic array, going from 〈breath of life〉 to 〈vital force〉, 〈soul〉 and 〈the self, the abstract person〉 as well as 〈essence, peculiarity (of something)〉. But one of its principal uses in texts seems to be as a grammatical marker for reflexive; this is especially clear from the list of dozens of compounds based on ātma- (of which only a short selection is given in the Appendix), e.g., ātma-jña “knowing one’s self ”, ātmêśvara “master of one’s self ”, ātma-ghāta “suicide”, ātma-grāhin “selfish”… Likewise, the ordinary reflexive marker for Standard Arabic is nafs-ī (1sg possessed form of nafs, parallel to Eng. “my-self ”). This is in fact a noun nafs meaning 〈soul〉, 〈essence, being, abstract person〉, 〈self〉, 〈mind, psyche〉 as well as 〈the same〉 … And crucially, this whole semantic array is closely connected – via loose colexification  – with the noun nafas “breathing, breath, breath of life” (root n.f.s). This example

was later spread by the Septuagint in their translation of the Bible. Whereas the noun psūkhē “soul, spirit” had lost its etymological relationship to “breath”, the noun pneuma was still synchronically the word for “breath, blow of air”: this is probably why it was chosen to translate Hebrew ruach “breath, air; strength; wind; spirit; courage; temper; Spirit” (Vine 1985: 240; see the cognate Arabic rūḥ in the appendix). Exactly in the same way, the semantic calque took place in Latin with spīritus “breath, blow of air; soul …” rather than animus, because the connection of the latter noun with “wind, breath” was then no longer perceptible.

 Alexandre François

confirms the relevance of a semantic chain 〈breathing〉 – 〈breath of life〉 – 〈vital force〉 – 〈person, self〉 – 〈reflexive〉. The other Arabic root with a similar polysemy, r.w.ḥ apparently does not go that far, at least for Standard Arabic. However, Naïm (2007: 315) reports the grammaticalization of rūḥ as a reflexive marker in modern Yemeni Arabic (as in ʔalaṭṭim rūḥ-ī “I’m hitting myself ”).20 This confirms the potential bridge between lexicon and grammar, which is potentially present within this lexical field of {breathe}.

5.4  Drawing a more complete map for “breathe” The previous sections have surveyed the main patterns of polysemy, regarding both the verb “breathe” and the cognate noun “breath”, based on a corpus of 16 lexical headwords (covering 114 words altogether) in 13 languages. These observations result first in a comparative sense chart (Table 2 in Appendix 2), and in the typological map of {breathe} (Figure 5).21 The reader will find in Appendix 3 a representation of eleven significant lexical headwords of the corpus, in the form of “isolectic sets” (see 5.2.). Crucially, these figures show clearly how the universal semantic map was carefully drawn on an empirical basis. Indeed, following the methodological principles stated in 4.2., senses must be organized on the universal map so that each isolectic set covers a contiguous part of the map; and every semantic chain proposed, based on functional or ontological properties, must be confirmed empirically by the existence of such polysemous chains in actual languages. With just one exception already noted (fn.16), these two methodological requirements are rigorously fulfilled by the universal map I propose. The interest of this typological map lies both in its complexity and its simplicity. First, knowing how universal the activity of breathing is, it is impressive to see how each language has proven capable of evolving its own way, bringing about highly sophisticated, culture-specific vocabulary such as “the self ”, “divine inspiration”, or “be .  Technically, although this is an instance of the noun rūḥ, this specific polysemy should count as loose rather than strict colexification (see 3.3.) in the map of rūḥ̣, because it involves the same lexeme across two distinct états de langue: the chain 〈breath〉 – 〈soul〉 – 〈spirit〉 – 〈person〉 … belongs to Standard Arabic, but the grammaticalization 〈person〉 – 〈reflexive〉 to Yemeni Arabic. See Figure 15. 21.  A comparison between Appendix 1 and Appendix 2 shows that the universal map retains in fact only the typologically significant cases of colexification – that is, generally those that are attested at least in two languages. Some very specific senses, found in only one language (e.g., Sanskrit ánila ‘rheumatism’; Greek psūkhē ‘butterfly’…), have not been included, to gain space and readability. Ideally such isolated senses should be able to be included in the map, or at least kept somewhere in the matrix database – in case they turn out to be attested again in other languages when the corpus widnens.



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

on vacation”. Yet, by the same token, probably even more instructive is the extent to which remote languages can follow just the same semantic paths, well beyond genetic boundaries and historical times. Thanks to this type of typological survey, certain metaphors sometimes believed to be specific of certain civilizations (e.g., the connection “breath”  – “soul” – “spirit” found in the Bible) can appear to be in fact widespread among the world’s cultures. It is probable that lexical typology, as much as grammatical typology, will tell us a lot about the universality of our perceptions and feelings, and about the unity of mankind.

6.  Conclusion Of course, such a semantic map is by no way comprehensive; it will always be possible to improve it by increasing the number of languages considered. Rather, the objective of the present overview was essentially to explain and illustrate a possible method for undertaking research in lexical typology. My objective was to find a satisfying balance between the two conflicting demands at stake in language typology: the search for universals vs. the respect for each language’s uniqueness. On the one hand, typological comparison requires that linguistic data be observed from a universalist angle, through the definition of language-independent, functionally-based criteria that could be observed – or at least looked for – in potentially any language of the world. On the other hand, the need for comparison should not sacrifice the subtle nuances that make each language unique. Hopefully, the Colexification Model proposed here, based on the definition of minimal semantic atoms and the observation of their interactions in the various languages of the world, should provide a satisfying balance between language-specific analyses and a more universal approach. More issues still deserve to be addressed. For example, the question of diachrony, and specifically of the directionality of semantic change, could be researched in the future. Also, the representation of the data could be improved, e.g., by using three dimensions instead of two, or by adding various attributes for each semantic connection  – distinguishing metaphors from metonymies, or statistically frequent cases from rarities… Finally, little has been said here about the possible applications of this model, whether in a universalist, cognitivist perspective, or in the reconstruction of historical change in particular language groups. Obviously, the domain of lexical typology still provides ground for substantial debate and reflection, from both a theoretical and a practical standpoint. But while we pursue these necessary discussions, we must not forget to collect the raw material for this research – namely, fine-grained lexical data gathered from various parts of the world. This work of documentation and analysis is especially urgent for endangered languages, most of which have so far received too little attention from lexicographers.

 Alexandre François

7.  Appendices 7.1  Appendix 1: Lexical data 7.1.1  Sanskrit Source: Monier-Williams 1970 [1899]; Stchoupak et al. 1987 [1932]. •

Lexical item: ātman. 1. breath. 2. (breath of) life; principle of life, vital force. 3. the individual soul, spiritual force of the person. 4. the self, abstract individual; oneself (reflexive pronoun), one’s own. 5. the person, esp. body. 6. understanding, intellect, mind. 7. essence, character, peculiarity. 8. effort, firmness. 9. highest personal principle of life, Brahma.

Cognate, derived and compound forms (selection): ātma-vat animated, having a soul. ātma- 1. soul. 2. self, one’s own… ātma-grāhin taking for one’s self, selfish. ātma-ghāta suicide. ātma-jña 1. knowing one’s self. 2. knowing the supreme spirit. ātma-jyotis the light of the soul or supreme spirit. essence, nature. ātma-tā ātma-dā granting breath or life. ātma-pāta descent of the soul, re-birth.

ātma-bhāva 1. existence of the soul. 2. the self, proper or peculiar nature. ātma-yoga union with the supreme spirit. ātma-víd knowing the nature of the soul or supreme spirit. ātma-sáni granting the breath of life. ātma-dhīna 1. depending on one’s own will. 2. one whose existence depends on the breath or on the principle of animal life: sentient. ātmê-śvara master of one’s self.

Cognate form: an (3sg án-iti) (cognate with Greek anemos “wind”, Latin anima) 1. breathe, respire. 2. gasp. 3. live, be alive. 4. move, go (?). Cognate, derived and compound forms (selection): aná breath, respiration. aná-vat-va the state of being endowed with breath or life. breathing, living. anana

ánila 1. air, wind. 2. the god of wind. 3. wind as one of the humors of the body. 4. rheumatism.

7.1.2  Classical Greek Source: Bailly (1950 [1894]). •

Lexical item: psūkhē. 1. (s.o.’s) breath, puff of air. 2. breath of life, vital force. 3. (s.o.’s) life. 4. living being; person. 5. darling. 6. soul (vs. body): seat of feelings and passions, heart. 7.



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

(s.o.’s) moral disposition, character; nature (of s.th.). 8. seat of intelligence, mind. 9. seat of will and desire. 10. soul separated from body and surviving in hell; ghost. 11. butterfly. Cognate, derived and compound forms (selection): psūkhikos 1. vital. 2. living being; animal. 3. cool down (s.th.). 4. get cold; 3. terrestrial, material. 4. of the fall, die. soul, spiritual. psūkhos 1. fresh breath of air; cold air, coldness. 2. winter. psūkhō 1. breathe, blow air. 2. breathe out, reject. psūkhros 1. cold. 2. sterile. 3. vain, useless. 4. lifeless. 5. indifferent, impervious.

•

Lexical item: pneuma. 1. breath of air; wind. 2. act of breathing; (s.o.’s) breath. 3. sound (of flutes). 4. breath of life, life. 5. breathlessness. 6. smell, scent. 7. enthusiasm, energy, fervor; wrath. 8. divine breath, divine power. 9. spirit, supernatural being, whether good (angel) or bad (devil); Holy Spirit. 10. aspiration (phonetics).

Cognate form: pneō.

1. (wind) blow. 2. (s.o.) breathe, blow. 3. be alive. 4. be in a particular moral disposition (pride, anger, arrogance …). 5. exhale a smell, smell (good or bad). 6. play the flute. 7. (passive) be inspired, be wise.

7.1.3  Classical Latin Source: Gaffiot (1934). •

Lexical item: anima. (cognate with Greek anemos “wind”, Skr. aniti “breathes”) 1. air in motion, breath of air. 2. act or manner of breathing. 3. breath (good or bad). 4. (breath of) life; principle of life, vital force. 5. being, creature, person. 6. darling. 7. soul (opp. body) that survives death; souls of the dead.

Cognate form: animus.

1. principle of life (opp. body). 2. mind, thought, seat of intelligence. 3. opinion, thought. 4. seat of will and desire; will, intention. 5. seat of feelings: soul, heart. 6. feelings, emotions, passions. 7. frame of mind, mood. 8. courage, energy, fervor, pride, arrogance. 9. darling.

Cognate, derived and compound forms (selection): animal living being, animal. animōsus 1. courageous, bold. 2. proud. 3. ardent.

 Alexandre François

•

Lexical item: spīritus 1. air in motion, breath of air. 2. act or manner of breathing; breath. 3. sigh. 4. smell, scent. 5. (breath of) life; principle of life. 6. divine breath; magic or poetic inspiration. 7. soul (opp. body). 8. self, person. 9. pride, arrogance, self-importance. 10. feelings, state of mind, moral disposition.

Cognate form: spīro.

1. (wind) blow. 2. (sea) bubble. 3. breathe. 4. be alive. 5. be inspired. 6. (s.o., s.th.) exhale a smell. 7. breathe out (s.th.). 8. (fig) exude [cruelty …].

7.1.4  Russian Sources: Sakhno (2005: 89 ff.); Pauliat (1991). •

Lexical item: dux. 1. breathing, breath. 2. breath of life. 3. spirit (of s.o./s.th.): moral disposition, frame of mind. 4. mood (good or bad). 5. morale, courage. 6. supernatural being (good or evil); God (Svjatoj dux “Holy Spirit”). 7. ghost.

Cognate, derived and compound forms (selection): dut’ 1. (s.o./wind) blow. 2. drink a lot. zaduvat’ 1. (wind) start blowing. 2. (s.o.) blow (candle+). 1. air. 2. open space, outside. vozdux dyšat’ breathe. doxnut’ breathe, blow. dyxanie breathing, breath. dyxatel’nyj respiratory. dušit’ strangle, suffocate; oppress. uduš’e breathlessness, asthma. doxnut’ die. izdyxat’ die. vzdyxat’ sigh. otdyxat’ take rest.

otdyx 1. pause, rest. 2. leisure, vacation. short pause, respite. peredyška dušok bad smell. duxi perfume. duša 1. soul, spirit. 2. seat of feelings, heart. 3. inhabitant, person. duševnyj 1. psychic, mental. 2. sincere, cordial. duxovnyj spiritual; holy, sacred; ecclesiastical. duxovenstvo clergy. vdoxnovenie (poetic/magic) inspiration, enthusiasm. oduševlënnyj animate.

7.1.5  Mandarin Chinese Source: [no author] (1990); [no author] (1996). •

Lexical item: qì. 1. weather, atmosphere. 2. gas. 3. air. 4. (s.o.’s) breath. 5. smell (good or bad), scent. 6. (s.o.’s) manner, ways, attitude, style. 7. (s.o.’s) spirits, moral strength, morale. 8. energy, vital force, vital breath. 9. annoy, irritate (s.o.).



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

Cognate, derived and compound forms (selection): qìhòu weather, climate. qìxiàng 1. meteorology. 2. (fig) atmosphere. qìchuăn breathless, asthmatic. qìxī 1. breath; last breath. 2. smell, scent. 3. (fig) taste, style, fashion. qìshì 1. strength, vigor, energy. 2. momentum, impetus. 3. majesty. strength, vigor, energy; effort. qìlì qìnăo get angry. qìfèn furious, angry, exasperated. qìhuà angry words; words (huà) uttered in a fit of anger. qìshì xiōngxiōng  fierce, furious, arrogant.

qìwèi 1. smell, scent. 2. (fig) taste, style, fashion. style; stylishness. qìpài qìpò 1. character strength; boldness, daring; will. 2. majesty. qìyàn arrogance, insolence. qìgài manner, ways. qìzhì character, (good) moral qualities. qìjié honesty, frankness. qìliàng open-mindedness, tolerance. qìnĕi disheartened, depressed. qìxing character, disposition; mood. qìshèng be in a bad mood.

7.1.6  Inuit/Aleut Eskimo-Aleut family. Spoken in Greenland and Alaska. Source: N. Tersis (pers. comm.); Fortescue et al. (1994). •

Lexical item: (Inuit) ani- “breathe, blow”.

Cognate, derived and compound forms: aniqniq aniqsaaqtuq-puq

breathing; breath. breathe.

aniqnii-q-pu-q aniqsaaq

breathe one’s last, die. spirit, ghost.

Cognate form: (Aleut) anr(i) “breathe, blow”.

1. breath. 2. voice. 3. principle of life, life. 4. spirit, soul. 5. ghost.

Cognate form: anrari “be alive”.

7.1.7  Nahuatl Spoken in Mexico. Source: Marie-Noëlle Chamoux (pers. comm.) •

Lexical item: imi’iyo ~ i’iyac. 1. breath. 2. smell (esp. bodily smell). 3. V + imi’iyo “take rest”.

7.1.8  Mwotlap Austronesian; Oceanic subgroup. Spoken in Vanuatu. Source: François (in prep.) •

Lexical item: nō-mōkhe. 1. (s.o.’s) breath. 2. breath of life, life; principle of life. 3. smell (good or bad), scent (of s.o./s.th).

 Alexandre François

Cognate form: mōkheg.

1. breathe; breathe into. 2. perceive a smell. 3. pause, take rest; be on vacation; be retired.

7.1.9  Nêlêmwa Austronesian; Oceanic subgroup. Spoken in New Caledonia. Source: Bril (2005) •

Lexical item: horêâ-t. 1. (s.o.’s) breath, breathing. 2. breath of life, life. 3. spoken message.

Cognate form: horêân.

1. breathe. 2. be alive. 3. pause, take rest. 4. cease to do.

7.1.10  Standard Arabic Source: Reig (1983); Naïm (2007). •

Lexical item: rūḥ [root r.w.ḥ] 1. breath of life. 2. soul, soul of the dead; mind; spirit. 3. supernatural power, spirit (good or evil); divinity. 4. character, moral disposition; spirit. 5. morale, mental strength. 6. perfume essence, alcohol.

Cognate, derived and compound forms (selection): rūḥī 1. spiritual. 2. alcoholic. rūḥānī spiritual; divine; immaterial; sacred. arwāḥiyah animism. rīḥ breath of air, wind. rāʔiḥah smell, scent (good or bad). mirwaḥah fan, propeller. rawwaḥa ventilate, air; put scent in.

•

istirāḥa take a rest, relax, be quiet. rāḥa rest, quietness; ease, comfort. rūḥ-ī lit. “my soul” > grammaticalized as a reflexive marker (“myself ”) in modern Yemeni Arabic

Lexical item: nafas [root n.f.s] 1. breathing. 2. puff of air, breath. 3. sip. 4. breath of life.

Cognate form: nafs.

1. soul, vital force of the individual. 2. essence, being, the person itself. 3. the self; Reflexive marker (myself, yourself …). 4. the same. 5. psyche; psycho-. 6. jinx, curse on s.o.



Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

Cognate, derived and compound forms (selection): tanaffasa 1. breathe, blow. 2. be reassured. tanaffus breathing, breath. nafsī psychic, psychological.

nafsiya psychology. naffasa comfort, appease. tanāfasa compete, rival

7.1.11  Beja Afro-asiatic family. Spoken in Sudan. Source: Martine Vanhove (pers. comm.), after Roper (1928). •

Lexical item: šūk. 1. breathing, breath. 2. soul.

7.1.12  Makonde Niger-Congo; Bantu subgroup. Spoken in Tanzania. Source: Sophie Manus (pers. comm.) •

Lexical item: ku-pumula. 1. breathe. 2. take rest.

7.1.13  Sar Nilo-Saharan; Sara–Bongo–Baguirmian subgroup. Spoken in Chad and Sudan. Source: Pascal Boyeldieu (pers. comm.) •

Lexical item: koo. 1. breathing, breath. 2. air, gas. taa koo /take/breath/ “pause for breath, take a rest”

7.2  Appendix 2: Results and semantic map This section consists of table 2 and figure 5 in the following pages.

7.3  Appendix 3: Some isolectic sets for “breathe” The following pages represent eleven lexical entries (out of the sixteen of the corpus) in the form of “isolectic sets” (see 5.2.). The universal map presented in Appendix 2 is reproduced identically for each language, and used as a visual etic grid against which the emic categorizations made by each language are visualized. Each isolectic set consists of two levels. The greyed area with a solid line represents “strict” colexification: it shows the semantic contour of the lexical entry itself (the one in the title). On the other hand, the dotted line allows supplementing this first area with indirect or “loose” colexification – generally, other forms in the same language cognate with the lexical entry (see 3.3.). These isolectic sets are further commented upon in 5.4.

breathe (s.o.) blow whisper, utter take a rest be on vacation cease to do (wind) blow air, wind cold (air) puff of breath smell, scent act of breathing (breath of) life living being, animal vital force of individual person; self oneself (reflexive)

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[+] [+]

[+] [+]

+

+

+

+

+ + + +

[+] [+]

+

+

+ [+] +

[+] [+]

[+]

[+] [+]

+

+

+

[+]

[+] [+]

+

+

+

+

+

+

[+]

+ +

sanskrit greek greek latin latin russian mandarin aleut+ nahuatl mwotlap nelemwa arabic arabic beja  sar ātman psūkhē pneuma anima spīritus dux qì anri imi'iyo mōkhe horêâ rūh. nafas šūk koo

Table 2.  Lexical data on the polysemy of {breathe}

 Alexandre François

mind, thought intelligence, wit will and feelings: heart pride, arrogance, wrath frame of mind, mood soul of indiv. (immortal) ghost divine breath or power magic power, inspiration supernatural being, God

+

+

+ + [+] [+]

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

[+]

[+]

+

+

+

+ + +

+

[+]

+ +

[+]

+

+

+

+

+

[+]

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+ +

+

+

+

+

[+]

+

Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)

strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath 

(s.o.) blow

whisper

(wind) blow

Figure 5.  The semantic map of {breathe}.

N O U N Y

V E R B Y

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

 Alexandre François

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

Figure 6.  Isolectic set for Sanskrit ātman.

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)



strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath

(wind) blow

(s.o.) blow

whisper

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

Figure 7.  Isolectic set for Greek psūkhē.

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)



strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath

(wind) blow

(s.o.) blow

whisper

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

 Alexandre François

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

Figure 8.  Isolectic set for Greek pneuma.

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)



strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath

(wind) blow

(s.o.) blow

whisper

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

Figure 9.  Isolectic set for Latin anima.

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)



strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath

(wind) blow

(s.o.) blow

whisper

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

 Alexandre François

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

Figure 10.  Isolectic set for Latin spīritus.

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)



strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath

(wind) blow

(s.o.) blow

whisper

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

Figure 11.  Isolectic set for Russian dux.

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)



strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath

(wind) blow

(s.o.) blow

whisper

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

 Alexandre François

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

Figure 12.  Isolectic set for Chinese qì.

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)



strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath

(wind) blow

(s.o.) blow

whisper

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

Figure 13.  Isolectic set for Nêlêmwa horêâ‑.

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)



strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath

(wind) blow

(s.o.) blow

whisper

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

 Alexandre François

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

Figure 14.  Isolectic set for Mwotlap mōkhe–.

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)



strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath

(wind) blow

(s.o.) blow

whisper

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

Figure 15.  Isolectic set for Standard Arabic rūḥ.

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)



strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath

(wind) blow

(s.o.) blow

whisper

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

 Alexandre François

divine breath, supernatural power

(human) puff of breath

Figure 16.  Isolectic set for Standard Arabic nafas.

supernatural being (good/bad): spirit

ghost

act of 

air in motion, wind

(s.o.'s) magic power of supernatural origin: inspiration

smell, scent

cold (air)



strong passions: courage, pride, arrogance, wrath…

soul of individual (immortal)

(breath of) life

frame of mind, mood

seat of will & feelings: heart

living part of individual: vital force

living being, animal

cease to do

be on vacation take a rest pause for breath

(wind) blow

(s.o.) blow

whisper

utter, speak

mental skills: intelligence, wit

mind, thought

the person, the self

oneself (reflexive)

Semantic maps and the typology of colexification 

 Alexandre François

References [no author] 1990. 汉语词典 Hanyu Cidian: Dictionnaire Chinois-Français. 1990. Paris: The Commercial Press. [no author] 1996[1978]. 现代汉语词典 Contemporary Chinese Dictionary. Beijing: Commercial Press. Anderson, L. 1982. “Perfect” as a universal and a language-particular category. In Tense-Aspect: Between Semantics and Pragmatics, P.J. Hopper (Ed.), 227–264. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bailly, A. 1950[1894]. Dictionnaire Grec–Français. Paris: Hachette. Bril, I. 2000. Dictionnaire nêlêmwa-nixumwak français-anglais (Nouvelle-Calédonie) [Langues et Cultures du Pacifique 14]. Paris: Peeters. Brown, C. 2005a. Hand and Arm. In Haspelmath et al. (Eds), 522–525. Brown, C. 2005b. Finger and Hand. In Haspelmath et al. (Eds), 526–529. Camden, W. 1979. Parallels in structure of lexicon and syntax between New Hebrides Bislama and the South Santo language spoken at Tangoa. In Papers in Pidgin and Creole Linguistics 2 [A-57], 51–117. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Clark, R. n.d. North and Central Vanuatu: A comparative study. Computer files, University of Auckland. Croft, W. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: OUP. Croft, W., Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot, H. & Kemmer, S. 1987. Diachronic semantic processes in the middle voice. In Papers from the 7th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, A. Giacalone-Ramat, O. Carruba & G. Bernini (Eds), 179–192. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Enfield, N. 2003. Linguistic Epidemiology: Semantics and Grammar of Language Contact in Mainland Southeast Asia. London: Routledge/Curzon. Evans, N. 1992. Multiple semiotic systems, hyperpolysemy, and the reconstruction of semantic change in Australian languages. In Diachrony within Synchrony, G. Kellerman & M. Morrissey (Eds), 475–508. Bern: Peter Lang. Evans, N. & Wilkins, D. 2000. In the mind’s ear: The semantic extensions of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language 76: 546–592. Fortescue, M., Jacobson, S. & Kaplan, L. 1994. Comparative Eskimo Dictionary, with Aleut Cognates [Alaska Native Language Center Research Paper 9]. Fairbanks AK: University of Alaska. François, A. 2002. Araki. A Disappearing Language of Vanuatu [Pacific Linguistics 522]. Canberra: Australian National University. François, A. Forthcoming. Des valeurs en héritage: Les isomorphismes sémantiques et la reconstruction des langues. In Typologie et comparatisme. Hommages à Alain Lemaréchal (provisional title), I. Choi-Jonin, M. Duval & O. Soutet (Eds), [Orbis Supplementa]. Louvain: Peeters. François, A. In preparation. Mwotlap–French–English dictionary. Gaffiot, F. 1934. Dictionnaire Latin–Français. Paris: Hachette. Geeraerts, D. 1993. Vagueness’s puzzles, polysemy’s vagaries. Cognitive Linguistics 4: 223–272. Haspelmath, M. 2003. The geometry of grammatical meaning: Semantic maps and cross-linguistic comparison. In The New Psychology of Language, Vol. 2, M. Tomasello (Ed.), 211–243. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Haspelmath, M., Dryer, M., Gil, D. & Comrie B. (Eds), 2005. The World Atlas of Language Structures. Oxford: OUP.



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Jurafsky, D. 1996. Universal tendencies in the semantics of the diminutive. Language 72: 533–578. Kay, P. & Maffi, L.M. 2005. Colour terms. In Haspelmath et al. (Eds), 534–545. Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Matisoff, J. 1978. Variational Semantics in Tibeto-Burman: The “Organic” Approach to Linguistic Comparison [Occasional Papers of the Wolfenden Society on Tibeto-Burman Linguistics VI]. Philadelphia PA: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. Monier-Williams, M. 1970[1899]. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Etymologically and Philologicaly Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European Languages. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Naïm, S. 2007. L’énoncé réfléchi et les stratégies de réflexivation dans des variétés dialectales de l’arabe. In L’énoncé réfléchi, A. Rousseau, D. Roulland & D. Bottineau (Eds), 301–319. Rennes: Presse Universitaire de Rennes. Nerlich, B., Todd, Z., Herman, V., & Clarke, D. (Eds). 2003. Polysemy: Flexible Patterns of Meaning in Mind and Language [Trends in Linguistics]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Pauliat, P. 1991. Dictionnaire Français–Russe, Russe–Français [Mars]. Paris: Larousse. Reig, D. 1983. As-Sabil, Dictionnaire Arabe–Français, Français–Arabe. Paris: Larousse. Riemer, N. 2005. The Semantics of Polysemy: Reading Meaning in English and Warlpiri [Cognitive Linguistics Research]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Roper, E.M. 1928. Tu Beḍawi. An Elementary Handbook for the Use of Sudan Government Officials. Hertford. Rosch, E. 1973. Natural categories. Cognitive Psychology 4: 328–350. Sakhno, S. 2005. Les 100 racines essentielles du russe. Paris: Ellipses. Sandra, D. & Rice, S. 1995. Network analysis of prepositional meaning: Mirroring whose mind – the linguist’s or the language user’s? Cognitive linguistics 6(1). Saussure, F. de. 1972[1916]. Cours de linguistique générale. Text edited and presented by T. de Mauro. Paris: Payot. Stchoupak, N., Nitti, L. & Renou, L. 1987[1932]. Dictionnaire Sanskrit-Français [Publications de l’Institut de Civilisation Indienne]. Paris: Maisonneuve. Tyler, A. & Evans, V. 2001. Reconsidering prepositional polysemy networks: The case of over. Language 77: 724–765. (Reprinted in Nerlich et al. 2003, 95–160). Vine, W.E. 1985. Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. Nashville TN: Thomas Nelson. Wierzbicka, A. 1992. Semantics, Culture, and Cognition: Universal Human Concepts in CultureSpecific Configurations. Oxford: OUP.

A catalogue of semantic shifts Towards a typology of semantic derivation* Anna A. Zalizniak

Russian Academy of Sciences A formalized catalogue comprising the facts of the similar semantic shift, both synchronic and diachronic, which occurs independently in different languages and epochs, would reveal the most frequent, prominent and significant samples of semantic derivation. It might be used: (1) as a semantic plausibility criterion in linguistic reconstruction; (2) as a basis for the semantic typology; (3) as a linguistic evidence for cognitive processes. The paper deals with the formal structure of the lexicographic entry of the Catalogue of semantic shifts (see Zalizniak 2001). Some examples of parallel semantic shifts in several groups of Indo-European languages are discussed in more detail. Keywords:  polysemy; semantic borrowing; semantic calque; semantic derivation; semantic evolution; semantic parallel; semantic shift; semantic typology

1.  Preliminary remarks Two notions appear as crucial for the present paper: semantic shift and semantic parallel. By semantic shift I understand any variation of meaning of a given word, be it synchronic or diachronic, i.e., the relation between two different meanings of a polysemous word or the relation between two meanings of a word in the course of semantic evolution. Synchronic and diachronic semantic shifts are indeed two different sides of the same phenomenon. For instance, the semantic shift ‘to grasp’ → ‘to understand’ (see №1 in the Appendix), usually mentioned in linguistic manuals as well as in the newest works on diachronic semantics, took place diachronically, in the Russian verb ponjat’, Italian capire, German begreifen and many other words of

*This work was supported by RFBR, grant #03–06–08133a. The paper reflects some results

(achieved until the end of 2005) of the work on a project, realized in the Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, by a group of linguists (Maria Bulakh, Dmitriy Ganenkov, Ilya Gruntov, Elena Gruntova and Timur Maysak) under my supervision.

 Anna A. Zalizniak

different languages and has been reproduced in the form of synchronic polysemy, for example, in English to grasp, to catch, in French saisir, Russian ulovit’, sxvatyvat’ etc. The idea that synchronic polysemy and diachronic semantic change are two aspects of the same phenomenon has been suggested by many scholars (see e.g., Trubačev 1976, 1988; Tolstoj 1997: 15; Vinogradov 1994a: 17; Sweetser 1990: 9; Blank 2000: 10; Traugott & Dasher 2002: 16). It is due to the fact that semantic change from meaning A to meaning B normally involves a transitional phase of polysemy where a form has both meanings (cf. Blank 1999: 131; Evans & Wilkins 2000: 549). On the other hand, the idea that synchronic and diachronic semantic shifts represent the same phenomenon, is presupposed (although never explicitly articulated) by one of the basic notions of the linguistic reconstruction, namely, semantic parallel (cf. Wilkins 1996: 267). I will call semantic parallel (to a given word W1 which realizes a semantic shift S1) a word W2 which realizes the same semantic shift, i.e., has identical (or similar) initial and derivative meanings. For example, the semantic shift №2 ‘woman’ → ‘wife’ is manifested by the polysemous French word femme (‘woman’, ‘wife’), as well as by German Frau; in such a way, the French femme and the German Frau form a semantic parallel to each other with respect to the semantic shift ‘woman’ → ‘wife’. The Russian word žena “wife” provides another semantic parallel: this word has lost its original meaning “woman” and demonstrates the semantic shift in question diachronically. The semantic shift №3 ‘to turn’ → ‘to become’ manifests itself in the English verb to turn, cf. to turn the key (‘to turn’) and to turn sour, to turn traitor (‘to become’). A semantic parallel is given here by the Russian verb obernut’sja, which is polysemous in the same way: it means “to move round” and “to turn into” (for example, into a frog). A couple of cognate words  – the Latin verto “to turn” and the German verb werden “to become” – can serve here as a diachronic semantic parallel. It is well known that finding a semantic parallel is an important part of an etymological investigation: it provides an argument that makes the proposed etymological hypothesis more probable. A professional etymologist must bear in mind every instance of semantic shift, since any of them can provide a semantic parallel for further etymological hypotheses. In such a way, for example, O. Trubačev derives the Russian word naglyj, which has in some Russian dialects the meaning “pure, true”, from Slavic *nag- “naked” on the ground of the following semantic parallel: the German word bar has the meaning “naked” (barfuß “barefooted”) and “pure, true” (Bargeld “cash”) (see Trubačev 1988: 222; 1976: 173–175). Fifty years ago E.  Benveniste in his seminal article “Problèmes sémantiques de la reconstruction” (Benveniste 1954) revealed the original connection between two meanings of the French verb voler – “to fly” and “to steal”, which are homonyms in contemporary French. He has found a context where both meanings are present: le



A catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation 

faucon vole la perdrix “falcon flies and grasps a partridge”. Now we can adduce a semantic parallel, which confirms the hypothesis of Benveniste: the same semantic shift took place in Russian nalëtčik “robber”, derivative of letet” “to fly”.1 On the semantic parallel as an object of the semantic typology see Trubačev (1988: 213), Gak (1998), Hénault-Sakhno & Sakhno (2001). In one of my previous publications (Zalizniak 2001) I outlined a project of a catalogue, which would comprise, in a unified, user-friendly format, the facts of the parallel semantic shifts from a meaning A to a meaning B that took place synchronically or diachronically in two or more words of different languages. Such an inventory would reveal the most frequent, prominent and significant semantic correlations that occur independently in different languages and epochs. So, the Catalogue of semantic shifts might be used: (1) as a semantic plausibility criterion in linguistic reconstruction; (2) as a basis for the semantic typology;2 (3) as a linguistic evidence for the nature of cognitive processes; (4) as a contribution to the “history of ideas” (cf. the subtitle of the dictionary Buck 1949). During the last few years I have supervised a seminar for semantic typology in the Institute of Linguistics in Moscow. My colleagues and I have already gathered approximately five hundred semantic shifts, each of them having from two to seven realizations in languages belonging to different linguistic families (Indo-European, Semitic, Altaic, Caucasian languages are involved). A database format for the lexical entry of the Catalogue has been elaborated. The idea of a collection of semantic shifts which are reiterated in different languages is not absolutely new. In 1964 a Russian etymologist Oleg Trubačev put forward the idea of a “Semasiological dictionary of Indo-European languages” with historically witnessed semantic changes as lexicographic entries (Trubačev 1964). But this idea was never realized. A similar project was put forward by a German linguist Johannes Schröpfer in 1952 (but not actually realized, cf. Schröpfer 1979). Some other works have to be mentioned here, namely: Javorskaja (1992), Gak (1998), Tolstaja (2002), Sakhno (1998, 1999, 2001), Hénault-Sakhno & Sakhno (2001, 2005), Heine & Kuteva (2002), Koch (2003, 2004). The advantage of my proposal consists in the fact that it is based on synchronic polysemy, which is more certain, than the reconstructed semantic evolution; meanwhile, the resulting generalizations should be basically the same (cf. Havlová 1965).

.  See Tolstaja (2002: 120), Hénault-Sakhno & Sakhno (2005: 78–79). .  Cf. similar understanding of “semantic typology” as a typology of semantic shifts in Trubačev (1988: 213), Gak (1998: 496), Pottier (1999).

 Anna A. Zalizniak

2.  The structure of the lexicographic entry The structure of the lexicographic entry of the Catalogue appears as follows. The entry contains two parts: the description of the semantic shift itself, and the list of its realizations, which comprises at least two linguistic units (i.e., at least two words which form a semantic parallel to each other). Semantic shift is identified by its name, i.e., a couple of meanings A and B and a connecting sign between them. No special metalanguage for meaning representation is presupposed: the meanings A and B are defined by semantic labels, and appropriate Russian or English (the Catalogue exists in both versions) unambiguous words or short formulas are used (e.g., ‘to have opinion’).3 The meanings A and B are related with an unidirectional arrow (→), if the direction of historical semantic evolution and/or synchronic semantic derivation is obvious; with a two-directional arrow (↔) which is used if both directions of semantic shift are attested (see №11), or with the simple dash (–), when the direction is not clear or more complicated (for example, both meanings derive from a third one). One important qualification has to be done here. The linguistic phenomenon in question is semantic shift, which is by definition a correlation between two meanings. The words of a natural language usually have more than two meanings  – as well as the semantic history of a word usually includes more than two steps. Nevertheless for the purpose of cross-linguistic identification only binary semantic correlations can be accounted for (the possible ways of presentation for multiple semantic correlations will be discussed in section 3). Thus, a semantic shift is a pair of meanings A and B which are linked by some genetic relation. All the other meanings, including those «intermediate» between A and B, from the point of view of diachronic semantic evolution as well as of the logic of synchronic semantic derivation, do not appear in the presentation of a semantic shift in the Catalogue (they are only possible in the commentary zone). So, the notation “Lang.Y xxx ‘Z’” (i.e., “the word xxx of the language Y has the meanings ‘Z’”) does not imply that this word does not have other meanings. It only means that the word X does have the meaning Z.

.  During my presentation of this project in Australian National University (Canberra) in November 2003 Anna Wierzbicka has suggested that all the meanings involved be defined by means of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (on the use of NSM in cross-linguistic and typological studies see Wierzbicka 2002; Goddard & Wierzbicka 1994; Goddard 2003; Gladkova 2005). In spite of its attractiveness, this recommendation cannot be accepted for the Catalogue of semantic shifts. In fact, following this advise, we can start creating the catalogue only after we have got full decompositional dictionaries (based on NSM) for all languages of the world at our disposal. At the level of accuracy of meaning definitions that is now available in typological investigations, semantic labels coinciding with words of a natural language seem to be more appropriate.



A catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation 

For example, the French verb demeurer has undergone a semantic evolution from the meaning “to be slow” (Lat. demoror) to the actual “to dwell” (it is the main meaning of the French demeurer). An intermediate step of this evolution was “to remain in some place for some time” (cf. Rey 2000: 1031), with a derivative meaning “to continue to be in a certain state” and further “to persist”; all these meanings can be also expressed by the verb demeurer in modern French. But these facts, in the lexicographic entry of the semantic shift ‘to be slow’ → ‘to dwell’, only can be mentioned in the commentary zone. Another possibility, if we find the appropriate semantic parallels, would be to postulate another semantic shift, e.g., ‘to remain in some place for some time’ → ‘to dwell’, or ‘to remain in some place for some time’ → ‘to persist’. In the same way, the Latin verb comprehendere has besides the initial meaning “to grasp” a lot of derivative ones which can form another semantic shifts (e.g., ‘to grasp’ → ‘to conceive’, ‘to grasp’ → ‘to perceive’ etc.). So, the unidirectional arrow between the meanings A and B does not mean that B is directly derivative from A. It only means that the intermediate steps, if any, do not fit the Catalogue format. In such a way, the notation “[from ‘to draw’] → ‘train’” (see № 15) means that in the long way of semantic derivation which links the verb meaning ‘to draw’ with the substantive meaning ‘train’ (cf. Germ. ziehen – Zug, or French trainer – train, see Duden 2001: 953; Dauzat 1838: 719) there are only two points which are accounted for: the initial meaning of the verb and the given derivative meaning of the deverbative noun. We should not forget that semantic shift is a conventional metalinguistic construction. As such, it has no chronology and no intermediate logical steps. The only thing we can do with it is finding real words which demonstrate its existence – synchronically or diachronically. The semantic history of these words, as well as the structure of their polysemy is an exciting object for an investigation. But for the Catalogue of semantic shifts only matters whether the semantic shift has been correctly identified. And this is why a mini-investigation of a kind mentioned above must be done for each word in order to “extract” from it a “right” semantic shift. Let us now consider the case of a two-directional arrow, illustrated by the semantic shift №11 ‘to indicate’ ↔ ‘to say’. Such examples as Old Russ. kazati ‘to say’, “to indicate”; Ukrain. kazaty “to say” and Russ. ukazat’ “to indicate”; Latin verbs dico “to say” and indico “to indicate”, as well as the pair Lat. dico “to say” and Greek δεiκνυμι “to indicate” give us no definite evidence concerning the direction of the semantic shift in question. The etymological dictionary Pokorny (1959: 188) proposes for the stem I.-E.*deik- the definition mit Worten auf etwas hinweisen “to point out something by means of words”. On the other hand, there exists a semantic shift ‘to say’ → ‘to signify/ testify’. It reflects the acquisition of a “semiotic” meaning such as with Engl. to say, German sagen, French dire “to say” and also Russ. skazat” and govorit”, cf. Russ. To, čto on ne otvetil na tvoe pisjmo, ešče ni o čem ne govorit “The fact that he did not answered your letter does not signify (literally, does not say about) anything; Etot postupok

 Anna A. Zalizniak

govorit o ego smelosti “This action witnesses (literally, says about) his braveness”. The Russian verb govorit” has acquired the meaning “to signify” only at the beginning of the XIXth century; the influence of French (cf. qu’est ce que ça veut dire?) is highly probable here. However, the possibility of a similar independent evolution for the Russian verbs skazat’ and govorit’ remains as well. Anyway, it is clear that the semantic shift ‘to say’ ↔ ‘to indicate/mean/testify’, in both directions, be it borrowed or independent, has a fundamental character. Let us consider the semantic shift №9 ‘to count’ → ‘to consider’. The direction from “to count” to “to consider” is illustrated by the semantic evolution of the Russian verb sčitat” which has both meanings, and the latter has been acquired by this word two centuries ago.4 On the other hand, there exists the Latin prefixed verb computo “to count”, which is a derivative of the verb puto “to consider”; this fact apparently demonstrates quite the opposite direction of semantic evolution: from ‘to consider’ to ‘to count’. But the real semantic history is more complicated, the original meaning of puto being “to prune” (cf. am-puto).5 The semantic evolution of this verb can be reconstructed as follows: ‘to prune, to cut’ > ‘to adjust a count’ > ‘to calculate’ > ‘to consider’ (cf. Ernout & Meillet 2001:  548; Rey 2000:  3017).6 The Latin prefixed verb computo “to count” is evidently a derivative of the verb puto “to calculate, to count”; this meaning in classical Latin has disappeared, giving place to the meaning “to consider” – the last step of semantic derivation and the only one that persisted. Hence, the Latin example illustrates the same direction of the semantic shift: from ‘to count’ to ‘to consider’. The third type of relation between meanings A and B (a simple dash without any direction indicated) can be illustrated by the semantic shift №6 ‘to hear’  – ‘to understand’, which represents a “transfield extension” (Sweetser 1990) and is very important from the cognitive point of view (cf. Evans & Wilkins 2000). It is difficult to say which of both meanings derives from the other. For Romance languages, the situation is especially complicated due to the fact that the Latin verb intendere, which has generated both verbs meaning “to hear” and those meaning “to understand”, had the meaning “to make an effort, directed to something”. So, both meanings “to hear” and “to understand” appear as derivative from a more “general” and more “physical”

.  See for details Zalizniak (2005). .  Thanks to Serguei Sakhno, who has drawn my attention to this fact. .  S. Sakhno (personal communication) suggested a reconstruction of two different semantic shifts for the verb puto: (i) “to cut, to prune” > “to analyze, to think” > “to consider” and (ii) “to cut, to prune” > “to adjust an account” > “to calculate”.



A catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation 

meaning.7 A similar problem arises with respect to the semantic shift №7 ‘to hope’ – ‘to wait’. Evidently, there is a competition between these two meanings; and what is the most important: the Latin verb spero apparently had a more general meaning (something like “anticipate mentally”)8 which embraces “to hope” and “to wait”, as well as “to fear”, cf. examples from the Latin-Russian dictionary by Dvoreckij: spero tantum dolorem, spes naufragii. In the second part of the lexicographic entry the realizations of the postulated semantic shift are adduced. At least five types of realization of a semantic shift should be distinguished. 1.  Synchronic polysemy of a single word W1, which belongs to a given language in its given period. 2.  Diachronic semantic evolution from the meaning A to the meaning B of a word W1 within the history of one language. For example, the word žena in contemporary Russian means “wife”, but two centuries ago it meant also “woman”. Since every historical semantic shift presupposes a state when both meanings coexisted, the evolution consists not in a transformation, but in the disappearance of one of the coexisting meanings. But the lost meaning stands still in different types of bound uses, first of all, in word-formation. So, the adjective ženskij still means “referring to a woman”, compound word ženoljub means “womanizer”, and so on. Hence, the type 2 (semantic evolution within one language) cannot be strictly separated from the type 1 (synchronic polysemy). 3.  Diachronic semantic evolution from the meaning A of a word W1 of a languageancestor to the meaning B of a word W2 of a language-descendant, cf. the evolution from late Lat. testa “pot” to the French tête “head” (see №5). Note that in this case, as well as in the cases 4 and 5, there is not a single word, but a couple of related words which are involved. The boundary between cases 2 and 3 is conventional: it depends on whether we consider, for example, Old French and French, Old Russian and Russian as two different

.  The Robert historical dictionary of French proposes the following reconstruction of the semantic evolution of the French entendre: “tendre vers” (au sens physique et moral), d’où “porter son attention vers”, “comprendre”, d’où, par extension, “ouïr” (Rey 2000: 1250). E. Sweetser believes that the semantic evolution of the French entendre is a rare exception from the rule of semantic evolution “concrete → abstract, physical ® mental” (Sweetser 1990: 35). .  Cf. the etymology of the French espérer in (Rey 2000: 1302): from sperare “considérer qqch comme devant se réaliser”.

 Anna A. Zalizniak

languages or as one and the same.9 The identity of the phonetic form of the word and/ or its orthographic form could serve as a criterion here, but it is evident, that there are several possible ways to describe the same linguistic data. 4.  Cognates. A semantic shift is represented by two words W1 and W2 which belong to two different languages-descendants of the same language-ancestor: W1 has the meaning A, and W2 has the meaning B.  For example, the couple of words French espérer “to hope” and Span. esperar “to wait” realizes the semantic shift (№6) ‘to hope’ – ‘to wait’; the couple of words French entendre “to hear” and Span. entender “to understand” demonstrates the semantic shift (№7) ‘to hear’ – ‘to understand’. Two words, German Zahl “number” and English tale “story” represent the semantic shift (№8) ‘to count → to narrate’. An example of cognates with greater distance between languages: Lat. verto “to turn” and Germ. werden “to become” (see №3). 5.  Semantic shift accompanied by word-formation: the meaning A is expressed by a word W1, and the meaning B – by a word W2 of the same language, W2 being a morphological derivative of W1. For example: Ital. raccontare “to narrate” is a derivative of contare “to count” (prefixation); Russ. sxvatyvat’ “to understand” derives from sxvatit” “to catch” (imperfectivation); Germ. Zug “train”, from ziehen “to draw” (syntactic derivation); Germ. Erlebnis “emotional experience”, from leben “to live” (prefixation and syntactic derivation). Thus, a realization of a semantic shift can be represented: by a single word (which demonstrates the given semantic shift A ~ B in the form of synchronic polysemy or diachronic semantic evolution of a short distance) or by a couple of cognate words, which are related either etymologically or by means of morphological derivation; one of them has meaning A, the other – meaning B. In addition, the second part of the lexicographic entry includes: an example (from a dictionary or any other linguistic source) for both meanings A and B for each realization of a semantic shift; eventually, a non-formal commentary for the semantic shift as a whole and/or for a realization of it (in the commentary usually some relevant additional data are mentioned that cannot be formalized, e.g., a similar, but not identical semantic shift); the list of relevant linguistic sources. In order to complete this short overview of the Catalogue of semantic shifts, I would like to stress, that the purpose of the Catalogue is to gather facts of reproduced semantic shifts, that is, of regular, and yet uncommon ones. The regularities I am

.  This is the reason why two types of semantic evolution (of short distance and of long distance) are distinguished. Both boundaries between types 1 and 2 and between 2 and 3 are vague, but nevertheless, there is a quite clear opposition between types 1 and 3.



A catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation 

looking for concern individual lexical meaning, rather than semantic derivation that applies to lexical classes (such as, e.g., the acquisition of a stative meaning by the action verbs: cf. to fill, to enter, to enclose), diathetic shifts of the type The key opens the door – the door opens and others. This is a different semantic task, which is elaborated in Apresjan (1974), Pustejovsky (1998), Padučeva (2004), Kustova (2004).

3.  Problems The creation of a Catalogue of semantic shifts requires the solution of some technical problems, which are in fact directly linked with theoretical issues. Problem 1: How to distinguish between one and the same and two different semantic shifts? Should we consider, for example, the shifts from the meanings ‘to seize’, ‘to grasp’, ‘to run down’, ‘to get’ to the meaning ‘to understand’ as one and the same or as four different shifts? Problem 2: How to distinguish between one and the same and two different realizations of a semantic shift? There are two problematic zones here: the inheritance of polysemy and semantic calques. If we describe each case of the inherited polysemy as an individual realization of the given semantic shift, we run the risk of a groundless multiplication of the same entity, that is, distortion of the reality. On the other hand, if at the very beginning of our study we consider the facts of the same semantic shift in genetically related languages as one and the same realization of it, we run the risk of loosing the data concerning frequency and significance of a given semantic shift and, what is even more important, the risk of rejecting the possibility of an independent reproduction of the same semantic shift, which is never excluded a priori. Another problem is that of semantic calques: actually, the reproduction of a given semantic shift can be the result of independent similar semantic evolution as well as the result of a borrowing from another language. For example, in several European languages there is a verb with the initial meaning ‘to find 〈a thing〉’, which has a derivative meaning ‘to consider’ (see №10); it is hardly probable that in all these languages this semantic shift took place independently. Although in linguistic typology all kinds of borrowing are usually rejected, I do not exclude such cases from the Catalogue. There are several reasons for that. First of all, the fact of semantic borrowing, as well as its direction, is hard to establish. A well known example (№13): the transition ‘pot’ → ‘head’ (with the intermediary step ‘skull’), which took place in the word deriving from the late Latin testa in several Romance languages and also in the German word Kopf. It could be a calque, but it is impossible to prove it (see for details Blank 1998; Koch 1997: 231; 2003: 47).

 Anna A. Zalizniak

But even if the fact of borrowing has been established, it does not mean that the given semantic shift is not “productive”; more than that, it does not mean that the same semantic shift could not proceed simultaneously as an independent process of similar semantic evolution. For example, Russ. vkus in its axiological meaning “(good or bad) taste” is a semantic calque from the French goût, which has both gustative sensory modality and the axiological meaning. But it is also true, that the same semantic mechanisms that have called forth this shift in French work also in Russian. (It is noteworthy that the same polysemy holds for English taste or German Geschmack.) So, my task is to collect facts of similar semantic evolution, and this collection may later serve as a factual database for investigation of causes of this similarity (semantic calque being one of them). In the same way, it seems very likely that the Russian pereživanie is a semantic calque from the German Erlebnis, but there is no mention of this fact either in a detailed description of its historical semantic evolution in Vinogradov (1994b), or in the article Gladkova (2005), where all the actual meanings of the Russian word pereživanie are determined and the logic of the derivational relations between them is established. Another example of semantic shift (№11): it is highly probable, that the Polish pociąg and the Czech vlak are semantic calques from a prestigious German, cf. Zug (all three words being derived from verbs meaning ‘to draw’). But there is also the French train, which contains the same semantic shift, which surely is not borrowed (see Dauzat 1938: 719). Thus, the conclusion is that we cannot strictly separate cases of borrowed semantic shifts from those of independent realization of the same model. This was the second reason for the inclusion of alleged calques into the Catalogue. Here is the third one: if a semantic shift has been copied, and the copy has persisted, it usually means, that it corresponds to (or at least does not contradict) the inner structure of polysemy in the borrowing language. In other words, we cannot strictly separate cases of borrowed semantic shifts from those of independent semantic evolution not only because we often have no sufficient information, but because in reality there is no such an opposition. Actually, a semantic shift can be at the same time borrowed and resulting from its own semantic evolution: a given semantic shift in a given language can be supported, put forward, reinforced, thanks to the existence of a similar shift in a neighboring language. It is impossible to say and useless to ask, whether this semantic shift would have taken place without this supporting influence (cf. the examples above). Problem 3: How to treat ‘multiple’ semantic shifts (e.g., relations between several meanings of a polysemous word)? In fact, this is a quite frequent case – since many words have more than two meanings. For such cases the use of a table was thought best, as in the example below (all the Russian verbs are derivative from the same stem):



A catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation 

Table 1.  Multiple semantic shifts

Lat. errare Old-Russ. bluditi Russ. bludit’ Russ. bluždat’ Russ. zabludit’sja Russ. zabluždat’sja

‘to wander’

‘to go in a wrong direction’

‘to be mistaken’

+ +

+ +

+ +

‘to fornicate’ + +

+ + +

Obviously, multiple shifts can be represented in form of a set of standard (binary) shifts, e.g., (for the multiple shift represented in Table 2): ‘to wander’ → ‘to go in a wrong direction’ (realizations: Lat. errare; Old-Russ. bluditi – synchronically; Russ. zabludit’sja – diachronically, as compared to the Old-Russ. bluditi in its initial meaning “to wander”), ‘to go in a wrong direction’ → ‘to be mistaken’ (Lat. errare; Old-Russ. bluditi, Russ. zabluždat’sja) ‘to go in a wrong direction’ → ‘to fornicate’ (Old-Russ. bluditi, Russ. bludit’) and so on. But in doing so, some important information is lost. I think that the best solution for such cases would be to use both types of presentation – a standard binary form in the data base, for the eventual further comparison, and a table form that makes it possible to represent the whole conceptual sphere. Another type of table (cf. Koch 2001: 1145–1146) has the advantage of showing different possibilities of articulation of a given conceptual domain; for example, Table 2 demonstrates that Russian, which has three different words, is typologically different from all seven compared languages. Table 2.  Articulation of conceptual domains ‘human being’ English French Italian German Swedish Old-Russian Ukrainian Russian

‘man’

‘husband’

man homme uomo Mensch människa čelovĕk ljudyna čelovek

husband mari marito Mann man muž’ čolovik mužčina

muž

To conclude I will only say that though there are many factors that complicate the extraction of the more or less strictly delimitated binary semantic correlations from the ocean of fluid lexical meanings, the work that has been done until now demonstrates that it is possible to find a satisfactory solution for any individual case.

 Anna A. Zalizniak

Appendix. Examples of semantic shifts and their realizations №1. ‘to grasp’ → ‘to understand’ Russ. ponjat’ “to understand”, from Old Russian pojati “to grasp” Ital. capire “to understand”, from Latin capere “to get” Ital. afferrare “to grasp”, “to understand” Germ. begreifen “to understand”, from greifen “to grasp” Engl. to catch “to grasp”, “to understand” Engl. to get “to get”, “to understand” French comprendre “to understand”, from Latin comprehendere “to grasp” French saisir “to grasp”, “to understand” Russ. ulovit’ “to understand”, from lovit” “to grasp” Russ. sxvatyvat’ “to understand” from sxvatit” “to grasp” Russ. postič’ “to understand”, from Old Russian postiči “to run down”, “to catch up”9 №2. ‘woman’ → ‘wife’ French. femme “woman”, “wife” Germ. Frau “woman”, “wife” Germ. Weib “woman”, Engl. wife “wife” Old-Russ. žena “woman”, “wife” Russ. žena “wife”, out of date “woman” №3. ‘to turn’ → ‘to become’ Lat. verto “to turn”; Germ. werden “to become” Lat. verto “to turn”; converto “to convert” Engl. to turn 〈to turn a key〉; 〈to turn sour, to turn traitor〉 “to become” Russ. obernut’sja 〈krugom〉 “to turn”; 〈ljaguškoj〉 “to become” 〈a frog〉 Russ. vraščat’sja “to turn”; prevratit’sja “to turn into 〈somebody or something〉” №4. ‘empty’ → ‘vain’ Old Slavic tъštь“empty”; Russ. tščetnyj “vain” Russ. toščij “empty” (out of date, cf. natoščak “on an empty stomach”); Russ. tščetnyj “vain” Russ. pustoj “empty”, “vain” Lat. vanum: “empty”, “vain” Greek. k7νóς “empty”, “vain” №5. ‘to be slow 〈in doing something〉’ → ‘to dwell’ Lat. demoror “stay too long, linger”; French. demeurer “live, inhabit 〈in some place〉” Russ. meškat’ “to be slow 〈in doing something〉”; Polish. mieszkać “live, inhabit 〈in some place〉’, mieszkanie “apartment”



A catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation 

№6. ‘to hope’ – ‘to wait’ Lat. spero “to hope”, “to wait” French espérer “to hope” and Span. esperar “to wait” French espérer “to hope”, out of date “to wait” №7. ‘to hear’ – ‘to understand’ French entendre “to hear”, Span. entender “to undersatnd” French entendre “to hear”, “to understand” (cf. malentendu “misunderstanding”) Engl. hear “to hear”, “to understand” (cf. I hear you “I understand you”, Sweetser 1990: 41) №8. ‘to count’ → ‘to narrate’ Germ. Zahl “number” and Engl. tale “story” Engl. tale “story”, out of date “number” Germ. zählen “to count” and erzälen “to narrate” French compter “to count”, conter “to narrate”9 Ital. contare “to count”, raccontare “to narrate” Span. contar “to count”, “to narrate” №9. ‘to count’ → ‘to consider’ Russ. sčitat” “to count”; “to consider” Lat. computo “to count”; puto “to consider” French compter “to count”; “to reckon” (Il compte que tout se passera bien) Ital. contare “to count”; “to consider” (Lo conto un grand’uomo) Germ. zählen “to count”; “to consider” (Er wird zu den Besten gezählt) №10. ‘to find 〈a thing〉’ → ‘to consider’ Russ. naxodit’ “to find”, “to consider” French trouver “to find”, “to consider” Ital. trovare “to find”, “to consider” Engl. to find “to find”, “to consider” Germ. finden “to find”, “to consider” №11. ‘to say’ ´ ‘to indicate’ Lat. dico “to say”, Greek δείκνυμι “to indicate” Lat. dico “to say”, indico “to indicate” Russ. skazat’ “to say”, ukazat’ “to indicate” Ukrain. kazaty “to say”; Russ. ukazat” “to indicate” Russ. govorit” “to say”, “to mean/testify”

 Anna A. Zalizniak

№12. ‘captive’ → ‘bad’ Ital. cattivo “bad”, from Lat. captivus “captive” Old-Engl. caitif “captive”, “bad” (Kleparski 1986) №13. ‘bad’ → ‘wicked’ Russ. zlo “evil”; zloj “wicked” Germ. das Böse “evil”; böse “wicked” Ital. cattivo “bad”; “wicked” French mauvais “bad”; “wicked” (Gak 1997: 49) Span. malo “bad”; “wicked” (Gak 1997: 49) №14. ‘pot’ → ‘head’ Ital. testa; French tête, from late Lat. testa “pot” Germ. Kopf “head” №15. [from ‘to draw’] → ‘train’ Germ. Zug, from ziehen French train, from trainer Pol. pociąg, from pociągnąć Czech vlak, from vléci №16. [from ‘to live’] → ‘emotional experience’ Russ. pereživat’, pereživanie, from žit’ Germ. erleben, Erlebnis, from leben

References Apresjan, J.D. 1974. Leksičeskaja semantika. Moskva: Nauka. Benveniste, E. 1966[1954]. Problèmes sémantiques de la reconstruction. In Problèmes de linguistique générale, Vol. 1, 289–307. Paris: Gallimard. Blank, A. 1998. Der ‘Kopf ’ in der Romania und anderswo. Ein metaphorisches (und metonymisches) Expansion- und Attraktionszentrum. In Kognitive und kommunikative Dimensionen der Metaphorik in den romanischen Sprachen, Romanistische Kongressberichte, 5, A. Gil & C. Schmitt (Eds), 11–32. Bonn: Romanistischer Verlag. Blank, A. 1999. Kognitive Linguistik und Bedeutungswandel. In Beiträge der Konferenz Interdisziplinarität und Methodenpluralismus in der Semantikforschung, Universität Koblenz, Landau, Band 29, 125–147. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Blank, A. 2000. Polysemy in the Lexicon. In Meaning Change – Meaning Variation. Workshop held at Konstanz, Feb. 1999; Vol. I [Arbeitspapier Nr. 106]. R. Eckarolt & K. von Heusinger (Eds), 11–29. Konstanz: Fachbereichs Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Konstanz, Buck, C.D. 1949. A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principle Indo-European Languages. A Contribution to the History of Ideas. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Dauzat, A. 1938. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française. Paris: Librairie Larousse.



A catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation 

Duden. 2001. Das Herkunftswörterbuch. Etymologie der deutschen Sprache. Band 7. Mannheim: Duden. Ernout, A. & Meillet, A. 2001. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine. Paris: Klincksieck. Evans, N. & Wilkins, D. 2000. In the mind’s ear: The semantic extension of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language 76(3): 546–592. Gak, V.G. 1997. Tipologija analitičeskix form glagola v slavjanskix jazykax (irradiacija i konkatenacija). Voprosy jazykoznanija 2: 47–58. Gak, V.G. 1998. Metafora: Universal’noe i specifičeskoe. Jazykovye preobrazovanija, 480–497. Moskva. Gladkova, A.N. 2005. Čem russkoe sopereživanie otličaetsja ot anglijskogo empathy? Opyt primemenia estestvennogo semantičeskogo jazyka v kontrastivnoj semantike. Kompjuternaja lingvistika i intellektual’nye texnologii. Trudy meždunarodnoj konferencii Dialog 2005: 102–108. Goddard, C. 2003. Thinking across languages and cultures: Six dimensions of variation. Cognitive linguistics 14(2–3): 109–140. Goddard, C. & Wierzbicka, A. (Eds) 1994. Semantic and Lexical Universals – Theory and Empirical Findings. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Havlová, E. 1965. O potřebe slovníku semantickych zmĕn. Jazykovĕdné aktuality 4. Heine, B. & Kuteva, T. 2002. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. Hénault-Sakhno, C. & Sakhno, S. 2001. Typologie des langues et sémantique diachronique: Le problème des universaux. LINX 45: 25–35. Hénault-Sakhno, C. & Sakhno, S. 2005. Typologie sémantique lexicale: Problèmes de systématisation. In Linguistique typologique, G. Lazard & C. Moyse-Faurie (Eds), 71–90. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Septentrion. Javorskaja, G.M. 1992. Leksiko-semantičeskaja tipologija v sinxronii i diaxronii. Kiev: Naukova dumka. Kleparski, G. 1986. Semantic Change and Componential Analysis: An Inquiry into Pejorative Development in English [Eichstätter Materialien. Band 9. Abteilung Sprache und Literatur 4]. Regensburg: F. Pustet. Koch, P. 1997. La diacronia quale campo empirico della semantica cognitiva. In Linguaggio e cognizione. Società di linguistica italiana, 37, M. Carapezza, D. Gambarara & F. Lo Piparo (Eds), 225–246. Roma: Bulzoni. Koch, P. 2001. Lexical typology from a cognitive and linguistic point of view. In Language Typology and Language Universals. An International Handbook. M. Haspelmath, E. König, W. Oesterreicher, & W. Raible (Eds), Vol. 2, 1143–1175. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Koch, P. 2003. Historical romance linguistics and the cognitive turn. La corónica. A Journal of Medieval Spanish Language and Literature, 31(2): 41–45. Koch, P. 2004. Diachronic onomasiology and semantic reconstruction. In Lexical Data and Universals of Semantic Change, Mihatsch, W. & Steinberg R. (Eds), 79–106. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. Kustova, G.I. 2004. Tipy proizvodnyx značenij i mexanizmy jazykovogo rasširenija. Moskva: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury. Padučeva, E.V. 2004. Dinamičeskie modeli v semantike leksiki. Moskva: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury. Pokorny, J. 1959. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bern: Francke. Pottier, B. 1999. Pour une typologie sémantique. LINX.  Typologie des langues, universaux linguistiques, 11–13. Pustejovsky, J. 1998. The generative lexicon. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Rey, A. (Ed.), 2000. Le Robert. Dictionnaire historique de la langue française. Sous la direction de Alain Rey. Paris: Le Robert.

 Anna A. Zalizniak Sakhno, S. 1998. La mémoire des mots: surprises du vocabulaire russe (Problèmes de sémantique historique comparée). Slovo 20–21: 327–352. Sakhno, S. 1999. Typologie des parallèles lexicaux russes-français dans une perspective sémanticohistorique. Slovo 22–23: 287–313. Sakhno, S. 2001. Dictionnaire russe-français d’étymologie comparée. Correspondances lexicales historiques. Paris: L’Harmattan. Schröpfer, J. 1956. Wozu ein vergleichendes Wörterbuch des Sinnwandels? In Proceedings of the seventh International Congress of Linguists (London 1952). London: Clarendon Press. Schröpfer, J. 1979. Wörterbuch der vergleichenden Bezeichnungslehre. Onomasiologie. Band I. Heidelberg: Winter. Sweetser, E. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics [Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 54]. Cambridge: CUP. Tolstaja, S.M. 2002. Motivacionnye semantičeskie modeli i kartina mira. Russkij jazyk v naučnom osveščenii 1(3): 112–127. Tolstoj, N.I. 1997. Nekotorye problemy sravnitel’noj slavjanskoj semasiologii. In Tolstoj N.I. Izbrannye trudy. T.I. Moskva. Traugott, E.C. & Dasher, R.B. 2002. Regularities in Semantic Change. Cambridge: CUP. Trubačev, O.N. 1964. “Molčat’” i “tajat’”: o neobxodimosti semaseologičeskogo slovarja novogo tipa. In Problemy indoevropejskogo jazykoznanija, 100–105. Moskva: Nauka. Trubačev, O.N. 1976. Etimologičeskie issledovanija i leksičeskaja semantika. In Principy i metody semantičeskix issledovanij, 147–179. Moskva: Nauka. Trubačev, O.N. 1988. Priemy semantičeskoj rekonstrukcii. In Sravnitel’no-istoričeskoe izučenie jazykov raznyx semej. Teorija lingvističeskoj rekonstrukcii, 197–222. Moskva: Nauka. Vinogradov, V.V. 1994a. Slovo i značenie kak predmet istoriko-leksikologičeskogo issledovanija. In Istorija slov, 5–38. Moskva: Tolk. Vinogradov, V.V. 1994b. Pereživanie. In Istorija slov, 451–454. Moskva: Tolk. Wierzbicka, A. 2002. Semantic primes and linguistic typology. In Meaning and Universal Grammar  – Theory and Empirical Findings. Vol. II, C.  Goddard & A. Wierzbicka (Eds), 257–300. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wilkins, D.P. 1996. Natural tendencies of semantic change and the search for cognates. In The Comparative Method Reviewed. Regularity and Irregularity in Language Change. M. Durie & M. Ross (Eds), 265–305. Oxford: OUP. Zalizniak, A.A. 2001. Semantičeskaja derivacija v sinxronii i diaxronii: Proekt sozdanija “Kataloga semantičeskix perexodov”. Voprosy jazykoznanija 2: 13–25. Zalizniak, A.A. 2005. Glagol sčitat’: k tipologii semantičeskoj derivacii. Logičeskij analiz jazyka. Kvantitativnyj aspekt jazyka, 280–294. Moskva.

Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

ERSS (CNRS)/Lab. Jacques Lordat (Université Toulouse-Le Mirail, CNRS)/ Llacan (Inalco, CNRS), Fédération TUL In this article, we hypothesize that some of the structural properties of paradigmatic graphs of the hierarchical small world type are to be found in all natural languages. Within this hypothesis of the universal structure of paradigmatic graphs, we explore a method for the automatic analysis of semantic groupings in order to distinguish, on typological and cognitive levels, which groupings are universal, and which are more limited geographically, genetically or culturally. Keywords:  corpus linguistics; graph theory; paradigmatic networks; proxemy; synonym; universal

1.  Introduction Lexical semantics stems from a very long tradition, which underwent important developments with advances in cognitive studies, notably in the domain of metaphors (for example Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1987; Duvignau 2002, 2003), in work on semantic primes (Goddard & Wierzbicka eds. 1994; Wierzbicka 1992), in historical linguistics (Wilkins 1996), as well as in studies on polysemy (Victorri & Fuchs 1996). However, linguistic typology has taken an interest in lexical semantics only recently (Viberg 1984; Koch 2001) because of longstanding suspicion of the object, the lexicon, which appeared both too vast to be grasped in its entirety, and too idiosyncratic in its organization, especially as regards polysemy. The distribution of semantic associations across languages or language families is nonetheless a particularly relevant linguistic phenomenon for inter-language comparative studies, even more so because polysemy is a universal phenomenon: all of the world’s languages have terms, roots or stems, with or without expansions (derivational or qualifier morphemes, etc.) which may, each, express several different semantic notions. For example mouth and door on one hand, and child and fruit on the other, are expressed by the same word in many African languages. Our aim is to make an inventory of these semantic groupings, to

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

analyze their structures, to categorize them and to measure their linguistic distribution: which languages group together mouth and door? Which ones group together child and fruit? What are the universal groupings shared by all languages, and which are more specific, and to which language families? In fact, recent advances in graph theory and corpus linguistics (Watts & Strogatz 1998; Gaume 2004; Gaume et al. 2004) make it possible to envision exploiting lexical data bases obtained by field linguists in order to study a given corpus in a unified manner, to measure the semantic proximity between lexical terms and to compare the semantic networks in languages. It is within this framework that the present article proposes a method for the automatic analysis of semantic groupings crosslinguistically. In section 2.1, we will summarize the structural properties shared by most field graphs, so that in section 2.2 we may focus on lexical graphs, which will bring us in section 2.3 to voice a universality hypothesis concerning the structure of paradigmatic graphs. In section 3, using a stochastic flow approach in paradigmatic graphs, we will define the notion of confluence, and will then, in section 4, show how the notion of confluence in paradigmatic networks makes it possible to quantitatively measure the strength of semantic groupings between lexical units for a given language, which will lead us, in section 5, to imagine a robust automatic method for the analysis of semantic groupings across languages in order to determine which groupings are universal and which are more limited geographically, genetically or culturally. We will conclude in section 6 with the analysis of the advantages of and limits to the proposed approach.

2.  The structure of French dictionary graphs Graphs are widely used as a medium for presenting knowledge in (almost) all sciences. Created in the 18th century by Léonard Euler, graph theory was boosted by the arrival of computers, and is now picking up speed. In effect, machine calculation capacity makes it possible today to manage the large field data graphs1 provided by human and social sciences (acquaintance networks, economic networks, geographical networks, semantic networks, etc.) as well as by engineering sciences (internet networks, electrical networks …) and by life sciences (neural networks, epidemiological networks,

.  Field graphs are those found in practice, they are construed from field data. They are found in all field sciences. For example graphs of scientific collaborations (the vertices correspond to authors of scientific papers, and two authors A and B are linked if they have at least one publication in common).



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

protein networks …). These graphs can contain up to several billion vertices and hundreds of billions of edges (Watts 1999; Newman 2003a; Newman 2003b). In section 2.1 we will study the structure of field graphs in their entirety, and in section 2.2 we will focus on lexical graphs (language dictionaries, synonym dictionaries, thesauruses, semantic networks, large corpuses …) which will bring us in section 2.3 to formulate a universalistic hypothesis on the structure of paradigmatic graphs.

2.1  Properties of field graphs Most of the large field graphs which are of interest to us here do not resemble random graphs, despite the fact that they are irregular.2 Large field graphs possess both a rich local structure and a very “tight” global connectedness. This means that these graphs have a very particular topology, in which the relations between the local and global structures are completely different from what one finds with the graphs usually studied in graph theory (either random or regular). This explains the considerable interest that these recent findings have awakened in the scientific communities concerned. Indeed, one may imagine that these characteristics reflect the specific properties of the systems that these large field graphs represent, and that therefore the study of their structures may allow a fuller understanding of the phenomena from which they stem, as well as making it possible to better use the data thus represented: processing, modeling, structuring, indexing, information access, classifying, meaning extraction, visualizing … Formally, a graph3 G = (V, E) is obtained from a set V of vertices and a set E of pairs of vertices forming edges. The vertices can represent objects and the edges relations of different natures between these objects. One usually illustrates these graphs by representing the vertices by points and by joining two points by a line if the two corresponding vertices form an edge: the only relevant information in such a case is not geometrical (the shape of the vertices or the placement of the points could be entirely different, all the while representing the same graph), but only of a relational type: whether the pairs of vertices constitute an edge or not (fig. 1 below). The fact that the edge joining two vertices v1 and v2 is present in G will be written {v1,v2}∈E (one then says that v1 and v2 are two vertices which are neighbours in G), the notation v∈V indicating simply that v is a vertex in G. For any natural integer m ≠ 0, a

.  Regular graphs are what are usually studied in graph theory: all their vertices have the same degree of incidence (the same number of neighbours). .  For reasons of concision, we will only consider non-oriented simple graphs here, which means that between two vertices, either there is no link, or that there is only one, which is non oriented (a link between two vertices is then called an edge).

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove 2

1

3

5

1 2

4

7

6

3

7

5

6 4

Figure 1.  G=(V, E) where V={1,2,3,4,5,6,7} and E={{1,2}, {1,5}, {2,5}, {3,4}, {5,7}}.

path of length m in G is an (m + 1)-tuple c = 〈v0, …, vm〉 such that ∀i, 0≤i<m : {vi, vi+1}∈E, v0 being the starting point, and vm the end point. A graph G = (V, E) is said to be connected if ∀x, y∈V, there exists a path 〈x, …, y〉 of finite length in G. The graph in Figure 1 is therefore not connected, and its greatest connected part is in the sub-graph formed by the vertices {1, 2, 5, 7} with the edges {{1, 2}, {1, 5}, {2, 5}, {5, 7}}. The first explorations concerning large graphs, which were less regular than the laboratory graphs, were carried out by Erdös & Renyi (1960) who introduced and studied the notion of random graphs (a random graph is built starting from a set of isolated vertices, to which one randomly adds a given number of edges between the vertices) as a model for so called field graphs: large graphs (several thousand vertices and edges) from biochemistry, biology, technology, epidemiology, sociology, linguistics … Since then, recent research in graph theory has brought to light a set of statistical characteristics shared by most field graphs; these characteristics define the class of graphs belonging to the hierarchical small world type. This is the case for the network of protein interactions for certain types of yeast (Jeong et al. 2001), of the neural network of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans (Watts & Strogatz 1998), of the graph of the World Wide Web (Barabasi et al. 2000), of that of a day’s telephone calls in the US (Abello et al. 1999), of epidemiological graphs (Ancel et al. 2001), of scientific co-author graphs (Redner 1998), or of cinema collaborations (Watts & Strogatz 1998), or lexical networks taken from WordNet (Sigman & Cecchi 2002) or even of co-occurrences in a corpus of texts (Ferrer & Solé 2001) … These graphs, like most field graphs, are sparse, which is to say that they have relatively few edges as compared to their number of vertices. In a graph with n vertices, the maximum number of edges is n(n-1)/2, i.e., approximately n2/2. Generally speaking, the number of edges in large field graphs is in the vicinity of n and not in that of n2. For example, the graph of cinema collaborations4 has 13 million edges, which

.  The 225,000 syndicated American actors are the vertices, and there is an edge between vertex A and B if and only if the actors represented by the vertices A and B acted in the same movie.



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

may seem considerable, but which is quite small compared to the square of its vertices (2250002≈5×1010). Watts & Strogatz (1998) propose two indicators to characterize a large graph G which is connected and sparse: its L and its C. –  L= the average of the shortest paths between two vertices in G. – C= the rate of clustering, which is defined in the following way: given that a vertex v has K v neighbours, whereas there is a maximum of K v (K v–1)/2 vertices that can exist between its K v neighbours (which is what one obtains when each of the neighbours of v is connected to all the other neighbours of v). Let E v be the number of edges between the neighbours of v (this number is thus necessarily lesser than or equal to K v(K v–1)/2). Let us posit that Cv= Ev /(K v(K v–1)/2) which is therefore, for any vertex v, less than or equal to one. The C of G is the average of the Cv on the vertices of G. The C of a graph is therefore always between 0 and 1. The more the C of a graph is close to 1, the more clusters it forms (zones dense in edges – my friends are friends amongst themselves). Applying these criteria to different types of graphs, Watts & Strogatz (1998) observe that: 1.  Field graphs tend to have a low L (in general there is at least one short path between any two vertices). 2.  Field graphs tend to have a high C, which reflects the tendency of two neighbours of a same vertex to be connected by an edge. For example in the World Wide Web,5 two pages that are linked to the same page have a relatively high probability of including links from one to the other. 3. Random graphs have a low L. When one randomly builds a graph having an edge density comparable to that of large field graphs, one obtains graphs where the L is low. 4.  Random graphs have a low C: they are not made up of clusters. In a random graph, there is no reason why the neighbours of a same vertex would be more likely to be connected than any other two vertices, whence their low tendency to form clusters. Watts & Strogatz (1998) propose to call small world networks,6 graphs which have these double characteristics (high C and low L) which they find in all the field graphs they have observed. .  The vertices are the 10 billion pages available on the internet, and an edge is drawn between A and B if a hyperlink to B appears on page A or a hyperlink to A appears on page B. .  This term echoes that of small world phenomena by Guare (1990); Kochen (1989); Milgram (1967) who studied social graphs in which two people A and B are in relation in the graph if A carries on such or such a type of relation with B (A knows B, A is regularly in touch with B, A worked in the same company as B …). These graphs were popularized by the slogan “six degrees of

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

More recent studies (Ravasz & Barabási 2003) show moreover that most small world graphs have a hierarchical structure. The distribution of the vertices’ degree of incidence7 follows a power law. The probability P(k) that a vertex will have k neighbours decreases according to a power law P(k) = k–λ (Barabási et al. 2000; Kleinberg et al. 1999; Adamic 1999; Huberman & Adamic 1999) where λ is a constant characteristic of the graph, whereas in the case of random graphs, it is Poisson’s law which applies. Table 1 below summarizes the four fundamental properties of field graphs. Table 1.  The four fundamental properties of field graphs

Graphs Random graphs

Field graphs

Global edge density density here is an input parameter of the construction process P1 sparse few edges

L: Average measurement of the shortest paths Global structure

C: Measurement of the tendency to have edge dense P(k): Distribution sub-zones of degrees Local structures Incidence curve

short paths low L

no clusters low C

P2 short paths low L

clusters high C

P3

Poisson’s Law the degree of the great majority of vertices is close to the degree average P4 Power law without a scale: there is no significant average

In Table 1, the properties P1, P2, P3, P4 are extremely favourable for the low space-time complexity of the processing algorithms. Furthermore, the property P3 expresses the communitarian character of field graphs whereas the property P4 reflects their hierarchical organization. The properties P3 and P4 reveal the fundamental properties that these structures stem from, thus allowing greater understanding and usefulness of the data represented by the networks.

2.2  Lexical graphs Following the works of Watts & Strogatz (1998), many articles appeared where the structures of the different field graphs are analyzed in an extremely wide array of

separation” (Guare 1990): for some of these graphs on a planetary scale, the average length of a path between two humans is around 6, which is very low compared to the billions of humans/vertices. .  The degree of incidence d(r) of a vertex r∈V is the number of neighbours of the vertex r.



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

domains (social sciences, life sciences, engineering sciences), but graph studies of linguistic origin remain very rare. We believe however that graphs from linguistics could help to better understand the structural properties of lexicons as well as comparative studies across languages. There are several types of lexical networks, depending on the nature of the semantic relations which define the edges of the graph (the vertices represent the lexical units of a language – from some tens of thousands to some hundreds of thousands of elements, depending on the language and coverage of the corpus used). The three main types of relations are as follows: – Syntagmatic relations, or rather of cooccurrence; one creates an edge between two words if one finds them near each other in a large corpus (typically at a maximum distance of two or three words (see Ide & Véronis 1998; Karov & Edeman 1998; Lebart & Salem 1994). – Paradigmatic relations, notably synonymy; using a lexical database, such as the famous WordNet (Fellbaum 1999), one builds a graph in which two vertices are linked by an edge if the corresponding words show a synonymy relation (Ploux & Victorri 1998). – Semantic proximity relations; these are less specific relations which may be taken into account both by the paradigmatic axis and by the syntagmatic axis. We created a graph of the French lexicon, defining the vertices in the following manner: an edge was created between the words A and B when one was found in the definition of the other in a general dictionary. As general dictionary entries show the word’s grammatical category (Verb, Noun, Adjective …) and also often definitions, examples, synonyms, and even antonyms, the vertices were therefore labelled according to their lexical category and the edges were labelled according to the type of relations they represented: it is therefore possible, according to one’s needs, to limit the graph to certain lexical categories and/or combinatory relations: syntagmatic, paradigmatic and even logical-semantic relations (Gaume 2004). All these graphs clearly belong to the hierarchical small world network type (P1: Few vertices (sparse graph), and P2: the average distance between two vertices is very small in the whole graph (low L), and P3: community structuring (high C), and P4: a hierarchical structure (the distribution of degrees of incidence ≈ power law). We will limit ourselves here to the study of paradigmatic graphs. Generally speaking, if the dictionary definitions bear meaning, it is minimally through the network that they weave between the words constituting the entries. The idea of using this network (considered simply as a structured text source) was applied

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

by Ide et al. (1998) through a neural network for removing ambiguities.8 Our aim is to use this sort of hierarchical small world network by putting to work the hypothesis according to which zones which are dense in vertices (P3 → the communities) identify zones where meanings are close in their semantic capitals (P4 → the strongly connected vertices). We will illustrate our approach using two types of dictionaries: a standard dictionary, the Grand Robert9 and DicoSyn,10 a dictionary of synonyms compiled from seven standard dictionaries (Bailly, Benac, Du Chazaud, Guizot, Lafaye, Larousse and Robert) from which the synonymic relations were extracted. The dictionaries are represented by graphs whose vertices and edges can be defined in multiple ways. One of which consists in taking the dictionary entries as the graph’s vertices, and in admitting the existence of an arc from a vertex A to a vertex B if and only if the entry B appears in the stemmed definition11 of entry A. This is the starting position which we adopted. Indeed, this simple procedure makes it possible to extract from a standard dictionary12 what we will henceforth call the graph of the dictionary in question. Illustration around the vertex corcer [to bark]:  [ekóRse] v. tr.; Dépouiller de son écorce (un arbre). Décortiquer, peler (le grain, le fruit)   tr. v. To strip of its bark (a tree). Decorticate, peel (grains, fruit). Figure 2.  Definition of corcer (to bark) after stemming – robert –.

.  Recognizing a word’s meaning from among several given in a dictionary for example, or distinguishing a word from among its various homographs. .  We had to undertake the considerable task of typing in, stemming and XML formatting in order to encode the graph extracted from the Grand Robert. .  This initial fusion task, carried out at the Institut National de la Langue Française (now ATILF: http://atilf.inalf.fr) produced a series of files, the data from which was assembled and homogenized through largely correcting the final file at the CRISCO laboratory. .  To label and stem the dictionary definitions we used Treetagger: http://www.ims.unistuttgart.de/projekte/corplex/TreeTagger/DecisionTreeTagger.html. .  By constructing graphs from dictionary definitions, quantitative and structural studies seem apt for highlighting paradigmatic type relations (dictionary definitions being founded on meaning): if word A and word B belong to a same community (or to a same zone dense in edges), then replacing A by B in a sentence will only slightly change the meaning of the sentence “the lumberjack strips the tree” → “the lumberjack undresses the tree”, even if the class of the predicative arguments is not always respected, thus creating semantic tensions.



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks  











   





Figure 3.  Extract from the verb graph, around ecorcer (to bark) – robert –.

écorcer: to bark; fruit: fruit; grain: grains; le: the; peler: peel; décortiquer: decorticate; arbre: tree; un: a; écorce: bark; son: its; de: of; dépouiller: strip

By repeating this construction for each of the dictionary entries, one obtains the graph of the dictionary in question. If one extracts from the graph the sub-graph formed by the vertices which are verbs, this is what we obtain “around”13 the vertex denoted by the verb corcer (to bark): Séparer

Écorcer Dépouiller

Peler Nettoyer

Décortiquer Dépiauter

Éplucher Écorcher

Figure 4.  Extract from the verb graph, around ecorcer (to bark) – robert –.

écorcer: “to bark”; séparer: “to separate”; décortiquer: “to decorticate”; dépiauter: “to skin”; écorcher: “to scrape”; dépouiller: “to strip”; éplucher: “to peel, pare”; nettoyer: “to clean”; peler: “to peel”.

The definitions of dcortiquer (to decorticate), dpouiller (to strip), peler (to peel), sparer (to separate) … refer to other verbs absent from our schema for reasons of legibility (if one continues, one rapidly attains all the verbs in the dictionary). We therefore plotted on Figure 4 the vertices at distance 1 of corcer (to bark) and part of its vertices

.  Which here is a “topological around”, i.e., the vertices linked to écorcer (to bark) by “short” paths, topologically speaking = “having few edges”.

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

Figure 5.  Extract from the anonymous graph, around the vertices associated to ecorcer (to bark) – robert –.

at distance 2 and 3. Once this oriented graph is obtained, our algorithms are applied to what we have called an anonymous graph,14 which is the non oriented version. The graphs thus obtained are typical hierarchical small world graph networks. The hierarchical aspect with the presence of strongly connected vertices is a consequence of the hyperonymy role associated to the polysemy of certain vertices, whereas the high C (existence of zones dense in edges) reflects the role of the cohyponymy (Duvignau 2002; Duvignau et al. 2005). For example in a standard dictionary (the grand robert in our example), the verb casser (to break) is found in numerous definitions (mietter (to crumble), fragmenter (to fragment), dtriorer (to deteriorate), rvoquer (to revoke), abroger (to abrogate) …) whence the high Incidence of the vertex casser (to break). Furthermore, one notes that there are numerous triangles, for example {casser, mietter, fragmenter} (break, crumble, fragment), {casser, rvoquer, abroger} (break, revoke, abrogate) … which favor edge dense zones, or more precisely a high rate of C clustering. It is these edge dense zones which bring together the cohyponyms.15 This is also valid for synonym dictionaries, for example, DicoSynVerbe16 has 9,043 vertices, it has 50,948 edges. On its greatest connected part (8,835 vertices), its L equals 4.17 and its C equals 0.39, which is typically a small world graph. The curve representing the incidence degree distribution of its vertices (Fig. 6) is characteristic of hierarchical small world networks (Ravasz & Barabási 2003) (in log-log it

.  We use the term anonymous graph to insist on the fact that our algorithms apply only to this structure. For example, would it be possible, among several anonymous graphs, to distinguish their origins (standard dictionary, dictionary of synonyms, Internet, Protein network … )? .  Cohyponyms: several words sharing a same meaning kernel with a common hyperonym: dshabiller (undress) and plucher (peel) are two interdomain cohyponyms of the hyperonym dpouiller (strip) whereas plucher (peel), peler (peel, pare) are intra-domain cohyponyms (the domain of vegetables). .  DicoSynVerbe is the graph of verbs extracted from DicoSyn: there is an edge {A,B} if and only if the verbs represented by the vertices A and B are given as synonyms in DicoSyn.



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0

b.

10–0 10–1

d(FAIRE)=210 d(PRENDRE)=211

y=p(X)

y=p(X)

a.

10–2 10–3

0

50

100 150 X=degrees

200

250

10–4 100

101 102 X=degrees

103

Figure 6.  a. Incidence curve of the DicoSynVerbe vertices: 9,043 vertices; 7. b. log-log.

approximately forms a segment whose directing coefficient is equal to –2.01 with a determination coefficient of 0.96). In Figure 6, the x axis represents degrees of incidence, while the y axis represents the incidence probability (the probability Y that by tracing a random vertex in an equiprobable manner, the vertex will have the incidence X). One also notes (Fig. 6a) that in DicoSynVerbe (as with all hierarchical small worlds), there are numerous vertices with low incidence, slightly fewer with rather higher incidence, fewer again with slightly higher incidence … with some high incidence vertices (the two words with the highest incidence in DicoSynVerbe are prendre [take] with d(prendre)=211 and faire [do] with d(faire)=210).

2.3  H  ypothesis: The paradigmatic graphs of all natural languages are hierarchical small worlds We formulate here a universality hypothesis on the structure of paradigmatic graphs: Hypothesis (H1): the paradigmatic graphs of all natural languages are hierarchical small worlds We are led to formulate this hypothesis (H1) for the following two reasons: 1. As we saw in section 2.1, most field graphs resemble each other by their hierarchical small world structures.17 .  The omnipresence of these structures in large field graphs of all origins (life sciences, human and social sciences, technology …) is all the more remarkable for the fact that the hierarchical small world structure is very rare as compared to the set of possible graphs (here rare is taken with its meaning in measurement theory: if all graphs are equiprobable, then by randomly choosing a graph among all possible graphs, the probability of obtaining a hierarchical small world is very close to zero).

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

2. As we saw above in section 2.2, the language paradigmatic graphs that we built from standard dictionaries (the digitized Trésor de la Langue Française, Le Grand Robert), or from synonym dictionaries (Bailly, Benac, Du Chazaud, Guizot, Lafaye, Larousse, Robert, WordNet) or even from large corpuses (10 years of Le Monde daily newspaper) are typical hierarchical small worlds. Moreover, studies on lexical acquisition by young children as well as on certain language pathologies (Duvignau et al 2004a–b, 2005, 2007) point in the same direction as the hypothesis (H1). These studies show for example that the lexical approximations of young children (2–4 years old) of the type: (1) “je déshabille l’orange” 36 mois (l’enfant pèle une orange) [peler/deshabiller] “I’m undressing the orange” 36 months (the child is peeling the orange) [peel/ undress] (2) “maman, tu peux coller les boutons?” 36 mois (les boutons sont décousus, il faut les coudre) [coudre/coller] “Mummy, can you glue on the buttons?” 36 months (the buttons are loose, they need to be sewn) [sew/glue] (3) “le livre est cassé” 26 mois (le livre est déchiré) [dechirer/casser] “the book is broken” 26 months (the book is ripped) [rip/break] (4) “il faut la soigner la voiture” 38 mois (il faut réparer la voiture) [reparer/ soigner] “the car needs to be treated” 38 months (the car needs repairing) [repair/treat]

not only respect the edge dense zones which render vertex communities present in the dictionary graphs (peler↔déshabiller (peel↔undress) are in a common edge dense zone; the same is true of coudre↔coller (sew↔glue); déchirer↔casser (rip↔break); réparer↔soigner (repair↔treat)) but, furthermore, they respect the hierarchical aspect of these graphs (in general, children use those words which have the highest incidence: d(casser) (break) =192>d(dechirer) (rip) =72; d(coller) (glue) =74>d(coudre) (sew) =27; the number of neighbours of the child’s word is generally higher than the number of neighbours of the word chosen by an adult without any pathologies for describing the same event, even if such is not always the case: d(deshabiller) (undress) =18=d(peler) (peel) =18; d(soigner) (treat) =49
3.  Confluences in hierarchical small world networks We would now like to present Prox (http://Prox.irit.fr), an algorithm which calculates, on a hierarchical small world type graph, the structural confluences between vertices,



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

which here are words, and which, as we will see in section 4, makes it possible to quantify the lexical semantic groupings for a given language. The important idea is to calculate the confluence between two vertices from the graph as a whole. This means that what is taken into account is not only the immediate neighbours of two vertices for the calculation of their confluence, but the whole graph as well. It is by applying this analysis method to dictionaries that we bring to light the structure of their graphs and “capture” their topological-semantic properties, among which one finds the proxemy which organizes the hyperonomy, the intra-domain cohyponymy, and the interdomain cohyponymy within a continuum by quantifying the semantic groupings of lexical units.

3.1  Proxemy for confluence calculation Notation: If U is a line vector with dimension n, we will note [U]i: the ith value of U; If M is a n×m matrix, then we will note for any i, k such that 1≤i≤n and 1≤k≤m: [M]i k: the variable situated at the intersection of the ith line and the kth column of M; [M]i • : the ith line vector of M; [M] • k: the kth column vector of M.

Assume that we have a connected, symmetrical and reflexive graph, G=(V,E) with n=|V| vertices and m=|E| edges, and that on this graph a particle may at any time t∈ move around from vertex to vertex in a random fashion: At instant t the particle is on a vertex r∈V. When the particle is on a vertex u∈V at instant t, it can only reach, at instant t+1, the vertices s∈V such that {u,s}∈E (meaning one of the neighbours of the vertex u). The particle moves from vertex to vertex at each instant by using the graph edges. Furthermore, we suppose that for every vertex u∈V, each of the edges incident to u is equiprobable. Let  be the transition matrix at one step in the Markov chain corresponding to the random walk around the graph. This means that at each step, the probability of a transition from the vertex r∈V to the vertex s∈V is equal to [Â]r s =[A]r s/d(r) (where A is the adjacency matrix18 of the graph G and d(r) the incidence degree19 of the vertex r).

.  The adjacency matrix A of a Graph with n vertices G=(V,E) is the squared matrix n×n such that for every r,s∈V, [A]r,s=1 if (r,s)∈E and [A]r,s=0 if (r,s)∉E. .  Since we hypothesized that the graph is reflexive, then for every vertex r∈V, its incidence degree d(r)≠0 (in effect, reflexivity implies that every vertex is its own neighbour, which means that for every vertex r∈V then {r,r}∈E: whence d(r)≥1).

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

If the initial law of the Markov chain is given by the line vector P (which means that [P]r is the probability that the particle be on the vertex r at instant t = 0) then [PÂt]s is the probability that the particle be on the vertex s at instant t. Let F ⊆ V be a nonempty set of k vertices. Let us note PF the vector of dimension n such that: [PF]r =1/|F| if r∈F, and [PF]r =0 if r∈F. If the initial law of the Markov chain is given by the vector PF, then this corresponds to a random walk, beginning on one of the vertices of F, all equiprobable. Then [(PF)Ât]s is the probability that the particle be on vertex s at instant t when the particle begins the random walk equiprobably on one of the vertices of F at t=0. One notes that [(P{r})Ât]s =[Â]r s which is therefore the probability that the particle be on vertex s at instant t when the particle begins the random walk on vertex r at instant t=0. One proves20 that if G=(V,E) is a connected and reflexive graph, then: ∀r,s,u∈V, limt→∞ [Ât]r s = limt→∞ [Ât]u s=

d(s)  ∑ x ∈V {d(x)}

(1)

This means that the probability for a particle, after a sufficiently long time t to be on vertex s does not depend on the initial vertex r or u, but only on vertex s, and is equal to d(s) /∑x∈V{d(x)}. However, two types of topological configurations can oppose the two vertices r and u in their relationships with vertex s. Configuration 1. the vertices r and s can be linked by a large number of short paths (r and s are strongly linked; there is strong confluence of paths from r to s); Configuration 2. the vertices u and s can be linked by only a few short paths (u and s are weakly linked: no confluence from u to s). If formula (1) expresses that the probability for a particle, after a sufficiently long time t to be on vertex s does not depend on the initial vertex r or u, on the contrary, the dynamics towards this limit highly depends on the initial vertex and the type of confluence it entertains with vertex s. This means that the sequences ([Ât]r s)0≤ t and ([Ât]u s)0≤ t are not identical even though they converge towards the same limit d(s)/∑x∈V{d(x)}. Indeed, the trajectory dynamics of the particle in its random walk is entirely ruled by the topological structure of the graph: after t steps, every vertex s at a distance of t edges or fewer from the initial vertex can be reached. The probability of reaching vertex s at the tth step depends on the number of paths between the initial vertex and vertex s, on their lengths and on the structure of the graph around the intermediary vertices along the paths (the more paths there are, the shorter the paths, and the weaker the degree of the intermediary vertices, then the probability of reaching s from the initial vertex at the

.  This is a consequence of the Perron Froebenius theorem (Bermann & Plemons 1994) because when the graph G=(V,E) is reflexive and strongly connected, the transition matrix  of the Markov chain associated to the random walk on graph G is then ergodic (Gaume 2004) (here the strong connectivity and reflexivity are necessary to prove the ergodicity).



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

tth step is higher when t remains small). Thus there is a stronger confluence of the paths from vertices r towards s than from u towards s, whereas for a random walk with a sufficiently short t length, one finds [Ât]r s>[Ât]u s. At the beginning of its random walk from the initial vertex, the particle has a higher probability of passing by those vertices with which the initial vertex entertains a high confluence relationship. For example, in DicoSynVerbe, the vertices dpiauter (to skin) and rvasser (to daydream) have the same number of neighbours (d(dpiauter)=d(rvasser)), and therefore, following (1), limt→∞[Ât]deshabiller depiauter = limt→∞[Ât]deshabiller revasser =6.3×10–5. limt→∞[Ât]undress skin = limt→∞[Ât]undress daydream =6.3×10–5

One can see however in Fig. 7 that the two sequences ([Ât]dshabiller dpiauter)0≤t and ([Ât] dshabiller rvasser)0≤t, are very different for a small t, which shows that the confluence from undress towards skin is stronger than that from undress towards daydream. a.

Strong confluence

b.

[Ât] déshabiller rêvasser

[Ât] déshabiller dépiauter

4 Weak confluence 7 10 6.3x10-5→ 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 -5 0 6.3x10 → 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 time = t time = t 3 7 10

Figure 7.  a. ([Ât]deshabiller depiauter)0≤t and b. ([Ât]deshabiller revasser)0≤t in DicoSynVerbe.

Since L, the average length of the shortest paths, is small in a hierarchical small world, we know that two vertices are generally linked by at least one relatively short path. Thus we will choose t between L and 2L in order to generally reach almost all vertices from any given initial vertex, without however attaining the stationary probability of the Markov chain when t becomes too large.

3.2  Prox for disambiguating homonymy in dictionaries In order to better perceive how Prox works, we will give here, as an example, a simple application for disambiguating homonyms in dictionaries. In section 2.2 we did not mention a problem which is nonetheless fundamental in automatic language processing: disambiguation (Ide et al. 1998; Victorri & Fuchs 1996). For example, in Le Grand Robert French dictionary, there are two distinct entries for the verb causer.

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

CAUSER_1 “être la cause de. – Amener, apporter, attirer, déclencher, entraîner, faire, motiver, occasionner, produire, provoquer, susciter. Causer un dommage. Causer du scandale. L’orage a causé de graves dommages aux récoltes …” “be the cause of. – Convey, bring, attract, set off, cause, do, motivate, occasion, produce, induce, provoke. Cause damage. Cause a scandal. The storm caused heavy damage to the harvest …” CAUSER_2 “S’entretenir familièrement avec qqn. – Parler, converser, confabuler (vx), deviser, discuter. Nous causons ensemble. Causer avec qqn” “Have an informal conversation with someone. – Talk, converse, confabulate (archaic), devise, discuss. We’re chatting together. Chat with someone …”

Thus, even if a French speaker naturally knows that in the definition of bavarder (gab): BAVARDER “Parler beaucoup, longtemps ou parler ensemble de choses superficielles. – Parler; babiller, bavasser (fam.), cailleter, caqueter, causer , discourir, discuter, jaboter, jacasser, jaser, jaspiner (argot), lantiponner (vx), papoter, potiner. Bavarder avec qqn …” “Talk a lot, for a long time or converse on superficial matters. – Speak; babble, blather on (colloquial), cackle, chat, discourse, discuss, gab, gabber, chatter, gossip. Gab with someone …”

the verb causer refers to causer_2 (chat), our procedure for constructing graphs (see section 2.2) cannot on its own disambiguate them. Thus, the procedure consists in creating a fictitious vertex causer (which is not a dictionary entry since one only finds causer_1 (cause) and causer_2 (chat)) and to then add two vertices {causer, causer_1} and {causer, causer_2}. When causer is found in the definition of a word such as bavarder (gab), then the vertex {bavarder, causer} is added. 

_2

 

 (fictitious vertex)

 _1  Figure 8.  Causer fictitious vertex.

bavarder: “gab”; parler: “speak”; discuter: “discuss”; causer 1: “cause”; causer 2: “chat”; provoquer: “induce”; susciter: “provoke”.

In Fig. 8 there are of course many edges and vertices that have been left out of our schema for reasons of legibility. The dotted edges {discuter, causer_2}, {parler,



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

causer_2} (discuss, chat), (speak, chat) are due to the fact that discuter (discuss) and parler (speak) are in the definition of causer_2 (chat), just as the edges {provoquer, causer_1} (induce, cause) and {susciter, causer_1} (provoke, cause), are in the definition of causer_1 (cause). We then apply Prox to the graph to obtain a matrix [Ât] as defined above (section 3.1). Table 2.  For t=3 [Â3]

bavarder parler discuter causer causer_1 causer_2 provoquer susciter

bavarder parler discuter causer causer_1 causer_2 provoquer susciter

0.325 0.124 0.124 0.081 0.025 0.075 0.025 0.025

0.165 0.353 0.154 0.099 0.030 0.165 0.030 0.030

0.165 0.154 0.353 0.099 0.030 0.165 0.030 0.030

0.189 0.174 0.174 0.379 0.201 0.189 0.201 0.201

0.025 0.023 0.023 0.086 0.351 0.025 0.166 0.166

0.075 0.124 0.124 0.081 0.025 0.325 0.025 0.025

0.025 0.023 0.023 0.086 0.166 0.025 0.351 0.166

0.025 0.023 0.023 0.086 0.166 0.025 0.166 0.351

bavarder: “gab”; parler: “speak”; discuter: “discuss”; causer 1: “cause”; causer 2: “chat”; provoquer: “induce”; susciter: “provoke”.

In Table 2, one observes that: [Â3]bavarder,causer_1(gab,cause)=0.025<[Â3]bavarder,causer_2(gab,chat)=0.075, which is as expected since the confluence of bavarder (gab) towards causer_2 (chat) is stronger than from bavarder (gab) towards causer_1 (cause), which is what makes it possible to disambiguate the two: assuming that a verb has k homonyms, there will therefore be vertices S, S1, S2, … Sk in the graph where S is the fictitious vertex. If there is an edge {R,S}, it will therefore be replaced by the edge {R,Si} where Si is such that [Â3] 3 R, Si=MAX0
_2

   _1  Figure 9.  Disambiguated graph.

discuter: “discuss”; parler: “speak”; bavarder: “gab”; causer 2: “chat”; provoquer: “induce”; susciter: “provoke”: causer 1: “cause”.

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

One then reapplies Prox, but to the disambiguated graph. Illustration: a list of the 100 vertices showing the strongest confluences with the verb corcer (to bark) (from the highest ranking: strong confluence with corcer (to bark) – to the lowest ranking: weakest confluence with corcer (to bark) –) calculated by Prox for t = 3 on DicoSynVerbe.

1 → (to bark), 2 → (strip), 3 → (peel), 4 → (mow, shear), 5  (remove), 6  (peel, pare), 7  (shave), 8  (divest), 9 → (decorticate), 10  (slit the throat of), 11  (skin), 12  (husk), 13  (steal), 14  (prune), 15  (grate), 16  (pluck), 17  (scrape), 18  (remove), 19  (bone), 20  (dispossess), 21  (cut), 22  (shear sloppily), 23→ (incise), 24 → (tap), 25 → (remove first layer of cork), 26→ (ring), 27  (evict), 28  (curry), 29  (strangle), 30  (purify), 31  (blanch), 32  (scale), 33  (prune, lop), 34  (remove tangles), 35  (clip, trim), 36  (sift), 37  (slash), 38  (despoil), 39  (sever), 40  (scrutinize), 41  (scar), 42  (salt), 43  (bleed), 44 ’ (pluck one’s self), 45  (revoke), 46  (ruin), 47  (turn over), 48  (withdraw), 49  (ransom), 50  (reason), 51  (leave), 52  (deprive), 53  (loot), 54  (lose), 55  (open), 56  (clean), 57  (hull), 58  (brand), 59  (read), 60  (isolate), 61  (swindle), 62  (shoot), 63  (frustrate), 64  (search), 65  (cheat), 66  (tack, baste), 67  (),   (expropriate), 69  (examine), 70  (stamp), 71  (swindle), 72  (open, broach), 73  (),   (thin out leaves), 75  (undress), 76  (develop), 77  (devastate), 78  (burglarize), 79  (),   (rob), 81  (disinherit), 82  (undress), 83  (remove the envelope of), 84  (disencumber), 85  (disadvantage), 86  (steal), 87  (render destitute), 88  (skin), 89  (skin), 90  (deprive), 91  (denude), 92  (deprive), 93  (demonetize), 94  (empty), 95  (clear), 96  (thin the leaves of), 97  (undo), 98  (decerebrate), 99  (depose), 100  (expose/remove shoes), Figure 10.  Proxemy of corcer (to bark) from DicoSynVerbe at t = 3.

In DicoSynVerbe the vertex corcer (bark) has 8 synonyms: {baguer, dcortiquer, dmascler, dpouiller, gemmer, inciser, peler, tondre} (ring, decorticate, remove first layer of cork, strip, tap, incise, peel, mow/shear). In Figure 10, the number preceding each verb gives its rank according to its proxemy with corcer (to bark) and the neighbours of corcer (to bark) are preceded by an arrow →. One sees that after corcer (to bark) itself, dpouiller (to strip) which appears at the top of the list (being the one that entertains the strongest confluence with corcer (to bark) accord-



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

ing to Prox) is a hyperonym of the verb corcer (to bark). The proxemy calculated by the Prox algorithm thus organizes, within a continuum, the notions of intra-domain cohyponymy (through the vertices which are the most “Prox”) and of inter-domain cohyponymy (through the vertices which are a little less “Prox”), (Duvignau & Gaume 2004b). The introduction of the notion of proxemy makes it possible to highlight the meaning shift that takes place between a word in a quasi-synonymous relation (intradomain cohyponyms) towards a word in a metaphorical relation (inter-domain cohyponyms) the more the proxemy to the reference term diminishes.

4.  Confluence and semantic associations The polysemy of lexical units is a universal phenomenon in all natural languages which is difficult to grasp from a cognitive point of view (how relevant meanings are accessed), in the domain of automatic language processing (how to disambiguate in cotexts), and in semantics (how the different meanings of a given term are organized on the level of the linguistic system). This last point leads to the question of the possible existence of universals of semantic groupings (also called semantic parallelisms, semantic derivation or semantic associations). For example, in her work From Etymology to Pragmatics. Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure, Eve Sweetser (1990: 21) brought to light the strong links between the lexicon of physical perception and that of knowledge in Indo-European languages: “Deep and pervasive metaphorical connections link our vocabulary of physical perception and our vocabulary of intellect and knowledge”. In French, for example (and English), this lexical link between physical perceptions and knowledge is common practice. To illustrate, below are six text extracts from the World Wide Web where the verbs sentir (feel/smell), entendre (hear), voir (see) can easily be replaced in their contexts by the verbs comprendre (understand) or savoir (know) all the while keeping the main meaning of each of the sentences. (5) http://www.modia.org/etapes-vie/jeunes/teamim.html: “-faire les pauses en conséquence lors de la lecture, -sentir ce que devient le sens de la phrase avec ces pauses diverses, -réfléchir au sens que cela donne à la phrase,” (“-pause accordingly while reading, -feel what the meaning of the sentence becomes with the different pauses, -reflect upon the meaning this gives to the sentence,”)

(6) http://www.leseditionsdeminuit.fr/titres/2002/nepastoucher.htm: “… des textes capables d’extirper et faire sentir le sens profond du temps que nous vivons.” (“… texts capable of extracting and making one feel the deep meaning of the times we live in.”)

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

(7) http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Karekezi/karekezi-con.f2.html: “Je voulais voir ce que ça veut dire. Je voulais voir ce qu’une femme rwandaise, juriste, pouvait apporter à Clémentine et aux autres. Parce qu’elle n’était pas une exception. Je voulais voir.” (I wanted to see what it meant. I wanted to see what a Rwandese woman, a jurist, could give Clémentine and the others. Because she wasn’t an exception. I wanted to see.”)

(8) http://forum.decroissance.info/viewtopic.php?t=882&: “Radicaliser son propos en proposant le pire n’a qu’une finalité rhétorique pour faire voir le sens du capitalisme.” (“To harden one’s discourse by proposing the worst has only rhetorical finality to make people see the meaning of capitalism.”)

(9) http://www.stopsuicide.ch/5/marches/texte%207.pdf: “Puissions-nous entendre ce que l’Autre si près de nous ne peut pas dire.” (“May we hear what the Other, so close to us, cannot say.”)

(10) http://www.theatreodeon.fr/fichiers/t_downloads/file_70_dp_10. pdf#search=%22%22entendre%20le%20s ens%22%20le%20petit%20prince%22: “en nous faisant entendre le sens de certaines paroles …” (“By making us hear the meaning of certain words …”)

These semantic groupings in French between physical perception and knowledge are also measurable in French language dictionary graphs. Figure 11 below illustrates the list of the 100 vertices with the strongest confluence relationships with the verb savoir (know) (from the highest ranking: the strongest confluence with savoir (know) – to the lowest ranking: the weakest confluence with savoir (know) –) calculated by Prox at t=3 on DicoSynVerbe. In DicoSynVerbe the vertex savoir (know) has 13 synonyms, the neighbours of savoir are preceded by an arrow → and the number that precedes each verb is its rank according to its proxemy with savoir (know). In Figure 11, if a verb Y1 is ranked kth, and another verb Y2 is ranked k+1th, it is because [Â3]SAVOIR Y1 ≥ [Â3]SAVOIR Y2, meaning that when the particle begins its random walk along the edges of the DicoSynVerbe graph at instant t=0 on the vertex savoir (know), the probability that a particle be at instant t=3 on the vertex Y1 is greater than or equal to the probability that it be on vertex Y2 at instant t=3 (meaning that the confluence from savoir (know) towards Y1 is greater than or equal to the confluence from savoir (know) towards Y2). One may note that the verbs voir (see), sentir (feel) and entendre (hear) are ranked respectively 8th, 23rd and 25th, which is very high considering that the DicoSynVerbe has 9,043 verbs (these three verbs are paradigmatically ranked Top_3_ per_1000 for the verb savoir (know)). This tells us that in DicoSynVerbe there is a



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

1 → (know), 2 → (know), 3 →   (be informed of), 4 →   (be aware of), 5 → (be able to), 6 →  (be informed), 7 →   (be aware of), 8 → (see), 9 → (learn), 10 → (understand), 11 → (imagine), 12 → (possess), 13 →’ (expect), 14 →  (be attentive to), 15  (think), 16  (perceive), 17  (judge), 18  (conceive), 19  (believe), 20  (penetrate), 21  (consider), 22   (be apt), 23  (feel), 24  (take), 25  (hear), 26  (perceive), 27  (guess), 28     (be able to), 29    (be capable of), 30  (appreciate), 31 ’ (notice), 32    (have permission to), 33   (figure), 34  (get a glimpse of), 35   (be expert at), 36 ’ (take care of), 37  (discern), 38  (estimate), 39  (embrace), 40  (see, notice), 41  (feel), 42  (grasp), 43   (be good at), 44     (be able to), 45     (be in the process of), 46  (foresee), 47  (count), 48   (be knowledgeable), 49   (be competent), 50  (wait), 51  (foresee), 52  (recognize), 53  (practice), 54   (be good at), 55  (discover), 56  (hope), 57  (experiment), 58    (be practiced at), 59  ’ (have the use of), 60  (make known), 61  (undergo), 62 ’ (imagine), 63   (have knowledge of), 64   (worry about), 65  (feel), 66   (imagine), 67  (notice), 68    (be able to), 69  (find), 70  (seize), 71  (endure), 72     (be able to), 73    (have the right to), 74    (have permission to), 75  (bear), 76  (have), 77    (be made for), 78     (be in a situation to), 79     (have the possibility of), 80  (look at), 81  (presume), 82  (wonder), 83   (remember), 84   (expect), 85    (have the choice), 86    (have the latitude), 87   (take after), 88  (count on), 89  (note), 90  (suppose), 91     (be in a state to), 92  (suspect), 93  (look for), 94   (see something coming), 95   (be careful of), 96    (be susceptible of), 97 ’ (persevere), 98   (pay attention), 99  (conjecture), 100  (examine), … Figure 11.  Proxemy of savoir (know) from DicoSynVerbe at t=3.

strong confluence from savoir (know) towards voir (see), sentir (feel) and entendre (hear), even despite the fact that sentir (feel) and entendre (hear) are not directly connected to savoir (know). If we now consider the matrix Â3 as the 9043x9043 matrix of the coordinates of the 9,043 line vectors ([Â3]x •)x∈V in 9043, this perspective allows us to embed the graph G=(V,E) into 9043, where a given vertex r∈V has as coordinates in 9043 the line vector [Â3]r•. The idea is that two vertices r and s with the coordinates [Â3]r • and [Â3]s • in 9043, will be all that much closer in 9043 if their relationships to the graph as a whole are similar.

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

If one then projects the matrix Â3 in 3 by the technique of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and if one sees what happens around the vertex savoir (know), we obtain the form illustrated in Figure 12, where one well perceives21 that the verbs voir (see), sentir (feel) and entendre (hear) are very close to the verb savoir (know) because numerous very short paths link the verb savoir (know) to these three verbs (the entire French lexicon is available at http://Prox.irit.fr).

          







    

  '  





    

      

Figure 12.  Around savoir (know) in DicoSynVerbe at t=3 (accessible at: http://Prox.irit.fr).

In the same manner, Figure 13 below illustrates the list of the 100 vertices with the strongest confluence relations with the verb comprendre (understand) (from the highest ranked: strong confluence with comprendre (understand) – to the lowest ranked: weakest confluence with comprendre (understand)  –) calculated by Prox at t=3 for DicoSynVerbe. One notes that the verbs voir (see), sentir (feel) and entendre (hear) are ranked respectively 3rd, 12th and 19th, which is very high given the 9,043

.  This principle of the perception of the topological-semantic structures is accessible at http://Prox.irit.fr and is formally described in Gaume (2006) and Gaume & Mathieu (2006) with several applications for cognitive psychology: language acquisition and pathologies (Duvignau et al. 2007; Duvignau et al. 2004; Duvignau & Gaume 2004b) and the ergonomics of information access interfaces: dictionaries and the World Wide Web (Gaume & Duvignau 2004).



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

verbs present in DicoSynVerbe (these 3 verbs are in the paradigmatic Top_3_per_1000 of the verb comprendre (understand). If one looks at what takes place around the vertex comprendre (understand), we obtain the form illustrated in Figure 14 where one well perceives that the verbs voir (see), sentir (feel) and entendre (hear) are very close to the verb comprendre (understand) because numerous very short paths link comprendre (understand) to these three verbs. 1 → (understand), 2 → (know), 3 → (see), 4 → (discover), 5 → (grasp), 6 → (penetrate), 7 → (guess), 8 → (take), 9 →  (attain to), 10 → (enclose), 11 → (close in), 12 → (feel), 13 → (decipher), 14 → (glimpse), 15 → (find), 16 → (embrace), 17 → (count), 18 → (consist), 19 → (hear), 20 → (contain), 21 → (imagine), 22 → (reveal), 23 → (notice), 24 → (pierce), 25 → (notice), 26 → (conceive), 27 →  (compose one’s self), 28  (read), 29 → (contain), 30 → (admit), 31 → (know), 32 → (surround), 33 → (learn), 34 → (include), 35 → (shut in), 36  (perceive), 37 →’ (notice), 38 → (decode), 39 → (grasp), 40 → (envelope), 41 → (mix), 42 →’ (explain to one’s self), 43 → (unravel), 44 → (incorporate), 45 → (interpret), 46 → (appreciate), 47 → (tangle), 48 → (enter), 49 → (integrate), 50  (think), 51  (judge), 52 → (glimpse), 53 → (follow), 54 → (imply), 55 → (get), 56 → (assimilate), 57  (discern), 58 → (approve), 59  (introduce), 60 → (realize), 61  (decipher), 62 →   (realize), 63  (reunite), 64 → (translate), 65  (surround), 66 → (gather), 67 →  (make enter), 68  (distinguish), 69  (hold), 70  (join), 71  (recognize), 72 →  (represent to one’s self), 73  (do), 74 → (bite), 75  (have a presentment), 76    (be made up of), 77    (be composed of), 78  (detect), 79  (believe), 80  (note), 81 →   (begin), 82  (note), 83  (mark), 84  (surprise), 85  (smell something out), 86  (associate), 87  (clasp), 88  (make do), 89  (explain), 90  (show), 91  (unite), 92  (consider), 93  (touch), 94  (imprison), 95  (foresee), 96  (look at), 97  (feel), 98  (observe), 99  (estimate), 100  (accept), … Figure 13.  Proxemy of comprendre (understand) at t=3 from DicoSynVerbe at t=3.

Since the works done by Viberg (1984) and then Sweetser (1990), some studies have been carried out on the links between perception and knowledge in various languages (for example in Australian languages, Evans & Wilkins 2000) but the question remains open today as to the universality of these semantic links between physical perception and knowledge (see Vanhove this volume).

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

      

   

 

    ' 

 

      

  

  

Figure 14.  Around comprendre (understand) in DicoSynVerbe at t=3.

One may ask the same questions about other semantic associations: viande_animal (meat/animal), maison_famille (house/family), porte_bouche (door/mouth), enfant_fruit (child/fruit), imiter_voler (imitate/steal) …: are these associations symmetrical, are they universal, or, on the contrary, are they more limited geographically, genetically or culturally, and if so, which language families are they limited to? (see Boyeldieu this volume).

5.  A  typology of languages based on co-confluence in paradigmatic graphs We saw in section 3.1 that applying Prox to a hierarchical small world type graph makes it possible to quantify confluences between vertices. We then saw in section 4 above that when the graph is paradigmatic, then the notion of confluence allows the quantification of semantic associations of the type perception_knowledge for a given language. Our hypothesis (H1): the paradigmatic graphs of all natural languages are hierarchical small worlds, gives rise to the possibility of a semi-automatic and systematic research on crosslinguistic semantic associations based on their paradigmatic graphs. Figure 15 below illustrates this method.



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks  Language_1

Graphs_1

Language_2

Graphs_2

Extraction of paradigmatic graphs

Language_i

Graphs_i

Language_n

Graphs_n Prox

Lang_1

M

Lang_2

…

Lang_3

Confluence 1

comprendre voir

YES=1

YES=1

YES=1

YES=1

Confluence 2

comprendre sentir

YES=1

YES=1

YES=1

YES=1

…

…

…

…

viande animal

YES=1

YES=1

NO =1

maison famille

YES=1

YES=1

NO =0 YES=1

… . . . Confluence k

… NO =1

Figure 15.  Construction of the confluence Matrix through n languages.

In Figure 15, one begins by choosing n languages that well represent language diversity (Altaic, Amerindian, Australian, Caucasian, Afro-Asiatic, Dravidian, IndoEuropean, Niger-Congo, Sino-Tibetan languages…). Then, for each of the n languages, one builds a/several paradigmatic graph(s). We have already begun the graph extraction process for several languages. We started with French for practical reasons: we had several directly operational digitized sources at our disposal: two standard dictionaries (the digitized Trésor de la Langue Française, the electronic Grand Robert), 7 digitized synonym dictionaries (Bailly, Benac, Du Chazaud, Guizot, Lafaye, Larousse and Robert) and several large electronic corpuses such as for example 10 years of the daily newspaper Le Monde. Using the database WordNet as well as the LDOCE dictionary we are currently building graphs for English, and are beginning to build a graph for Portuguese. We are planning on building graphs for Mandarin in the near future. It is easier to build graphs for languages already having dictionaries and/or databases accessible on the World Wide Web, such as WordNet. There are however linguistic

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

databases for other “less digitized” languages, such as those used, internally for the present, by the researchers working on the project on semantic groupings within the CNRS Fédération Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques (http://www.typologie.cnrs.fr). One may wonder, however, whether all of the existing data: dictionaries, databases … are relevant for our approach. Indeed, it is possible that some links be wrong in a dictionary or database, or that other links be missing for reflecting the exact reality of a language. Of course, it depends on the quality of the data in question, but experience has shown that the data established by linguists and/or lexicographers generally turns out to be relevant: the graphs extracted from the digitized Trésor de la Langue Française, the Grand Robert or the compilation of the seven synonym dictionaries mentioned above all agree in the confluences they show with Prox. Indeed, Prox is a robust method, which means that even if one changes several edges at random in a graph, it does not fundamentally change the results obtained. If an edge confluence exists in a graph’s zone, the suppression or redirection of a few edges chosen at random in the graph does not strongly modify the confluence. This is an effect of the relativity of the confluences between themselves which is important for Prox, and therefore, unless one chooses the edges of the same confluence, the suppression or random redirection of edges will not profoundly affect the relativity of these confluences. It is in this matter that Prox is robust. To illustrate the robustness of Prox, using DicoSynVerbe we built a graph DicoSynVerbe_10R by randomly redirecting 10% of the non-reflexive edges. Thus we began by randomly removing, in an equiprobable manner, 10% of the non-reflexive edges, then by randomly adding, in an equiprobable manner, the same amount of edges in order to obtain the DicoSynVerbe_10R graph. Figure 16 below illustrates the list of 100 edges which entertain the strongest confluence relationships with the verb comprendre (understand) (from the highest ranked: strong confluence with comprendre (understand) – to the lowest ranked: the weakest confluence with comprendre (understand) –) calculated by Prox at t=3 on DicoSynVerbe_10R. In DicoSynVerbe 10R the vertex comprendre (understand) has 52 neighbours, the neighbours of comprendre (understand) are preceded by an arrow → and the number that precedes each verb is its rank according to its proxemy to comprendre (understand) in DicoSynVerbe 10R. One notes that in Figure 16 the verbs voir (see), sentir (feel) and entendre (hear) are ranked respectively 8th, 33rd and 13th which, as for Figure 13 remains very high considering the 9,043 verbs present in DicoSynVerbe 10R (these three verbs are in the Top 4 per 1000 of the verb comprendre (understand)). This indicates that there subsist strong confluences in DicoSynVerbe 10R from comprendre (understand) towards voir (see), sentir (feel) and entendre (hear). The 10% of redirected edges having been chosen at random in the entire graph, this is the reason why if there



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

1 → (understand), 2 → (discover), 3 → (guess), 4 → (close in), 5 → (know), 6 → (find), 7 → (take), 8  (see), 9 → (penetrate), 10 → (grasp), 11 →  (be made up of), 12 → (glimpse), 13 → (hear), 14 → (enclose), 15 → (pierce), 16 → (notice), 17 → (consist of), 18 → (decipher), 19 → (include), 20 → (spot), 21 → (learn), 22 → (enclose), 23 → (count), 24 → (enclose), 25 → (become clear), 26 →  (intend), 27 → (mix), 28 →   (realize), 29 → (envelop), 30 → (tangle), 31 → (glimpse), 32 → (follow), 33  (feel), 34 → (interpret), 35 → (admit), 36 → (know), 37 → (realize), 38 → (untangle), 39 → (grasp), 40 → (enter), 41 →   (dock), 42 → (decipher), 43 → (incorporate), 44 → (get), 45 → (assimilate), 46 → (include), 47 → (realize), 48 →  (run off), 49 → (group together), 50  (embrace), 51 → (imply), 52 → (fight), 53 → (bite), 54  (perceive), 55 →   (begin), 56  (discern), 57  (read), 58 → (translate), 59  (distinguish), 60  (judge), 61  (surprise), 62  (contain), 63  (reveal), 64  (reunite), 65  (foresee), 66  (note), 67  (detect), 68  (want), 69  (kneel), 70  (be born), 71    (be made up of), 72    (be made up of), 73  (unravel), 74  (note), 75  (do), 76  (associate), 77  (pass), 78  (hold), 79  (join), 80  (ring), 81  (imagine), 82  (decipher), 83  (conceive), 84  (introduce), 85  (unite), 86  (smell out), 87  (touch), 88  (look at), 89  (surround), 90  (appear), 91  (imprison), 92  (combine), 93  (encircle), 94    (intend), 95  (hide), 96  (surround), 97  (mark), 98  (think), 99  (feel), 100  (realize), … Figure 16.  Proxemy of comprendre (understand) from DicoSynVerbe_10R at t=3.

is an over-dense edge zone in DicoSynVerbe, then this over-dense zone subsists in DicoSynVerbe 10R. To make a zone over-dense in edges disappear,22 one must not only choose the edges at random from the entire graph, but also choose them from the designated zone. In the same way, even if the most experienced lexicographers sometimes omit certain relations that one would linguistically be entitled to expect, or even to postulate other, less justifiable, relations, this sort of “noise” thus created is nonetheless never concentrated in a particular zone but is spread out over all the data. And that

.  For example, if one were to randomly remove 10% of the trees planted on earth, then the forests (which is to say the zones relatively over-dense in trees) would still be forests (namely zones relatively over-dense in trees). To make a forest disappear one would have to not only randomly choose trees from the entire earth, but also choose them from the designated forest.

 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove

is why the existing data: dictionaries, databases … are relevant for our approach with Prox, which is robust in the way described above. Once all the graphs are built from the existing data (data constructed by linguists and/or lexicographers, which, as we saw above, are generally relevant for our approach), we systematically inventory all the confluences which exceed a certain limit with Prox. This work is only partially automatic in that the results of the algorithms must of course be validated and adjusted by several native speakers for each of the languages studied. After validation, one obtains C which is the set of the k confluences detected among the set of our n languages. One may then build M the k×n matrix as illustrated in Figure 15 where the line i indexes the ith confluence whereas the column j indexes the jth language with: ∀i, 1≤i≤k, ∀j, 1≤j≤n , [M]i,j = 1 if the ith confluence is present in the graph of the jth language and [M]i,j = 0 otherwise.

The number i semantic association is then universal if and only if ∀j, 1≤j≤n, [M]i,j =1. Moreover, the n column vectors ([M]• j)1≤j≤n identify each of the n languages studied according to their confluences. The set of these n vectors can then permit a classification of languages according to their semantic confluences and these classes can be compared to the classical typological models, notably to semantic maps (Haspelmath et al. 2001; Haspelmath 2003).

6.  Conclusion To organize a cartography of all natural languages according to their semantic associations by hand, would be a gigantic task. Having a robust method capable of capturing and measuring the confluences present in a paradigmatic network makes it possible to open the barriers which are (i) constructing the data and (ii) the systematic and quantitative inventory of the semantic associations present in the data, because: 1. As we saw in section 4, with Prox, one disposes of an automated tool for systematic searches and measurements of semantic associations (barrier ii); 2. As we saw in section 5, one can use existing data even if it shows certain weaknesses as compared to linguistic reality (barrier i); However, this perspective is subordinate to our hypothesis:

(H1) The paradigmatic graphs of all natural languages are hierarchical small worlds.

Indeed, on a random graph (which is not a hierarchical small world) Prox is less robust: for example to randomly redirect 10% of the non-reflexive edges in a random graph can quite seriously modify the results. This is due to the fact that in a random



Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks 

graph, even if there are zones which are slightly denser than average, these zones are very fragile, and it is enough to remove a few edges in a zone for the results to be significantly different on the zone’s vertices. This means that in the case of a graph which is not a hierarchical small world, the omission or approximation of a few relations can imperil the exactness of the confluences measured. It would therefore be necessary that the data be without the slightest divergence from linguistic reality, and also that it be exhaustive, which is practically impossible, even for a sub-part of a language’s lexicon. The first task is therefore to validate hypothesis (H1), or, if it is invalidated, one is faced with two classes of language: a. Languages whose paradigmatic graphs are hierarchical small worlds; b. Languages whose paradigmatic graphs are not hierarchical small worlds. But, as we saw in section 2.3, several linguistic and psycholinguistic studies show the usefulness and efficacy of such structures for natural languages. That the structure in question be a hierarchical small world may be a sine qua non condition of the lexicon of a natural language, for its efficiency, transmission, evolution and because of human cognitive constraints. This hypothesis has important consequences for linguistics and psycholinguistics, as well as for the theory of evolution. The proposition (A): most large field graphs resemble each other in their hierarchical small world structures and the hypothesis (H1): the paradigmatic graphs of all natural languages are hierarchical small worlds have as a consequence the proposition (B) the paradigmatic structure of the lexicons of all natural languages resembles the structure of most of the world’s objects.

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 Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau & Martine Vanhove Sigman, M. & Cecchi, G.A. 2002. Global organization of the Wordnet lexicon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 99(3): 1742–1747. Sweetser, E. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics. Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: CUP. Tonietto, L., Pimenta, M.A., Duvignau, K., Gaume, B. & Bosa, C.A. 2006. Aquisição inicial do léxico verbal e aproximações semânticas em português. In Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, Brazilia. Victorri, B. & Fuchs, C. 1996. La polysémie. Construction dynamique du sens. Paris: Hermès. Viberg, Å. 1984. The verbs of perception: A typological study. In Explanations for Language Universals, B. Butterworth, B. Comrie & Ö. Dahl (Eds), 123–162. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Watts, D.J. 1999. Small Worlds: The Dynamics of Networks between Order and Randomness. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Watts D.J. & Strogatz, S.H. 1998. Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks. Nature 393: 440–442. (http://tam.cornell.edu/SS_nature_smallworld.pdf) Wierzbicka, A. 1992. Semantics, Culture, and Cognition. Universal Human Concepts in CultureSpecific Configurations. Oxford: OUP. Wilkins, D. 1996. Natural tendencies of semantic change and the search for cognates. In The Comparative Method Reviewed, M. Durie & M. Ross (Eds), 224–304. Oxford: OUP.

part iii

Case studies

About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages Emilio Bonvini

CNRS (Fédération TUL) This article is a systematisation of the semantic notion of “eating” in Niger-Congo languages. It is based on lexical material published in dictionaries. It shows, contrary to Gouffé (1966) that “eat”, in its semantic extensions, is not basically a “controlled activity”, but is also an “undergone activity”. This in line with Pardeshi et al. (2006) findings for Asian languages. The semasiological approach shows how the lexical items meaning “eating” broaden to a larger range of polysemous meanings. This is achieved through the study of “eating” (i) as lexical units, (ii) in their linguistic co-texts and their implications for the construction of orthonyms, (iii) in the discursive context and its relations to the polysemous construction of meaning. Keywords:  eat; meaning; polysemy; primitive; reference; semantics; signified; synonymy; translation; universal

1.  Introduction This article is intended to be a reflection on the semantic notion of eating in a few Niger-Congo languages. It is founded on the lexical data of these languages taken from dictionaries, provided they are well elaborated enough. It aims at delimitating this notion, evaluating its extent, and, as much as possible, bringing out its specificity so that it can be used for future comparative or even theoretical studies. The choice of such a set of themes was motivated by the fact that the notion of eating is directly linked to a universal of experience, which is of a physiological type, and which keeps exerting a strong constraint on a daily basis on each human’s life. The very existence of a term eat in language might be the evidence of this same experience and, as such, constitutes a possible linguistic universal. Thus it becomes quite conceivable that it is even one of the most ancient universals invented by men: eat has most certainly preceded in time the later terms cook (which supposes the invention of fire) and dig over, cultivate, sow … (which supposes men’s settling process). Obviously, this does not in the least imply that such or such term attested in a given language

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corresponding to eat is in itself a linguistic primitive. Furthermore, it is noticed that in the languages which are considered here, eat is not only used to express this physiological experience, but it is also used to refer to other types of human experiences, often and at first glance far from this physiological experience. Thus it becomes legitimate to wonder about these particular uses of the term eat and to try to characterize them in relation to the first one. It is particularly important to reflect on this process and to establish as much as possible its possible universal nature. The approach adopted here is meant to be essentially semasiological. Eat will first be considered as a lexical item in order to bring to the fore its “signified”. Then, in order to bring out the “meaning” of its uses in discourse, its categorial status as a verb and predicate operator will be studied within sentences. Two types of uses will be studied. First the orthonymic use, in order to bring out the linguistic “co-text” of eat when the term eat is used to refer directly and explicitly to the physiological experience. Second, we will analyze its non orthonymic use, in various discursive situations, different from the physiological experience. This will enable us to disclose the discursive “context” which characterizes eat when it is, in a way, “de-referencialized” in relation to the universal of physiological experience, to designate something else and leading to the polysemy of the term eat. As a conclusion, a few reflections will be formulated concerning the semantics of eating. The languages considered here were chosen mainly according to the available data, but they are quite representative of the main branches of the Niger-Congo genetic stock: Atlantic: Fulani [Ful] (Seydou 1998) Gur: Kasem [Kàs¯ɩm] [Ka], Gurunsi subgroup (Bonvini 1988 and Bonvini in preparation); Moore [Mo], Oti-volta subgroup (Alexandre 1934–5); Kwa: Fongbe [Fo], Gbe subgroup: (Segurola-Rassinoux 2000);  uala [Du], Bantu-A 20 (Helmlinger 1972 ); Kirundi [Kr], Benue-Congo: D bantu-D 60 (Rodegem 1970); Kikongo [Kk], Bantu-H 10 (Bentley 1887 + Petterlini & Angola 1977).

By extension, if need be, a few semantic comparisons with the Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi languages of Central Africa (SBB), (Boyeldieu, this volume) will be added.

2.  Eating as lexical item For any given language, eat, as a linguistic sign, is above all a lexical item of the language, i.e., a purely differential and contrastive meaning unit within its distinctive global lexical system. Therefore, its definition can only be drawn from the language inner data, and brought to the fore by an analysis of the distributional relationships



About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages 

between signs of the same nature. When dealing with data in the context of a bilingual situation, e.g., translation, such a remark gains in importance. In this context, given that the respective definitions of the “linguistic signs” do not coincide, it is important to carefully set apart the “signified” peculiar to the source language, in this case an African language, from the one which is expressed in the translation in the target language, e.g., French or English. Below is the example of eat in Cewa (Bantu – N.31B) where a dozen different stems – i.e., meaning units, both differential and contrastive – attested in Cewa are translated into English into a single lexical item, eat: “To eat” –  khwinthi, LL,1 adv.?, satiety of excess in eating; and consequent disinclination to eat any more, –  monyo, LL, adv., to eat anything soft; easily broken off; as bananas; nsima porridge, monyo, –  bubuda, LLL, v., to gnaw; nibble; to eat hard things; such as bones; maize; hard meat; &c.; even an apple, bubud, bubud1, L, –  budula, LLL, v., to eat off; nibble off; cut at the rim; &c., bud, bud2, rt+L, –  dewa, LL, v., from kudya; to eat; to be eaten, dew, dew1, L, –  dia, LL, v., to eat, dia, dia, dya –  dyetsa, LL, v., to eat much; to pasture; give to eat [check tone], diets, diets1, L, dyetsa –  dya, L, v., to eat, dya, dya, –  dyelana, LLL, v., to eat in common; each one bringing his share, dyel, dyer2, as+L, –  fisula, LLL, v., to eat breakfast, fis, fis2, rt+L, –  kambula, LLL, v., to eat relish without nsima, kamb, kamb2, rt+L, –  kukuta, LLL, v., to eat anything hard; or that sounds hard; as munching an apple; as a dog in gnawing a bone knocks it against the ground; as in eating green maize, kuk, kuk2, cn+L, –  monyola, LLL, v., to eat anything soft; easily broken off; as bananas; nsima porridge, mony, mony2, st+L, –  gwetsa ntsamilo, LLHLL, v. ph., to eat in the early morning; a morning snack, ntsamilo, ntsamiro, –  ntsinkha, LL, v., to eat only the relish, ntsinkh, ntsinkh1, L, –  nyinyidzila, LLLL, v., to grumble at the smallness of anything; to work slowly; with intent to make it last out; to eat a little at a time so as to spin out the food store in the nkhokwe, nyinyidz, nyinyidz2, ap+L, –  pota, LL, v., 1. to prepare hospitality; also to eat with; partake of the hospitality of; 2. to pay; root of mphotho; hire, pot, pot1, L,

.  L corresponds to low tone, H to high tone.

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–  pwavula, LLL, v., to eat ndiwo without nsima, pwav, pwabv2, rt+L, –  sinila, LLL, v., to work slowly with intent to make a job last out; to eat little at a time so as to make the food store last; to be frugal, sin, sin2, ap+L, –  sindika, LLL, v., to eat the relish only, sind, sind2, nt+L, –  sinkha, LL, v., to eat the relish by itself, sinkh, sinkh1, L, –  sipa, LL, v., 1. to eat without sauce; 2. to suck; lick, sip, sip1, L, –  somola, LLL, v., to begin; take the first taste; drink a little first; to begin to eat, som, som2, st+L, –  tsinkha, LL, v., to eat up the relish by itself; leaving the nsima; as a person does who is not hungry, tsinkh, tsinkh1, L. (Bantu – N.31B Cewa – Data/Chewa.SnH1957 – Mtenje’s 2001 Chewa Dictionary (6200 entries) (it = Root) In orthonymic use, the “signified” of the lexical item eat differs from one language to the next according to the number and to the identity of the lexical items most likely to be used as “synonyms” to refer to a similar physiological experience, such as bite, chew, crunch, swallow, absorb, drink, etc., the inventory of which differs from a language to the next. In the case of the languages considered here, the following lexical oppositions were found (where “Vs” = is opposed to): [ka]: dí v.: to eat, ingest (food), feed o.s. Vs: d  6̀lìm to lick; dʋ̀n to bite, sting, crunch, chew; mù to suck (by putting in the mouth); fùrì to absorb; lì to swallow; ñf̀ to drink. [mo]: dí v.: to eat (for things that cannot be chewed). Vs: lélem to lick; dumi to bite, sting; kaghlé to crunch; wäbé to chew, browse, graze; fõõghé to absorb; möghé to suck; vélé to swallow; nyü to drink. [fo]: ɖù v.: to eat; to chew, crunch, gnaw, bite; to absorb. Vs: ɖ ùɖf́ to lick, take sth. with the fingers to eat it; mì to swallow; nù to drink. [ful]: nyaam- v.: to ingest (food), eat; to consume, feed on. Vs: lad’aade (?) to lick one’s hand and fingers after having eaten; ŋat- to bite, seize between one’s teeth; yak- to eat in fits and starts, by chewing or by pecking; moɖ- to swallow, gobble up; yar- to drink, quench one’s thirst. [du]: dá v.: to eat. Vs: ñ  ángwa to lick; lába to bite, sting; miña to swallow, gobble up; ñf́ to drink. [kr]: -ryá/-rí v.: to eat, feed o.s., take food, bite. Vs: -kámya to absorb; -mira to swallow; -nywá, -nyó- to drink. [kk]: dia v.: to eat. Vs: v enda to lick; bukuta to crunch; mina to swallow; nua to drink, imbibe, absorb.

In accordance with the respective reconstructed forms of eat (Gur *di, Gbe *ɖu Bantu *di, proto-Niger-Congo *di), one notes that the stem of eat – except for Fulani whose stem is the nasal palatal/ñ/–, has in all languages an apico-dental voiced consonant:/d ~ ɖ ~r/.



About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages 

In orthonymic use, the semantic definitions of eat are respectively: [ka] – to eat, ingest (food), feed o.s. [mo] – to eat (for things that are not chewed), feed o.s. [fo] – to eat; chew, crunch, gnaw, bite; absorb. [ful] – to ingest (food), eat; consume; feed on. [du] – to eat, consume, devour. [kr] – to eat, feed o.s., take food; bite, sting. [kk] – to eat, feed, devour, subsist on, consume.

The opposition eat/chew, bite does not exist in Kirundi, just as in Fon where the opposition eat/absorb, a single lexical item that covers several notions: eat; chew, crunch, gnaw, bite; absorb, is lacking. What emerges from these definitions is that the lexical item eat is characterized by a great diversity at the semantic level, as the “signified” differs from one language to the next. It is thus necessary to use the term “orthonym” for the lexical item “eat”, and “orthoseme” (Pottier 1992: 40–41) for the signified in each language. Therefore, it is almost impossible to come to a common hyperonym. It is at least possible to find within these definitions some regularities similar to those brought out by P. Boyeldieu in the SBB languages and for which he noted the following oppositions: SBB *onyo (v.) – to eat (soft food, for the languages which developed a verb “to eat tough food”). = sar uun (v.) – to eat without chewing, eat sth that does not require any effort to chew, suck; to feed o.s. for herbivorous animals, graze. > SBB *dronyo (v., derived from *onyo) – to bite. SBB *usa (v.) – to eat (tough food), crunch. = sar esa (v.) – to chew, masticate. – to eat (chewed food); browse; eat in general. sar ngoR (v.) – to chew with effort, eat a hard object, crunch. At first glance, the Moore hyperonym eat seems to show similar oppositions: [mo] dí “eat (for things that are not chewed ), feed o.s.”, similar to the SBB verb *onyo and the Sar verb uun. Its possible derivative dumi “bite, sting” can be related to the SBB verb *dronyo (derived from *onyo). However, as a lexical unit, [mo] dí “bite (for things

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that are not chewed)” does not accept the same oppositions since it is jointly opposed to three other distinct lexical items: kaghlé “crunch”, wäbé “chew, browse, graze”, and möghé “suck”. On the other hand, if [mo] kaghlé “crunch” is reminiscent of the SBB verb *usa and the Sar verb ngoR, and [mo] wäbé “chew, browse, graze” evokes the Sar verb esa, they are however different from them as [mo] möghé “suck” corresponds rather to the Sar verb uun which, moreover and unlike Moore, integrates the notion of “feeding o.s. for herbivorous animals, grazing”. Kasem presents a similar situation. The opposition “eat soft food”/“eat tough food” doesn’t seem to be relevent because [ka] dí “eat” is just as well opposed to its derivative dʋ̀n “bite, sting, crunch, chew” as to mù “suck (by putting in the mouth)”. We will note in passing that in certain discursive contexts, the opposition dí “eat”/dʋ̀n “bite, sting, crunch, chew” seems not to be stabilized in its use since the speaker, for instance for náŋwálí “tobacco”, can just as well use dí “eat” as dʋ̀n “bite, sting, crunch, chew”. What stands out from these observations is that we should keep in mind that at the orthonymic level, the hyperonymic definition of eat can only be considered within the framework of one language, because of the specificity of the oppositions between the lexical items which characterize it. In other words, the signified of a lexical item, as a linguistic sign and because of its solidarity with the system peculiar to this language, cannot be transposed from one language to another one. Strictly speaking, it cannot be translated into another language.

3.  The co-text of orthonymic eat Things are different when the lexical item eat is embedded in a sentence. It then partakes of the predicative function on which is based the discourse and, therefore, the meaning. Indeed, it is this predicative function that enables to “say sth about sth” and therefore to give meaning to the discourse. Conveyed by the whole sentence, the meaning can’t be mixed up neither with the signified of each lexical item which makes up the sentence, nor with the sum of their respective signifieds. It is essentially a global content of thought which could be expressed differently within the same language (through paraphrasis) or translated into another language. The meaning can therefore be translated. Within the sentence, the linguistic items interact and their initial meaning depends on the meaning of the other co-present linguistic items, i.e., on their co-text. In other words, the lexical unit slightly changes meaning according to the co-text. Moreover, the introduction of a lexical item in a sentence commands its transformation into a grammatical category which, in turn, determines the variability of the co-text, i.e., the number of elements to be taken into account. These differ depending on whether it is a verb, a noun, an adjective or an adverb. The co-text of a “verb” is the whole sentence



About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages 

in which it is embedded since it generates, as a predicate, the argument constraints as well as the syntactic constructions. Such is not the case for “nouns” or “adjectives”. As a grammatical category, eat is attested as a verb, a noun and an adjective in all the languages considered here, such as in the examples below: [ka]: dí v.: to eat “verb”: … dí w6 ́díú eat food “noun”: dín “action of eating, meal”; dídírú “eater”; nf ǹ -dírú “meat eater”; “adjective”: n  fn-díú “s.o. who likes eating”; zʋ̀n-dí6 ́ “dish to eat, plate”; w6̀-díiú “edible thing, food”. [mo]: dí v.: to eat (for things that are not chewed) “verb”: mös rita saghab daar fã “the Mosé people eat tô everyday”. “noun”: d  îbo “diet, food, dish”; dita “eater”; ditentâgha “table companion”; ditgha “spoon”; dïb-dogho “dining room”. “adjective”: d  i-noãga “greedy”; di-zèsgha “crumble”; di-nödo “good food”; ditgho “hand with which one eats, right”, ditla “edible, good to eat”. [fo]: ɖù v. to eat; chew, crunch, gnaw, bite, sting; absorb. “verb”: ɖù nǔ/ eat thing/ “eat” (wa ɖù nu ̌/to come-imp eat thing/ “come and eat!” “noun”: ɖ uɖu “eating”; nùɖúɖú /thing eating/ “food” (nùɖúɖú w7̀ “it is food”); nùɖúgbán /thing eat dish/“plate”; “adjective”: ɖ uɖu “edible” nǔ ɖuɖu w7̀ “it is sth edible”); nùɖúdíntf ́ /thing eat too much the one-who/ “gluttonous, greedy”.

In Fon, the “verb” eat necessarily comes with an object represented by the generic term nǔ “thing” which is also found in noun phrases. In those languages, the co-text of the “verb” eat generally favours features of physiological experience which can apparently be attributed to culturally marked situations: To seek to eat [ka]: … lòòrì … dí /ask … eat/ “to beg in order to eat” [fo]: bà nǔ ɖu ̀/seek thing eat/ “to seek sth to eat” [fo]: f `ı n nǔ ɖù /steal thing eat/ “to steal sth and eat it” [kr]: kuryá ubuzinu bubozé “to have nothing to eat”. to eat in the same dish [ka]: dí zʋ̀ŋā dìdʋ̀ ā / … eat calabash one / “to eat in the same dish” to eat gluttonously, be greedy [fo]: … wlǎ ɖù /pounce-on eat/ “to eat gluttonously” [ki]: … dia … dia … /eat … eat / “to eat greedily, gluttonously” [kr]: … kuryá n’ubuhábe/eat bulimia/“to eat eagerly” [mo]: di-noãga “greedy” to eat enough, have eaten one’s fill [ka]: … dí … sú /eat … fill/ “to be satisfied”

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[ka]: … dí … kʋ̀ dágá /eat be-too-much/ “to eat enough” [kr]: … kuryá ukîbura /eat spare no expense/ “to eat more than enough” to leave left-overs from a meal [fo]: ɖù kpo ̀/eat be-left/ “to leave left-overs from a meal” to finish eating [ka]: … dí … tí/eat finish/“to finish eating”

The orthonymic use is common to all these languages, but it is the co-text which determines its semantic specificity. Thus, in Kirundi, the variability of the agent for kuryá “eat” enables to extend its uses to insects and reptiles: [kr]: kuryá amênyo uwùndi “bite sb, sting (insects, reptiles)”

The orthonymic use of eat remains the same, but the change in the co-text related to eat in the source language, which doesn’t make any distinction between eat and bite as regards lexical items, induces the translation of the same verb in the target language as bite, sting and not eat. Similarly, Fon uses the same verb ɖù for numerous acceptations at the orthonymic level: “to eat; chew, crunch, gnaw, bite, sting; absorb”. However, its orthonymic co-text does not coincide with the Kirundi one, since ɖù in the sense of “sting”, requires that its agent is limited to mosquitoes: [fo] zànsùkp7́ l7́ ɖú mì /mosquitoes pl eat me/ “I’ve been bitten by mosquitoes”

As regards snakes as agents, the construction sf ́ nu “to sting mouth” is prefered, whereas for certain categories of insects as agents the verb m7̀ “burn” would rather be used instead. Because of the variations in the linguistic co-text, it clearly stands out that there is no semantic coincidence between eat in Kirundi and eat in Fon. Moreover, the very variations in the source language linguistic co-text entails the change of meaning in the target language, hence the translation of the verb “eat” into other verbs. Thanks to the sentence, the translation into another language is made possible, provided that the co-text in the source language which governs the global meaning of the sentence is well enough taken into account. The study of the co-text backs up the fact that the meaning is conveyed by the whole sentence and that it cannot be mixed up with either of the implemented signs (lexical items). Furthermore, when the lexical items, as signs, are only connected to each other in a system of internal dependence, the sentence, as a predicative operation, enables the discourse to refer to an extra linguistic reality. Therefore, thanks to the sentence, the meaning becomes consubstantial to the reference.



About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages 

4.  The polysemy of eat in non orthonymic context So far, our reflection on the meaning of eat is on purpose limited to the sole orthonymic co-text, i.e., the one which enables an explicit reference to a physiological experience which is at the same time a universal of experience. Since this usage is apparently attested in all languages, it is legitimate to consider eat as a linguistic universal. However, one of the most striking features of the phrasal use of eat, in the languages considered here, is its ability to refer, if not simultaneously at least jointly, to a different reality than this physiological experience. At the phrasal level, i.e., at the very heart of the predicative operation “to say something about something”, eat can be used in numerous and diversified discursive contexts, in order to express particularly varied and potentially unlimited extra linguistic realities. This referential plurality linked to numerous discursive contexts, causes the polysemy of the term eat: its signified (“sememe”) is no longer exclusively orthonymic but extends to and covers specific differences (“semes”). Thanks to different processes, ranging from “meaning restriction” to “meaning extension”, from “metonymical relationship” to “metaphorical relationship”, to “loose polysemy” and to “narrow polysemy” (cf. Martin 1983: 64–71), the language is likely to develop such a polysemy. Under such conditions, a suitable definition of a given term implies to recognize the consubstantiality of a certain number of semes within its determined “meaning”. Thus, an appropriate definition of the term eat in a given language should indicate and eventually disclose the internal coherence between the different constituent semes of the sememe. It goes without saying that this definition is likely to be uncertain as long as the identity and the extent of the discursive contexts specific to a language, generally stemming from its own history as well as from its characteristic socio-cultural context, is unknown. The example of [ka] dí v. “eat” enables to assess on one hand the diversity of the discursive contexts different from the orthonymic ones, and on the other the multiplicity of the semes of eat stemming from these contexts. In order to make this assertion more evident, the discussion will be limited to a particular type of discursive context, that of anthroponyms, more precisely the traditional nouns for individuals (abbreviated in NI) whose content, in this language as in other African languages and cultures, is spoken out when the noun is given as a message (“sentence” at the linguistic level) intended for the community. If need be, other discursive contexts in more common usages will be added. In that type of discursive context the semantic content of dí v. “eat” is reallocated in several semes differing from the orthonymic ones, which are grouped together in two sections. In the first one, the active meaning of the verb prevails whereas in the second one, it is the undergone activity which prevails, in which the subject may be

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the undergoer or, in some instances, the experiencer. In each section, the semantic features are grouped together into broad lines or groupings of semes that can be characterized as isotopies based on the recurrence of a same meaning feature. 1. to eat (active) To make the most of, take advantage of … … dí kānг /eat woman/ “to get married (man)” – (Vs: zʋ̀ bārῡ /enter-husband/ “to   get married (woman)”) … dí bóŋ6 ́ /eat flirt/ “to court, flirt” … dí cwìlōŋō /eat friendship/ “to form friendship” … dí bгnг /eat seasonal cycle/ “to regain health” (NI) … dí tгgā /eat earth/ “gain earth” (= religious entity) (NI) To vanquish, triumph over, win. à dí bà tῡgῡ /eat insult/ “to gain mastery over the insult” (NI) à dí bὺrà /eat reason/ “to be right” (NI) à dí kàmpàllà /eat inhabitants of Kampala/ “to defeat the people of Kampala” àmὺ mὺ dí6 ́ /me foc eat-pf/ “I’m the winner” (NI) à dí kὺ dágá /I eat-pf this be a lot/ “I won a lot” (NI) kʋ ̌ pā à dí /this-fut give-aor I eat-aor/ “this is going to make me win” (NI) wf ̀ mὺ dí6́? /who-foc eat-pf inter./ “who won?” (NI) à nú dí6  ́ /me mother eat-pf/ “my mother won” (NI) To reign, be chief à dí pààrì /I eat power/ “I seized power, I reign” (NI) … dí sàríà /eat judgment/ “to judge” … dí tāānг /eat word/ “to swear, to testify under oath” To exploit (sb), despoil; swindle, make suffer bà dí sǎ̰m /them eat houses/ “they feed themselves at the expense of the people   residing in the house” (NI) To devour (fig.) cгrā lǎg bà d-ú /sorcerers want-inch fut they eat-him/ “the sorcerers are about to   devour him” To celebrate, give a feast … dí càndí6 ́ /eat-party/ “to celebrate” 2. to eat (undergone) To spend, waste, eat one’s asset. … dí sìbu ̌/eat-money/ “to spend money” … dí jὶnὶ /eat-debt/ “to get into debt, borrow”



About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages 

To consume, fade away … dí càvггrā /eat-shame/ “to be ashamed” bà dí bà swān /they eat-pf them intelligence/ “it backfires on them, they undergo   the effects of their bad intentions, plans” (NI) … dí yíníg6  ̀/eat misery/ “to be destitute” kὺ dí bà j ɩ à̰̄  /that eat them hands/ “it burnt their hands, it made them suffer” (NI) bǎ dí kf ḡ ā /them-was eat behind/ “they are going to suffer the consequences of   that” (NI) à dí w6 c̀ гῡ /I eat-pf thing difficult/ “I swallowed an affront, I am bitter” (NI) kὺ dí à wῡ /this eat-pf me belly/ “this made me suffer intimately” (NI) The only verb all these contexts have in common is dí. However its meaning varies according both to its linguistic co-text and to the discursive context. In an “anthroponymic” type of discursive context, its phrasal reference is polysemous, since it corresponds to a plurality of meanings: “to win, reign, be right, suffer, undergo … ”, which in translation leads to the substitution of eat in the source language by other verbs in the target language. An appropriate definition of the signified (“sememe”) of eat must encompass all the specific differences (“semes”) attested at the discursive level of the language. Thus [ka] dí v.: “to eat”, corresponds to: - at the orthonymic level: “to ingest (food), to feed o.s.”; - at the discursive level: (a) actively: “To take advantage of …”; “Defeat, triumph over, win …”; “Reign, be chief …”; “Exploit (sb), despoil”; “Swindle, make suffer …”; “Destroy, make suffer”; “Devour (fig.)”; “Celebrate, give a feast …”; (b) undergone action: “To spend, waste, eat one’s assets”; “Consume, fade away …” and each sememe consists of different verbs in the translation of each phrasal expression in the target language. We may proceed in an analogous way with the data of [fo]: ɖù v. “to eat” and for which the following structuring is proposed: 1. to eat (active) To take the most of, to take advantage of … … ɖù afù /eat thing for free/ “to make the most of the opportunity, enjoy an unhoped-for   advantage” … ɖù lè /eat benefit/ “to make profits” … ɖù xù /eat inheritance/ “to inherit” … ɖù gb7̀ /eat life/ “to be happy, enjoy” … ɖù zò /eat fire/ “to be happy (eat life)” … wf̀ gb7̀ ɖù /dig into life eat/ “enjoy life, be happy”

 Emilio Bonvini

To vanquish, triumph over, win. … ɖù m7̄ /eat person/ “win (a game), beat sb” … ɖù kwín /eat pawn/ “to take a pawn (in the game)” … ɖù gǎn nù m7 /eat power for person/ “dominate, beat sb” … ɖù ahwàn jı ̌/eat war on top/ “to win the war, to win a victory over” To reign, to be chief … ɖù gǎn /eat chief/ “to be the chief, govern, gain control of, dominate, preside over”. … ɖù axf ́sù /eat king/ “to reign, be king, be chief ”. To exploit (sb), despoil; swindle; misappropriate (public moneys). … bl7̌ m7 ɖù /deceive person eat/ “to deceive people to one’s own benefit, cheat,   swindle sb” … wlǒ nǔ ɖù /wring thing eat/ “to misappropriate sth, to take advantage of properties   that are useful for others” … xò m7 ɖù /hit person eat/ “to deceive sb in order to get sth from him” To destroy, make suffer … tá afú m7̀ ɖù /administer vexation person eat/ “to bully sb, take advantage of sb” To devour ( fig.) … ɖù m7̀ bo mì /eat person and swallow/ “to adore sb” 2. To eat (undergone) To celebrate, give a feast … ɖù xwè /to eat party/ “to celebrate” … ɖù agf  ̌/to eat loft/ “to give a party, to feast” To spend, waste, eat one’s asset … ɖù agbàn /eat goods/ “to go bankrupt; make a feast, feast, have a wild time” … ɖù akw7́ /eat money/ “to spend money; to earn a salary” … ɖù akw7́ nyidò /eat money bad/ “to waste one’s money” … ɖù axf  ̀/eat debt/ “to get into debt” … ɖù axf ̀ dǒ m7 /eat debt apply person/ “to owe sb sth” To consume, fade away … ɖù nyfkwín /eat moaning/ “to let out muted moanings” … ɖù wìnyá /eat shame/ “to be ashamed, be embarrassed (due to a failure, a mistake, a   humiliation)” … ɖù wùv7́ /eat pain/ “to feel pain, suffer; show disgust, experience discomfort for such   object or such person” … ɖù aɖ ı  ̌/eat poison/ “to take the ordeal poison: sort of ordeal used mostly to verify a   defendant’s assertions” … ɖù yà /eat pain/ “to suffer terribly, be tortured”



About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages 

To gnash one’s teeth … ɖù àɖùkún /eat gnashing of teeth/ “to gnash one’s teeth” To betray … ɖù sù /eat ban/ “To defy the ban, desecrate, commit a sacrilege; to disobey a serious matter; not to take into account sb’s habits”. Now, if we compare the data of the other languages examined here, one finds numerous similar facts that are characterized by an outstanding diversity with either closely related meanings or remotely connected and even contradictory. These isotopies or groupings of semes are reproduced below according to the translation and as much as possible in the order proposed by each author, but, for the sake of space, without any example. The reader will only have to distinguish what falls under the orthonymic definition of eat, usually given in the first position, from what is strictly speaking polysemous: - Mooré – Gur (Alexandre 1934–5, 2: 85) > di “Use what one owns. Take advantage”. 1.  To eat (for things that are not chewed), to feed o.s. 2.  To spend, waste, eat one’s assets. 3.  To consume, destroy, completely absorb so that no trace remains. 4.  To take advantage of: a.  To take advantage, to make the most of … b.  To reign, be chief c.  To fall on (opposite meaning), be responsible for one’s actions. 5.  To get initiated; eat a superstitious dish, cast a spell. 6.  To cut, be sharp. - Fulani – Atlantic (Seydou 1998) > nyaam1. to ingest (food), eat; consume; to feed o.s. on Fig. spend (money). Spec. attack, kill (sb) using witchcraft. 2.  to appropriate, monopolize; conquer, gain control of; occupy (a territory). 3. to exploit (sb), despoil; commit abuses of power; strip sb of his possession; “swindle” (sb); misappropriate (public moneys). > nyaam-t-: to shrink, retract Express. id. 1. a.  to squander, dissipate (a fortune). b.  To travel a long way; gain ground. c.  To go to the market, go shopping. d.  To break an agreement, break a commitment.

 Emilio Bonvini

Fig. id. 1.  to consume, destroy (due to fire, fading away …) id. 2.  to defeat, triumph over; win. id. 3.  to demand a fine from (sb) id. 2.  win (a game), have an advantage over. > nyaam-ɗ1.  To speak with clenched teeth, whistling. 2.  To badly articulate when speaking. - Duala – Bantu A 20 (Helmlinger 1972): > dá 1.  To eat, consume, devour. 2.  To eat sb in worship or magically. 3.  To let o.s. be corrupted. 4.  To deceive sb by asking too much. 5.  To spend money.; fig. steal. 6.  To take, to make a profit. 7.  To betray, to set up schemes. 8.  To have teeth chattering (from sorrow). - Kirundi – Bantu D 60 (Rodegem 1970: 381) > kuryá   1.  To eat, feed o.s., take food.   2.  To bite (sb). Sting, bite (insects, reptiles).   3.  To itch.   4.  To scratch, graze.   5.  To bite one on top of the other. Gnash one’s teeth.   6.  To grit one’s teeth, show courage. Be valourous.   7.  To harm, prejudice, damage, be a disadvantage to.   8.  To live off sb, live as a parasite; steal through trickery.   9.  To beg from sb who hasn’t got anything anymore. Deceive sb. 10.  To live off one’s salary. 11.  To be destitute, find o.s. in difficulty. To be helpless, in financial difficulties. 12.  To exploit the population, treat unfairly. 13.  To refuse flatly. - Kikongo – bantu-H 10 (Bentley 1887 + Petterlini 1977): > dia v. 1.  to eat, feed, devour, subsist on, consume, spend; to use (as currency). 2.  to inherit (take the inheritance).



About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages 

  3.  to be unable to reply.   4.  to feast.   5.  to refuse ever to do.   6.  to take a perquisite.   7.  to incur a debt, to owe.   8.  to swear, take an oath.   9.  to tickle. 10.  to fine. 11.  to drink the ordeal poison (the test of witchcraft). 12.  to dig round a thing at a little distance off (as in digging out a rat or a plant). 13.  to be envious. 14.  to take an oath 15.  to forbid Some isotopies are shared by several languages, others appear to be isolates, as a result of the non-recurrence of the same meaning feature in a different language. This absence may be attributable to an insufficient documentation, but what is essential is rather the isotopical fact itself and, what is even more fundamental, the mechanism that generates it, because these isotopies share the obliteration of some semantic features, the activation of others and the addition of new specifications to the notion of eat. Thanks to this mechanism, the language enables the enunciator to stand aloof from the referential of the immediate designation of eat, i.e., its orthonymic designation, while using it to “say something else about something” and thus to construct new references and new meanings. The outcome is the polysemy itself. Because of the variations of the agents at the phrasal level, and of the contextual variations in the discursive use, new relations are forged around the notion of eat. Most often, it is a polysemous continuum, where one imperceptibly shifts from one shade of meaning to another, from one acceptation to another, and some of them will become frozen structures. This polysemy of eat is attested in many other African languages. Thus, in SBB (Boyeldieu 2004) one finds: – to be painful, hurt, make suffer (source/place of the pain expressed by the subject, possible patient expressed by the object); – to receive the power to lead, govern; – to be smooth (object), wear out, be worn; – to be ranked (numerical order); add further to, in counting; – to last (pers., object), live, exist; – to be effective (medicine); – to spend, waste; misappropriate; ruin; – to misappropriate (land);

 Emilio Bonvini

– to enjoy life; – to exploit, oppress, take advantage of sb; – to exercise (power); – to talk badly of sb in his absence; – to win at a game (sth.), defeat (sb.); – to wrong sb, harm him; – to eat away, consume, wear away; – to penetrate (knife, cold), reach; – to be enough to buy (sth.); – to get the upper hand over, triumph over, defeat. We deliberately limited our examination to the data of a few languages of the NigerCongo family. We put aside on purpose those ones from Hausa, an Afro-Asiatic language, thoroughly analyzed by Gouffé (1966) and among which several meanings and constructions are comparable and close to the ones presented here. Still, contrary to Gouffé’s hypothesis which opposes “eat” as a controlled activity to “drink” as an undergone activity, our study clearly shows that the opposition active/undergone belongs to the sememe of “eat” itself. Our position is in line with the recent study of Pardeshi et al. for Asian languages (2006: 93) which has set up 9 categories corresponding to two main divisions depending on the semantic role of the subject as an actor or an undergoer (theme, patient, or experiencer). May we note the fact that, in Africa, a quite similar polysemy also occurs in non-African languages, and among others two Romance languages, French and Portuguese, but in a different way. The polysemy is more developed in Portuguese than in French, all the more as Portuguese is spoken not only in Africa, but also in Brazil where there were descendants of former African slaves are numerous. The difference seems to lie in the fact that the contact of Portuguese with the African languages, which goes back five centuries, is the oldest and affects all the domains of the language. On the other hand, the contact of French is more recent and the developed semantic features are limited in their referential content. 1.  African French (Lafage, S. 2002–2003: 553).2 1. (manger [en sorcellerie]) “to eat [in witchcraft]”, verb. phr. For a sorcerer, to annihilate a human being’s vital principal, destroy him using witchcraft, bring him under control. DER.: soul eater. 2. (manger l’âme) “to eat the soul”, verb. ph... 3. (manger [l’argent]) “to eat [money]”, tr. or intr. v. Squander [money], even steal it. 4. (manger la pâte et la sauce) “to eat the paste and sauce”, verb. phr. Eat the African way.

.  The English translation below is due to Julienne Doko, the translator of the article.



About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages 

5. (manger (~boire) le fétiche) “To eat (~drink) the fetish”, verb. phr. To make a solemn pact by eating together the sacred dishes cooked by the fetish-maker or indicated/ prescribed by custom due to their symbolic value. 6. (manger en diable) “To eat as/the devil”, verb. phr. Of a sorcerer who aspires a human being’s vital substance in order to enhance his or to offer it to evil spirits. 7. (manger piments dans la bouche d’autrui) “To eat peppers in sb else’s mouth”, freq. verb. phr. Mesolithic, oral, written, infml. To put words in sb’s mouth, force sb to confess, have sb intervene in a tricky business so that only the speaker takes risks. 8. (manger, (fais-moi –) “to eat (make-me –)”, verb. phr. Expression used to make sb who is asking for a favor understand that it requires a financial compensation. One might notice that compared to standard French (cf. Dictionnaire Le Robert), African French has mostly kept at the polysemic level: 2° Specialt. “To eat a prey”. V. “Devour”. 8° Specialt. V. “To spend, squander, dissipate”. 9° “To take sb else’s money, ruin him”. 2.  Brazilian Portuguese (Houaiss 2001) The polysemy attested in Brazilian Portuguese certainly recalls of the data of the African languages. Below are the senses of comer “eat” as recorded in the above mentioned dictionary: COMER ■ verb dir. tr. and intr. 1. ingerir alimento(s) ou tomar por alimento; alimentar-se (eat, ingest, take food) Ex.: adora c. carne (he loves eating food ); as crianças comem bem (children eat well) dir. tr.

2. tragar, engolir, trazer para dentro de si (swallow (up), gobble up, wolf down, engulf) Ex.: o pântano comeu o rebanho inteiro (the swamp swallowed up the whole cattle) indir. tr.

3. Derivation: fig. meaning. experimentar, provar (try, test, experiment) Ex.: não devemos comer do fruto proibido (we must not try the forbidden fruit) dir. tr.

4. ouvir embevecidamente; beber (listen with rapture; drink) Ex.: comia as palavras do mestre (he was drinking in the master’s words) dir. tr.

 Emilio Bonvini

5. apossar-se do que não lhe pertence; roubar, defraudar, espoliar (take over sb’s belongings; steal; despoil) Ex.: só nessa transação eles comeram milhões (in this sole transaction, they stole millions) dir. tr.

6. Heading: games. nos jogos de xadrez e damas, eliminar ou ganhar (uma ou mais pedras do adversário) (in a game of chess or draughts, win an opponent’s pawn-s) Ex.: conseguiu c. a dama (he managed to win the queen) dir. tr.

7. passar por (algo) sem vê-lo; omitir, pular (pass without noticing, skip) Ex.: na leitura do discurso, comeu dois parágrafos inteiros (reading the discourse, he skipped two whole sections) dir. tr.

8. eliminar ou suprimir parte de; cortar (eliminate, discard, remove partly; cut) Ex.: a censura comeu 30 minutos do filme (censors removed 30 minutes in the film) dir. tr.

9. pronunciar mal ou indistintamente; suprimir (sílabas etc.) (pronounce badly, utter indistinctively; discard (syllables, etc.)) Ex.: ele come palavras inteiras quando fala depressa (he swallows whole words when he speaks quickly); fale claro e não coma os finais das palavras (speak clearly, don’t swallow word endings) dir. tr.

10. fazer transcorrer; preencher (let out, run off; fill) Ex.: conversando e bebendo, fomos comendo a noite toda (talking and drinking, we let the entire night run off) dir. tr.

11. corroer aos poucos; carcomer, desgastar, gast (corrode slowly, eat into; consume, spend, use up) Ex.: a maresia come o ferro (the swell eats into the iron) dir. tr.

12. fazer esquecer; expungir, obliterar (forget; erase, cancel) Ex.: o passar dos anos comeu suas lembranças (as the years went by, he lost his memories) dir. tr.

13. gastar com dissipação; esbanjar (waste; squander) Ex.: comeu a fortuna até o último centavo (he squandered his fortune to the very last penny) dir. tr.



About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages 

14.  levar a cabo (uma tarefa, uma ação etc.) em pouco tempo (achieve (a task, an action, etc.) quickly) Ex.: as patas do cavalo comiam quilômetros em minutos (the horse’s legs were swallowing kilometres in no time) dir. tr.

15. Regionalism: Brasil. Usage: informal. ser submetido a, sofrer (punição) (be submitted to, undergo – a punishment) Ex.: tanto fez que agora vai c. uns bons anos de cadeia (he ended up spending many years in jail) intr.

16. Regionalism: Brasil. Usage: informal. bater, espancar (beat, beat up) Ex.: o chicote vai comer hoje (the whip is going to crack today!) intr.

17. Usage: informal. suportar a dureza, o sofrimento; agüentar (endure, bear) Ex.: vai comendo, seu miserável! (You gonna have half a rough time, you scoundrel!) dir. tr.

18. causar comichão ou coçar (itch, scratch) Ex.: aquela dermatose comia toda a pele de seu corpo (this dermatosis was itching him all over his body) intr.

19. Regionalism: Brasil. Usage: informal. ocorrer, acontecer (ger. algo indesejável ou calamitoso) (occur, happen, usually sth. undesirable or calamitous) Ex.: a ladroeira está comendo solta (stealing is developing without limits) o pau está comendo no campo (the stick (= the punishment) is developing in the field) dir. tr.

20. acreditar piamente em (believe blindfolded) Ex.: essa mentira ninguém come (nobody believes in such a lie) dir. tr.

21. Usage: taboo. possuir sexualmente; seduzir (have sexual intercourse, seduce) Ex.: c. alguém (have sexual intercourse with sb.) pron.

 Emilio Bonvini

22. Derivation: fig. meaning. sentir-se tomado por paixão forte, corrosiva, por sentimento exaltado; mortificar-se, enfuriar-se, roer-se (to have passionate feelings, to be carried away; to be grieved, distressed about) Ex.: c.-se de inveja (be green with envy); c.-se de ódio (to be full of hatred) dir. tr.

23. Heading: football. driblar (dribble)

5.  Conclusion As we reach the end of this study, which was deliberately semasiological, and in the light of the data studied, two reflections seem to be obvious. The first reflection concerns the methodology developed here, and in the first place, the distinction made between “lexical item” and “sentence”. It was intended to show the “signified” of eat and to distinguish it from its “meaning” which is linked to its use in discourse. In the second place, the distinction was made between two types of uses, the orthonymic one and the non orthonymic one, because the first one enables among other things to explain the linguistic “co-text” of eat, while the second one contributes, moreover, to apprehending the range of its discursive “context” and, therefore, to measuring the extent of its polysemy. In the third place, it was a warning against the dangers of translation in order to insist on the necessity of founding the semantic definition on the language inner data only. This approach is not an innovation. It only seems to us that we echoed the methodology E. Benveniste already advocated when writing: les notions sémantiques, beaucoup plus complexes, plus difficiles à objectiver et surtout à formaliser, étant engagées dans la “substance” extra-linguistique, appellent d’abord une description des emplois qui seuls permettent de définir un sens. Et cette description elle-même exige qu’on se délivre des fausses évidences, des références aux catégories sémantiques “universelles”, des confusions entre les données à étudier et celles de la langue du descripteur. (Benveniste 1966: 307).3

.  “… the semantic notions, way more complex, more difficult to objectivize and especially to formalize, as they are involved in the extra-linguistic “substance”, call first and foremost for a description of the uses which enable to define a meaning on their own. And this description on its own requires that we free ourselves from facts that are falsely obvious, from the references to “universal” semantic categories, from the confusion between the data to be studied and the data of the descriptor’s language.” (NDLT).



About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages 

A second reflection concerns the result of the research conducted here, and more precisely the existence, in the languages under study, of an obvious recurrence of the polysemous content of eat in languages yet marked by their diversity and their dispersion over space. Would this polysemy, attested in languages that belong to different linguistic families, be a linguistic universal in the same way as the reference to the physiological universal of experience which seems to be part of the term eat itself? We don’t think so, and it seems to be ruled out by a purely semasiological approach. Within the Niger-Congo languages and by considering languages which are among the most widespread and the most studied ones, we can notice that Wolof (Atlantic) for instance has only developed the orthonymic use and that Bambara (Manding) certainly admits a certain polysemy, but in a very limited way: “to devour (for witchcraft), spend (money), deceive (pop.)”. Eat, as a physiological activity is most certainly a primitive and a universal of experience, and so is probably the recourse to a term of the language in order to evoke it or express it (contra see Wierzbicka, forthcoming). The polysemous process, on the other hand, should not be considered as a linguistic universal. It is in all likelihood a related component, one of the most convenient tools, for lexical and meaning creation from other lexical items. These, in turn, are likely to directly translate other inevitable vital experiences, particularly of the human body as perception through sight, hearing, touch or movement and orientation in space, as suggested by the linguistic analysis of most of the languages under survey, and as the recent developments in cognitive sciences advocate (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Sweester 1990). Although some similarities may be drawn between the above-described approach and that of Wierzbicka (forthcoming) on “eat” and “drink” (e.g., the warning against the pitfalls of translation), it is by no means comparable. Not only was this paper written independently, mainly stimulated by Gouffé’s (1966) previous research in the domain of African languages, but it also meets other aims. Regarding the data and the assumptions, the present work differs from that of Wierzbicka at least on three main points: i.  The scope of the study is limited to “eat” only, and it is deliberately restricted to a sample of African languages (mainly Niger-Congo). Nevertheless it covers a huge geographical domain where some 2000 languages have been listed. As far as we know, they share the fact that the universal physical experience of food absorption is linguistically differentiated through several lexical items – here named as “orthonyms” – among which “eat” and “drink” are, in all the investigated languages, represented by different lexical units. ii.  The different methodological and theoretical approaches were essentially suggested by our present state of knowledge of the African languages. Although semantic studies in the recent decades have increased, there are still too fragmented as compared to

 Emilio Bonvini

the immensity of the domain and somewhat inexperienced in their attempts. Much remains to be done before generalizations can be made. Nevertheless, recent works in the African languages domain (Robert 2003) show that research goes now far beyond the frame of the Indo-European semantic tradition. Long ago africanists stopped referring to notions foreign to the African continent in order to understand a concept in an African language. This particular context explains why we chose the semasiological approach (from signs to concepts), as a starting point for the complementary onomasiological approach (from concepts to signs) (Pottier 1987: 11). This choice led us to a second distinction, which we consider as indispensable, between the orthonymic use and the non-orthonymic use. Semantically the afore distinction allows to distinguish between orthosemy and polysemy, the former being the starting point of the latter, and not the reverse. Our assumption is that meaning is at the crossroad between the two uses. Thanks to this distinction, we can observe, in the languages under survey, how the notion of eating, in the orthonymic sense, is inflected by its contextual uses. As stated before, the lexical unit eat is not only characterized by a great semantic diversity, but the “signified” being different from one language to the other, it is (almost) impossible to get to a common hyperonym. In other words our approach is mainly based on the inner organization of the linguistic data themselves, particular to each language, and much less on a reference external to the language, that is the physiological experience, universal, but also culturally governed, in spite of appearances. iii.  Our aim is relatively modest and by no means comparable to the more ambitious one of Wierzbicka, i.e., the constitution of a “lexicon of universal semantic primes”. Thus, our approach could not have recourse to a pre-established semantic metalanguage.

References Alexandre, R.P. 1934–35. Dictionnaire Moré-Français et Français-Moré. (s.i., s.n.). Bentley, W.H. 1887. Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language as Spoken at San Salvador, the Ancient Capital of the Old Kongo Empire, West Africa. London: Baptist Missionary Society, Trübner. Benveniste, E. 1966. Problèmes sémantiques de la reconstruction. In Problèmes de linguistique générale I, 289–307 Paris: Gallimard. (Also in Word X(2–3), August-December, 1954). Bonvini, E. 1988. Prédication et énonciation en kàsim. Paris: Editions du C.N.R.S. Bonvini, E. 1988. In preparation. Dictionnaire kàsim. Gouffé, C. 1966. “Manger” et “boire” en haoussa. Revue de l’Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales 3: 77–111. Helmlinger, P. 1972. Dictionnaire Duala-Français suivi d’un lexique français-duala. Paris: Klincksieck. Instituto Antônio Houaiss. 2001. Dicionário electrônico Houaiss da língua portuguesa. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Objetiva.



About “Eating” in a few Niger-Congo languages 

Lafage, S. 2002–03. Le lexique français de Côte-d’Ivoire (Appropriation et créativité), 2 vols. Nice: Institut de Linguistique française – CNRS UMR 6039. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 1980[2003]. Metaphors We Live By. With a new Afterword. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Martin, R. 1983. Pour une logique du sens. Paris: P.U.F. Mtenje’s 2001 Chewa Dictionary (6200 entries) Bantu – N.31B.) http://www.cbold.ddl.ish-lyon. cnrs.fr/, Index of/CBOLD_Lexicons/Chewa.Mtenje2001). Pardeshi, P. et al. 2006. Toward a geotypology of EAT-expressions in languages of Asia: Visualizing areal patterns through WALS. Gengo Kenky 130: 89–108. Petterlini, P.F. & Angola, M.C.E. 1977. Dicionario kikongo- português, português-kikongo. Padova: Segretariato Missionario – Cappuccini. Pottier, B. 1987. Théorie et analyse en linguistique. Paris: Hachette. Pottier, B. 1992. Sémantique générale. Paris: P.U.F. Robert, S. (Ed.). 2003. Perspectives synchroniques sur la grammaticalisation. Louvain: Peeters. Rodegem, F.M. 1970. Dictionnaire rundi-français. Tervuren: Ann. M.R.A.C. Segurola, B. & Rassinoux, J. 2000. Dictionnaire Fon-Français. Madrid: SMA Société des Missions Africaines. Seydou, C. 1998. Dictionnaire pluridialectal des racines verbales: Peul – français – anglais. Paris: Karthala – accT. Sweetser, E. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics. Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: CUP. Wierzbicka, A. Forthcoming. All people eat and drink. Does this mean that “eat” and “drink” are universal human concepts? In The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking, J. Newman (Ed.), Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Eating beyond certainties Christine Hénault

Université Paris X – Nanterre The aim of this study is to give a crosslinguistic account of semantic paralellisms concerning verbs meaning “eat”. It is mainly based on both synchronic and diachronic data from Indo-European languages, and some comparisons are made with data from a few languages from other genetic stocks: Nahuatl, Mwotlap, Inuit and classical Arabic. The semantic parallelisms are organized semantically into three categories: concrete aspects, perceptual aspects and cognitive aspects. The study of the data suggests the possibility that there exists some universal semantic association for the concept of eating with the concepts of suffering and tormenting. Keywords:  diachrony; eat; etymology; heterosemy; polysemy; semantic parallel; semantic shift; synchrony

1.  Introduction This paper deals with the semantic networks of the experientially basic verb EAT (the superordinate verb or hyperonym), and some of its hyponyms, BITE, MASTICATE, TASTE, SWALLOW, DEVOUR, in a sample of Indo-European languages, and a few languages outside this genetic stock: Nahuatl, Mwotlap, an Austronesian language, Inuit, and classical Arabic.1 Through the confrontation of these languages, which have very different lexical systems, it aims at showing the lexical and semantic regular patterns of associations that are common to these languages, regardless of common roots. The crosslinguistic survey leads to the conclusion that semantic parallels exist on three semantic levels: EAT (and its hyponyms), and concrete aspects, EAT (and its hyponyms), and perceptual and cognitive aspects, EAT (and its hyponyms), and emotional and physical sensations aspects. Hence, these three levels are reflected in the organization of the paper. Because of the very nature of the available data, the method of investigation is a blend of diachronical and synchronical research. The languages under survey having

.  Cf. besides Ger. proben “try > rehearse (i.e., referring to musicians, actors)”, same etymology.

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very different historical depths, it was thought useful to start with the wellknown Indo-European data mainly from a diachronic viewpoint, eventhough some of the etymologies are sometime debatable, and the direction of the semantic changes unclear, and to compare them with the (more) synchronic data of the other languages of the sample. As is usually the rule in this volume, we examined all cases of semantic shift, be they historical semantic changes, cases of synchronic polysemy or of heterosemy (i.e., semantic shift through derivation).

2.  Eat: Concrete aspects 2.1  “Eat” and “tooth, masticating, biting” In the Indo-European languages, several words meaning “to eat” historically derive from roots referring to concrete actions that make up the “act of eating”, as well as to “teeth”, necessary tools for mastication. Some originate from a I.-Eu. root (*h1ed“eat”) which is fairly well represented in the I.-Eu. languages: Hitt. etmi “I eat”, Got. itan “eat”, Gr. edomai “I eat”, Lat. edere “eat”, Ger. essen, Engl. eat, Russian est’. One also finds the Russian word obed “midday meal” which is obviously related to est’ “eat” and eda “food” (Vasmer (Fasmer) 1987: 98). According to some authors, there might be a relationship between this root and the I.-Eu. name for tooth (*h1dont- partakes of *h1ed- “eat”, cf. Mallory & Adams 1997: 594). Hypothetically, the Breton word dibri “eat” would date back to a compound form *di-prim related to the Irish word craimin “masticate” (Buck 1949: 328). But according to Mallory & Adams (1997: 175), the etymology of the Breton word is different (*dribi, in relation to I.-Eu. *dorkwom “evening meal”). Whatever the etymology, it is unclear which one derives from the other. The French verb manger “eat” is a case of a semantic shift from a hyponymic verb to a superordinate (hyperonymic) verb: it is derived from vulgar Latin manducare “masticate”, the latter being related to the Latin verb mandi “chew, bite”. In Inuit, a derivational link is thought to exist between the verb nii- “eat” (niqi- in other Inuit dialects), the nouns niqiq “meat, food”, niqqiwik “table, place where one eats” and the noun niqqit “tooth” which would be the instrument used to eat (cf. Tersis 2002: 49–62; Fortescue, Jacobson & Kaplan 1994). An analogous relation of meaning seems to exist in other languages. In Nahuatl, the form tecua is polysemous and means both “bite”, and “eat (humans)”, and its derivative tecuani “man-eater” applies to animals which bite people: wildcat, puma. For animals or inanimate objects which are eaten and indefinite, one says tlacua “it eats something”, tlacualli “cooked dish” (cf. Launey 1979: 34–42). It should be noted that the verbal stem cua “eat” is a labile verb which does not vary according to the agent which “eats” (man, animal, demon, substance, etc.).



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2.2  “Eat” and “swallow” This relationship between EAT and SWALLOW is certainly not unexpected, and often occurs in Indo-European languages in every-day speech, e.g., Peter swallowed his breakfast quickly. Starting with the I.-Eu. reconstructed meaning “swallow”, it seems the direction of the semantic change is from the hyponym to the hyperonym, with an intermediate stage of DEVOUR, and thus a hierarchy: swallow > devour > eat. The Latin verb devorare “swallow, gobble up”, formed on vorare “to eat avidly, to gobble up” (cf. vorax “which gobbles up”, Rey 1992: 596), gave rise to the French verb dévorer (to devour). The assumed I.-Eu. root of this word is *gwer- “swallow”. It also has cognates in O.H.G querdar “food for bait” (> Ger. Köder “bait”, cf. Pfeifer 1995: 686), and Russian žrat’ “to eat greedily”, gorlo “throat”. Another I.-Eu. root *swer-/*swel- “swallow” founds the polysemous Avestic xvar“consume, eat, drink” (Buck 1949: 328).

2.3  “Eat” and “irritate, itch” The French verb démanger “itch”, which is clearly derived from manger “eat”, illustrates the relationship between the two notions of “eat” and “irritate, itch”. The meaning “itch” also occurs in the Russian verb est’ “eat” which is used in phrases like Dym est glaza “The smoke is (eating) stinging my eyes”. The Latin verb obedere “eat away, eat into”, derived by prefixation from edere “eat”, is interesting from the viewpoint of its derivation. Its participle used as an adjective obesus meant “eaten into” hence “skinny, all skin and bone”, but this meaning was rare. A singular phenomenon of enantiosemy can be observed there: back in the imperial time, the word obesus developed the active meaning opposite of “who eats into”, from which “who devours” and, by a metonymy, “fat, podgy”, which gave the French word obèse “obese” (cf. in colloquial Fr. chancre “overeater”, Rey 1992: 1344). This enantiosemy may derive from a sort of antiphrasis used derisively, but the semantic link may be deeper (see the ambivalence of eating as described in section 4.2). The history of the Fr. word comédon “blackhead, comedo” illustrates in its own way this ambivalence: it is derived from the Latin substantive comedo m, comedonis “eater” derived from comedere “to eat effectively” (> Spa. comer), verb formed by preverbation on edere. Therefore, a comédon is both a surplus of sebaceous matter on the skin and an element which “eats” the skin, “eats the skin into”. The Russian word jad “poison” is probably connected with eda “food” and the verb est’ “eat” (cf. the I.-Eu. root *ed- “eat”). Let’s recall that the old Russian word ĕdǔ meant both “food” and “poison”, and the related word jadǔ “poison” (from which the modern Russian word jad) was phonetically very close to jadĭ “food, meal”. On the other hand, jad may be linked to the Greek word oidema “tumour” (from which the

 Christine Hénault

Fr. word œdème), the Ger. word Eiter “pus”, the Middle Eng. word atter “poison”. But it is assumed that the two roots *ed- “eat” and *oid- (pus, tumour) might have merged in proto-Slavic *ědu- “poison” (Sakhno 2001: 325–326).

3.  Eat, taste, try The relation between “eat”, “taste”, and “try” presents at least four types of semantic shifts in I.-Eu.: polysemy due to contextual uses, semantic changes due to borrowings, cases of heterosemy, and root mixing. Furthermore some of the semantic shifts are bi-directional.

3.1  “ Eating” and “trying, attempting, testing” > “choosing” and “tasting, sampling, savouring” Let us start with a well-known example: the English verb try may be used in contexts in which it means “to taste” such as in to try these olives. The French lexeme essai has close meanings in some of its uses: “small amount taken from a prince’s food or drink in order to make sure there is no poison; glass to taste drinks” (Lexis 1979: 676), as well as the German verb probieren “test, try, attempt; taste, sample” from Latin probare1 “put to the test, verify, approve, make credible, demonstrate”. The relationship between “trying”, “tasting” and “eating” is apparent in the words stemming from the I.-Eu. root *ĝeus- “taste, enjoy”,2 which gave rise to the polysemous Greek verb geuomai “taste, eat, try”. This I.-Eu. root developed the meaning “eat”, in addition to “try”. Other languages specialized in one or the other I.-Eu. reconstructed meaning, with or without the addition of other meanings related to TRY: Sanskrit juşate – joşati “enjoys”, Got. kausjan (var. kiusan) “test, examine, taste” (> Fr. choisir, cf. Rey 1992: 415), see Old Engl. cēosan “try, choose” (> Engl. choose), Lat. gustus “act of tasting” (> Fr. goût (taste), goûter (to taste), gustatif (gustatory), dégustation (tasting), etc.). In this same etymological family, the Russian verb kušat’ “eat” dates back to an old Slavic borrowing from Germanic (Gothic) kausjan “taste”. Let’s note that kušat’ is in competition with the normal verb referring to the act of eating est’ when the speaker wants to be polite or when addressing children (Hénault 1997: 502). The Russian word kušat’ is related to vkus “taste” and to the words linked to the idea of “temptation, test”, a connection which is absolutely legitimate since the meaning of the etymon

.  The polysemy between “eat” and “enjoy” is common in many African and Asian languages (see e.g., Gouffé 1966; Bonvini this volume; Pardeshi 2006), but not attested in the non-I.-Eu. languages of the sample under study here.



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(“test, try”) is present: iskušat’ “tempt sb, seduce”, iskušenie “temptation”, as well as with iskusstvo “art” (“try” > “test” > “art essay” > “art”). Kušat’ “eat” and kusat’ “bite” are very likely to be related, but it is not definitively proved (Vasmer 1986: 432, 439). This second Russian verb has many derivatives by prefixation, that are found within the semantic field organized around “eat”, among others zakusit’ “eat a little bit, have a light meal”, from which zakuska “light meal, hors d’œuvre”, pl. zakuski, a word borrowed by French (zakouski), as well as the substantive kusok “piece”. In any case, a contamination between the two roots may be assumed, all the more as they are somewhat semantically close: the idea of “trying, tasting food” is, it seems to us, logically associated to the idea of “eating a little bit of sth.”, cf. Fr. manger un morceau, Engl. to have a bite “eat a little bit, have a light meal”, Ger. Imbiss “light meal, snack” linked to beissen “bite” (Pfeifer 1995: 573).

3.2  “Tasting” and “knowing” The semantic shift between tasting and cognition is wellknown in I.-Eu. (see e.g., Buck 1949 and Sweetser 1991). Let us just recall here that insofar as “eating” is closely linked to “tasting” (see above), the Lat. word degustare is worthy of interest from the viewpoint of its polysemy: “taste”, “be acquainted with, learn sth.”, “experience/go through”. The French word saveur (flavour), which is in the lexico-semantic field of “eating”, stems from the Latin word sapor “taste, characteristic flavour of something”, “smell, perfume” and “act of tasting”. Sapor is linked to the Latin verb sapere “be tasty” by derivation. The initial meanings of sapere (whence Fr. savoir “to know”), which were “being tasty”, “exhaling a smell” and moreover “tasting”, gave figuratively “having intelligence, judgement”, “being wise”. Transitively, this verb meant “knowing a lot about sth.”, “knowing”, “understanding”. Cf. the old-English word sefa “understanding, mind, sense” (Buck 1949: 1030), same etymological I.-Eu. family. In Russian, the link between the lexemes meaning “taste” and “know” is inverted: the derivative by prefixation of the verb vedat’ “knowing”, developed the meaning “taste”. It is otvedat’ “know”, “taste, sample” (Sakhno 2005: 37), whose system of values is similar to the Latin verb degustare. We may add the Letton word baudīt “try, taste”, which is probably connected with the Sanskrit word budh- “be awake, be conscious of, perceive” (Buck 1949: 1030).

4.  “Eat”: Emotional aspects and physical sensations The semantic extension of “eat” to emotions and physical sensations is mainly based on synchronic data, even for the I.-Eu. ones. It is usually triggered by metaphoric or metonymic usages in idiomatic expressions, which involve both the semantics and the

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morphosyntax of the constructions (agentive vs. patientive constructions, transitive vs. intransitive usages, active or controlled vs. passive or undergone, animate subject vs. inanimate, prepositional usage, etc.).

4.1  “Eat” and pleasant emotions: “Find sb. attractive” The positive emotional side of the Fr. verb manger “eat” emerges in figurative uses where it means “find sb. attractive, for one’s taste”. According to an everyday metaphor in the expression of the love feeling, one says manger des yeux (to gaze hungrily at sb. = to eat sb. by keeping on gazing at him/her) for “look avidly”, manger qqn de baisers (to smother sb with kisses, lit. eat sb. with kisses) and, absolutely, On en mangerait! (I could eat you up!) (Rey 1992: 1180). These values are found in English in expressions with “eat” such as You look good enough to eat in that hat, as well as in German with the verb verschlingen “devour, gobble up, swallow greedily” in the expression mit den Augen verschlingen “to devour sb. with one’s eyes”. Moreover, a particularly interesting semantic phenomenon is provided by Mwotlap (an Austronesian language), with the food possessive classifier ga~,3 described by A. François (2001: 592). This “Possessive Classifier for Food” (cl:food) indicates a food type relation (“X to eat for Y”) and may refer to the expression of pleasant sensations (physical pleasure). According to A. François, one can gloss ga~ like “X as source of pleasant sensations for my body”. But this is only the metaphorical extension, often for a joke or in slang forms, of the literal meaning of ga~ which is initially just a matter of food possession. This is the reason why the same marker ga~ is found in expressions like: (1) kē mo-yonteg na-ga-n manan aē 3sg prf-feel art-cl:food-3sg pleasure anaph ‘She felt her pleasure (lit. eating) by doing that’.

Moreover, young people express their desire using this marker, notably when it comes to phrases such as “you are to eat for me for”:4 (2) na-kis inēk art-cl:food:1sg 2sg ‘I love you’ (lit. You are for me/to eat)

.  Etymologically linked to gen “eat”. .  In the following utterances, there is an irregular form kis that merges the classifier ga~ with the 1st pers. singular form.



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or: (3)

na-kis wo-ngē art-cl:food:1sg art.honorif.-face:2sg ‘I like you’ (lit. My meal, it is your little face) (you look good enough to eat).

These idioms remind of French metaphors with verbs belonging to the semantic field of “eat”, like Tu es à croquer! (you look good enough to eat, lit. crunch) or Je vais te dévorer de bisous (I’m going to smother (lit. devour) you with kisses). Yet, the Mwotlap food metaphor should not necessarily be explained by the use of the mouth, but more abstractly by the use of the body in its whole (François 2001: 592). In the Mwotlap society, the mouth is always kept out of the sexual intercourse or from the love affair; the kiss is traditionally done with the nose, and only towards children. In certain languages of the world (Spanish and Portuguese of America, several native languages of Amazonia, and African languages), the words that mean “eat” can take on the meaning “make love, have sexual intercourse” (see Gouffé 1966, and Bonvini this volume). In Inuit, the verbalizing affix -tuq- means, among others, “eating”, “drinking”, “using an object”, “doing sth. repeatedly”, but it also establishes, depending on the preceding noun, semantic links between “eating” and “having sexual intercourse”.

4.2  “ Eat” and undergone emotions and sensations: “Undergo sth. unpleasant”, “suffer”, “be beaten” The verbs which mean “eating” and their hyponyms may lead to the meaning “undergoing sth. unpleasant” either physically or morally (see also in this volume the articles by Family and Bonvini). Languages indeed have a semantic link between, on the one hand, the act of eating, and on the other hand, the situations where the individual is faced with certain events imposed upon him and that he has to undergo. Depending on the language, and/or the semantic domain involved, specific morphosyntactic constructions may be used. Such is the case in the French idiomatic expression with the so-called reflexive form of the verb “eat” se manger: Je me suis mangé la porte “I bashed into a door” (lit. I ate the door for myself), and where the undergone unpleasant action is physical. The French verb déguster (to taste/to sample), which means literally “to taste carefully in order to savour”, can also be used metaphorically, with no formal change, in the sense of “enjoying fully”, and means, by common antiphrasis, “undergoing sth. unpleasant (morally or physically), be humiliated, be scolded” (Rey 1992: 569): Hier, j’ai été convoquée par le chef. Qu’est-ce que j’ai dégusté! (Yesterday, I was summoned by the boss. I didn’t half have a rough time!). Similar semantic extensions are found with the English verb swallow, as well as its French and German equivalents avaler and schlucken, which also may refer to a situation where the individual undergoes sth. morally unpleasant, cf. Le chef m’a dit

 Christine Hénault

que j’étais un bon à rien. Qu’est-ce que tu veux, j’ai dû l’avaler! (The boss told me I was a good-for-nothing. What can you do, I had to swallow it!). In Russian, a similar semantic development to the semantic domain of being scolded and humiliated is peculiar to the hyperonymic verb est’ “eat” in colloquial uses such as Nu, čto sjel? “So, you got put in your place all right!” (lit. So, did you eat it?). Another semantic extension of the verb “eat” to the domain of “undergoing something unpleasant” leads to the meaning of “be beaten”. The Latin expression pugnos edere, lit. “eat the fists”, may be used with the meaning of “be beaten, have been beaten”. A similar extension to the semantic field of “be beaten” is also found in colloquial French with the reflexive form of manger “eat” in il s’est mangé un pain “he was beaten up” (lit. he ate a bread for himself). In Mwotlap, we pointed out the use of the marker ga~ as the expression of “pleasant sensations”. But feeding is not systematically associated to the possession of the food endowed with a positive emotional value. An opposite use of the classifier must be noted, namely the detrimental use. The following example illustrates well the semantic ambivalence of the marker ga~. In volley-ball, if the ball is thrown with rage (PC ga~): “You’re part of the opposing team and I throw the ball in your face, the only thing you can do with it is to eat it”; cf. Fr. Avale ça! (swallow this!). It is then easy to understand the semantic link of the meaning restricted to feeding of ga~ with its detrimental acceptation, as well as, by extension, with its passive value. François’s analysis shows why the marker ga~/gen~ (“eating”> “undergoing sth. painful; having to receive or do sth. as a hardship, to undergo”) is also used to express some detrimental type of relations of possessions, that is to say in which the possessed is meant to be undergone by the possessor. That’s how food possession was able to historically develop, in several Oceanic languages close to Mwotlap, even tighter links with passive-type idioms (Lynch 2001: 193–214). Indeed, the Mwotlap languages establishes “a semantic analogy between, on the one hand, the feeding act, and on the other hand, the subject’s passivity/non-agentivity faced with some events imposed upon him, and that he has to undergo without being able to really exert any control over the situation.” (François 2001: 595). The ultimate stage of an analogous phenomenon of grammaticalization is attested in Chinese: CHI “eat”, marker of the passive, and in Korean: meg- “eat”, marker of the passive (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 122). From “eat”, the semantic shift goes to “undergo sth. painful”, then to “undergo”, which gives rise to the passive marker.

4.3  “ Eat” and controlled activity: “Do sb. harm, make sb.’s life impossible”, “hate”, “destroy” The semantic shift from “eat” to “do harm, make suffer”, “destroy, burn” is far from being seldom crosslinguistically (see e.g., Gouffé 1966; Pardeshi et al. 2006; Bonvini



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this volume; Family this volume). This is also repeatidly found in the language sample under study here. The detrimental interpretation characterizes the French verb manger “eat” and its synonyms in colloquial, common and slang uses. For example, bouffer “eat, wolf down” which supposes that one stuffs oneself with food (Je crois que j’ai trop bouffé ce soir “I think I stuffed myself tonight”), has figurative acceptations that put forward aggressiveness in constructions with the neutral pronoun en: Si je voulais, j’en boufferais trois comme toi “If I wanted, I’d knock out three like you”, where bouffer is interpreted as “destroy”. Moreover bouffer, also when preceded by the “neutral” pronoun en, means “hating”: Qu’on m’accuse d’être misogyne, je m’en fiche, j’en boufferai, de la bonne femme, jusqu’à la fin de mes jours! “You can accuse me of being a misogynist, I don’t care, I will wolf down all women, until I die!”. A similar metaphorical use is found also in the expression manger/bouffer du curé “to be violently anticlerical” (lit. eat priests). The reflexive form se manger can mean “beat sb., have the upper hand, defeat” (Le prof voulait nous mettre au pas, mais on se l’est mangé comme les autres “The teacher wanted to bring us to heel, but he got a real hammering (lit. we ate him for ourselves) just like the others”). The reciprocal sense of the reflexive form is also used in similar contextual meaning: se manger/se bouffer le nez (to have a go at one another) “fight, assault mutually”, lit. to eat one another’s nose. Some figurative uses in African French such as manger le cœur de qqn “to eat sb’s heart” or in several African languages such as to eat sb culturally and magically (Helmlinger 1972; Bonvini this volume) refer to witchcraft and to bewitchment. Another detrimental meaning of Fr. manger “eat” (in the phrase en manger), Fr. croquer5 “crunch” (in the phrase en croquer), morganer6 (slang synonym for “eat”) is “betray, turn in (an accomplice to the police )”. Cf. moreover in Russian: S utra do večera on est domašnix “From morning till night, he makes his family’s life impossible” (lit. he eats his family). In Nahuatl, the metaphorical uses of the verbal stem already quoted cua “eat” are linked to the verbal forms: tecua “bite, eat (people)” > “destroy, exploit people”, techcua’ “they eat us” (lit.: we are exploited). The meaning of “destroy” is also found in Russian for inanimate subjects such as in Ržavcina est železo “Rust is eating iron away (lit. eat)”. In the same line, we will note that the Russian word objedat’ (same I.-Eu. formation as obedere) means, depending on the contexts, “eat, eat away on all sides” or “cause sb harm by eating at his expense”. In this last case, one “eats away” his host’s food reserves or budget. Insofar as “eating” is closely related to “biting”, we can point out the semantic links between words meaning “to bite, to sting” and those meaning “to torment”, cf. Ger. Qual

.  En croquer also means “to be in love with”, “spy on, watch secretly”. .  Morganer also means “bite”.

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“torture, torment”, quälen “to torment” (Pfeifer 1995: 1065), Engl. kill (Partridge 1966: 328), Russian žalit’ “to sting, to bite (talking about a bee, a snake)”, žalo “sting, viper tongue” (Černyx 1993: 291). This group is said to go back to a I.-Eu. root *gwel-/*gel- “strike, stab” also observed in the Lithuanian word gela “torture” (Mallory & Adams 1997: 549). Some close values are found in Mwotlap and Nahuatl. In Mwotlap, “eat” is interpreted as “burn” in expressions such as N-ēm mino, n-ep me-gen qēt, lit. my house has been entirely eaten, i.e., “my house burnt entirely”, or N-ep me-gen mat kē, lit. fire ate it, for “he died in a fire”. In Nahuatl it is the name of a physical defect which has recourse to the verb “eat”, in the sense of “destroy”: Itencua, lit. his lip is eaten, i.e., “he has a harelip”.

5.  Conclusion The above attempt of systematisation of the semantic parallels concerning the words meaning “eating” and their hyponyms in a small sample of genetically and areally unrelated languages shows a number of interesting common meanings with other languages (related or unrelated) discussed in this volume and elsewhere. It is hoped that all these studies will give rise to a more comprehensive crosslinguistic research in this complex semantic domain. The possibility that there exists some universal semantic association for the concept of eating with the concepts of suffering and tormenting, is not unlikely, but needs to be checked on a larger sample. Furthermore, for each type of semantic parallel, the contextual, morphosyntactic, and register parameters will have to be accounted for systematically and more in detail than it was possible to do here so that the observed links could be better explained from a cognitive point of view. Another pending issue is that of the direction of the semantic change from a diachronic viewpoint, which is far from being obvious, even for Indo-European languages. In addition the very interesting problem of the phenomenon of grammaticalization (eat > marker of the passive) also requires to be studied thoroughly. One could also wonder about other semantic relations concerning the notions closely related to “eating” such as “feeding”. The latter notion seems to establish links with “sovereign, power, tyranny”, from the data from Russian (cf. kormit’ “feed”, kormilo “tiller, symbol of the power”, korma “stern of ship”, “tiller”, “helm”> kormčij “helms-man”), classic Arabic (’ākil “who eats”, “king, tyrant”), and Niger-Congo languages (see Bonvini this volume).

References Buck, C.D. 1949. A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.



Eating beyond certainties 

Černyx, P.Ja. 1993. Istoriko-ètimologičeskij slovar’ sovremennogo russkogo jazyka. T. 1, 2. Moskva: Russkij Jazyk. Dubois, J. (Ed.). 1979. Lexis, Larousse de la langue française. Paris: Larousse. Fortescue, M., Jacobson, S.A. & Kaplan, L. 1994. Comparative Eskimo Dictionary. Fairbanks AK: University of Alaska, Alaska Native Language Center Press. François, A. 2001. Contraintes de structures et liberté dans l’organisation du discours. Une description du mwotlap, langue océanienne du Vanuatu. Thèse de Doctorat en Linguistique, Université Paris-IV Sorbonne. Gouffé, C. 1966. ‘Manger’ et ‘boire’ en haoussa. Revue de l’Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales 3: 77–111. Heine, B. & Kuteva, T. 2002. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. Helmlinger, P. 1972. Dictionnaire Duala-Français suivi d’un lexique français-duala. Paris: Klincksieck. Hénault, C. 1997. Kušat’, verbe “ancillaire” (?), ou comment manger russe. Slovo 18–19: 501–520. Launey, M. 1979. Introduction à la langue et à la littérature nahuatl, Vol. 1. Paris: L’Harmattan. Lynch, J. 2001. Passive and food possession in Oceanic languages. In The Boy from Bundaberg: Studies in Melanesian Linguistics in Honour of Tom Dutton, A. Pawley, M. Ross & D. Tryon (Eds). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Mallory, J.P. & Adams, D.Q. (Eds). 1997. Encyclopaedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Fitzroy Dearborn. Toward a geotypology of EAT-expressions in languages of Asia: VisualPardeshi, P. et al. 2006. ��������������������������������������������������������������������� izing areal patterns through WALS. Gengo Kenky 130: 89–108. Partridge, E. 1966. A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Pfeifer, W. 1995. Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. Rey, A. (Ed.). 1992. Dictionnaire historique de la langue française. Paris: Le Robert. Sakhno, S. 2001. Dictionnaire russe-français d’étymologie comparée: Correspondances lexicales historiques. Paris: L’Harmattan. Sweetser, E. 1991. From Etymology to Pragmatics. Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: CUP. Tersis, N. 2002. Structure du lexique inuit. In Lexique et Motivation, V. de Colombel & N. Tersis (Ed.), 49–62. Paris: Peeters. Vasmer (Fasmer), M. 1986–1987. Ètimologičeskij slovar’ russkogo jazyka. Translated from German and completed by O. Trubačev. 2nd Edn. T. 1–4. Moskva: Progress.

From semantic change to polysemy The cases of “meat/animal” and “drink” Pascal Boyeldieu

Llacan (Inalco, CNRS), Fédération TUL The present section deals with the semantic affinities of two (groups of) concepts, namely “meat/animal” and “drink”. Though not related, they contrast two different approaches in the domain of semantic parallels: while various data concerning “meat/animal” naturally lead to a historical approach, revealing diachronic changes, the links regarding “drink”, chiefly exemplified in French, show a range of features involved in the semantic field of boire, that explain the diversity of its synchronic use. Keywords:  diachrony; polysemy; semantic change; semantic field; semantic proxemy; semantic shift; synonym

1.  Introduction Even if we allude to “the moment when animals go drink”, the two topics of this contribution are not particularly related and are addressed successively and independently. The identity of the terms referring to both “meat” and “animal” was revealed by Greenberg (1983) as being a property of certain African languages. Here, we will see what their respective affinities in other languages are. The concept of “drink” has been contrasted with that of “eat” in a perceptive article by Gouffé (1966) concerning Hausa. We will particularly focus on the semantic relations of “drink”, however the reader will be invited to make a connection with the two contributions (Bonvini, and Hénault) which deal with the semantic field of “eat” in this same volume. Nevertheless, besides their importance in the Africanist field, the confrontation of these two themes is interesting because it illustrates two complementary aspects of the issue of semantic parallels. In the case of “meat/animal”, the materials implemented indeed condition an essentially historical approach, based on considerations between the diachronic states of a same language or between present states of related languages, whereas the semantic field of “drink” is apprehended in a strictly synchronic perspective, resting on the analysis of the current functioning of the observed languages.

 Pascal Boyeldieu

This double manifestation of semantic change and polysemy explains our choice of addressing the two topics jointly in a same article.1

2.  “Meat/animal” First, let’s consider the case of the languages in which the two concepts are distinct. This is namely the situation in French, where animal is originally “living being” (from the Latin anima “breath, life”) while viande is first “provisions, food” (see Spanish vianda “provisions”) and then specializes in its present meaning after being replaced by nourriture (“food”, initially “education”). The same semantic evolution is observed for German Tier “animal”, which originally refers to “breathing being” (Germanic *deuza < Indo-European *dheusó-), and contrasts with Fleisch “meat, flesh”, English flesh or meat, all of them being derived from roots that mean “cut (up)” and “measure”. Finally, in Inuit (Eskimo-Aleut), the term which designates “animal” is based on the verb uuma- “be alive, have vigour” whereas the term referring to “meat, food” is linked to the verb nii- ~ niqi- “eat”. In all these languages “animal” is commonly derived from “breathing, living being”. Other languages contrast terms referring to “meat” and “animal” in a different way. Nahuatl (Uto-Aztecan) yolcatl “animal” is distinct from nacatl “meat, flesh”, the latter being linked to “fleshy” and maybe also to “mushroom”. Dadjo-Sila (Eastern Sudanic) íiyè “meat, flesh” (maybe related to ìiyèkè “give birth to, beget’?) contrasts with bèhíimè and màláayè (both from Arabic) “animal”. Even within the Niger-Congo phylum, several languages have separate nouns for “animal” and “meat”, although “game” is often associated with the latter, e.g., Fula (barogel or kulle “animal” vs. teewu “meat, flesh, game”), Wolof (mala “animal” vs. yapp “meat”), Bambara (dantafèn or bagan “animal” vs. sogo, sogobu “meat, flesh” and kungosogo “game”), Kasim (vf̀rīm “animal”, gāvàrῡ “wild animal” vs. nf̀nī “meat, flesh, game”), Moore (dunga “animal” vs. néémdo “meat, flesh, game”), Fongbe (kanlìn “animal” vs. làn “meat, flesh, game”). Vili, a Bantu language spoken by fishermen living on the Atlantic coast, also differs from some other Bantu languages (see below), as it contrasts cíbùlù “animal” with mbìsì “meat, flesh”, which can be specified as mbìsí sìtù “bush meat (game)” or mbìsí mbù “sea meat (fish)”. But in this group, such is the economic and cultural

.  This contribution has taken advantage of numerous personal papers (linguistic data, calculation of proxemies) of which the authors are cited ultimately. It has also benefited from several remarks done during the oral presentation of which I have not been able to explicitly mention the authors. I am grateful to them all for their help and collaboration.



From semantic change to polysemy 

importance of fish that the only term mbìsì, by extension, most often refers to “fish” (edible flesh par excellence) and is commonly substituted for its equivalent lítf́f́ngf̀. In contrast to the situation known in the languages so far, Greenberg (1983) underlines the remarkable fact that several African languages have only one term referring both to “animal” and “meat”. The author sees there a feature that is peculiar to the Niger-Congo phylum and suggests that the meaning “meat” is first. In fact, this situation is observed in Ngbandi sà “animal, game, meat”, proto-Gbaya *sà’dì “meat, animal” (distinct from *mùr “flesh”), Ngbugu giɛ̀ “animal, meat”, Laal mèr� m “animal, game, meat, flesh” or in proto-SBB (Central Sudanic) *yida “meat, animal” (whose reflexes are, among others, Sar dā̰ā̰ “animal (quadruped), game, meat”, but Yulu ȅj(ә̄), which is restricted to the meaning “meat, flesh, pulp” and contrasts with ōow(ә̄) “animal”). The same ambivalence characterizes the proto-Bantu term *nyàmà “meat, animal”, even though some Bantu languages like Makonde or Swahili developed a distinction that is expressed through different class attributions2 (table 1): Table 1.  Reflexes of proto-Bantu *nyàmà in Swahili/Makonde

Swahili Makonde

“meat” (gender 9/10: “various”)

“animal” (gender 1/2: “living beings”)

nyama/nyama inaáma/dinyaáma

m-nyama/wa-nyama ny-nyaáma/vá-nyááma

This semantic lack of differentiation however is not peculiar to the languages of the African continent. Matisoff observes it in two Tibeto-Burman languages, Lahu and Jinghpaw: For most modern Western languages it does make sense to have two separate items for animal and meat/flesh. In the hunting cultures of backwoods SEA [South-Eastern Asia], these two concepts are often expressed by exactly the same word (e.g., Lahu šrā “animal; meat, flesh”; Jinghpaw shàn “flesh; deer; large game animal, as used for food”). (Matisoff 1978: 138)

and Wierzbicka in Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan): In the Australian Aboriginal language Warlpiri (Hale, Laughren, & Nash 1983–86) there is no general word for animals. Edible animals are distinguished from non-edible ones, the word for edible animals being the same as the word for meat.  (Wierzbicka 1992: 8)

.  The Bantu languages classes, often matched by genders to express a sg./pl. contrast, exhibit some semantic constants. In this particular case the lexicon that falls within gender 9/10 groups various, semantically heterogeneous nouns, but gender 1/2 very clearly includes a certain number of nouns referring to “living beings”.

 Pascal Boyeldieu

Whether in Africa, South-East Asia or Australia, it is reasonable to think that the importance of hunting and game as a source of food explains – if only historically – the terminological uniqueness of “animal” (more precisely “quadruped’?) and “meat”. It is less clear whether, as Greenberg suggests, the meaning “meat” is first. For information only, the presence or the absence of the polysemy “meat/animal” in different languages are summed up in table 2:

Table 2.  Presence (+) or absence (–) of the polysemy “meat/animal” Bambara Beja Dadjo-Sila Fongbe Fula Kasim Laal Makonde Moore Ngbandi Ngbugu proto-Bantu proto-Gbaya

– – – – – – + + – + + + +

proto-SBB Sar Wolof Swahili Vili Yulu

+ + – + – –

Arabic

–

German English French Czech

– – – –

Mwotlap

–

Nahuatl

–

Inuit

–

Jinghpaw Lahu

+ +

Warlpiri

+

Even though they are less illustrated, one has to mention historical semantic affinities which are observed between nouns referring to “animal” and/or “meat” and the name of a specific animal, presumably considered as a prototypical animal or as a meat supplier par excellence. This is the case of English deer, that results from a shift from the meaning “animal” still attested in its German cognate Tier (see above). In southern Gbaya the reflex of *sà’dì disappeared and was substituted by the term nám “meat, animal”, which stems from proto-Gbaya *nám “buffalo” (the latter is related to protoBantu *nyàmà “meat, animal”: southern Gbaya would actually have come back to the original meaning). As we saw earlier, in Jinghpaw, shàn has the different meanings “flesh; deer; large game animal, as used for food”. One last example is provided by the Beja (Cushitic) term ša “meat” that may be linked to šʔa “heifer, cow”.3 More exceptionally the different SBB languages – that attest one or several of the following meanings – enable to identify a series of semantic shifts that ranges from

.  V. Blažek however thinks that this resemblance results from a convergence (M. Vanhove, p.c.).



From semantic change to polysemy 

“salt” to “animal” and can be explained among other things by the cultural importance of a type of sauce made from salt: *taɗf “salt (from plant)” > “sauce (from salt)” > “sauce (in general)” > “meat” > “animal”

The nature of the data that we were able to gather on the double concept “meat/animal” has led to an essentially historical approach, concerning semantic affinities that are established and observed within the diachrony of a language or, failing that, within the synchrony of related languages. In general, the observed parallels stress the importance of the cultural factors as the best vector of meaning transfers during the history of languages. As we will see now, the concept “drink” reveals a polysemy which is more strictly synchronic, brought to the fore by the different contexts of its uses and by the affinities it has with lexical items of close meaning.

3.  “Drink” The basic definition for the French verb boire (drink) is “absorb liquid”. However, some specific uses bring out values that are found in other languages. First, boire, in its absolute use, means “drink alcohol to excess”. Moreover, if “drinking” is spontaneously considered to be the activity of an animate subject, it becomes an essentially passive process when applied to an inert matter (earth, cotton, etc.). In fact this passive, uncontrolled dimension of the value of boire (drink) is also sensitive, in the presence of an animate subject, in expressions like boire les paroles de quelqu’un (drink in sb’s words), boire des yeux (lit. “drink with the eyes”), boire la tasse (swallow a mouthful of water), boire un bouillon (take a tumble, lit. “drink a broth”), boire le calice jusqu’à la lie (drain one’s cup to the dregs), avoir toute honte bue (be beyond shame, lit. “have all the shame drunk”) – to be compared with the Russian expression “drink a glass of grief ”. It is also corroborated by the similar connotations of two close terms like trinquer (clink glasses, in the meaning of “cop it, take the rap”) and déguster (taste, enjoy, in the meaning of “be in for it, not half have a rough time”). These semantic components are logically found in the vertices that the semantic space of the Dictionnaire des synonymes (Dicosyn, Caen) as well as the calculation of the proxemies4 (B. Gaume, p.c.) bring out (table 3). .  The proxemies, in which, of course, the synonyms come first, result from a calculation of the number of paths that are covered in order to link together two given entries of a dictionary, through a quotation in their gloss. The term proxemy that we will keep in its French form throughout, was apparently made up by the American anthropologist E.T. Hall to refer to the physical distance between individuals in a social context.

 Pascal Boyeldieu

Table 3.  Semantic space and proxemies of “boire” Dicosyn

Proxemies

▶ aspirer (suck up), boire (drink), humer (inhale), renifler (sniff), respirer (breathe) ▶ boire (drink), chopiner, s’enivrer, se soûler (get drunk) ▶ avaler (swallow), boire (drink), endurer (endure), souffrir (suffer), supporter (bear), tolérer (stand)

▶ engloutir (gobble up), ingurgiter (gulp down) ▶  se soûler (get drunk), se griser (get tipsy) ▶  se régaler (enjoy), savourer (savour) ▶  endurer (endure), subir (undergo)

Moreover, Dicosyn shows a dimension of “inhalation” (“inhale”, “sniff ”, “breathe”) and the proxemies a dimension of “pleasure” (“enjoy”, “savour”). Several languages also have a polysemy “drink/smoke”, although the second meaning generally needs the expression of an explicit object (“tobacco”). It is notably the case in several African languages. Thus, Kasim ñf̀, proto-Gbaya *no, Ngbandi nyf̄ “drink, smoke” (the formal resemblance of those languages, which belong to different branches of the Niger-Congo phylum, is not fortuitous). The same holds for Sar àɲ̄ “drink (including gruel), swallow (egg), smoke, extract (a sticky matter from a plant: latex, gum)”, Yulu f̄fyә̄ “drink, absorb, become saturated, smoke”, Ngbugu njf and Laal s� r “drink, smoke” (but Dadjo-Sila distinguishes wùràkè “drink” and ɗ èekè “smoke”). Beja confirms the polysemy through two distinct verbs, gwʔa “drink, smoke” and gwiham “take little sips, swallow, smoke tobacco without inhaling”. Classical Arabic has the same relation in šariba “1. drink, smoke (lit. “drink (the) smoke”); 2. tell lies about somebody; 3. be thirsty”. Different terms are traditionally linked to the same ŠRB root, although many of their meanings (in italics below) may be very far from those we are interested in here and we can’t assert that they are related: šaraba šarbah šarrabah

“understand, hear, grasp through intelligence” “1. one time when one drinks; … 4. palm tree” “1. land that produces plants but where there is no tree; 2. manner, way” “1. portion of drink drunk in one go (> French sorbet); 2. shade, šurbah colour that stands out against a different background” “1. little hole full of water; … 4. intensity of heat” šarabah “1. who/which drinks; 2. weakness, languor; 3. moustache; … . šārib 5. vein in neck” “1. fact of getting sb. to drink; 2. light mix of another colour, shade” išrāb mašrab “1. place where one drinks or waters; … 3. (fig.) mores, habits, customs; …” mašrabiyyah “protuding barred window” (> French moucharabieh) (because one puts a container for drinks there?)



From semantic change to polysemy 

The presence or absence of a polysemy “drink/smoke” are summed up in table 4: Table 4.  Presence (+) or absence (–) of the polysemy “drink/smoke” Beja Dadjo-Sila Hausa Kasim Laal Ngbandi Ngbugu proto-Gbaya Sar

+ – + + + + + + +

Swahili Vili Yulu

– – +

Czech

–

Mwotlap

–

Arabic

+

Nahuatl

–

German English French

– – –

Inuit

–

In an exemplary article devoted to Hausa, Gouffé (1966) analyzes, in a contrastive way, the respective semantic properties of two terms of this language that mean respectively “eat” and “drink” and thus shows the richness of their uses. Without dwelling on the concept “eat” which is addressed elsewhere in this volume, I will quote in extenso several comments and illustrations taken from this article concerning the concept “drink” and which seem extremely significant to me for our subject. First of all, Gouffé offers an analysis of the two terms ci(i) “eat” and šaa “drink” in semantic features that he identifies and contrasts as follows (table 5): Table 5.  Semantic features of Hausa ci(i)/šaa (Gouffé 1966: 106) ci(i) “eat”

šaa “drink”

Human activity/physiological “appropriation/alimentary/of solids” “appropriation/sexual/by male”

“appropriation/alimentary/of liquids” “appropriation/sexual/by female”

Human activity/non-physiological “appropriation/non physiological/exerted”

“appropriation/non physiological/endured”

Material world “appropriation/material/exerted”

“appropriation/material/endured”

Beyond the most common meaning of “absorb a solid/a liquid”, the two verbs contrast notably in the expression of the sexual intercourse experienced by a man or by a woman: (1) yaa cii tà /he/-/she/ ‘he possessed her sexually’ taa šaa mazaa /she/-/men/ ‘she has known some men sexually’  (Gouffé 1966: 90)

 Pascal Boyeldieu

But the passive, endured dimension of “drink” is more general and applies to many uses in what Gouffé names the “non physiological field”:

(2) “At the basic form, šaa contrasts with ci(i) insofar as the process of appropriation that it denotes is considered as the result of a pressure external to the subject, hence endured by it, and not as a voluntary acquisition that would only depend on its own initiative.” […]

yaa šaa làaabaarìi “he has collected news (about it)” (lit. “he has – the news”) […] yaa šaa dàaRiyaa “he doubled up with laughter” (lit. “he has – laughter”) […] yaa šaa gàRii “he lived in the city for a long time” and [contrasting with:] yaa ci gàRii “he conquered the city” […] yaa šaa kyauRoo “he got hit by an arrow’ […] yaa šaa Raanaa “he has been right in the sun” (lit. “he has – the sun”)  (Gouffé 1966: 95–97]

or the “material field” (inanimate subject):

(3) “Here again, the process denoted by šaa is indeed a process of appropriation: a substance A (the subject, in the linguistic message) is incorporated or absorbs another substance B (the object, in the linguistic message). But instead of being presented as resulting from a specific property of A, this absorption is envisaged as the product of B acting on A.” […]

ʔàbinci yaa šaa ʔiskàa “the food has cooled down a little bit” (lit. “the food has – the air”) […] bàRi ʔitàacen nàan yà šaa “let this wood dry up!” (lit. “let this wood so that it –”) […] littafìi yà šaa hannuu “the book was made dirty, worn” (lit. “the book has – the hand”) […] [contrasting with:] ʔigiyàa taa ci K’afàssa “the rope has cut into its leg” (e.g., of a horse) (Gouffé 1966: 103–104)

The set of acceptations of “drink” that we just envisaged is summed up in a synthetic diagram (see table 6) that attempts to identify various progressions from a central value (basic or initial?) that is defined as “absorb a diffuse substance, more or less liquid”. It is indeed this diffuse, pervasive and not controllable nature of the absorbed matter that conditions the not necessarily voluntary characteristic of the absorption and justifies, in my opinion, its possible extension to values which are explicitly passive. A first link is established from this central value to the one of “drink alcohol to excess”. If this particular meaning results from an explicit lexical complement in Kasim ñf̀ … cf̄ [drink … act to excess] “get drunk”, it presupposes, in French, an absolute use of the verb, the aspect contrast taking on the two more specific values of permanent state “be an alcoholic” (imperfective: il boit [he drinks], il buvait [he used to drink]) and of punctual process “get drunk” (perfective: il a bu [he drank, he has drunk], il avait bu [he had drunk]). Other languages resort to a change of diathesis: in Nahuatl, the



From semantic change to polysemy 

reflexive use of the verb i or on-i “drink” takes on the value “drink one’s own substance, drink up the price of one’s slavery”; the English construction be drunk, the German betrunken sein, and the Czech být opilý, are all passive (lit. “be drunk”). The “diffuse substance” characteristic and its possible application to smoke probably explains the ambivalence “drink/smoke” that is observed in some languages.5 Indeed the term applies exactly to the inhalation of smoke and not to the other ways of consuming tobacco (pinch of snuff, chew). Extending to inanimate absorbents, “drink” also concerns all the granular, fibrous and porous matters that are likely to attract a liquid with which they are put in contact. What is less certain is the relation with “understand” (Arabic), which could be explained as being the result of a process of “mental absorption”? The link would then be rather comparable to the one observed between the two senses, whether literal or figurative, of the French term gober (“swallow (whole)”, fig. “believe”). As we said, the uncontrolled characteristic of absorption explains the possible extensions of “drink” in the sense of “receive, endure”, as they are illustrated notably in Hausa. Let’s note that French has, in similar situations, several expressions involving the verb prendre (take), which then cannot be put in the passive, but whose subject is eminently passive, whether it is animate (prendre un coup (receive a blow), prendre froid (catch cold), prendre de la bouteille “be getting on in years” (lit. “take bottle”), etc.) or inanimate (prendre feu (catch on fire), prendre la poussière (collect dust), etc.). This value “receive, endure” finally leads to two closely related fields through the dimensions of “excessiveness” and “capture” that it virtually involves. Hence the meaning of “endure to excess, suffer” which is illustrated in the French expressions boire la tasse (swallow a mouthful of water), boire le calice jusqu”à la lie (drain one’s cup to the dregs), etc. (see as well the figurative senses of trinquer (cop it) and déguster (be in for it)) and also maybe the meaning of “being charmed, captivated” in boire les paroles de quelqu’un (drink in sb’s words) and boire des yeux (lit. “drink with the eyes”). Concerning this last acceptation, it is probably not insignificant, that the philtre that is supposed to capture the feelings of the person it is administered to, is generally presented as a beverage. Finally we will go over the different meanings that have just been presented by illustrating them, for French, by the proxemies of boire (drink) as they were calculated by B. Gaume (see table 7).6 These proxemies show that fumer (smoke) (2789)

.  Concerning Gbaya, which has the polysemy “drink/smoke”, Y. Moñino (p.c.) points out an interesting physiological conception: “For the Gbaya, the path of water in the body is the same as the path of smoke: they go into the lungs and from there into the bladder. Solid food goes into the stomach and the intestines.” .  See note 4 above. The corpus from which the proxemies were calculated consists of about 10.000 verbs.

 Pascal Boyeldieu

is in this case extremely far from boire, but on the other hand prendre (take) (42), recevoir (receive) (43), supporter (bear) (61) and tolérer (stand) (69) are more or less close to it, as well as souffrir (suffer) (56) and endurer (endure) (57) (all these terms are, by the way, considered as synonyms of boire (drink) by the Dicosyn). The proximity is less clear for saisir (grasp) (292), comprendre (understand) (332), entendre (hear) (468) and captiver (capture) (415), séduire (seduce) (416), admirer (admire) (818).

Table 6.  Schematization of the extensions of boire (drink) boire (drink) “absorb a diffuse substance (± liquid)” absolute use diffuse substance = smoke extension to inanimate absorbent (earth, cotton, cloth, blotter, etc.) extension to mental absorption? extension of the uncontrolled nature of the absorption (in contrast with manger [eat])

> >

boire de l’alcool avec excès (drink alcohol to excess) fumer (smoke)

>

absorber (d’une matière) (absorb, of matter)

>

?comprendre (understand)

>

> subir avec excès, souffrir recevoir, subir (receive, (undergo to excess, undergo) suffer), cp.: ◆ of animate (Hausa 1–2), cp.: boire la tasse (swallow (prendre un coup/une claque) a mouthful of water) (receive a blow, a slap) boire un bouillon (take a (prendre froid/un rhume) tumble) (catch (a) cold) boire le calice jusqu’à la (prendre un coup de vieux) lie (drain one’s cup to the (become aged) dregs) (prendre de la bouteille) (be avoir toute honte bue getting on in years) (be beyond shame) (en prendre de la graine) (take (trinquer) ([cop it]) a leaf out of sb’s book) (déguster) ([be in for it]) ◆ of matter (Hausa 3), cp.: (prendre feu) (catch on fire) (prendre l’eau/la pluie/la poussière) (let in water, get caught in the rain, collect dust) > ?être charmé, captivé (be charmed, captivated) boire les paroles de quelqu’un (drink in sb’s words) boire des yeux (drink with the eyes)



From semantic change to polysemy 

Table 7.  Proxemies of boire (drink) and order numbers (B. Gaume) (boire de l’alcool avec excès) (drink alcohol to excess) *s’enivrer (get drunk) 3 *picoler (tipple) 4 *pinter (knock back) 5 *se soûler (get drunk) 7 *chopiner (tipple) 10 *s’alcooliser (become an alcoholic) 11 (fumer) (smoke) *aspirer (suck up) 45 *respirer (breathe) 59 inhaler (inhale) 116 priser (take snuff) 133 inspirer (inspire) 172 fumer (smoke) 2789 (boire) (drink) *boire (drink)   1 *s’abreuver (quench one’s thirst)   2 *absorber (absorb)   6 *s’imbiber (bec. soaked)   8 *étancher sa soif (quench one’s thirst) 16 *se désaltérer (quench one’s thirst) 17 *téter (suckle) 21 etc.

(absorber, d’une matière) (absorb, of matter) *absorber (absorb) 6 *s’imbiber (bec. soaked) 8 *pomper (pump) 9 *s’imprégner (become impregnated) 20 *éponger (mop) 68 engloutir (gobble up) 92 imbiber (soak) 217 imprégner (impregnate) 265 (? comprendre) (understand) saisir (take hold) gober (swallow whole) croire (believe) comprendre (understand) entendre (hear) (recevoir, subir) (receive, undergo) *prendre (take) *recevoir (receive) *supporter (bear) *tolérer (stand) subir (undergo)

292 324 325 332 468

42 43 61 69 80

(subir avec excès, souffrir) (undergo to excess, suffer) *souffrir (suffer) 56 *endurer (endure) 57 (? être captivé) (be captivated) captiver (captivate) 415 séduire (charm) 416 admirer (admire) 818

[N.B. The words preceded by * are given as synonyms of boire in the Dicosyn (Caen)]

 Pascal Boyeldieu

Appendix: Quoted languages and sources Arabic (classical) Bambara (Mande/Mali) Bantu (see Makonde, Swahili, Vili) Beja (Cushitic/Sudan) Dadjo-Sila (Eastern Sudanic/Chad) English Fongbe (Kwa/Benin) French

Fula (Atlantic/Western Africa) Gbaya (Ubangian/CAR) and proto-Gbaya German Hausa (Chadic/Nigeria) Inuit (Eskimo-Aleut/Groenland) Jinghpaw (Tibeto-Burman/Myanmar) Kasim (Gur/Burkina Faso) Laal (Adamawa?/Chad) Lahu (Tibeto-Burman/China) Makonde (Bantu/Tanzania) Moore (Gur/Burkina Faso) Mwotlap (Malayo-Polynesian/ Vanuatu) Nahuatl (Uto-Aztecan/Mexico) Ngbandi (Ubangian/CAR, DRC) Ngbugu (Ubangian/CAR) Sar (Central Sudanic/Chad) SBB (Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi) (Central Sudanic/Central Africa) (see Sar, Yulu) Swahili (Bantu/Eastern Africa) Vili (Bantu/Congo)

M. Vanhove: quotations from Dozy 1968, Kazimirski (1860) and O. Bencheikh (p.c.) E. Bonvini (p.c.) M. Vanhove: (p.c.) and quotations from Roper (1928) and V. Blažek (p.c.) P. Boyeldieu Onions (1966) E. Bonvini (p.c.) Le Nouveau Petit Robert Dictionnaire historique de la langue française Dictionnaire des synonymes (Dicosyn, Caen) Proxemies: B. Gaume (p.c., 2004, and http://dilan.irit.fr/) E. Bonvini (p.c.) Y. Moñino (p.c.) Kluge (1960) Gouffé (1966) N. Tersis (p.c.) Matisoff (1978) E. Bonvini (p.c.) P. Boyeldieu Matisoff (1978) S. Manus (p.c.) E. Bonvini (p.c.) A. François (p.c.) M.-N. Chamoux (p.c.) Lekens (1952) P. Boyeldieu Palayer (1992) Boyeldieu, Nougayrol & Palayer (2006) S. Manus (p.c.) Y. Moñino (p.c.)



From semantic change to polysemy 

Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan/Australia) Wolof (Atlantic/Senegal) Yulu (Central Sudanic/CAR, Sudan)

Hale, Laughren & Nash (1983–86), quoted from Wierzbicka (1992) E. Bonvini (p.c.) P. Boyeldieu

References Boyeldieu, P., Nougayrol, P. & Palayer, P. 2006. Lexique comparatif historique des langues sarabongo-baguirmiennes. [http://sumale.vjf.cnrs.fr/SBB/] Dictionnaire des synonymes (Dicosyn, Université de Caen). [http://elsap1.unicaen.fr/dicosyn. html] DiLan (Groupe de recherche pluridisciplinaire sur la modélisation en linguistique). [http:// dilan.irit.fr/] Dozy, R. 1968. (1st Ed. 1881). Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes. Beyrouth: Librairie du Liban. Gaume, B. 2004. Balades aléatoires dans les Petits Mondes Lexicaux. I3 Information Interaction Intelligence, 4(2). (http://www.revue-i3.org/volume04/numero02/revue_i3_04_02_02.pdf) Gouffé, C. 1966. “Manger” et “boire” en haoussa. Revue de l’Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales 3: 77–111. Greenberg, J.H. 1983. Some Areal Characteristics of African Languages. In Current Approaches to African Linguistics, vol. 1, I.R. Dihoff (Ed.), 3–21. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Hale, K.L., Laughren, M. & Nash, D. 1983–86. Warlpiri Dictionary. Unpublished drafts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kazimirski, A. de B. 1860. Dictionnaire arabe – français contenant toutes les racines de la langue arabe, leurs dérivés, tant dans l’idiome vulgaire que dans l’idiome littéral, ainsi que les dialectes d’Alger et de Maroc. Paris: Maisonneuve & Cie. Kluge, F. 1960. (1st Ed. 1883). Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co. Le Nouveau Petit Robert. 1993. Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert. Lekens, B. 1952. Dictionnaire ngbandi (Ubangi – Congo belge). Tervuren: Musée Royal du Congo Belge. Matisoff, J.A. 1978. Variational Semantics in Tibeto-Burman. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. Onions, C.T. (Ed.), 1966. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Palayer, P. 1992. Dictionnaire Sar-Français (Tchad). Paris: Geuthner. Rey, A. (dir.). 1992. Dictionnaire historique de la langue française. Paris: Le Robert. Roper, E.M. 1928. Tu Beḍawi7. An Elementary Handbook for the Use of Sudan Government Officials. Hertford: Stephen Austin. Wierzbicka, A. 1992. Semantics, Culture and Cognition, Universal Human Concepts in CultureSpecific Configurations. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

Université Paris X, Fédération TUL/CELIA (CNRS), Fédération TUL The article focuses on recurring semantic associations for the terms meaning “friend” in different genetic stocks. The data show a distinction between several semantic networks which partially overlap, and in which “friend” is linked to different terms designating the “other” in a dual relation. The presentation is threefold, according to the semantic associations of “friend” with the following semantic fields: proximity, complementarity, and opposition. The study is based on three types of semantic and formal links as attested in the data: synchronic polysemy, heterosemy (derivation, composition), historical depth (i.e., diachronic links when available). The typological approach also allows to back up some tricky cases of diachronic reconstructions, and to consider new semantic networks which were thought before as doubtful. Keywords:  complementarity; diachrony; duality; friendship; opposition; proximity; sharing; similarity

1.  Introduction This article is a contribution to a joint project which aims at describing systematically semantic analogies observed crosslinguistically both in synchrony and diachrony, i.e., isosemies (semantic relations shared by many languages, cf. Pottier 2001). It focuses on a number of recurring semantic associations for the terms meaning “friend” in different genetic stocks. “Friend” is used here as a generic metalinguistic concept, because it may be difficult to distinguish “friend” from “fellow”, “comrade”, “companion” and “mate” (Buck 1949: 1343). The notion of “friendship” (Greek philia, Latin amicitia) in Western philosophical, political and religious traditions partly intersects with that of “love” (Greek agapê), and is extremely complex. It has been widely commented since Antiquity (see the excellent overview in Rey 2005:  274–277). Recently, Wierzbicka (1997: chap. 1), dealt with the issue from an ethno-sociological and cultural point of view, discussing “friend”, and “friendship” in connection with related words in European languages. She insists on the “irreducible” semantic and pragmatic differences

 Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

between e.g., English friend and Russian drug. In spite of their great interest, these questions are beyond the scope of our survey.1 The main question which arises when faced with the crosslinguistic variety in the lexical and semantic fields organized around “friend”, as for any other concept, is to decide at which level the associations should be placed in order to use an undisputable methodological approach (see Hénault-Sakhno & Sakhno 2001; Hénault-Sakhno & Sakhno 2005; Robert 2007): 1.  The first possible level is that of immediate observable facts, either in synchrony, i.e., polysemy and derivation, or in recent diachrony (rather than remote etymologies), postulating links that seem “natural”. e.g., “Russian drug “friend” comes from drugoj “other”,” in which the semantic link could be glossed as “the “other one” which corresponds to drug is the one one should love and respect, i.e., traditionally the closest friend, the most faithful” (cf. Lat. alter ego or alter idem “other oneself ”); 2.  The second level concerns more theorized “intermediate” semantic relations: the most ancient meaning of the Russian root may not be “other” but rather “following”, if one accepts the assumed Indo-European remote etymology (I.-Eu. *dhroughos “companion” < *dh(e)reugh- “to follow; to help; to carry on (a military compaign)”); thus, “following” gave rise to the meanings of “other”, or “second”, or “friend”;2 3.  The third level is that of very abstract theorized semantic relations: the starting concept could be for instance “duality” and/or “complementarity”, which generates “other”, “second”, “friend”, but also “opposite”, and “deceit, lie”. Each level shows different granularity of the semantic associations and determines the direction of the semantic connections. Each level has its advantages and drawbacks. Here an attempt is made to overview the semantic data starting mostly from levels 1 or 2 and trying to access to level 3, as reflected in the organization of this paper. The language sample focuses mainly on languages of the Indo-European and Eskimo-Aleut genetic stocks. In addition, data were provided by our colleagues (research group “Typology of semantic associations”, CNRS) for some Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Amerindian, and Austronesian languages: Classical Arabic and Beja (Afro-Asiatic, Martine Vanhove), Kasem (Niger-Congo, Emilio Bonvini), Wolof (Niger-Congo, Loïc-Michel Perrin), Gbaya (Niger-Congo, Yves Moñino), Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi (Nilo-Saharan, Pascal Boyeldieu), Nahuatl (Uto-Aztec, MarieNoëlle Chamoux), Mwotlap, Mota, and Mwesen (Austronesian, Alexandre François).

.  For a few hints, see nevertheless section 2.3. .  However, the semantic chain is not clear. Is it “follower, who follows sb” > “companion, friend” or rather “following” > “second” > “other” > “friend”?



Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” 

Most of them are synchronic data, but for some of the languages, diachronic evidence could also be used. The Indo-European data were used within a diachronic perspective, and have been taken from Buck’s dictionary (1949), and Mallory & Adams’s (1997) as well as from the etymological dictionaries mentioned in the bibliography.3 For Inuit, as well as for the languages of the Eskimo-Aleut genetic stock (Yupik, and Aleut), the linguistic documents date back to the late 18th century, except for a few vocabulary lists collected in the 16th century by explorers and missionaries. This is the reason why the study of this language group has been led from a synchronic perspective using Inuit documents from Eastern Greenland, and compared with the other Inuit dialects and the Yupik languages drawn from the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary (Fortescue et al. 1994). The Eskimo and Inuit proto-forms suggested on the basis of the attested dialectal variants in this dictionary4 were also investigated. All these documents show a distinction between several semantic networks which partially overlap, and in which “friend” is linked, in a first approach, to different terms designating the “other” in a dual relation. Our presentation will be threefold according to the semantic associations of “friend” with the following semantic fields: proximity, complementarity, and opposition.

2.  “Friend” ~ “duality” ~ “proximity” A first type of semantic association associates “friend” with “other one”, “another” in a dual relationship which implies proximity or the sharing of relationships. Since the concept of “other” implies “the other one, another”, it may be associated with “one”, “(the first) one” and/or “the same one”, and more precisely with “the other one” as defined in relation to the individual in an exclusive binary relationship (cf. Latin alter as opposed to alius, Greek heteros in contrast with allos). The grammaticalization link ONE > OTHER is noted by Heine & Kuteva (2002: 223).

.  i.e., Chantraine (1968), Černyx (1993), Ernout & Meillet (1951), Partridge (1966), Pfeifer (1995), Rey (1994), Trubačev (1974–2003), Vasmer (Fasmer) (1986–1987). Hereafter the references to these dictionaries are not systematically cited. .  Abbreviations: apart from the usual and easily recognizable abbreviations such as I.-Eu. (Indo-European), we also use the following notations: pe: proto-Eskimo, pi: proto-Inuit, aay: Alutiiq Alaskan Yupik, cay: Central Alaskan Yupik, nsy: Naukan Siberian Yupik, csy: Central Siberian Yupik, spi: Seward Peninsula Inuit, nai: North Alaskan Inuit, wci: Western Canadian Inuit, eci: Eastern Canadian Inuit, gri: Greenlandic Inuit, ng: North Greenlandic.

 Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

2.1  “Friend” ~ “other” ~ “one of the two” This semantic association is attested in synchrony for several language stocks, and the classification below comes under our level 1 of analysis. –

In synchrony, Russian drug “friend” seems to establish obvious semantic and formal links with the adjective drugoj “other”, “second”, “different”, and “the other of two, the other side, opposite (riverbank)”, as well as with the reciprocal marker drug druga.

Drug “friend” has its own derivative paradigm: podruga “girl friend”, družba “friendship”, družit’ “to be friend with sb”, družeskij “friendly”, družina “trustis, a prince personal bodyguard”, dialectal družka “best man (at the wedding)”, sodružestvo “community”, outdated sam-drug “both together, together”.5 In old Russian, drugŭ “friend” was identical to the so-called “short” form (drugŭ) of the adjective drugŭi/drugoi “other” (> modern Russian drugoj), showing that drug “friend” and drugoj “other” are etymologically one and the same word. The link between drug “friend” and drug druga6 “each other” is used in Heine & Kuteva (2002:  91–92) to show the shift comrade > reciprocal. But the semantic shift may be more direct between the reciprocal marker and drugoj “other” (cf. Fr. l’un l’autre, Engl. each other), with a semantic shift “other” > “marker of the reciprocal”. – –

Similar facts can be found in other I.-Eu. languages: Breton keneil “companion”, from ken- “co-, with” and eil “other, second”, Old Irish cēle “friend; other” which seems to be related to old Welsh cilydd “friend” and to Welsh gilydd “each other (reciprocal)”. The data from Austronesian languages show similar heterosemies and semantic links: Mota:ˉtua “fellow, companion, assistant”, may be linked to tuara “some, someone; the other, another”; Mwotlap:ˉitan “the other of two; one … the other (in binary structure)”; tan “and”, is cognate with *tua-na “accomplice, companion”, cf. X tan e Y “X and Y = X his accomplice Y”.

.  An attempt to synthesize, in a readable format, the synchronic lexical data for this Russian root is made in Sakhno (2005: 88–89). .  The syntactic structure underlying the marker is not entirely grammaticalized: its second element may be in the accusative (druga), and also, depending on the predicate, in the genitive, dative, instrumental or locative, cf. Oni dumajut drug o druge (locative) “They think about each other”.





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Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” 

Mota val “to match, to set one against another; one, one of a pair; in all places, to every one; to stand opposite”; valu-i “a fellow, match, mate” (for the enantiosemic link, see below section 3.1). As for the Eskimo-Aleut stock, two proto-forms designate the “companion” as clearly referring as the “other of a pair”.

a. One of the proto-forms of PE, *a(C)ippar, reconstructed by Fortescue et al. (1994: 9) establishes the semantic value of “companion” as prevailing. The reconstructed meaning may be considered as a sort of “lowest common denominator” (Sweetser 1990: 24) to all the cognate forms. In Eastern Greenland, aappaq means “companion, other (of two), second, partner, spouse”, nutia-ata aappa-a /spouse-of+their/second-his/“his second wife”. This term is attested in the Yupik and Inuit domains with very closely related meanings: (aay) aipaq “companion, spouse, other”, (nsy) aypii “(the) second”, aypaqutaq “companion”, (spi) aippaq “companion, spouse, other of two”, (nai) aippaq “mate, other of two, co-wife”, (wci) aippaq “companion, spouse, other of two”, (gri) aappaq “companion, spouse, other of two”, (ng) (older) also aippaq “father of woman”; aippaxxaq “father of man”; note also aappar- “get married” (Fortescue et al. 1994: 9). b. The second proto-form pe *alәr is reconstructed with the meaning “other (of pair)” by Fortescue et al. (1994: 17), who also reconstruct a proto-cognate form for Yupik, PY alrapak with the meaning “partner”. The cognate forms and their derivatives in the Yupik languages refer to the notions of duality and friendship, with a semantic extension towards the concept of “placenta”: (aay) ałәq “(its) other, companion, placenta”, (cay) allәXpak “placenta”, (nsy) alraXpak “placenta”, (csy) alәq “other of pair, companion, afterbirth”, aalraq “other of cooperating pair of boats, hunting partner, another family in same clan”. In Inuit, the notion of friendship is not associated to the cognate forms: (spi) arlaaq “placenta, afterbirth”, (nai) alra (i) “other one of a pair”, alrlaaq “afterbirth”, (wci) alraq “afterbirth”, (eci) axxaak “placenta”, (gri) arła(r)- “one of them”, arłaaq “afterbirth”, (East Greenland) artarartit “several”.

 Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

2.2  “Friend” ~ ’follow, following” ~ “proximity” Looking now at etymological data as a starting point, i.e., our level 2, and if the I.-Eu. etymology for *dhroughos “companion”,7 from *dh(e)reugh- “to help; to follow; to carry on (a military campaign)” is correct, then it is necessary to study another important link of “friend” with “follow”. “Follow” is used here as a kind of “metaterm”, for verbs meaning “to follow” (cf. Engl. to follow, French suivre) which are often highly polysemous and can be interpreted as “to come, to go after sb/smth”; “to come close behind, to accompany, to attend sb/smth”; “to come, to move with sb/smth, in the same direction with sb”; and sometimes “to follow aggressively, to pursue”. –

–

–

–

In Slavic, the root drug- “other; friend” studied in the previous paragraph is also polysemous with “second” and “following”, e.g., Russian (colloquial) odin, drugoj, tretij … “one, second, third …”, na drugoj den” “the following day, the day after”.8 “Other” is commonly associated to “following (in time)” in other branches of I.-Eu., e.g., German am anderen Tage “the day after = on the other day” (ander “second > other”), Albanian (dialectal) tjatër/tjetër “other” and “following”. Russian vdrug “suddenly” refers to the immediate succession of two events (the second event being considered to be sudden, unexpected). This word dates back to the Old Russian phrase vŭ drugŭ “all of a sudden, all at once” (< “immediately moving on to the next phase, to the next event; both at the same time, all of a sudden”). The data in other Slavic languages confirm these semantic relations but also display some specific meanings and word formations. Below is a selective list: Bulgarian: drugar (m) “mate, companion, comrade; spouse”, drugarka (f) “girl friend; spouse”; drug “other, the other; different; the other of two, the other side,

.  I.-Eu. *dhroughos “companion” is allegedly linked to Old Norse drōtt “trustis”, drygja “to carry out”, Gothic driugan “to help each other on campaign, to do military service”, ga-drauht “warrior”, Old-High-German truht “trustis, escort, retinue (of a prince), crowd, multitude, people, army”; Old English ge-drēag “troop”, dreogan “lead a (certain) life, to work, to do; to take part in, to perform”, English to dree “undergo”, drudge “work hand, beast of burden (fig.)” and (as a verb) “to work hard”, drudgery “chore, unpleasant task” (Mallory & Adams 1997: 115–116). .  Cf. Ego ždali v sredu, a on priexal tol’ko na drugoj den’ “He was expected to come on Wednesday, but he came the following day = the day after (i.e., on Thursday)”. It can be compared to na vtoroj den’ “on the second day” which is more ambiguous and may mean “the day after the first day following the day of the expected event”, e.g., referring in the same context to Friday. Russian vtoroj (< *wi-ter-os “divided by two” > “separately”, or *h1on-ter-os, cf. Engl. other) is the most current term for “second”, while drugoj means “second” mostly in contexts of “binarity”, so the difference between drugoj and vtoroj “second” is somewhat similar to the one existing in French between second and deuxième.





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Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” 

opposite (side of a riverbank)”, bez drugo “without fail, absolutely”, drugiden “the day after tomorrow”, (dialectal) drugošen “old, previously, of the past”,9 edin drug “reciprocal marker” = “one-other”. High Sorabic: druhi “second; other, different” and “next” (druhi krόć “next time”), družina “retinue, escort, trustis; species (biological), kind”;10 družba “best man (at the wedding)”, drustwo “cooperative, trade guild”, druhdy “sometimes, from time to time”.11 Other roots that mean “following (in time and space)” also developed meanings such as “companion” and “friend”.

From the assumed I.-Eu. root *sekw- “to follow” one can reconstruct I.-Eu. *sokwh2-oi- “follower, companion” (Mallory & Adams 1997: 115): Latin sequi “to follow” with its derivatives: secundus “following; other; second”, secundum (preposition) “right after, following”, sectator “fellow traveller, accompanying person, supporter, friend” (cf. sectator domi “friend of the household”), secus “differently, in a different way”, socius “mate, companion, partner, accomplice, parent, brother, ally”; Among the French words that go back to Latin sequi and its family, one finds: second (noun, m) “friend, companion”, suivante (noun, f) “handmaiden”, second “second”, “other”; cf. also Middle French (14th century) suiant (adverbial) “at once”. Cf. also Greek aôsseô “to help”, Sanskrit sakhā-, Avestic haxā- “friend, companion”, Old English secg “the one who follows, follower”, Old Norse seggr “follower”. –





Other I.-Eu. terms based on other roots are semantically similar to those derived from *sekw- “to follow”, and they can be related to other genetic stock data, for which both synchronic polysemous items or diachronic semantic changes can be taken into account: Greek akoloutos “attendant, accompanying person, servant” (< a (copulative) “with” + keleuthos “path” < keleuein “to direct, to push towards”), hence French acolyte “confederate, associate”; Latin comes, -itis “companion” < com-ire “to go together”; Old English gefēra “fellow traveller” < faran “to go”, cf. German Gefährte “companion”.

.  Cf. French autre “other” and autrefois “formerly, once, in the past” (< autre + fois), l’autre jour “the other day, recently”. .  The meaning “kind” comes from “different”, cf. French variété “variety, diversity” and “kind, species”. .  As semantic parallel for the latter, cf. Russian inogda “sometimes”, from inoj “one; other” + *gda when”.

 Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

Classical Arabic: ṣaḥiba (middle verb) 1. “to accompany sb”. 2. “to be sb’s companion, friend”. 3. “to carry sth., carry sth with o.s.”; ṣāḥib (active participle) 1. “companion, friend”. 2. “other, others (with whom one finds himself by accident)”.12 In Mwesen (Austronesian), one finds le tuar to “next year = the other year”, and tuar is related to the Mota word tua “friend, fellow” (cf. § 1.1). The PE proto-form *alәr “other (of pair)” studied in section 1.1. (Fortescue et al. 1994: 17), is also relevant here as contextual uses of the cognate forms in Yupik and Inuit can express the notion of following, of proximity. With the addition of a locative affix, the notion of temporal proximity is attested in some dialectal zones of Yupik and Inuit, e.g.,: (cay) ałXaγni “last year”, (gri) arlaani “last year”, arlaaγu “next year” (Fortescue et al., 1994: 17). –





A quite interesting semantic configuration, which involves facts of polysemy and heterosemy, and cumulates some of the different meanings mentioned above, occurs in Kasem (Niger-Congo).13 A root conventionally represented as dV- seems to be linked to a whole range of forms referring to notions such as “companion, mate”, “duality”, “association”, “follow”, “to be together”, “at once”, “unicity”, etc.: - dōŋ (sg.)/dōōnә̄ (pl.) (N.) “other, other one, other person; similar, double; of the same age, mate, pal, chum”. - dā (V.) “to follow, go/come in a certain direction, go all over, run through; pass by, go through; to go/come close behind sb, to track, to trail, to tail sb; to conform to sth”. - dὶ (V.) “to pursue, to chase, to run after sb, to track down, to hunt down”. - dὶdυ̌ ~ dὶdwɩ̌ ~ dὶdὺā (N.: according to the nominal class) “one, only one, uniqueness, unicity”. - bὶdwɩ̌ (adv.) “once, unique; same, identical; at once, immediately, directly”. - dā ~ rā ~ dāānī (adv.) “together, one with another, jointly; mutually, reciprocally, reciprocal marker; all together, all at once, without distinction, indiscriminately”.

2.3  Etymological discussion How can the semantic link between “friend” and “proximity” be accounted for, when postulating the intermediary stage “duality”? Such a question clearly comes under our level 3 of analysis, which is methodologically the most debatable. However, the abovementioned typological data from various language stocks may help understanding some difficult cases of Indo-European reconstruction, namely for Latin etymology.

.  Among other meanings. .  And also some meanings discussed below, see section 2.1.



Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” 

It is known that the etymology of Lat. amīcus “friend” is debatable. In archaic Latin, the form was ameicus, amecus (Ernout & Meillet, 1951: 29). It has been related long ago to amare “to love”, cf. Greek philos “dear > friend” (Ernout & Meillet 1951: 28); amare, which has the form of a denominative, is thought to be a popular expressive word, to be related to amma “mummy”, amita “aunt on the father’s side”. But according to other etymologists (Pisani 1967: 135), this word has to be split up into am-īcus, -īcus being a suffixal element, and to be related to the prefix-preposition amb-, am-, ambi-, ambe-, an- “on each side of; next to; around”, related to I.-Eu. *a(m)bhi, *ambhō “on both sides, around”. Indeed there are similar formations in Latin, cf. antīcus (> antiquus) “earlier, previous; ancient”, post-īcus “posterior, rear”. The same prefix is found in Latin anculus “servant (male)”, ancilla “servant (female)” (Pisani 1967:  143), which recalls of Greek amphipolos “servant” and of Gallo-Latin ambactus “who walks about > servant > vassal, companion” (a form to which go back Engl. ambassador, Fr. ambassadeur, German Amt “service, administration” and, more remotely, Russian jabeda “telltale, informer”). The I.-Eu. prototype is *ambhi + *kwel “who walks about”. In Breton, one finds amezeg “neighbour” < *ambi + *nes “close to”. However, Latin amb- (am-, ambi, ambe-) “around, next to” is linked to ambo (f. ambae) “both, both of them”. Contrary to its synonym uterque, this Latin word implied a spatial and temporal association. The Latin data can be compared to the following I.-Eu. related forms: a. Greek amphô, Lithuanian abiem “both”, German beide “both”, bei “near, by” and um “about”, Engl. both, by, Russian oba “both” (< common Slavic *ob “in close proximity; around”, variants *obĭ, *obi, *obŭ, and *oba “both, both together”); b. Sanskrit abhi, Greek amphi, Gothic um-bi “close to, around (< on both sides)”, German bei “near, by” and um “about”. The Greek phrase oi amphi tina “those who are close to sb” = “retinue, adepts, companions, followers of sb; warriors, men of sb” provides an excellent parallel to Latin am-īcus. As for the meaning of “proximity”, an I.-Eu. reconstructed word *hxēpis “companion, confederate” is semantically similar to am-īcus (taking into account the remote hypothetical etymology of the latter), if explained as a nominalization of *h1epi “upon, near, next to; opposite to” (cf. Gr. epi “upon”): cf. Sanskrit āpi- “ally, friend, acquaintance”, āpitvam ’friendship, confederation” (Mallory & Adams 1997: 116). Thus, considering the converging crosslinguistic data mentioned above which show similar types of polysemy and semantic change, Pisani’s etymology concerning Latin seems to be the most convincing one.

2.4  “Friend” ~ “sharing” Considering etymological and synchronic data in both I.-Eu. and Eskimo-Aleut, the “companion” can be considered as the one who shares. This is suggested for instance by

 Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

a word of a very close lexical field: Fr. partenaire, Engl. partner, from Ancient French parçuner “an associate” (< Lat. partitio “sharing, division”), Gothic gadaila “companion”, from daila “partnership, fellowship”, dailjan “share” (cf. Engl. to deal). –

–

One can share food, bread with someone else, hence French compagnon “companion”, copain “friend, mate, boyfriend”, copine “girlfriend”, Engl. companion, from Lat. com-panio “who eats his bread with sb”. Cf. also Greek syntrophos “one brought up together with”, hence “foster-brother” and “companion”, linked to trephein “to feed” (+ syn- “with”), Gothic gahlaiba “companion” derived from hlaifs “bread”, English mate, from Middle Low German mate, māt “messmate > companion”, linked to meat “food > edible flesh”, Welsh cyfaill “friend” akin to Old Irish comalta “foster-brother”, from alim “nourish, rear”. But one can also share with sb “cattle”, “livestock”, hence “wealth, property” (the link between the two notions is well known in I.-Eu., cf. Mallory & Adams 1997: 23).

Russian tovarišč “companion, comrade, mate” is probably related to tovar “merchandise” from Old Russian tovarŭ “military camp; military train, goods train; property, wealth”, a loan from Turkic languages; cf. Bulgarian tovar “load, burden”, tovarač “one who unloads, packer”; Turkic tovar/tavar “property, cattle, merchandise” (related to Turkish davar, Nogaï tuvar, Bashkir tawar “merchandise, material”); English fellow14 “mate, companion; member, associate” is “the one who pools the wealth with sb”, from Old Norse fēlagi “partner”, hence “comrade” < Old Norse fēlag “lying (-lag) together of property ( fē)”, hence “partnership”. Cf. Old Norse fē “cattle”, hence “property, money”, Old Engl. feoh “cattle; property”, Engl. fee “heritable estate; charge; monetary compensation”; German Genosse “companion, comrade, follower, mate” (< “the one who owns the cattle together with sb”), related to German geniessen “to enjoy (the use of), to make the most of; savour”, nutzen “to use (wealth, property, etc.)” and to Old-High-German nōz “useful property; cattle”, cf. Old Norse naut “useful property; cattle, oxen”, Engl. neat “oxen (collectively)”. –

On the other hand, “companion” may also be linked to “animal grazing in the same herd, animal which is part of the herd”.

Latin gregalis (< grex “herd”) “animal grazing in the same herd; mate”; Lat. gregarius “(animal) which is part of the herd; who is part of the troops (about soldiers)” (> Fr. grégaire, Engl. gregarious, egregious, aggregation, congregation);

.  Not related to follow.



Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” 

Greek synnomos “animal grazing with another one; mate; spouse”, from nemô “to share, deal, attribute; graze, graze a herd; enjoy; live in”, cf. nomê “grazing; sharing”, nomos “pasture; fact of living in; region”.15 –

The sharing could refer to different elements of daily life: the activity related to rearing, the working place, lodging.

“Room-sharing” explains other words which mean “companion, mate”: Engl. comrade, French camarade “mate”, from Spanish camarada “chamberfellowship”, hence “chamber fellow” (< Latin camera “chamber, room”, Danish stalbroder “companion” (< “place, stall + brother”), German Geselle “companion” (< OldHigh-German gisello “roommate”, related to Saal < *sal- “shelter, house, premises”, cf. Russian selo “village, countryside”). In English, a slurring of chamber fellow produces chum “companion, mate”. –



Similar semantic associations are found in the Inuit data. In western Greenland, there is a very productive affix -qat(i) “together” (PI: *qan (qatә) “companion (at doing sth.)”, (Fortescue et al. 1994: 421), which enables, by derivation, the creation of terms that designate a friendship based on a shared action or state (Lowe 1984: 175; De Colombel & Tersis 2002: 49): atiwa-qat/go to school-together.sg/“classmate”, suti-qat/work-together.sg/“colleague”, nutiakkaa-qat/woman-together.sg/“(girl)ˉfriend”, miqsiqti-qat/child-together-sg/“childhood companion”.

Besides, a specific term, ikiŋŋut, designates the “childhood friend with whom one has been brought up”, cf. PI: *әkәŋŋun or *ikәŋŋun “friend (from childhood)” (Fortescue et al. 1994: 103). In Yupik, another affix, reconstructed as PY-S *lγun “fellow (one sharing s.th. with one)” is used with similar shades of meaning and semantic extensions as PI: *qan (qatә): (aay) lγun “fellow-”, (cay) lγun “one having the same”, (nsy) lγute “companion at  –ing”, (csy) lγun “one with same”,

.  Akin to this lexical family, Greek nemesis “retribution; righteous anger” (linked to Albanian nëmë “curse”, Irish namhaid “enemy”, Buck 1949: 1345) is quite interesting because of an enantiosemic relation which is similar to the data below, section 3.

 Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

Moreover, the Yupik Dictionary (Jacobson 1984) mentions two terms for which “friend” is the one who shares food or the place to sleep:

naruyaq “very close friend (not a relative)”; cf. naruyake- “to share food with” (Jacobson 1984: 252), teruluk “friend”, cf. teru “foot of bed or bedding area; bed partner with his body heading in the opposite or the perpendicular direction” (Jacobson 1984: 370).

3.  “Friend” ~ “duality” ~ “similarity” ~ “complementarity” Another productive semantic network connects the terms meaning “friend” with the notions of similarity or of complementarity in the sense of belonging to a whole, be it belonging to a family or to a social group.

3.1  “Friend” ~ “similar” Various genetic stocks, but not I.-Eu., show a formal and semantic link between “friend” and the notions of identity or of similarity, even of twinship: –

– –

–

Nahuatl: -CNE- “friend; brother, sister; compatriot” = “what/the one who is the same, similar”; -coa- “twin; anything double, duality”. The term was borrowed in Mexican Spanish cuate “friend, pal”, cuatismo “friendly contacts (in politics)”. Gbaya (Niger-Congo): dàn “friend” > bé-dàn “twin” (lit. “child-friend”). In Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi (SBB) languages, a word *mada “other; similar; fellow, friend, companion” is reconstructed, and in Yulu the cognate form is polysemous with the reciprocal marker as well: lot “another, neighbour, mate, companion, colleague, of the same age, partner; each other (reciprocal)” and “opponent” (for the enantiosemic link, see below, section 3). The case of Kasem is more complex, as already mentioned in section 1.2, because the lexical root dv- has a whole range of meaning, but what is of interest here is that one of the derived forms also show the association between “friend” and “similar”: dōŋ (sg.)/dōōnә̄ (pl.) (N.) “other, other one, other person; similar, double; of the same age, mate, pal, chum”.

3.2  “Friend” ~ complementarity The term “friend” seems to be linked to the notion of “part of a whole”, thus, “complementarity” in several language stocks. –

In Eastern Greenland iaqat “friend, companion” is to be analysed as ia-qat/part of sth-together.sg/. The lexical root ita- or ia- “part of a whole, piece” (PE: *ila(-)





–

Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” 

“part” and “to add”, Fortescue et al. 1994: 126) results in derivative series in Yupik and in Inuit. Below are some instances in Eastern Greenland: ita- (ia-) “part of sth, piece, relative, companion, expression of otherness: one, the other”, ita-a /part-his/“occupant of the community house where several families lived”, ita-a … ita-a /part-his/………./part-his/“one ……….the other”, niqi-p ita-a /meat-of part-his/“piece of meat”, ita-ngiq-puq //part-remove-ind.3sg//“he removes a piece”, itaqutaq /part.associate.sg/“family member”, ita-qqip-puq //part-add-ind.3sg//“he adds sth., increases, exaggerates”, itaaq-Nutii-waa //to add-about-ind.3sg.3sg//“he makes fun of him”, iaqat /part of sth-together.sg/“companion, friend”, iaqatii-waa //part.be together-ind.3sg.3sg//“he accompanies him/her”, itaa-wuq //part-his-ind.3sg//“he is a passenger (boat, plane), he is part of sth.”, itaaq-tiq-paa //to add-factitive-ind.3sg.3sg//“he darns, he adds a piece to a garment”. The Yupik and Inuit languages also attest similar semantic networks: (aay) ila “part (of), relative”, “to add”, (cay) ila “part (of), relative, associate”, “to add”, (nsy) ila “friend”, “to add”, (csy) ila “part (of), relative, friend”, “to add”, (spi) ila “relative, companion”, “to add”, (nai) ilya “part (of), relative, companion”, “to add, get a new participant”, (wci) ila(k) “part (of), relative, piece”, ilaa- “to add”, (eci) ila “part (of), relative, piece”, “to add piece to garment”, (gri) ila “part (of), relative, companion”, “to add, increase, exaggerate, get another helping” (Fortescue et al. 1994: 126).

Two African languages also bear witness of the notion of complementarity associated to “friend”: –

–

Wolof: xarit b- “friend” and xarit w- “detached piece of something” (from xar w- “piece; portion”) [b-: classifier of agent nouns/w-: classifier of nouns beginning with/w/]. In Beja, raw means “other; companion” and “rests (of food)”, a word probably linked with araw “friend, companion; honest”.

 Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

3.3  “Friend” ~ “one’s own” ~ “the familiar one” –

–





If one considers very abstract semantic relations (our level 3), several I.-Eu. facts must be pointed out. Here is one of the best-known: Greek hetairos “mate, companion”, hetaira “(girl) friend, mistress, courtesan” < *se-t-, from I.-Eu. *se (but not from *sew-/*swe, Chantraine 1968:  380). This I.-Eu. root implied not only “the individual’s belonging to a social group” but also “isolation, separation”, cf. Lat. se (acc. and Abl. of sui, reflexive pronoun), related to Latin se(d)- prefix of “separation”; Russian -sja postfix of the reflexive and the reciprocal, po-setit’ “to visit sth, sb”. A parallel must be drawn between this enantiosemic fact and what will be noted below (section 3) about the relation “friend” ~ “opposition”. Moreover cognate words deriving from a different, but phonetically closed, I.-Eu. root *swe- “one’s own” are also related to the “one’s own, familiar one” semantic field: Greek hêlix “mate, companion (of the same age)”, probably from *swe-l-, cf. hêlikia “youngsters of the same age fit to be warriors” (Buck 1949: 1346). Greek etês/hêtes “companion”; (in the plural: ) “mates who belong to the same social group; citizen” (< *swe-t- < *swe- “his own”, Chantraine 1968:  380),16 cf. Russian svat “relative by marriage”, svobodnyj “free” (< “belonging to one’s own family”; it indicates the legal position of an individual who is a full-fledged member of the community), Latin suetus “usual”, but also the “stranger considered as a one’s own, as belonging to the community” as in Lithuanian sve˜čias, svety˜s “guest; (former) stranger”, and Lettish svešs “guest; stranger”; Latin sodalis “friend, mate, fellow traveller, colleague, accomplice” (< *swe-dh- “to make sth one’s own.”, Ernout & Meillet 1951: 950); Dialectal Russian sjabër, Byelorussian sjabar “neighbour, relative; companion, friend” < proto-Slavic *sembr-, from *sem-r- “family, household, village” (Vasmer 1987: t.1, 824); cf. Russian semja “family”, German Heim “household, house”, Lithuanian kaimynas “neighbour”, old Icelandic heimr “house; world”. All these forms are thought to date back to I.-Eu. *kˆoimos “household, village” < “enclosed place where the clan sleeps”, also reconstructed as *kˆeiw-, *kˆiw- “household, village as social unit”, probably from *kˆei- “those that sleep together” < “to lie, to be prostrate”.

The latter I.-Eu. root is linked to I.-Eu. *k̂eiwos/*k̂iwos “belonging to the household”, hence “friendly, intimate, dear”, cf. Latin civis “citizen. The particular semantic development that led to the meaning in Latin may be explained by the use of this term as a

.  No link with heteros “one of the two; other” (< *sṃ-teros “one + differential suffix”, Chantraine 1968: 381), cf. Gothic sun-dro “aside”, German sonder “aside”, Lat. al-ter “one of the two; other”.



Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” 

form of mutual address among members of the same community, e.g., the use of terms meaning “comrade, companion” (Russian tovarišč, German Genosse, etc.) among citizens of the former Soviet Union and of its East-European satellites such as the former GDR. As for Engl. friend (< Old Engl. frēond “friend”), the word goes back to I.-Eu. *prihxos “of one’s own”, hence “dear”, “love” and “free”, cf. Old English frēod “love”, frændi “relative, friend”, frēogan/frīgan “to love”, Engl. free, German Freund “friend” (cf. Gothic frijōnd-, Present Participle of frijōn “to love” < I.-Eu. prihx-eha- “to love”, a denominative verb), Sanskrit priyā “spouse”, Russian prijatel’ “friend”. It has been argued that *prihxos “of one’s own” may be a derivative of *pēr “house” (attested in Hittite pēr “house”, thus “of one’s household”, although this word may be of non-I.-Eu. origin). As is the case of Latin līber “free” and Greek eleutheros “free” (< “of lawful birth”), it indicates the legal position of an individual who is a full-fledged member of the ethnic community in contrast to outsiders or people subdued into servitude by war (Mallory & Adams 1997: 214, 358).

4.  “Friend” ~ “duality” ~ “opposition” A third series of semantic associations goes in another direction. It illustrates how, within duality, these associations switch from a relationship of proximity to a more distant, remote, even opposite relationship between the partners of a pair. Enantiosemic facts show that the link “duality” ~ “proximity” in connection with “friend” can be extended to “duality” ~ “opposition” and “enemy”.

4.1  “Friend” ~ duality ~ “enemy” –

–

In this connection, it is interesting to remind here the Yulu (SBB) form mentioned in section 2.1, which shows a clear case of synchronic enantiosemy between the notions of “friend” and “enemy” via “other”: lot “another, neighbour, mate, companion, colleague, of the same age, partner; each other (reciprocal)”, and “opponent”. Eskimo-Aleut also bears witness of this enantiosemy in synchrony, as attested in Yupik in the aay variety: (aay) iŋlu “other (of pair), mate, adversary”.

Other dialects of Yupik have favoured one or the other meaning, either in the direction of proximity or of distance: (cay) iŋlu “other (of pair), enemy, opponent”, (nsy) inlu “the other side of ”, (csy) iŋlu “one of a pair, half, partner, spouse”.

 Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

In the Inuit dialects, the precise meaning is rather “two halves of a couple or of objects which go by pair” (e.g., toast and coffee). Some varieties have also developed forms with other meanings, all related to proximity, not to distance or opposition: (spi) iγ lu “other of pair, other side”, (nai) iγ lyu “other of two”, (wci) iγ lu “one of a pair”, (eci) illu “one of a pair”, (gri) iłłu(k) “one of, other of two, other side, dance partner, end of twisted sinew, slice of bread to eat with tea or coffee” (Fortescue et al. 1994: 136). The cognate forms were reconstructed for PE as *iNlu “other (of pair)”, and related to the distal demonstrative root *iN- “away from speaker on level and restricted” and lu(r) “place or thing for performing action” by Fortescue et al. (1994: 136). –

The Austronesian data is also relevant here, because the synchronic data is related to a proto-form which shows a clear case of enantiosemy between “friend” and “enemy”:

Mota val “to match, to set one against another; one, one of a pair; in all places, to every one; to stand opposite”; valu-i “a fellow, match, mate”, Mwotlap iplu~ “friend, mate, companion”, vel “each”, vulu “to answer” are both cognates of proto-Austronesian *baliw “dual division, answer, oppose, opposite part; friend, partner; answer, friend, enemy, repay, revenge, mourn”.

4.2  Etymological discussion The above typological data from three different language stocks add further arguments for the etymology of “friend” in I.-Eu., already discussed in section 1.3. Although synchronically Greek amphis “on both sides, around; next to, by; about” and “separately” has no semantic link with “friend”, it is interesting to note the enantiosemy, and its formal relationship with amphô “both”, amphi- “on both sides, around; next to”, which are hypothetically linked to Lat. amīcus (see above 1.3). It recalls of the enantiosemic relation between hekastos “each” and hekas “far from” (from the I.-Eu. root *swe-, see above, section 2.2). Slavic shows similar facts. In old Russian, the prefix *ob- (akin to Latin amb- which may explain amīcus “friend”, see above 1.2) accounts for obĭščĭnikŭ ’co-participant, accomplice, co-leader, companion, friend”,17 derived from obĭčii/obĭščii (< *obĭ-tj- “surrounding, all around < located on both sides”) meaning “common, conjoined; general; identical” and, in a seemingly unexplainable manner, “foreign, other”. Among derived words of the same family in Russian, one finds obščij “common, general”, obščina “old

.  The word may have been calqued on Greek, because first Old Slavonic texts were mainly translated from Greek, cf. Greek koinônos “companion, ally” < koinos “common”.



Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” 

rural community; social or ethnic group”, obščestvo “society”. As for Polish obcy, which dates back to a similar Slavic formation, it means “foreign, unknown, strange”. Thus, “friendship” is linked on one hand to “association, proximity, similarity”, as shown in the previous section, and on the other hand to “opposition”.

4.3  “Duality” ~ “opposition” ~ “enemy” In Eskimo-Aleut, other semantic associations linked to the concept of duality are quite significant for the semantic extensions of the notion of duality, although they are far beyond the strictly defined semantic field of “friend” which was the starting point of our discussion. Such is the case for the PE root: *aki(-) which is reconstructed by Fortescue et al. (1994: 11) with the meanings of “(thing) opposite”, or “answer” (which may have a link with the demonstrative roots *aγ- “away from speaker on level, extended”, and *akәm- “away from speaker on level, obscured”, Fortescue et al. 1994: 11), and which also often means “other side (of)” in many a language. The different cognates of this proto-form show some semantic homogeneity in the sense that they all refer to the notion of duality, of compensation for something, but in this case, the “other” is not a peer any more but the “opponent”, the “enemy”, e.g., in Yupik: (aay) aki “other side (of)”, “to reciprocate, fight back”, aki(q) “coin, money”, akiqłiq “opponent”, (cay) aki “equivalent, value, price, response”, “other side of ”, “to reciprocate, answer, take revenge”, aki(q) “coin”, (nsy) aki “value, price, sth. to exchange”, “to take revenge, reciprocate, reward”, as positional root “other side (of)”, (csy) aki “equivalent, price, money” “to reciprocate”, as positional root “other side (of)”, akitә- “to answer, take revenge”. In the Inuit domain one finds: (spi) aγ i “money”, “to take revenge”, as positional root “across from”, (nai) aki “cost, price, value”, “to respond”, as positional root “opposite side (of)”, (wci) aki “payment, price”, as positional root “other side (of)” akiraq “adversary”, (eci) aki “cost, side platform in snow house where lamps are kept”, “to answer, revenge oneself ”, as positional root “other side (of)”, akiraq “enemy”, (gri) aki “price, cost, front platform in traditional house”, “to answer”, as positional root “other side (of)” (Fortescue et al. 1994: 11). In Eastern Greenland, the following phrases or derivations are attested:

aki- “opposite side of sth.”, aki-a-ni /other side-his-locative/“on the other side of sth”, aki-wuq//to answer-ind.3sg//“he answers”, akiNaq /enemy.sg/“opponent, enemy” = “the one who answers”, akiq “price, exchange, compensation for sth”,

 Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

–

–



akisiq “platform used as a bed located opposite the entrance of a traditional house, bed-head, pillow”, akisip-puq//to be shiny-ind.3sg//“it is glittering (reflection of light), it is white”. The Eastern Greenland data can be compared to I.-Eu. data displaying similar semantic associations between the semantic domains of opposition, compensation (e.g., price, answer, reflection): Russian protiv “against”, naprotiv “in front of ”, etymologically related to Latin pretium “price” (> French prix). Sanskrit prati “back, toward”, prati-vac- “answer”, related to Russian protiv “against”. Latin replicare “to reflect (sun rays)”; “to reject, to return”; “to fold up”, and juridical sense “to answer sharply to an objection” (> French répliquer, angl. reply). English answer, from old-English andswaru (and “against” + swaru “to swear, take an oath”).” The Austronesian data is helpful to understand the semantic link between almost all the notions discussed above. The diachronic data obviously cumulates the various senses of the different derivative formations attested in the different languages, contrary to the approach of Fortescue et al. for Eskimo-Aleut who favour a common meaning for one proto-form. As a matter of fact, proto-Austronesian *baliw, contrary to Eskimo-Aleut and I.-Eu., bears also the notion of “friendship” in addition to those of “duality”, “proximity”, “opposition”, “compensation”: *baliw “dual division, answer, oppose, opposite part; friend, partner; answer, friend, enemy, repay, revenge, mourn”.

4.4  Etymological discussion All the above mentioned data may account for a possible ancient link in Proto-IndoEuropean between *dhroughos “friend, companion”, and *dhreugh-/*dh(e)reugh“deceive; untrue, deceit, lie”, even if the semantic distance may seem too important (Mallory & Adams 1997:  116). The root *dhreugh- “deceive” can be illustrated by Avestic družaiti “he lies, deceives”, Sanskrit druh- “injure, harms, be hostile to”, Old Norse draugr “ghost, spectre”, Old-High-German triogan “deceive”, German (be)trügen “deceive”, Engl. dream, German Traum “dream”. If admitting an underlying root *dhreugh-/*dh(e)reugh- “to follow; to help; to carry on (a military campaign)”, three chains of semantic evolutions are possible: a. “to follow” > “to follow close behind sb, to stick close to sb” > “to be a second member/item in a relationship” > “to be a secondary, an unessential item” > “shadow”, “shade”, “ghost”18 > “lie, deceit” and “false vision” > “dream”;

.  Cf. as “inversed” semantic parallel in English and French due to metaphorization of



Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” 

b. “to follow” > “mate, partner, companion” > “a second one” > “an opposite one” > “lie, deceit”, etc.; c. “to follow” > “to follow close behind sb, to stick close to sb” > “to be a second member/item in a relationship” > “duality’> “doubt” > “deceit”, etc. The third shift seems to us the most convincing for cultural and philological reasons. As shown by E. Benveniste, “duality” is linked to such negative meanings as “fear”, “doubt”, because I.-Eu. *dwei- “two” explains Greek deido (< de-dwoi-a, Perfect) “I fear”, Latin dubitare “to doubt” (> Engl. doubt, Fr. douter “to doubt” and redouter “to fear”), German zweifeln “to doubt” kindred to zwei “two” (Benveniste 1966: 294–295). Other semantic parallels can be added such as Greek amphibolia “difficult situation; ambiguity, doubt”, with the element amphi-“on both sides, around; next to, by; about” (akin to amphô “both”, seen above), and Engl. deuce “the 2-pipped side of a dice, a cast of 2, a 2-spotted card”, hence “bad luck, devil”, from Old French deus < Latin duo “two” (Partridge 1966: 171).19

5.  Conclusion The semantic networks developed around the words meaning “friend”, “companion” in a sample of languages (which would need to be enlarged) belonging to various genetic stocks, lead us to two final types of remarks. First, the data brings to the fore universal semantic associations of “friend” which link the concepts of duality, of complementarity, and of proximity (more or less close). But these universal associations do not account for all the details of the semantic links, or for the particular polysemies, heterosemies and semantic changes. It is also necessary to take into account cultural factors of the societies concerned. “Duality” (i.e., the existence of symmetric or opposite pairs) and “complementarity” (i.e., the conception of society as a whole, with different parts added, each of them being linked to the whole) are two concepts particularly active in several societies. The example of the Eskimo domain is particularly relevant in this instance. The concept of duality seems to have great resonance in Inuit and Yupik where both the nominal and verbal morphology have dual markers in addition to the plural,

“shadow” (He follows me like a shadow, suivre qqn comme son ombre): to shadow smb “to follow smb (as does a detective)”, shadow “inseparable companion” (same sense for Fr. ombre). .  Furthermore, at a more general semiotic level, an excellent literary parallel is provided by the famous Russian writer Fedor Dostoevsky in his novel Dvojnik “The Double”: the main character, Goliadkin, is followed by an “other himself ”, a kind of malefic shadow acting both as a companion and as an opponent, an enemy.

 Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

except in Greenland where the dual is only residual, e.g., in Inuktitut (Eastern Canadian Arctic): inuk “human being”, inuuk “two human beings”, inuit “human beings”. The dual implies not only a pair but also a mutual relationship, a symmetry and a complementarity as de Reuse’s analysis (2000: 268–282), based on the Siberian Yupik examples, clearly shows: dual is used to mark things that go by pairs (body parts, mittens, boots, twins, couple …), as well as objects with symmetric parts (pants, scissors) or objects that have only one part but which are delimited by parallel lines or which delimit the body with parallel lines (boxes, anorak) and finally an object’s container like a water recipient, or something’s reflection, echo or spiritual entity. In the Inuit continuum, there also is a very productive affix -ŋiit (-Niit) that means “pair, mutual relationship” and which enables to create associations by only referring to one of the partners of the pair: nutia-Niit /spouse-pair+pl/ “married couple”, paniŋiit /daughter-pair+pl/ “mother and daughter”. The second remark concerns the fruitful insight that typological studies can bring in order to back up some tricky cases of diachronic reconstructions, or even to consider new semantic networks which were thought before as doubtful. The discussions concerning the etymology of the word meaning “friend” in Latin (section 1.3) and the possible connections of proto-I.Eu roots designating a “friend” and a “deceit, lie” (section 3.4) are significant instances in this respect. In some cases, the diachronic analysis seems to be favoured by the strong derivative nature of the language which enables to isolate, in many instances, a lexical root with a rather global meaning that is specified by adding different affixes (Tersis & Mahieu 2006; Tersis 2008). A same stem is used as a common denominator for a whole series of lexical items that refer to various realities. Such is the case of the Inuit language. An important outcome of the strong motivation of the lexicon concerns its evolution: it seems to slow down the semantic shifts insofar as the change of meaning is often accompanied by a formal change. But apart from the derivative series, it is not always easy to determine the direction of the semantic change: should one postulate “companion” > “other of a pair” > “spouse”, or rather “other of a pair” > “partner” or rather “part of sth.” > “relative” > “companion”? The table below is a somewhat simplified summary of the semantic parallelisms attested in the language sample surveyed for this study. It gives information on the type of semantic and formal links attested in the data: synchronic polysemy, heterosemy (derivation, composition), historical depth (i.e., diachronic links when available). Table 1 leaves aside the cases of enantiosemy between “friend” and “enemy”, “proximity” and “opposition”, but it is important to underline that such an enantiosemic pattern is attested in synchrony in the language sample. Table 1 does not account either for certain specific semantic extensions towards “placenta”, on one hand, and the notion of compensation, on the other hand. The latter

I: H *alәr

I: P *a(C)ippar Y: P *alәr

A: P ṣaḥiba

K: H dV-

Y: H *lγun (affixe) I: H *-qan (affixe) Y: H “sharing food, housing, activity”

I.Eu: D “sharing food, cattle, housing”

“friend”/“sharing”

N: H -CNE-

Yu: P lot

G: H dàn

K. P dV- (dōŋ)

“friend”/ “similar”

Be: P raw

W: P xarit

I: P *ila(-)

Y: P *ila(-)

“friend”/ complementarity I.Eu: D *swe I.Eu: D *prihxos

“friend”/ “one’s own”

Yu: P lot

P: D *baliw

Y: P iNlu

“friend”/ duality/ opposition

Abbreviations: D diachronic link – H heterosemy – P polysemy. Languages: A (classical) Arabic – AA Afro-Asiatic – Austr. Austronesian – B Breton – E.A Eskimo-Aleut – G Gbaya – I Inuit – I.Eu Eindo-European – K Kasem – L Latin – Mo Mota – Mwe Mwesen – Mwo Mwotlap – N Nahuatl – OI Old Irish – R Russian – S Slavic – SBB Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi – U Ubangi – U.A Uto-Aztekan – W.A West Atlantic – Y Yupik – Yu Yulu.

U.A

AA

SBB

W.A

U

Gur

Mwe: D tuar

Y: H *alәr

Y: P *a(C)ippar

E.A

Mo: H tua Mwo: D itan

S: H, D drug L: H, D socius I.Eu: D *sekw

R: H drug B: H keneil OI: P cēle

I.Eu

Austr.

“friend”/“other”/ proximity/“follow”/ “next”

“friend”/“other”/ “one of two”

Table 1.  Summary of the semantic associations of “friend”.

Is a “friend” an “enemy”? Between “proximity” and “opposition” 

 Sergueï Sakhno & Nicole Tersis

gives rise to senses such as “price”, “reflection”, “answer”, which are attested in association with all four notions of “friend”, “enemy”, “proximity” and “opposition” in part of the Eskimo-Aleut genetic stock and in Austronesian, and only with that of “opposition” in a another part of Eskimo-Aleut and in Indo-European. It is in this sense, and in this sense only, is a friend an enemy!20

References Benveniste, E. 1966. Problèmes sémantiques de reconstruction. In Problèmes de linguistique générale. T. 1, 289–307. Paris: Gallimard. Buck, C.D. 1949. A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Chantraine, P. 1968. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. T. 1, 2. Paris: Klincksieck. Černyx, P. Ja. 1993. Istoriko-ètimologičeskij slovar’ sovremennogo russkogo jazyka. T. 1, 2. Moskva: Russkij Jazyk. De Colombel, V. & Tersis, N. (Eds). 2002. Lexique et motivation. Perspectives ethnolinguistiques. Paris: Peeters. De Reuse, W. 2000. La partie et le tout: Les extensions métonymiques du duel et du pluriel en yupik sibérien central. In Les langues eskaléoutes, Sibérie, Alaska, Groenland, N. Tersis & M. Therrien (Eds), 269–282. Paris: CNRS Editions. Ernout, A. & Meillet, A. 1951. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine. Paris: Klincksieck. Fortescue, M., Jacobson, S.A. & Kaplan, L. 1994. Comparative Eskimo Dictionary with Aleut Cognates [Research Papers 9]. Fairbanks AK: University of Alaska, Alaska Native Language Center Press. Heine, B. & Kuteva, T. 2002. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. Hénault-Sakhno, C. & Sakhno, S. 2001. Typologie des langues et sémantique diachronique: le problème des universaux. LINX 45: 219–231. Hénault-Sakhno, C. & Sakhno, S. 2005. Typologie sémantique lexicale: Problèmes de systématisation. In Linguistique typologique, G. Lazard & C. Moyse-Faurie (Eds), 71–90. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Septentrion. Jacobson, S. 1984. Yup’ik Eskimo Dictionary, Fairbanks: University of Alaska, Alaska Native Language Center Press. Lowe, R. 1984. Siglit Inuvialuit Uqausiita kipuktirutait: Basic Siglit Inuvialuit Eskimo. Dictionary. Inuvik: Committee for Original Peoples Entitlement, Northwest Territories. Mallory, J.P. & Adams, D.Q. (Eds). 1997. Encyclopaedia of Indo-European Culture. London, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn. Partridge, E. 1966. Origins: A short etymological dictionary of modern English. London: Routledge & Keagan Paul. Pisani, V. 1967. Etimologia: Storia, questioni, metodo, 2 Edn. Brescia: Paideia.

.  Apart from some well-known diachronic derivative links. Recall here that the etymology of Engl. enemy goes back to Lat. inimīcus, from *in-amīcus “un-friend”, which is similar to Russian nedrug “enemy”, from ne-drug “un-friend”.



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Pfeifer, W. 1995. Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, München: Deutscher Taschenbuch. Pottier, B. 2001. La typologie et les universaux. LINX 45: 19–24. Rey, A. (Ed.). 1994. Dictionnaire historique de la langue française. Paris: Le Robert. Rey, A. (Ed.). 2005. Dictionnaire culturel en langue française. T. 1–4. Paris: Le Robert, SEJER. Riemer, N. 2005. The Semantics of Polysemy. Reading Meaning in English and Warlpiri. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Robert, S. 1997. Variation des représentations linguistiques: Des unités à l’énoncé. In Diversité des langues et représentations cognitives, 25–39. Paris: Ophrys. Sakhno, S. 2001. Dictionnaire russe-français d’étymologie comparée: Correspondances lexicales historiques. Paris: L’Harmattan. Sakhno, S. 2005. 100 racines essentielles du russe: Découvrir les trésors des mots. Paris: Ellipses. Schneider, L. 1970. Dictionnaire esquimau-français du parler de l’Ungava et contrées limitrophes. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Sweetser, E. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics. Cambridge: CUP. Tersis, N. 2008 Forme et sens des mots en tunumiisut, lexique inuit du Groenland oriental. Paris: Peeters. Tersis, N. & Therrien, M. (Eds). 2000. Les langues eskaléoutes, Sibérie, Alaska, Groenland. Paris: CNRS Editions. Tersis, N. & Mahieu, M.A. 2006. Sémantique des affixes incorporants en langue inuit (Groenland oriental). Etudes/Inuit/Studies 30(1): 157–181. Trubačev, O.N. (Ed.). 1974–2003. Etimologičeskij slovar’ slavjanskix jazykov. T. 1–30. Moskva: Nauka. Vasmer (Fasmer), M. 1986–1987. Ètimologičeskij slovar’ russkogo jazyka/Translated from German, with addenda by O. Trubačev, 2nd Edn. T. 1–4. Moskva: Progress. Wierzbicka, A. 1997. Understanding Cultures Through their Key Words. Oxford: OUP.

Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions A crosslinguistic perspective Martine Vanhove

Llacan (Inalco, CNRS), Fédération TUL To the memory of Omar Bencheikh, an untiring lexicographer, a faithful friend and colleague. Following previous works (Sweetser 1990; Evans & Wilkins 2000) on the semantic extensions of verbs expressing sensory modalities and prehension to other semantic domains, this study investigates the semantic associations between vision, hearing, prehension, and mental perception in a sample of 25 languages belonging to 8 phyla. The study, based on first hand data, combines synchronic and diachronic analyses. It shows that, although vision prevails in the hierarchy of physical senses (Viberg 1984), the auditory modality prevails crosslinguistically as far as transfield associations between the hearing sense and mental perception are concerned. Vision comes next, then prehension. Furthermore the data invalidates the assumption that literacy might privilege sight as opposed to hearing in this respect, as a lexical universal. Keywords:  cognition; hearing; heterosemy; lexical typology; polysemy; perception; prehension; semantic associations; semantic typology; vision

1.  Introduction In the Indo-European languages, it has been well-known for a long time that the semantic domains of physical perception and prehension and the domain of mental perception are often lexically connected through regular patterns of polysemy and semantic change (Grimm 1848; Buck 1949: 1020; Sweetser 1990; among others). E.g., I.-Eu. *weid- “see” became Greek eĩdon “see”, but meant “know” at the perfect form oĩda. The same root gave rise to Latin video “see”, and Irish fios “knowledge”. “Hear” and/or “listen” also developed meanings such as “heed, pay attention”, “obey”, and “understand” (Sweetser 1990: 34–5). French comprendre “understand”, a borrowing from Latin comprendere, goes back to classical Latin comprehendere (cum “with” + prehendere “seize”) “seize together”, and intellectually “seize through intelligence,

 Martine Vanhove

thoughts”. A recent and comprehensive work on Australian languages (Evans & Wilkins 2000) showed similar patterns of semantic groupings. Sweetser, and Evans & Wilkins have suggested that there are both universal and language-cultural specific associations. Sweetser (1990: 45), on the basis of her findings about the metaphorical and cultural aspects of the semantic structure of these domains in Indo-European languages, claimed that the connection between vision and knowledge may “be fairly common crossculturally, if not universal”. Evans & Wilkins (2000) were able to dispute this possible universal connection at the lexical and cultural levels on the basis of Australian languages, which have overwhelmingly favoured the semantic extension between hearing and cognition. They also hypothesized a possible cultural link between literacy and the primacy of vision in its association with cognitive words. Within a different theoretical framework, Wierzbicka (1996: 80, 119–120, 198–204), in her study of semantic primes and universals, acknowledges the polysemous status of both “see” and “hear” with both “know” and “think”, thus grouping together under the same heading “Mental Predicates” “think”, “know”, “want”, “feel”, as well as “see” and “hear”. The present study aims at investigating the semantic associations between two sensory modalities, hearing and sight, as well as prehension words (“taking”) on one hand, and mental perception on the other, i.e., internal reception words (“obeying” and “heeding”) and cognition (or intellectual perception) words, in a sample of 25 languages from 8 different genetic stocks (see below section 2). The purpose is twofold: i.

to check if Sweetser’s hypothesis about possible cognitive universals, as well as Evans & Wilkins’ correlation patterns between semantic extensions and culture, are likely to be supported by the study of non-Indo-European and non-Australian languages; ii. to propose a tentative typological classification of the different types of semantic associations attested in the data.

2.  Background From a lexical and conceptual viewpoint, various studies in semantics, typology, comparative linguistics, as well as in anthropology of senses (Howes ed. 1991) have pointed to an internal hierarchy of senses as well as in connection with intellectual perception within or across the domains of sensory and cognitive perceptions in diverse languages, areas, and genetic stocks. This is the case of Matisoff (1978: 161) who, in a comparative work, analyzed the semantic network of body parts in Tibeto-Burman languages, and referred to the eyes as “our highest, most intellectual organs of sense”,1 a belief in line with Sweester’s hypothetical universal deducted from Indo-European languages. .  His concern here was neither the lexicon, nor polysemy.



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

In an areal perspective, Meeussen (1975: 4–5) was setting out as a possible isogloss for sub-Saharan Africa, the fact that “the word for “hear” indicates all perception other than by sight (smell, taste, feel)”, implying a similar position in the hierarchy of senses for vision as Matissof. Meeussen’s proposition was recently followed, and enlarged to “see” and cognition words, by Heine & Zelealem (2007) who consider that polysemies involving verbs for “hear” (to a lesser extent also “see”), which also denote other perception, such as “smell”, “feel”, “taste”, “understand”, could be a characteristic of African languages. In fact the above-mentioned polysemies extend beyond the African continent. Viberg (1984) who carried out the first extensive and in depth typological study on perception verbs in a sample of 53 languages from 14 different language stocks considers that “One of the most striking characteristics of the lexicalization patterns of the verbs of perception is the large amount of polysemy with respect to the sense modalities that is found in many of the languages in the sample.” (Viberg 1984: 136). His study showed a universal hierarchy within perception verbs which places vision at the top (Viberg 1984: 136, 147), and which reflects intrafield associations,2 i.e., within the semantic domain of physical perception, as well as a unidirectional tendency of semantic change: sight >

hearing >

touch >

   smell taste

It also gave some hints about the semantic extensions of perception to other semantic fields (i.e., transfield associations), namely cognition and “social” (i.e., “meet”, “obey”, “know-a-person”). Sweetser (1990) also analyzed semantic extensions within physical perception as well as towards intellectual perception from a cognitive and diachronic viewpoint in English and Indo-European. She underlined the fact that “Deep and pervasive metaphorical connections link our vocabulary of physical perception and our vocabulary of intellect and knowledge”, and that “a metaphorical analysis motivates the otherwise strange fact that certain semantic sub-domains within perception are naturally and regularly historical sources for certain sub-domains of cognition, rather than others” (Sweetser 1990: 21). She mentions the primacy of vision on other sensory modalities at the lexical level (Sweetser 1990: 35–36), a fact confirmed by the implicational hierarchy of senses

.  The terminology “intrafield” and “transfield” association is borrowed from Matisoff (1978: 176). It refers to semantic extensions of a lexical item within one semantic field (intrafield), or two or more semantic fields (transfield).

 Martine Vanhove

and the corresponding diachronic chain discovered previously by Viberg.3 Sweetser (1990: 45) also adds, as already mentioned above, that the connection between vision and knowledge may “be fairly common crossculturally, if not universal”. Evans & Wilkins (2000) questioned this possible universal connection at the lexical and cultural levels on the basis of Australian languages, because the semantic extension between hearing and cognition is by large the most recurring one. Their study concerns both intrafield and transfield associations in this linguistic area, and their thorough typological and cultural study enabled them also to refine the implicational hierarchy and diachronic chain postulated by Viberg.

3.  Data and methodology The data used for this study were mainly collected and discussed by means of a short questionnaire4 which circulated among the research group “Typologie des rapprochements sémantiques” at the French Fédération Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques and a few other colleagues. In addition, standard dictionaries for a few European languages (English, French, German, Italian), and for classical Arabic were used. Below is the list of the language sample: Indo-European Germanic:ˉEnglish, German Romance:ˉFrench, Italian Slavic:ˉ Russian (Sergueï Sakhno) Afroasiatic Semitic:ˉclassical Arabic (†Omar Bencheikh, and Martine Vanhove) Cushiticˉ(North): Beja (Martine Vanhove) Niger-Congo Gbaya-Manza-Ngbaka:ˉGbaya ’Bodoe (Yves Moñino) Gur:ˉ(Gurunsi western): Kasem (Emilio Bonvini) Bantu:ˉMakonde and Swahili (Sophie Manus), Tswana (Denis Creissels), Vili (Yves Moñino) West-Atlantic:ˉWolof (Loïc Perrin, and Konstantin Pozdniakov) Nilo-Saharan Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi:ˉSar, Yulu (Pascal Boyeldieu) Austronesian Oceanicˉ(Vanuatu central-north): Araki, Lakon, Mwotlap, Olrat (Alexandre François) Oceanicˉ(Kanak): Nêlêmwa (Isabelle Bril) Eskimo Eastern:ˉInuit (Nicole Tersis) Western:ˉYupik (Nicole Tersis)

.  It seems Sweetser was unaware of Viberg’s study, which is not mentioned in the references. .  It was based on a grouping of attested polysemies that emerged from previous discussions and readings, and was asking for contextualized examples and more polysemies if possible.



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

Sino-Tibetan Creole

Tibeto-Burman: Tamang (Martine Mazaudon) Spanishˉbased Atlantic (Colombia): Palenquero (Yves Moñino)

This sample is by no means a representative sample: it mainly resorts to our competence as field linguists and to our mother tongues, because we thought it best, at this stage of the research, to rely mainly on first hand data and on our own expertise in different cultural and linguistic environments. This explains for instance the overrepresentation of African languages or the lack of Amerindian and Australian languages. Still, together with the work of Evans & Wilkins (2000), the available data is believed to be diverse enough to venture a hypothesis about a possible typology of the semantic associations under consideration. Methodologically, it is important to underline that the results discussed below use both synchronic polysemies and heterosemies,5 i.e., semantic extensions through derivation, as well as compound forms, and diachronic semantic change, when available. As stated in the preface to this volume and in Zalizniak (this volume), this procedure is based on the assumption that all approaches are equally legitimate when dealing with semantic extensions or associations, because synchronical facts foster diachronological ones, i.e., synchronic polysemies, heterosemies, etc., and contextual and pragmatic uses, underlie semantic change. Or in the words of Sweetser’s dialectic approach because Through a historical analysis of  “routes” of semantic change, it is possible to elucidate synchronic semantic connections between lexical domains; similarly, synchronic connections may help clarify reasons for shifts of meaning in past linguistic history.  (Sweetser 1990: 45–46)

(Seeˉalso Wilkins 1981, 1996; Evans & Wilkins 2000: 549ff). No distinction is made between the three general components (event-type representation in Evans & Wilkins’ terms) of the sensory modalities, i.e., between controlled activity (e.g., “listen”), noncontrolled experience (e.g., “hear”) and the source based copulative (state) construction (e.g., “sound”),6 because they are far from being lexicalized as different items in the languages of the sample, although less systematically than in Australian languages (Evans & Wilkins 2000: 554). The study is mainly limited to the verbal category, and more particularly as in previous works, to the basic set of general superordinate verbs (Evans & Wilkins

.  See Lichtenberk (1991: 480). Heterosemy is used here somewhat restrictively in the sense of a semantic extension through derivation, be it synchronical or diachronical, leaving aside the grammaticalization processes referred to by Lichtenberk. .  See Viberg (1984: 124) for details and references, and the discussion in Evans & Wilkins (2000: 549ff).

 Martine Vanhove

2000: 554), i.e., the most basic verbs (e.g., “see”, “look at”), and not their hyponyms (e.g., “peer at”, “peep at”, “stare at” …). Other lexical categories were also taken into account whenever required, and all lexical items were examined, as much as possible, in their contextual uses. No attempt has been made here to solve the terminological issue. This is not because it is considered a subsidiary problem, but as there is so far no consensual cover term for the cases of polysemy, heterosemy, etc., and semantic change exemplified here, I preferred to use “semantic associations” (Matisoff) and “semantic extensions” (Evans & Wilkins) indiscriminately, even though I am well aware they are not really synonymous, and that other terms are also in use, with slightly different acceptations, such as semantic parallels (Masson 1999), semantic affinities (Pottier, this volume), proxemies (Gaume et al., this volume), or the very neuter “semantic connections” (Sweetser 1990). What refrains me from sticking to the sole use of “semantic extension”, as used in Evans & Wilkins, is a possible diachronic interpretation in terms of unidirectional semantic change. In the case of sensory modalities, this would mean a change from physical and concrete meanings to more intellectual and abstract ones, a change which is not always supported by etymological data. It is well-known for instance that French entendre (“hear”) developed from a cognitive verb meaning “understand”, a meaning still in use today in the register of intellectuals. The fact that the starting point of the research was the sensory modalities and prehension verbs does not imply any judgment regarding their historical primacy over cognitive and intellectual perception in each individual language and for each individual lexical item. Truly enough, cognitive linguistics (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1987; Lakoff & Johnson 1999; Sweetser 1990) has rightly emphasized the mapping of various semantic domains on the physical domain, but unlike Sweetser (1990: 30),7 I do not consider that the reverse could not also be true in some instances.8 From another viewpoint, the debate is still acute between the supporters of unitary or vague meanings vs. polysemous meanings, but it is not the purpose of this presentation to argue in favour of one or the other,9 even though my approach is clearly on the polysemous side.

.  “We would also like to explain the fact that the mappings are unidirectional: bodily experienced is a source of vocabulary for our psychological states, but not the other way round.” .  It cannot be ruled out that the semantic shifts, which contradict the unidirectional hypothesis of cognitive linguistics could be due to the influence of parallel mappings recurring for other sensory modalities, in other terms, to analogical processes regarding the metaphorical patterns. .  For a thorough discussion see Riemer (2005).



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

4.  The auditory sense and mental perceptions We shall first review each particular semantic extension of auditory verbs to the domain of intellectual or mental perception, by classifying them on a cline from the most “simple” to the more “complex” ones, both in terms of the number of semantic sub-domains concerned and of the range of cognitive concepts (from the more “concrete” to the more “abstract”).

4.1  Auditory sense and internal reception The terminology “internal reception” is borrowed from Sweetser (1990: 41–42), and is a cover term for “heed, pay attention to, obey”. It can be considered as the “minimal” extension of auditory words to the domain of mental perception. In our sample,10 a small group of four languages, belonging to four different genetic stocks, Beja, Inuit (in both the Eastern Canada and Greenland varieties), Tamang, and Tswana, are in fact limited to the polysemy between the auditory modality, be it “hear” and/or “listen”, and internal reception, i.e., “heeding” or “obeying”, and do not display an extension to cognitive verbs such as “realize”, “understand” or “know”. –

In Beja, which makes a lexical distinction between the noncontrolled experience and the controlled activity, the polysemy is shared between two verbs:



maasiw “hear, perceive”, and “heed”, sinaakir “listen” and “obey”.

The other three languages have only one lexical item which is polysemous with internal reception meanings. – Eastern Canada Inuit naalak uses one verb for both the activity “listen to”, and the experience “hear”, which is polysemous with “obey”, but Greenland Inuit makes use of the verb for the active meaning only, and develops also another closely related meaning to “heed”: naala(k) “listen, obey, be well-behaved”. – Tamang, a language in which perception words have a very limited polysemy, is a case similar to the above:

1ngjan-pa “listen”, heed, obey, let o.s. be persuaded’.

–

In Tswana, the verb utlwa11 is polysemous for several sensory modalities: “hear; perceive, feel; taste”, and also with “obey”, a polysemy which affects also its nominal derivative kutlo “hearing sense, sensation, feeling, obedience”.

.  For more data on the polysemy of “hear” and “obey”, see Haser (2000: 176). .  The derived verb utlwelela, with the applicativ suffix –ela, means “listen”, but Tswana also has another verb reetsa, same meaning, based on a different root.

 Martine Vanhove

4.2  Auditory sense, internal and intellectual perceptions The most common pattern of semantic association in the sample combines all three physical, internal, and intellectual perceptions. It concerns a group of 13 languages (see map 1 below) distributed among five of the eight genetic stocks of the sample, which have, in addition to “heed” and/or “obey”, a semantic association with cognitive verbs such as “understand”, “learn”, “know”, or more rarely “think”.12 It concerns the five Indo-European languages, and in this respect Evans & Wilkins statement (2000: 551) that “ “Hear” never develops “know” or “think” meaning in IndoEuropean, though it sometimes develops to “obey” (Danish) or “attend to” (Swedish)”, if correct diachronically, cannot and must not be interpreted as an impossible mapping between these semantic domains at the cognitive and lexical levels, whatever the direction of the historical development. –

For instance, Italian sentire has a full range of intrafield and transfield polysemies: the bilingual Larousse Italian-French dictionary gives, in this order, the following meanings:



sentire: “Feel, smell, perceive; taste; touch; recognize. Hear, listen. Consult; learn, know. Feel, experience. Think”.13

In addition ascoltare “listen to” is associated to “heed” in:

ascoltareˉi consigli di un amico “follow a friend’s advice”,

and to “obey” in:

ascoltareˉla propia coscienza “obey one’s conscience”.

In French, and even in English, like in Italian, the association is distributed between two verbs, for which register and pragmatic factors have to be taken into account. –

–

French has écouter “listen, obey”, which is historically considered to be derived from a meaning “*heed”,14 and entendre “hear; understand, know thoroughly” (historically derived from a meaning “understand”). In English hear is also glossed by the so-called “figurative” meanings of “understand, learn, know”. The examples provided in dictionaries are good instances of bridging contexts (in the sense of Evans & Wilkins (2000: 568, 570),

.  A meaning less rare in Australian languages (Evans & Wilkins 2000: 569–70). .  All the translations from the bilingual and etymological French dictionaries are mine. .  All references to French etymologies are taken from Rey (1992). Italian ascoltare is of course cognate with French écouter.



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

i.e., synchronic contexts that may explain future semantic changes), be they pragmatic or syntactic:

Iˉhear you = understand; Haveˉyou heard the news? = learn; Haveˉyou heard the one about the Scotsman who … = know the story of.

On the other hand, listen also means “heed, and obey”. –

–



In German the triple association is today realized in one polysemous verb, hören “hear, listen, learn, know, pay attention, obey”, which in colloquial German also means “understand” (P. Koch, p.c.). The case of Russian is more complicated because the connection between the three semantic domains is partly synchronic, partly diachronic, as well as dialectal and heterosemous. Sakhno (2001: 313–4) mentions, under čujat’ “feel, sense, perceive, hear”, the fact that the latter meaning is a dialectal variant, and M. KoptjevskajaTamm (p.c.) that it is also used in colloquial Russian in the sense of “understand”, e.g., in interrogative sentences like: čueš? “Can you see this? (= understand)”.

This verb is etymologically related to čuvstvovat’ “feel; experience; understand”. Both verbs have a common Slavic etymon *čuti “perceive” which “goes back to Indo-European *(s)keu-/*(s)kou- “notice, be vigilant, attentive, careful”, a root which is probably represented in Sanskrit kavih “wise, clairvoyant”, Greek koein “perceive, understand, hear”,15 and Latin cavere (< *covere) “be careful, vigilant, cautious” (> French caution) and cautela “carefulness, caution, precaution” (> French cautèle, cauteleux).” (Sakhno 2001: 313–4). Thus, the meaning of “heed, be attentive” is only a diachronic one from which were derived “hear”, and “understand” at a post-IndoEuropean stage. Obviously the issue of the direction of the semantic change is at stake, but as etymology in this typological presentation is not in focus, I shall not discuss it further. Suffice is to know for our purpose that the semantic association exists. Russian also has another verb slušat” “listen, hear”, which presents a case of heterosemy: its reflexive derived form slušat’sja means “obey”, hence:

slušat’sja soveta “follow an advice”.

.  More common is Greek akouein “hear, understand” (Chantraine 1999). This language could be added to the list of languages which have a semantic association between “hear” and cognition verbs.

 Martine Vanhove

As for the other genetic stocks, one finds a similar variety of semantic and lexical patterns. –

In Afroasiatic classical Arabic, the different meanings are shared between two roots samiʕa “listen, hear, obey”, and a rather obsolete verb naṣata “listen carefully in order to understand”, which was a frequent meaning in the Quran (= “urge people to reason”).

The two Nilo-Saharan languages have one polysemous lexical item: – –

Yulu ɲāagә̄ “listen, hear, be attentive, understand, conform to, obey”. In addition, Sar òō develops a few other meanings: “perceive, mainly with the ear, but also in another way”; “hear, listen, understand, think”; “get on with”; “obey”; “suit”, be “favorable”:

(1) òō tàà hear/perceive.3sg.aor mouth/word ‘Heˉunderstands (a language)’. (2) òō tàà bf̀bә̄-n hear/perceive.3sg.aor mouth/word father-3sg ‘Heˉobeys his father’. (3) m-ōō wùsә̀ dèē àlé 1sg-hear/perceive.3sg.aor smell person neg ‘Iˉsmelt the smell of nobody’ (= nobody was present).

Three Niger-Congo languages show cases of heterosemy and polysemy. – – –

Wolof belongs to both patterns: dégg “hear”, “understand” (a word), “know how to speak a language”, and dégg-al 〈hear-causative〉 “obey”. Gbaya’ Bodoe has only one polysemous lexical item: zéi “hear, listen; understand”, zéi mbf́ra 〈listen advice〉 “listen to, follow s.b.’s advice” In Kasem the triple polysemy is distributed between the noncontrolled experience and the controlled activity. The first verb covers both senses of the auditory modality + “understand”: nì “hear, listen, be informed, express oneself (make hear), understand, grasp through intelligence”:

(4) nὶ kàsī hear Kasem ‘understandˉthe Kasem language’. (5) nὶ ɲwә́ә́nɩ́ hear sweetness ‘understandˉsweetness’ (= to take things well, be free of worries, like a child).



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

The second one is limited to the controlled experience, and is polysemous with “heed”: cә̄gī “listen, heed”: (6) cә̄gī ŋwàŋā listen word ‘listen,ˉpay attention’ (in a place where one can watch out).

This multiple polysemy is also known in 3 of the 5 Austronesian languages of the sample: –

Olrat and Lakon have one polysemous item for various senses: roñ “hear”, “listen”, “smell”, “feel”, with extensions to “know”, and “obey”:

(7) na ga roñ haha-ñ 1sg stat hear/know name-2sg ‘Iˉknow your name’ (Lakon).

“Understand” does not seem to be included in the range of meanings of roñ, a fact which seems to go contrary to Sweetser’s assumption (1990: 43) that “It would be a novelty for a verb meaning “hear” to develop a usage meaning “know” rather than “understand” whereas such a usage is common for verbs meaning “see”.” But it must be mentioned that the meaning “understand” is known in a closely related language, Mwotlap (see below). The case of Italian sentire (which has no “understand” meaning as well) is similar. Evans & Wilkins (2000: 570) also mention the scarcity of Australian languages without the “understand” meaning. So the data from these genetic stocks do not seem to be convincing evidence against Sweetser’s assumption. Mwotlap is similar to the above two languages, with the addition of the meaning “understand (a language)”: yon̄teg “hear”, “listen” (the voice of s.o.), “feel by touch, smell, taste, intuition”; “obey”: (8) yon̄teg vēglal hear know ‘recognizeˉ(s.o., s.th.) through hearing’ (in serial verbs).

(9) no mal vap van ba nēk et-yon̄teg te 1sg cplt say direc but 2sg neg1-hear neg2

na-ln̄e-k! art-voice-1sg

‘I warned you, but you did not obey me!’

The limitation of the meanings “know” or “understand” to contexts linked to the auditory modality, such as “words” or “language”, is not uncommon in our sample, just as in Australian languages, and this could also be considered as a first step towards broader acceptations, i.e., “bridging contexts”.

 Martine Vanhove

4.3  Auditory sense and intellectual perceptions Finally there are seven languages (see map 1 below) which link “hearing” only to cognition verbs such as “understand” and “know”, more rarely “remember”, without the meanings of “heed” or “obey”. Three of the four Bantu languages (although marginally for Swahili) are concerned by this type of semantic association. –

–

In Makonde kwíigwa is limited to “hear, understand”, but the closely related Bantu language, Swahili is more polysemous for sensory modalities: kusikia: “hear, feel”; “understand, twig (slang)”, (umesikia “did you hear/feel/understand?”), as is Vili kúkúù “hear, listen, understand” (and “smell” in kúkúù núkù 〈hear smell〉 “smell”). In Austronesian Araki, the association with cognition seems to be rather marginal through the sole meaning of “realize”: dogo “hear” (s.o., s.b); “feel” (physically s.th.):

(10) om dogo cada mo v̈adug 1sg.real hear/feel place 3.real hot ‘Doˉyou feel warm?’ (lit. ‘Are you hearing/feeling it is hot?’) (11) hadiv mo dogo mo de mo m̈arahu rat 3.real hear/feel 3.real say 3.real frightened ‘Ratˉrealized that he was afraid.’ (lit. ‘Rat felt that he was frightened’)

But this is a highly endangered language with three or four speakers left and for which further research is needed. –

–

The other Austronesian language Nêlêmwa displays the sensory polysemy in tâlâ “hear (noise), smell, feel”, which has also the cognitive meanings “understand”, and “remember” (often in a compound form: tâlâ mwemwelî 〈hear know’〉), the only language in our data in which the latter cognitive meaning, quite common in Australian languages, is attested. As for the two remaining languages, they have the basic polysemy: Yupik (Siberian) niiqur “hear, understand”, Palenquero kuchá “hear, listen, understand” (< Spanish escuchar “listen”).

4.4  Discussion and conclusions Although vision prevails in the hierarchy of physical senses as Viberg showed, followed by Evans & Wilkins,16 the above data show that the auditory modality prevails .  With slight modifications (Evans & Wilkins 2000:  560). In addition, this universal also contradicts the assumption of a culturally based hierarchy put forward by the anthropology of the senses (Howes 1991) (see Evans & Wilkins 2000:  561–2 for a thorough discussion of this approach).



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

as far as transfield associations between the hearing sense and mental perceptions are concerned. This is true not only for Australian languages, but also for all the languages of our sample, including the Indo-European ones. Still, the general semantic association is effective to various extents: not all the languages have the same range of particular meanings associated to “hear”, they may only have occurred historically or be limited to certain registers such as slang, or to particular pragmatic contexts. Still, they do exist in the speakers’ discourse and are reproducible. This is the reason why, in this study, they were considered as true cases of semantic associations, just as the etymological evidence. Providing these limitations, the transfield semantic association between hearing and mental perception, i.e., internal reception and intellectual perception or cognition, seems to be a good candidate for a possible semantic universal. But from the perspective of a typological classification, the distinction between the different concepts which can be associated synchronically or diachronically with that of hearing is fundamental, hence the three main divisions presented above. Also important from the point of view of a typological classification are the different syntactic and morpho-semantic patterns used crosslinguistically (see also Evans & Wilkins 2000). On the other hand, Sweetser’s claim (1990: 41–42) that “the link between physical hearing and obeying or heeding – between physical and internal receptivity or reception – may well, in fact, be universal, rather than merely Indo-European” needs to be refined on cultural and social grounds. If more than two thirds of the languages of our sample (18) indeed show a pervasive association between these semantic domains at the lexical level, it leaves out almost one third of them (7). Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the semantic associations could have been lost in the course of history, but since the languages concerned are only documented in recent times, only comparative studies within their respective genetic stocks could confirm a possible loss. In fact, social factors also need to be taken into account: a good example is provided by Gbaya ’Bodoe. This Niger-Congo language of Central Africa is spoken by a small community whose social organisation is basically nonhierarchical, and a consequence thereof is that there is no lexical item meaning “obey”, not even polysemous with “hear”. But the “heeding” sense emerges in context at the phrase level: (12) zéí mbf́ra listen advice ‘listenˉto, follow s.b.’s advice’ (Y. Moñino, p.c.).

Still, even though the lexical polysemy between physical and internal reception is not universal, it is interesting to note that it goes far beyond the Indo-European and Australian languages. It is present in all the other genetic stocks of our data, i.e., Tibeto-Burman, Eskimo, Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Austronesian, and Niger-Congo. Only the Creole variety of Palenquero lacks this semantic association. But this is not a

 Martine Vanhove

characteristic of Creole languages as the polysemy “hear/listen” and “obey” is known in other Creoles, e.g., in Cap Verdian Creole of Santiago (N. Quint, p.c.), even when not attested in the lexical item of the source language, Portuguese in this instance. Of course it would be worth investigating the semantics of hearing words in a larger sample of languages in each stock in order to assess the degree of frequency of this semantic association and check to what extent Sweetser’s assumption can be generalized. On the other hand, in addition to Evans & Wilkins” findings for Australian languages, our data seem to confirm a very strong, if not universal, typological tendency, sometimes only historically, towards a transfield semantic association between the domains of auditory perception and cognition (or intellectual perception). The data published in Howes (1991) show similar semantic associations in Hausa (an Afroasiatic language of the Chadic branch), in Suya (an Amerindian language), and in Ommura (a language of Papua New Guinea). But contrary to Australian languages (Evans & Wilkins 2000: 570–2), the polysemy between physical perception and “remember” is very limited in our sample, in fact restricted to Nêlêmwa, an Oceanic language, as is the polysemy with “think” only noted for Italian and Sar. It is interesting to note, for further discussion within the NSM approach of Wierzbicka (1996), this scarcity of the semantic extension to “think”. The findings and classification of this section are summarized in table 1 below (organized by genetic stocks) and visualized in map 1.

5.  Vision and mental perceptions As with the auditory modality, the range of the possible semantic associations differs from one language to the next. Still, the threefold classification below is slightly different from the previous section because the semantic sub-domains are organized differently, and because internal perception is marginal as compared to intellectual perception. For the sake of comparison and classification, I have deliberately limited the investigation to these two semantic domains, leaving out the domains of imagination or emotions for instance. However for the non-European languages, other semantic extensions are mentioned when available, in order to provide information for further research.

5.1  Vision and “understanding” The binary semantic association between vision and “understanding” is the most frequent one in our sample and is always realized in polysemous lexical items. It concerns six languages in five genetic stocks. –

This is the case for Italian vedere “see; understand”.



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

Table 1.  Semantic associations between hearing and mental perceptions Language

Heed

Obey

Understand

Know

Learn

English

listen

listen

hear

hear

hear hören

German

hören

hören

hören

hören

French

*écouter

écouter

entendre

entendre

Italian

ascoltare

ascoltare

Russian (< čujat”)

*I.E. (s)keuslušat’sja

slušat’sja

čuvstvovat’

Arabic

(+)

samiʕa

naṣata

Beja

maasiw

sinaakir

Sar

sentire

òō

òō

ɲāagә̄

ɲāagә̄

Yulu

ɲāagә̄

Gbaya

(zéí)

zéí

Kasem

cә̄gī

nὶ

Makonde

kwíigwa

Swahili

kusikia

dégg-al

Wolof

dégg

Araki

òō

(nὶ)

(dégg) (dogo)

Lakon

roñ

Mwotlap

yon̄teg

Olrat

roñ

roñ yon̄teg

(naalak)

naalak niiqur

Yupik 1ngjan-pa

(yon̄teg) roñ

tâlâ

Nêlêmwa

Palenquero

sentire sentire

kúkúù

Vili

Tamang

Remember

utlwa

Tswana

Inuit

Think

1ngjan-pa kuchá

tâlâ

D7

D2

A3

A1

D6

D5

C1 C2 D1

A4

A2

Map 1.  Hearing + cognition.

Carte réalisée par le LLACAN (UMR 8135 du CNRS) sur un fond de carte de l'Atelier de cartographie de Sciences Po (Paris, France)

A. INDO-EUROPEAN 1. ENGLISH – 2. GERMAN 3. FRENCH – 4. ITALIAN 5. RUSSIAN

D3

D4

B2

B1

A5

G1

HEAR + HEED + OBEY

C. NILO-SAHARAN 1. SAR 2. YULU

B. AFROASIATIC 1. ARABIC (CLASSICAL) 2. BEJA

Hearing + Cognition

projection Gall-Bertin

E5

E2 E3 E4 E1

1 000 km

1 000 km

1 000 km

HEAR + HEED + OBEY + COGNITION

D. NIGER-CONGO 1. GBAYA 'BODOE 2. KASIM 3. MAKONDE – 4. SWAHILI – 5. TSWANA - 6. VILI 7. WOLOF

F2

F1

H1

F. ESKIMO 1. INUIT 2. YUPIK

HEAR + COGNITION

E. AUSTRONESIAN 1. ARAKI 2. LAKON 3. MWOTLAP 4. OLRAT 5. NÊLÊMWA H. CREOLE 1. PALENQUERO

G. SINO-TIBETAN 1. TAMANG

 Martine Vanhove



–

Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

Two Niger-Congo languages are also concerned: Swahili kuona “see; understand” (oral speech), and Wolof gis “see”; “notice, understand” (colloquial, e.g., in interrogative utterances):

(13) gis nga see you.perf ‘Doˉyou understand what I mean?’

Among the urban young generation, the above expression with gis “see” replaces more and more often xam nga 〈know 2sg.perf〉 “you know” (L. Perrin p.c.). Wolof is interesting in the sense that it illustrates the pragmatic and syntactic paths (i.e., “bridging context”) from the “see” meaning towards “understand/know”: gis is only used in an absolute construction for the so-called phatic function, in order to attract attention to a piece of information. It can never be used with an object whether animate or inanimate, such as “language”. –

–

Quite parallel is the situation in Palenquero where the association is limited to the interjection bé! “realize!”, “look!” (which comes from Spanish ver “see”), but the polysemy is not present in the verb itself. In Beja the semantic association of rha “see” with “understand” is also a marginal one, and illustrates yet another bridging context: when the vision verb governs a completive clause, it may mean “realize, understand”, providing that the semantics of the utterance may imply such an interpretation, as in (14) below:

(14) aa-nda giigs-eeb def.m.pl.nom-man\pl leave\caus.fut-rel.m bi-idiin-ee-na rh-an-hoob neg.mod-say\pfv3pl-rel-thing see-pfv1sg-when ‘WhenˉI saw (realized, understood) that these men would not let me go’.

–

In Nilo-Saharan Sar the vision verb also has, in addition to “understand”, the polysemy with “heed”, as well as others (among them the “social” meaning “meet” mentioned by Viberg 1984):

à̰à̰ “see, look at, observe”, “attend (a show)”, “meet (s.o.)”; realize, notice, understand”; “heed” (e.g., with body parts as a complement); “light, shine, dazzle”; followed by an adjective: “appear, show” (by one’s behaviour), “be”.

5.2  Vision and “knowing” The semantic association between “see” and “know” occurs in three languages of the sample, with different grammatical and historical patterns. In each case there are also other extensions (which go beyond the domain of emotions). –

In Russian, the association is diachronic: videt’ “see” and vedat’ “know; manage” are two cognates of the Indo-European root *weid-/*woid- “see, notice, know”.

 Martine Vanhove

– –

Classical Arabic raʔā is polysemous: “see, catch sight”; “know, recognize, find”; “judge, think good that …”; “believe, think, have an opinion, consider”. In Yulu, the semantic association is diachronic, but differently from Russian as it represents a case of historical heterosemy.

“Know” is in fact a compound verb èeɗ ә̄.gȁayә́, whose first element synchronically means “see”, while the second one originally meant “know”, as attested in related languages such as Sar gèɽ̄ < Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi *(n)gaɭi. In Yulu the latter element can only be a so-called “postverbal adjunct” in compound forms, meaning “know how to do (s.th.)”:

àaɓә̀.gȁayә́ “know how to dance” ɲ7̀7tә́.gȁayә́ “know how to work”.

Thus èeɗ ә̄.gȁayә “know, be aware of, recognize” is etymologically “know how to see”.

5.3  Vision, “understanding” and “knowing” The triple polysemy between “see”, “understand”, and “know” is attested in three IndoEuropean languages. –

In colloquial French voir means “see” and, in appropriate contexts, also “understand”:



tuˉvois ce que je veux dire? “do you see what I mean, do you understand?”,

and “know”: LaˉTour Eiffel, tu vois où c’est? ‘The Eiffel Tower, do you see/know where it is?’.

– –

Such is the case for English see “see, understand, learn (be informed); know, etc.”, and for German sehen “see, know, recognize, understand”. Kasem (Gur, Niger-Congo) is somewhat different from the three above IndoEuropean languages as it is a border case for both cognitive meanings, and a very interesting one as far as bridging contexts are concerned. “Know”, expressed by the verb nā “see, catch sight, discern, perceive distinctly”, is in fact limited to the senses “observe, notice (behaviour), note, be informed, be conscious” and also “dream”. Other appropriate translations would be “understand, manage to know, realize”. All these cognitive meanings are in fact deeply connected to cultural factors which associate vision with deep understanding in order to

(i) do the right predictions: (15) kāzɩ̌n kàn yɩ́ә́ n7̄ kὺmὶ-mύ p7̄ kà twɩ́ old_woman det eyes see that-foc give cl3sg come kà pòrsә̀ wèènù cl3sg predict things ‘Thisˉold woman perceives deeply, that is why she can predict things’.



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

or (ii) perceive the important and constraining messages from the ancestors while sleeping, hence “dream”. Dreams have to be deciphered, understood, in order to adapt one’s behaviour to their content. nā also means

(iii) “decipher, understand”, when a reality or an event are beyond the normal understanding of human beings, and (iv) “know” the hidden side, in order to adopt the right attitude or strategy to neutralize wrong deeds: (16) ò káán jōnī s-ō nā kὺ mààmà cl1sg sacrifice.pfv altar so-cl1sg see that all ‘Heˉdid a sacrifice on the altar in order to decipher all that’.

Other meanings associated to nā are “find out” (truth), “concern”, “be confronted with” (prohibition, force), “consult, ask for advice”, “meet” (s.th. disappeared, rules), “win, get, get an advantage” (woman, life, water, crop …). Concerning the meanings outside perceptions, Tswana (Bantu) needs to be mentioned here as well. The cognitive meanings of bona “see” are limited to “consider, suppose, imagine, recognize (guilty)”, but this verb shows, similarly to Kasem, a polysemy with “win, get, find out”, and also with “receive, have, check”. On the other hand, in Kasem, two other verbs mean “know”, an active one, lwārī, and a stative one, yě. The latter may be related to the noun designating the “eye”, yɩ́. It corresponds to a regular derivational pattern of the language, but the stem /yi-/ is linked to three different concepts according to the nominal class they belong to, the class morpheme being compulsory to actualize the stem as a noun. These are yúú “head” (yi.cl4), yɩ́gA “face” (yi.cl3), and yɩ́ “eye” (yi.cl2). The problem is that the morphology does not tell from which particular noun the verb may be derived. Knowing the connection between vision and knowledge and understanding crosslinguistically, it would not be surprising if yě “know” were derived from yɩ́ “eye”, and that we had here a case of heterosemy. Still, only a comparable semantic and typological survey of the nouns designating the “face” and the “head” could help, if proved rare or negative in their association with cognitive verbs, to ascertain the link between yě “know” and yɩ́ “eye” in Kasem.

5.4  Discussion and conclusions Against the possibility advocated by Sweetser (1990: 45) that the connection between vision and knowledge may be fairly common crossculturally, if not universal, Evans & Wilkins (2000) have clearly shown that this semantic association is only marginal among Australian languages, both culturally and lexically. Our language sample also

 Martine Vanhove

confirms that the lexical association is far from being universal: 60% of them, i.e., 15/25, are concerned, which means that the transfield associations between sensory modalities and internal and/or intellectual perception show parallel patterns for both the hearing and the vision senses in these languages. Still, it has to be mentioned that the absence of polysemy or semantic change does not necessarily mean that the languages concerned do not display a cultural connection between vision and cognition. This is the case at least17 for one African language of our sample, i.e., Gbaya ’Bodoe. For the Gbaya people the eye is considered as the knowledge organ: one learns not only by hearing about things and events, but also by looking at them. As a matter of fact this is the teaching method for the traditional techniques: the adults do not utter any kind of explanations while showing these techniques to the children, neither do they correct verbally the children’s mistakes when they try to imitate what they have been shown (Y. Moñino and P. Roulon-Doko, p.c.). Furthermore, even though zfk “see, look at” does not mean “understand”, “learn”, or “know”, the cultural link between the two semantic domains is also reflected in the following saying: (17) wéweií n7́ bgà-yík man cop eye ‘Theˉman is the eye’.

Gbaya ’Bodoe, although a highly polysemous language, is a case where the lexicon (be it verbal or nominal) has not taken in charge the attested cultural link between vision and cognition through the development of a polysemous lexical item. In our sample, the lexical semantic association between vision and cognition concerns only Europe, and a European based Creole of Southern America, and parts of Africa, to the exclusion of the other language stocks and areas. We know that it is also attested, though rarely, in some Australian languages (Evans & Wilkins 2000) and Tibeto-Burman languages (Matisoff 1978). It would be worth enlarging the sample to find out whether some areas or linguistic families are totally devoid of this transfield association mapping vision and mental perceptions as table 2 and map 2 below might suggest. On the basis of the anthropology of senses, Evans & Wilkins (2000: 585) discussed the possibility that literacy might privilege sight as opposed to hearing and conversely that “developments from “hear” would mark cultures with a basically oral tradition.” It seems our data does not support this hypothesis, at least as a lexical universal. Seven unscripted (or recently scripted) languages of the sample (African languages Beja, Kasem, Sar, Swahili, Wolof, Yulu, and Creole Palenquero), some of them with very

.  It has not been possible to investigate all the languages of our sample on this particular issue.



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

Table 2.  Semantic associations between sight and mental perceptions Language English German French Italian Russian (
Heed

Understand

Know

Learn

see sehen voir vedere

see sehen voir

see

Think

*I.E. weid-vedat’ rha à̰à

raʔa

raʔa

à̰à *èeɗ ә̄.gȁayә́

Yulu Gbaya Kasem Makonde Swahili Tswana Vili Wolof Araki Lakon Mwotlap Olrat Nêlêmwa Inuit Yupik Tamang Palenquero

(nā)

(na) yě (< yɩ́ “eye”?)

kuona

gis

(bé!)

limited contact with Western cultures and languages, do have a lexical association, even though sometimes a marginal one, between mental perception and vision (in addition to “hearing”).

6.  Prehension verbs and intellectual perceptions Prehension verbs, i.e., verbs of taking, grasping, etc., are often highly polysemous items and develop a large variety of semantic extensions crosslinguistically, through contextual uses, derivation, composition, serialisation, etc., as well as various processes of grammaticalization (see e.g., Heine & Kuteva 2002). It is thus quite difficult to make any prediction about possible semantic change, patterns of polysemy, and thus to draw

D7

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C. NILO-SAHARAN 1. SAR 2. YULU

G1

B. AFROASIATIC 1. ARABIC (CLASSICAL) 2. BEJA

SEE+ UNDERSTAND

Map 2.  Vision + cognition.

Carte réalisée par le LLACAN (UMR 8135 du CNRS) sur un fond de carte de l'Atelier de cartographie de Sciences Po (Paris, France)

A. INDO-EUROPEAN 1. ENGLISH – 2. GERMAN 3. FRENCH – 4. ITALIAN 5. RUSSIAN

Vision + Cognition

SEE + KNOW

projection Gall-Bertin

E5

E2 E3 E4 E1

1 000 km

1 000 km

1 000 km

E. AUSTRONESIAN 1. ARAKI 2. LAKON 3. MWOTLAP 4. OLRAT 5. NÊLÊMWA

F2

SEE + UNDERSTAND + KNOW

D. NIGER-CONGO 1. GBAYA 'BODOE 2. KASIM 3. MAKONDE – 4. SWAHILI – 5. TSWANA - 6. VILI 7. WOLOF

F1

H1

F. ESKIMO 1. INUIT 2. YUPIK

SEE

H. CREOLE 1. PALENQUERO

G. SINO-TIBETAN 1. TAMANG

 Martine Vanhove



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

a typology of the semantic associations with the concept of “taking” as a starting point. Still, each type of semantic association would need to be studied into detail in order to check if there exists regular patterns within specific genetic stocks or linguistic areas. As for the present study, the survey had to be limited to the extensions to the domain of mental perceptions, excluding internal reception which is not attested in the data. Buck mentioned that Verbsˉfor “seize, grasp”, besides the usual notion of “seize with the hand”, may come by extension from “seize by a claw”, “by a hook”, “catch birds”, “overtake”, etc. Several of these, or their compounds, have come to be used for “understand”. (Buck 1949: 744)

Sweetser also noted that in Indo-European “There is […] strong evidence that mental activity is seen as manipulation and holding of objects: we “grasp” an idea …” (Sweetser 1990: 20) and that physicalˉmanipulation and touching is a source domain for words meaning both sight (visually picking out a stimulus) and mental data-manipulation (grasping a fact = understanding). Thus a word such as discern, which comes from a root meaning “separate,” now means both “catch sight of ” and “mentally realize.” Grasping and manipulation are evidence of control: which facts do we have under control, the facts we understand (“have an hold on,” “have grasped”) or those which we do not understand? Similarly, our visual picking out and monitoring of stimuli is evidence of control (our “scope” in English is our domain of control, whereas in Greek the word still belongs to the visual domain). (Sweetser 1990: 38)

Similar extensions of prehension verbs to cognition are also reported for Australian languages (Evans & Wilkins 2000: 568). No one ever claimed that the semantic association between prehension and cognition is universal; nevertheless it is worth mentioning that it is not limited to IndoEuropean and Australian languages. Mentions have also been made, e.g., for Finnish, Hungarian and Turkish. Our data enlarges the list to Afroasiatic, Niger-Congo and Austronesian, but it is by far a less productive semantic association than that with hearing or sight. It only concerns nine languages, five of them being Indo-European ones.

6.1  Prehension and “understanding” Two languages present a semantic association between prehension and cognition limited to the concept of “understanding”, through derivational processes. –

This is the case for Wolof jél “take (an object)”, jél-i 〈take-all〉 “guess s.b.’s thought, twig, understand (without explanations)”, and for German in two different stems: greifen “take”, begreifen “understand”, and fassen “take”, erfassen “understand”.

 Martine Vanhove

–

In Russian the heterosemous link is historical for one stem: ponimat’ “understand” is a cognate form of Old Russian imati “take”. In addition, colloquial Russian also shows a case of mere polysemy with the verb xvatat’ “size, grasp” which can be used in the sense of “understand”, e.g., in the following phrase:



xvatat’ˉna letu (lit. grasp at the flight) “to understand immediately” (saidˉof very sharp and receptive students; M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, p.c.).

–

In Mwotlap, the process corresponds to the mere synchronic polysemy of a single lexical item: lep “take”, “get through the intellect, manage to understand (problem, explanations)”:

(18) nēk me-lep nē-dēmdēm a no ma-vap tō 2sg perf-take art-idea sub 1sg pret1-say pret2 van hiy nēk en? –ˉoo no me-lep direc dat 2sg def –ˉyes 1sg perf-take ‘Haveˉyou understood the explanation I have just given you? – ‘Yes, I have’. [lit. Have you taken the idea which I said to you? – Yes I have taken it.]

The verb also means “retain, memorize (s.th.)”.

6.2  Prehension and “learning” Classical Arabic is the sole language of the sample, in which the cognitive semantic extension, via polysemy, is limited to the concept of “learning”. Kazimirski’s dictionary gives: ʔaxaða “take, s.b. or s.th., grasp”; learn s.th. from s.b.’; “learn after having heard s.th. told to s.o.” (in particular for traditions; followed by the preposition ʕan “of ”).

6.3  Prehension, “understanding” and “learning” Less rare in our data than the previous sub-class, is the cognitive extension to both “understanding” and “learning”: it concerns four languages. The lexical, syntactic and grammatical processes, as well as the shades of meanings, vary crosslinguistically. –

In particular contexts, in particular depending on the semantics of the arguments, Kasem has the two cognitive meanings distributed between two different lexical items: jā “grasp”; “capture”; “perceive, understand, calm down”:

(18) jā bànὶ grasp heart ‘calmˉdown, understand’.



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

and kwè “take, use”; “start” (process, activity), “learn, think of, be highly interested”: (19) kwè kàsīm take Kasem ‘learn Kasem’. (20) kwē bῡɲā take thoughts ‘learn to think over’.

kwè is also an inchoative auxiliary. –

During the historical development of French, the semantic association occurred at different periods for two lexical items, and for one of them in several derivational patterns. Rey (1992) explicitly relates the two cognitive meanings of “understand” and “learn”.

Under prendre “take”, he mentions that “as the Latin verb, prendre also has (beg. XIIth) the abstract meaning of “understand, interpret in a certain way” often replaced by the compound comprendre [understand] and by other words of the same family”. For apprendre “learn”, he notes that it “comes from colloquial Latin apprendere, from classical Latin apprehendere in the psychological sense of this verb. The verb means as soon as Old French “grasp through the intellect” and “get knowledge”, values which are parallel to those of comprehendere, comprendere.” As for comprendre “understand”, it is given as a “borrowing from Latin comprendere, specifically “grasp together”, and intellectually, “grasp through intelligence, thought”. This verb is formed with cum “with” and prehendere. The physical sense of “grasp, take, invade” turned this word to a semantic doublet of prendre until the XVIth … This use progressively lost ground in favour of the meaning … of “concieve, grasp through intelligence” (end XIIth-beg. XIIIth).” The other prehension verb saisir “grasp” illustrates a more recent case of polysemy: “In the XVIIth century, it is said figuratively for “to be in a position to know (s.th.) by the senses” and in particular for “understand, discern”. Today, the verb is used in particular (1923) in the absolute for “understand” (tu saisis? [you twig that?]).” –

Italian prendere, apprendere, and comprendere are in a similar line, as is English grasp (see Sweetser 1990).

6.4  Conclusions As compared with sight, the semantic association between prehension and intellectual perception seems to concern an even more reduced number of genetic stocks and

 Martine Vanhove

linguistic areas. Obviously, in this semantic domain as well, further research is needed. The above typological classification is reproduced in table 3 and map 3 below: Table 3.  Semantic associations between prehension and intellectual perceptions Language

Understand

Learn

English

grasp

grasp

German (< greifen) (< fassen) French (< prendre) Italian (< prendere)

begreifen erfassen comprendre comprendere ponimat’ xvatat’

apprendre apprendere

Russian (*imat’) Arabic Beja Sar Yulu Gbaya Kasem

Think

ʔaxaða

jā

kwè

kwè

Makonde Swahili Tswana Vili Wolof (<jél) Araki Lakon Mwotlap Olrat Nêlêmwa Inuit Yupik Tamang Palenquero

jél-i

lep

7.  General conclusion Hopefully, the above study has shown, after a few others, that the paths of semantic change and patterns of polysemy are not always unpredictable and that typological research, matched with in-depth cultural surveys, should also develop in the domain of lexical semantics because systematic semantic patterns do exist.

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TAKE + UNDERSTAND

A. INDO-EUROPEAN 1. ENGLISH – 2. GERMAN 3. FRENCH – 4. ITALIAN 5. RUSSIAN

Map 3.  Prehension + cognition.

Carte réalisée par le LLACAN (UMR 8135 du CNRS) sur un fond de carte de l'Atelier de cartographie de Sciences Po (Paris, France)

Prehension + Cognition

TAKE + LEARN

projection Gall-Bertin

E5

E2 E3 E4 E1

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1 000 km

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E. AUSTRONESIAN 1. ARAKI 2. LAKON 3. MWOTLAP 4. OLRAT 5. NÊLÊMWA

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D. NIGER-CONGO 1. GBAYA 'BODOE 2. KASIM 3. MAKONDE – 4. SWAHILI – 5. TSWANA - 6. VILI

H1

F1

F. ESKIMO 1. INUIT 2. YUPIK

TAKE

H. CREOLE 1. PALENQUERO

G. SINO-TIBETAN 1. TAMANG

Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

 Martine Vanhove

This presentation is far from drying up the research on the wealth of the transfield semantic associations linked to the domains of sensory modalities, mental perceptions, and prehension. Still, by enlarging the previous studies on Indo-European and Australian languages to other genetic stocks, it already suggests a few hypotheses for future typological research about transfield associations, as well as for comparative, semantic, and cognitive perspectives. From our data (c.p. tables 1, 2 and 3), its seems a lexico-semantic implicational universal could read as follows: Ifˉa language has a prehension word which maps onto the domain of mental perception, it also has another lexical item with a similar semantic association for vision and the auditory sense, but the reverse is not true.

The hierarchy between the physical domains, as far as their lexico-semantic association with mental perceptions is concerned, could be: Hearingˉ> vision > prehension.

Obviously, because of the limitations of the sample, further investigation and checking are needed on a larger number of languages and genetic stocks in order to confirm, or invalidate these implications. Already one exception exists in our data, namely in Mwotlap where there is no semantic association between sight and intellectual perception even though the extension exists for prehension verbs. Regarding the physical domains, Sweetser (1990:  38) noted, with an exemplification from the English data, that “physical manipulation and touching is a source domain for words meaning both sight (visually picking out a stimulus) and mental data-manipulation (grasping a fact = understanding).” This is also true for the auditory modality, and another Germanic language shows a nice example where prehension and the hearing sense meet in one lexical item, namely Early Middle German where vernemen meant “take, grasp, comprehend, perceive”, and “hear” (Buck 1949: 1201). The analysis of the lexicon of several languages in various genetic stocks, including the Indo-European ones, has also suggested a possible semantic universal which groups, synchronically or diachronically, at the lexical level, mental perceptions at large with the hearing sense, but not with sight as an Indo-European biased cognitive approach could suggest. This universal could read as follows: Allˉ(most of?) the world languages have a lexical semantic association between the hearing sense and mental perception, whether synchronic or diachronic, be it the outcome of polysemy, heterosemy or semantic change.

For the time being, one must keep in mind that unless the study is enlarged to more languages, the semantic universal remains a hypothesis.



Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions 

Whether this will hold true or not in the light of further research, a typological classification of this association needs to examine, for each lexical item in each language, the details of the semantic networks, morpho-syntactic frames, contextual uses, and historical data or reconstructions. This chapter was a first attempt to organize and classify possible isoglosses, but a fine-grained analysis based on all the above mentioned criteria will have to be undertaken in order to propose refined sub-classifications and, perhaps, solve the issue of the direction of semantic change. Ultimately, from the cultural point of view, the study has also shown that literacy is not a decisive factor which favours the specific semantic extension between vision and mental perception.

References Buck, C.D. 1988[1949]. A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages: A Contribution to the History of Ideas. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Chantraine, P. 1999. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des mots. Nouvelle édition mise à jour. Paris: Klincksieck. Classen, C. 1993. Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and across Cultures. London: Routledge. Evans, N. & Wilkins, D. 2000. In the mind’s ear: The semantic extensions of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language 76(3): 546–592. Grand Dictionnaire Russe-Français. 2002. Moscou: Editions Rousski Yazik. Grimm, J. 1864–1870. Die Fünf Sinne. Kleine Schriften, Vol. 7. Berlin. Haser, V. 2000. Metaphor in semantic change. In Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads, A. Barcelona (Ed.), 171–194. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Heine, B. & Kuteva, T. 2002. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. Heine, B. & Zelealem, L. 2007. Is Africa a linguistic area? In A Linguistic Geography of Africa, B. Heine & D. Nurse (Eds), 15–35. Cambridge: CUP. Howes, D. (Ed.) 1991. The Varieties of Sensory Experience. A Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Sense. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Kazimirski, A. de B. 1944 [1860]. Dictionnaire arabe – français. Beyrouth: Librairie du Liban. Lakoff, G. (1987) 1990. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 2003 [1980]. Metaphors We Live By. With a new Afterword. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 1999. Philosophy In The Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York NY: Basic Books. Lichtenberk, F. 1991. Semantic change and heterosemy in grammaticalization. Language 67: 474–509. Margueron, C. & Folena, G. 1991. Dictionnaire français-italien. Paris: Larousse. Masson, M. 1999. Matériaux pour l’étude des parallélismes sémantiques. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle.

 Martine Vanhove Matisoff, J.A. 1978. Variational Semantics in Tibeto-Burman. Philadelphia PA: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. Meeussen, A.E. 1975. Possible linguistic Africanisms. Fifth Hans Wolff memorial lecture. Language Sciences 35: 1–5. Rey, A. (dir.). 1992. Dictionnaire historique de la langue française. Paris: Le Robert. Riemer, N. 2005. The Semantics of Polysemy: Reading Meaning in English and Warlpiri. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Sakhno, S. 2001. Dictionnaire russe-français d’étymologie comparée. Paris: L’Harmattan. Sweetser, E. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics. Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: CUP. Viberg, Å. 1984. The verbs of perception: A typological study. In Explanations for Language Universals, B. Butterworth, B. Comrie & Ö. Dahl (Eds), 123–162. Berlin: Mouton. Wierzbicka, A. 1996. Semantics, Primes and Universals. Oxford: OUP. Wilkins, D.P. 1981. Towards a theory of semantic change. Honors thesis, Canberra: Australian National University. Wilkins, D.P. 1996. Natural tendencies of semantic change and the search for cognates. In The Comparative Method Reviewed, M. Durie & M. Ross (Eds), 224–304. Oxford: OUP.

Cats and bugs Some remarks about semantic parallelisms Michel Masson

Emeritus, Université Paris 3 To Cadfael, the little grey Cat, unforgettable. In several European languages lexical items meaning “cat” also designate the “monkey”, the “drunkard” (or “drunkenness”), several “insects” and some supernatural creatures. Those coincidences – here termed “semantic parallelisms” – are in fact intimately associated and constitute a network of beliefs linked with the medieval carnival. Building up on the pioneer work of Sainean (1905) and previous works by the author (Masson 1999), this paper illustrates the importance of semantic parallelisms not only from the linguistic viewpoint but also from the anthropological and cultural viewpoints. It shows that the semantic parallelisms stem from the cross-culturally recurrent conception of these living beings as connected to supernatural powers, giving rise to semantic shifts such as “scarecrow”, “frighten”, “devil” or “have the gift of witchcraft”. Keywords:  anthropology; cat; culture; metaphor; semantic parallelism; semantic shift

1.  Introduction A vessel is a sort of craft. It is also a sort of container (especially in the idiom blood vessel; cf. also Fr. vaisselle). Now a craft is hollow and a container is hollow as well. Thus one can be prone to consider that the two words vessel are akin but one can also be entitled to contest this view for it is well-known that with some imagination one can find a common denominator between any two elements of reality. The force of the subjective judgement depends, in fact, on the authority of the person that bears it. But now it can be observed that these two meanings of vessel can be found not only in the French words bac and nacelle but also in Latin where alveus and linter both mean “trough” and “canoe”, in Ancient Greek where skaphê means “basin” and “canoe” or in Biblical Hebrew with teba meaning “box” and “ark (Noah’s)”. If so, the association of the meaning “craft” and the meaning “container” is imposed from the outside: it is not made by myself but by the speakers of various

 Michel Masson

languages at various times and thus it is no longer subjective and I can base myself on what can be called a “semantic parallelism”1 to assert that vessel “craft” is indeed akin to vessel “container”. It appears then that collecting semantic parallelisms as exhaustively as possible is obviously of interest for the etymologist as well as for the semanticist who can ponder over the genesis and mechanism of those coincidences. But more generally all human sciences could benefit from this type of investigation. This is what I would like to illustrate by a few examples.2 For this purpose I would like to resume a remarkable study realized in 1905 by L. Sainean3 on the names of the cat and, incidentally, of the monkey (ape). The author’s intention was not turned towards parallelisms but it happens that he mentioned an impressive number of them although he did not exploit them completely. These parallelisms display two types of anthropological information, some appearing in isolation, others in networks, and they are discussed in turn below.

2.  Parallelisms in isolation Sainean (S 41–42) points out that the name of the cat is frequently applied to various small mammals as well as to monkeys or apes. e.g.: –  civet: Fr. chat musqué; It. gattozibetto; Port. gato de algalia; Germ. Zibetkatze. – squirrel: Occ. chat-esquirol; Bret. kazh-koad (= “wood-cat”); Germ.Katzeneichhorn “blue squirrel”. – pole-cat: Occ. cat-pudis (= “stinking cat”); It. gatto spusso; Germ. Ellenkatze; and, of course, Engl. pole-cat. –  stone marten: Fr.chafouin; Catal. gat-fagi. – monkey: It. gattomammone; Occ. cat-mimoun, gaminou “female monkey”; Sp. gatopaul “long-tailed monkey”; Germ. Meerkatze “female monkey”. (cf. also S 89). What our mental habits can lead us to judge as a strange confusion lies in fact upon a pre-linnéan classification of animals: not so long ago, species were not fundamentally defined by the possibility of reproduction but by other features such as, for example, .  A denomination proposed by David Cohen in his seminars at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. .  For a larger development, see Masson (1999). .  The references to Sainean will be indicated by the letter S followed by the number of the page. The abbreviations concerning the geographic denominations are taken over from Sainean as they are. However the names of the different dialects of Occitan are given as occ.



Cats and bugs 

their aspect, (in the present case, the fact that these animals are anthropoid and hairy). Likewise, under the name of “insect” were grouped together what we still call now that way but also worms, scorpions or small snakes (roughly speaking what is defined in the Bible as the “creeping things” [Gen. 1–24; in Hebrew: šéreṣ]). The word vermin derived from French ver “worm” still refers to animals as different as fleas, cockroaches and mice. In spite of our reluctance, we must keep in mind that the cat and the monkey are two aspects of what can have been considered as a single entity – which does not imply that the users did not perceive differences but that they judged them as secondary; somewhat as we do nowadays when we give the same name of “dog” to creatures as different as the pug or the basset. We shall see later what can have justified such an apprehension of animal reality. Of course this pre-linnéan distribution of the animal world is well-known (Linné was so conscious of it that he proposed another one to correct its inadequacy) but the merit of the above-quoted parallelism is first to remind us of this mental distribution and secondly to make us perceive concretely how certain species were classified in particular regions of Western Europe and, thus, bring a contribution to the intelligence of mentalities.4

3.  Parallelisms in networks Four types of strange coincidences can be noticed.

3.1  Parallelism associating the monkey and the cat to drunkenness This is illustrated by Occ. mounard, mounino, mounzo “drunkenness”; It. scimiato, monno “d°”; Sp. mona, moña “d°” (s. other examples below and in Sainean 92). This association between the monkey and drunkenness is also attested by tradition5 since it is already to be found in the Talmud6 and is represented on the Saint Denis Basin (±1180)7 where, among many other figures, a monkey appears beside a personification of drunkenness.8 How can this be explained? Such sayings as “black as ink” or “quick as a flash” are based on the indisputable observation that ink is a

.  Concerning this question, see for example, Mounin (1965: 31–54) or Guiraud (1967: 33–64 and passim). .  On this point, see Janson (1952: 49–51). .  In Midrash Tanxuma I.13 (ad Genesis 9.20). .  Nowadays to be found in Paris in the courtyard of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. .  Quoted by Janson (1952: 56).

 Michel Masson

black substance par excellence and that a flash is an extreme manifestation of quickness. Would the monkey be then a drunkard par excellence? This is what is suggested by Sainean and the FEW chiming in with Pliny (Hist. Nat. 23/44) followed by Elian (Var. Hist. II.40). But this position is untenable. First, because, as is underlined by Janson (1952: 256 n. 6; see also Mac Dermott (1938: 86), Pliny only says that a trick to catch monkeys is to make them drunk. Besides – Janson goes on – no mention is made of monkeys liking wine in the zoological literature of the Middle Ages. In fact, in the wild, monkeys (apes) obviously do not drink alcohol and those that are tamed consume what they are given. They may react with more or less pleasure. They seem to prefer spirits when they are not too strong (diluted in syrup, for example) and, exactly like human beings, they may then become addicted. But nothing proves that they prefer alcohol beyond anything else, sufficiently to give rise to metaphors. Conversely, it is well known that they are fond of fruit and cakes and yet this inclination has never generated metaphors.9 Moreover, if monkeys happen to be intoxicated by alcohol, they will grow fidgety. Now monkeys are reputed to be fidgety by nature – even when they are not drunk. In fact, drunkenness does not change their essence: it is not significant and thus can hardly give rise to a metaphor. Another explanation could be that a drunken man would be comparable to a monkey. But it is gainsaid by the cat. Indeed, this animal is also associated with drunkenness as is testified by such words or idioms as Occ. mineto, miato, Catal. gat, It. gatta, Port. gata , Sp. gatera “the fact of getting plastered” and Catal. mix “drunk” and also “pussy” (cf. S 32, 37, 62). Now it is a well-known fact that cats positively hate all alcohol. Considering the coalescence of the two animals as illustrated in the preceding paragraph, it would not be understandable that what goes for the cat should not be valid for the monkey.

3.2  Cat and insects Let us face now a second parallelism no less strange than the former: the one that, at least in the Romance and Germanic domains, associates the name of the cat – or of the monkey – with the name of an insect in the pre-linnéan sense of the word, i.e., of small invertebrate animals. e.g:10 –

scolopendra: Fr. chatte (St Malo).

.  This information was given to me by Mr Pierre Charles-Dominique, Directeur de recherches au CNRS (Museum d’Histoire Naturelle de Brunoy/91). I thank him heartily. .  All the following examples are taken from Sainean 28, 33, 40, 47, 56, 69.



Cats and bugs 

–

worm: It. mignatto “earthworm”; Sp. miñosa, Port. minhoca, Gal. moñoca “earthworm”; malmignatta, marmignattu (Corsican) “venomous worm” (= “bad kitten”); Rhaeto-Rom. ghiata “sort of worm” (and also “kitten”). Fr. macon (Meuse), magot (Guern.); Engl. maggot (from the French). Cf. the names of the cat (monkey) attested in the Romania under connected forms maco, macou, magou, magot (s. S 18s).11    NB. Besides, Fr. macaque refers to a variety of grub. –

moth: Fr. migne, mignon “wax moth”; Pic. mine, mène “moth” and minon “cheese, flesh or fruit worms”. Cf. names of the cat (monkey) in the Romania: mine, minet, minino (v. S: 16); for words in mign-: see above.

–

leech: It. mignatta (bignatta), mignelle (mignera); Sic. mignetta; Port. bicha (= “kitten”).12 Cf. names of the cat (monkey) in the Romania: see above.

–

silk worm: Old Fr. magnan, maignan; Occ. magnan, magna, magnac, magnard, magnaud, magniau, magni, magnon, magnot (all also meaning “cat”); It. mignanna, mignatti, magnate; Sp. (Arag.) mona “kitten”.13 It. gatt (Bol.), gatina (Piém.), gatin (Milan); Fr. gatemine (Gironde) beside It. gatto and Sp. gato “cat”.

–

glow worm: Fr. tsato (Basse Auv.); It. gata (Ossola). It. mamauin Cf. names of the cat (monkey) in the Romania: see above.

.  Guiraud (1967) following Sainean (1905), has well shown that, especially in the Romania, many denominations of the cat were subject to formal recurrent plays whose affective, ludic and finally onomatopoeic origin is beyond doubt: they are composed of one syllable consisting of an initial M- followed by a vowel but, moreover, this fundamental syllable may often be enlarged by various consonants and/or be reduplicated and/or affected by (functional or dummy) affixes. The onomatopoeic character of the basic syllable guarantees the fundamental kinship of the different forms. .  Cf. Port. bicho, micho, bichano, bichenho “kitty”. .  Cf. Sp. mono “singe”; Occ. mouno “monkey + cat” (Fr. moune, moumoune).

 Michel Masson

–

caterpillar: Occ. cato, chato (Auv.), tsotilho (Corrèze), gato (Béarn); Fr. chatte (Loire-Inf.); It. gattina, gattola; gattareda (sic.) and, of course, Engl. caterpillar, from the French chate pelose “hairy cat”. See also: S. 40. NB. To Sainean’s list could be added: Fr. manne (wallon) and Occ. manna (Périg.) “mayfly” It. mammanu, mamài “louse” (Sicily);14 magonu “cockroach” (Cors.; Sard.: mangonu). Fr. mamau, marmaute, marmauche “bug”; Occ. marmote “maybug”.15 All these words are to be compared to denominations of the cat (monkey) in Msuch as man, manan (Milan), in M-M such as Old Fr. maimon, It. mammone and in MARM- such as Fr. marmot, marmotte, marmouse(t), marmoin, marmion; It. marmocchio, marmotta (all quoted by Sainean: passim). NB. In view of what has been said above, it would be advisable to qualify the received etymology of the Fr. mite “moth”. According to the FEW, the word is borrowed from Dutch mijt which itself would be connected to a non-attested verb meaning to gnaw. At present the influence of the word mite meaning “cat” in Old French could be taken into account. Likewise, the etymology of Fr. man “May beetle grub” could be revised. For the FEW, the word was borrowed from Frankish *mado “same meaning”. But the origin of this word is unclear and the detail of the phonetic evolution from mado to man is not obvious.

3.3  Cat, monkey, insects and black mood Not only is the cat (monkey) associated by a parallelism with drunkenness and insects but, moreover, the cat (monkey) and the insects themselves are all associated with black mood. e.g.: –

melancholy, queerness: Fr. avoir le cafard “to feel depressive”; Port. minhocas “queer habits” (minhoca “earthworm”). It. grillo “whim” + “cricket”; Germ. Grille “whim + cricket” Fr. avoir une araignée au plafond and Occ. ave la cigalo “to have bats in the belfry”

.  Cf. Piccitto & Tropeza (1985). .  Cf. Simin Palay (1991) who also cites marmaute “monkey”.



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Occ. barbòu “depression” + “strange fellow”;16 aver un babot din la testo “to have visions”; babarauno “glow worm + whim, visions”. And, of course, Engl. to be lousy and a basketball bug. NB. Parallel to names of the cat (monkey): Occ. ramagnol, ramamiau, “whim, craze” (S: 63); mounino, mouninado “whim, craze”, mounel “bizarre” (mouno “monkey, cat”) (S: 90 et 92) and pop. French matagot “excentric” (S 92), properly “monkey” (obsolete).

–



gloomy Sp. chinchearse “to get angry”; estar con la chinche “to be bad-humored” (chinche “bug”); amoscarse “to take exception” (cf. Fr. prendre la mouche); chinchear “to bore” (chinche “bug + nuisance”); escarabajo “bug + trouble”; bicho “insect” + “ill-intentioned person”. Germ. Dem ist eine Laus über die Leber gelaufen (lit. “a louse is running on his liver”). Occ. grimaud “sullen person” + “louse, insect”; Occ. cùcou “insect” + “sullen”.17 Cf. Engl. beetle-browed; to bug “to bother”; louse “bastard”. NB. Notice the expression which in Catalan also refers to a form of mental agitation: tenir cucs “to be in a blue funk”, lit. “to have the worms” (cuc “worm”). NB. Parallel to names of the monkey: Fr. marmouserie “melancholy”; mone, moneux “melancholy (adj.)” Occ. marmusat “sickly”; mouni, mouninous “melancholy (adj.)”; moucaco “bad look”; quinaud, quinard “puny” (Périgord). Sp. monicaco “puny”. It. darsi alle bertuccie “to be worried stiff ” (litt. “to give oneself to the monkeys”). Parallel to names of the cat: Fr. maraud “sickly”. Occ. marroto “bad luck”; marrano “bad luck + languor”; mouruegno “languor”. It. (Genoa) marottu “sick” Port. engatado “sickly”. Other ex.: S 37, 44, 48, 63–4, 73, 93. NB. All the above examples are taken from Sainean 1905; they are connected by the author with names of the cat (monkey).

.  Cf. Simin Palay (1991, sv). .  Also “deceitful”; cf. Simin Palay (1991, sv).

 Michel Masson

3.4  Cat, monkey, insects and dreadful creatures The fourth coincidence deserves all the more attention, as it certainly constitutes the key to the three preceding ones. It appears as a double parallelism: on the one hand, the name of the cat (monkey) is associated with names of dreadful creatures or objects and, on the other hand, the name of insects are likewise associated with those awsome realities. e.g.: Occ. babau “bugbear + bug”. Fr. grimaud “louse” + “wizard + name of the Devil”; diable “devil + name of various insects”. Sp. coco “worm + bugbear” Occ. morgue, mourgo “fairy” + “bug”. Catal. cùco “glow-worm” + “scarecrow”;18 la Cuca fera “the Tarasque” (litt. “the wild Worm”); (dimoni cucarell) “incubus” (cuc, cua “worm”). It. fare baco baco “to frighten (children)” (baco “worm”); mammicucchiera “worm” + “monster” (Sic.).19 Fr. avoir le barbot “to have the gift of witchcraft” (barbot “bug”).20 Likewise with the names of the cat (monkey): It. (Milan) magnan “scarecrow” (+ “cat”); mao (Bergame) “scarecrow” (+ “caterwauling”); mamao, maramao (Côme), marramau (Sic.) “scarecrow” (+ “caterwauling”) (S: 67, 71). Occ. mamiau “caterwauling + bugbear”; It. (Sic.) mamau, mamiu “caterwauling + bugbear” (Forez mamiu “goblin”); Fr. croquemitaine (mitaine = “cat”); It. (Venice) marmutone, mamutone “bugbear”, corresponding to Occ. (Lang.) marmoutin “cat” (S 70–71); giatemarangule “bugbear” (Frioul: S 49).21 Occ. matagot “wizard cat” (S 79–80). Fr. matou “wizard” (in Furetière), macaud, maraud, marcou, marlou (Berry) “wizard + tom cat” (S 79–80; s. also 26 and 49). Old Fr. marmot, babouin (babou, baboue, baboye, babaye) “bugbear + name of monkey” (S 90).

.  Cf. Simin Palay (1991). .  Cf. Piccitto & Tropeza (1985, sv). .  Villeneuve (1998, sv). .  Diminutive of *giatemara [giat “cat”] connected by Sainean to Occ. catomiauro where appears the name of the cat and an imitation of its caterwauling.



Cats and bugs 

Occ. mouno “scarecrow” + “monkey” (and “cat”). It. mammone, gattomammone “monkey + bugbear”. NB. In the domain of French could be added to Sainean’s list: marmouset “magic puppet + monkey”22 and mourmouse “demon”.23 In at least three cases it can be noticed that the collusion between the cat (monkey) and the insect is emphasized by the clear formal proximity of some terms belonging to the Romance domain: Fr. and Occ. marmuque “ghost” beside marmauche, marmote “bug” and marmaute, marmote “monkey”. It. (Sic.) mammicucchiera “worm + monster” in which can be found the form in MAMreferring to the cat and the element cuc- meaning “worm”. Occ. babau “bugbear” + “bug” and Fr. babouin “baboon”. Moreover it would need a good deal of pyrrhonism to dissociate mamau “bugbear (It. Sic.)” from Occ. marmau and Fr. marmot “d°” on the one hand and from Occ. babau (baboue) on the other hand; but the latter words can hardly be separated either from barbau, on the one hand and from the simple form attested in Spanish bu “bugbear” on the other hand. Thus is revealed a device, if not a system, allowing expressing one and the same semantic whole {cat/monkey/insect} by means of a phonetic set characterized by three components: 1. B + vowel + B. 2. Nasalization of B. 3. Infixation of R into 1 or 2.

3.5  Cultural and historical explanation Intermingling such animals as different as the cat, the monkey and insects may seem absurd but it can be explained if we accept to admit a way of thinking governed by preoccupations that are no longer ours. Indeed the investigations of the sociologists and ethnologists teach us how a particular form of thinking that some have dubbed “primitive” (Lévy-Bruhl), “magic” (Cassirer) or better “archaic” (Cazeneuve). In this kind of mentality can work, “under the diversity of the forms assumed by beings and objects … exists and circulates one and the same essential and manifold

.  Villeneuve 1998, sv. Dagyde. .  Lecouteux (1995: 25).

 Michel Masson

reality, both natural and spiritual at once” (Lévy-Bruhl 1927: 3). This reality is admittedly called mana, in the way of the Melanesians who believe in the existence of a force absolutely distinct from all material force, which acts in all sorts of ways, either for good or for evil, and which it is to man’s advantage to put under his hand and dominate … It is a force, an influence of an immaterial order and, in a sense, supernatural; but it is by physical force that it is revealed or by any kind of power and superiority that is possessed by man. The mana is not fixed upon a determined object; it can be brought upon all kind of things (Codrington 1891: 118, quoted by Cazeneuve 1961: 126).

It is precisely this supernatural force that is at work in all the components of our fourth parallelism. The fact is obvious in the case of the words designating the devil, the bugbear or the goblin that are the embodiment of the evil force but also the wizard, who is inhabited by that force at least while he is busy casting spells, and also the ghost, who is what is left of life after death. But the Force can also become incarnate in an animal, let it be a cat, a monkey or an insect. This interpretation is historically documented: the eerie reputation of the cat is notorious (e.g., Hue 1982: passim). The monkey, too, has long been considered as a devilish creature (cf. Janson 1952: passim). As to insects (in the broad sense of the term), their contact with the earth and rot makes them close to the world of the dead, the beyond and the terrors pertaining to them. Thus each of the components of the fourth parallelism constitutes a facet of one and the same reality. Thus can be explained the association {cat (monkey)/insect} but the association {queerness (depression)/cat (monkey)/insect} also becomes transparent in its turn: until recently, mental disturbances or even simple oddness were perceived and conceived as forms of possession. And the drunkenness attributed to the cat (monkey) could be interpreted in the same way. Indeed, let us examine the way it is expressed: in German, for instance, “to get plastered” is einen Kater haben “litt. to have a tom cat” or einen Affen haben “litt. to have a monkey”; in Port. tomar o gato “to take the cat”; in Occ. prene la mieto (miato, miacho) “d°”; in It. we have pigliare la gata “to take the kitten” and pigliare la bertuccia, la monna “to take the monkey”; Sp. tomar la mona “take the monkey”. In all the above cases one is drunk when one “takes” a cat or a monkey. Occitan is still more concrete: one “loads” it (carga la mineto), a simile that is to be sometimes found in English concerning a particular form of intoxication in the expression to have a monkey on one’s back “to be drug-addicted” (Robert & Collins 1987, s.v. monkey). German, for its part, indicates the result: once one has “taken” it, one has it; when one has “a hangover”, the Germans say “one has a tom cat”. And what does the tomcat do? He indulges in the Katzenjammer, i.e., “caterwauling” – and this expression precisely refers to the nauseous headache resulting from inconsiderate potation.



Cats and bugs 

Therefore one has got the cat as one has got the flu and, in order to have them, one catches them. One does not only become comparable to a cat or a monkey, one has in fact ingested it. And, as a result, in order to sleep off one’s wine, one must send the animal to sleep – as Spanish puts it (dormir la mona) – or even pour out its active substance, that is to say no less than flay it – as is said in Catalan (escorxar el gat). Thus one has a monkey inside oneself as one has the devil in oneself. And this in the full meaning of the word. Indeed, as recalled above, in the Middle Ages, cats as well as monkeys were seen as devilish beings. Thus, drunkenness is perceived as a state of possession. The demon cat-monkey is thoroughly inhabited by that evil force and he who gets drunk somehow swallows that force: he literally sucks the monkey; and when one is dead drunk, one is totally imbibed in this evil spirit,24 one is then entirely a cat (monkey) or, as Catalan puts it, one is ben gata, or, to say it in regional French (Ain), one is miron (miron “cat”).25 One is somehow “be-catted” (“be-monkeyed”) as one can be bedeviled or bewitched. This interpretation is confirmed by a well-known coincidence: in Ancient Greek, it is one and the same word bakkhos that designates a supernatural being (the god Bacchus), the adept of this god (the bacchant) but also wine. In other words, man’s state of mind is altered, he identifies himself with the god by ingesting a substance, a substance endowed of a mysterious power, that is to say a god, the same one to whom the bacchic man identifies himself.26

4.  The semantic parallelism with “gloomy, grinning” We must now account for a last semantic association: the one connecting the idea of “gloomy, grinning” with the cat (monkey) on the one hand and with insects on the other hand. In the case of the monkey, it may seem transparent since it is accustomed to make faces. Moreover, it is a humanoid and its look invites one to compare it with that of human beings but, as it is hairy and as its features is (comparatively) coarse, it looks like a wild man. But, on the contrary, as far as the cat is concerned, the association is disturbing for its face now mischievous now serene is undoubtedly a paragon of beauty.

.  For all this, see Janson (1952: 49–51). .  The expression être miron is not mentioned by Sainean; we found it in Fréchet & Martin (1998, s.v). .  Cf. also Germ. Kobold “goblin” + “kind of mead” (Kluge 1995, s.v.).

 Michel Masson

Now the demoniac character of the cat (monkey) is not only a matter of opinion, of myth, but also of rite. Indeed, numerous testimonies show that this animal was the unfortunate hero of carnival rituals. Sainean (S 82) gives several examples of those abominations. It could be added that, for example, cats were burnt alive on Saint John’s Eve and that, in England, they used to be hanged.27 We could also recall all the cruelty underlying the French denominations of several games (chat perché, chat coupé, etc.; see also S 66) or the well-known song of La Mère Michel qui a perdu son chat. Moreover, in French again, this persecution is echoed by a metaphor concerning two (obsolete) words: mitonner “to cheat”/miton “cat” and mistoufler “to cheat”/mistoufle “cat”.28 It is easy to understand that, being treated in such a way, the wretched creature should not display an inviting countenance and that its downcast look could have been considered as emblematic in view of the social importance of the rituals in which it appeared. It must be pointed out that monkeys were not martyrized in the regions whose languages are envisaged here. The reason is obvious: they are exotic and therefore rare and costly. However they may have been exposed to vexations as is testified by some linguistic facts: cf. Fr. (Picard) moneux “ashamed”/mone “monkey”; Old Fr. marmot “monkey” but also “underdog”; quinaud “ashamed” derived from quin “monkey”; marmouser “to bully”, embabouiner “to cheat”; Port. mandar bugiar “to send sb packing” (litt. “to send sb be a bugio, i.e., a monkey”);

.  See Villeneuve (1998, s.v. chat). See also Van Gennep (1943, I. 862–3) or Hue (1982: 71–75). .  And probably also mystifier (hence Engl. mystify) which first appears in 1760. The Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française of Bloch & Wartburg derives it from the Greek mystes “initiated” for “about the middle of the 18th century, burlesque initiations were often practiced at the expense of credulous persons. The most famous case is that of Poinsinet who was made to believe that the King of Prussia wanted to trust him with the education of the crown prince.” However, it could be objected that it is not certain that the word attested in 1760 was necessarily born at that time – it may have appeared before; on the other hand, it would be desirable to establish the existence of burlesque initiations more firmly: the example chosen by Bloch & Wartburg is particularly unconvincing for the mystification they mention is not integrated in a pseudo-ritual; moreover, if the mystification were a “burlesque initiation”, the victim would be the myst or, rather, the one that is made to believe that he is a myst and, pari passu, it would be expected that the word myst came to mean “dupe” and become as common as the word mystification. Now myst has preserved its original meaning and is only known by specialists. This is why it seems reasonable to suppose that the verb mystifier has been formed in the same way as were its synonyms mitonner and mistoufler, that is to say from a name of the cat similar to mistoufle and miston. The use of the y would be a manifestation of the customary pedantry of French spelling (cf. for example the arbitrary y in gymkhana, ylang-ylang or sylvestre).



Cats and bugs 

Sp. quedarse hecho un mono (litt. “to be left made a monkey”); It. berteggiare “to kid”/ berta “monkey”; Occ. mounard “gullible person” and far mouna “to submit”. Now, what about the association of the names of insects with the notion of “gloomy, grimacing”? It is all the more surprising as it is rather unusual to look into the facies of insects; moreover, they are not seen as carnival heroes. But, precisely, in the carnival ritual, two components are most often to be observed: – being held as demoniac is ill-treated. As has been seen, it can be a cat that is made to pull a wry face but also another animal (a bear, a goat), a dummy made monstrous by its size and its sardonic, bearded face or a man disguised in a monstrous fashion. He is often clad in foliage or animal hide and wears a horrible mask. He is sometimes called the Wild Man or the Feuillu; – the participants in the ritual also give themselves a frightening appearance by anointing themselves with a black substance or by sporting masks. In other words, the mask constitutes the fundamental and perhaps defining feature of the ritual. Let us now return to the insect and examine the following list: Engl. dragon-fly; Sp. saltamontes “grasshopper”; Germ. Heupferd “grasshopper” (= “hay-horse”); Dutch sprinkhaan “grasshopper” (= “hopping cock”); Pol. konik polny “grasshopper” (litt. “field poney”); Bret. marc’h-raden “grasshopper” (= “fern-horse”); Rus. božnaya korobka “ladybird” (= “God’s little cow” – transposed into Mod. Hebrew as parat moše rabeynu “Our Master Moses’ cow”); Fr. cerf-volant “stag-beetle” (“flying stag”); Engl. centipede and Fr. mille-pattes (“thousand feet”); Engl. praying mantis and Fr. mante religieuse (already in Greek; in Mod. Hebrew gmal ʃlomo, [= “Solomon’s camel”]). All those words show that there exists a disposition in the speakers to consider insects as beings larger than they really are, that is to say in the way that children do with most of their toys. Moreover, if one looks into the head of an insect as if it were a human face, one can notice that it is totally inexpressive with blank, somewhat fascinating eyes and thus it corresponds exactly to what is named a mask. The correspondence is so striking that the facies of some insects is called mask by the entomologists who also apply to certain forms of various insects the word larva which in Latin means “ghost” and also “mask”. Consequently, if gigantic proportions are given to that creature endowed with a miniature mask, it can be understood that it should have been enroled in the carnival ritual as is precisely the case of the Tarasque designated in Catalonia by the expression la Cuca fera “the wild Worm”. This hypothesis is confirmed by two details:

 Michel Masson

Firstly, in Occitan we meet the word babouiro “carnival mask” that has the same consonance as babau, babal, babòu, baboueto “insect”. It is to be found in Old French as babeoire (or babounière) which also appears in the form barbeoire sounding like words designating insects in the Gallo-Roman domain (barbot, barboto).29 Secondly, another carnivalesque reality is also named after an Occitan expression in which appears a word akin to the two preceding ones, far la barbara, that is “to subject to the public humiliation of the (so-called) charivari”. Indeed, it is known that the carnival ritual includes the charivari in the course of which the King of Carnival is ridiculed – which does not prevent this practice from being applied outside the carnival to any person that one wants to bully. He (she) is exposed to what is called in Old French la quine mine and he (she) becomes then all quinaud, expressions in which is precisely to be found the name of the carnival animal, the quin, that is the “monkey”, in parallel with that of the insect in the Occitan barbara. NB. All this allows one to understand better the link uniting the words bug, bugbear and bugaboo the origin of which is qualified as obscure by the Oxford Dictionary: the bug “object of dread” is very probably related to Welsh bwg (bwgan) “devil” as is suggested by the Oxford Dictionary but it might well be akin to the mask-wearing animal, the bug “insect”. It is of course to be found in bugbear, associated to the bear that, like the cat and the monkey, is one of the hypostases of the carnival hero. And, in bugaboo, it is certainly joined to the onomatopoeic element present in to boo (also cf. Sp. bu “bugbear”) that evokes the hullabaloo of the charivari ritual.

5.  Conclusion In conclusion, it appears that semantic parallelisms do not necessarily function in an isolated way; there also exist networks of mutually connected semantic features resulting in a sort of very short story expressing a world vision and which it would not be incongruous to compare to a myth. Thus, beyond the obvious interest that it presents for the linguist and particularly for the etymologist, the observation of semantic parallelisms could open out a twofold perspective. First, in the same way as written documents or iconography, it can be used as an auxiliary to other types of reflection, let it be historical, literary or sociological. Thus, for instance, it could enrich such investigations as those of Walter (2003) or

.  S. Godefroy (1982, svv).



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Lecouteux (1995).30 Then, on a larger scale, it could throw some light on the study of mentalities and cognitive processes or psychoanalysis and, in particular, lead to the discovery of universals. However, it must not be concealed that coping with semantic parallelisms requires a good deal of prudence: the field is considerable and one is never sure to have at one’s disposal all the elements pertaining to a parallelism. Now the absence of one of them can prevent one from interpreting the functioning of a network adequately. For example, among the parallelisms examined above, it appears that the one associating a supernatural being with the cat (monkey) and the insect plays a key-role: it is this that puts us on the track of the mana and reveals that all the other parallelisms are interconnected; without it, we would have only a catalogue of coincidences, certainly interesting but lifeless. Moreover, a priori, the observation of parallelisms is supposed to cover the whole globe and, there again, as long as the inventory is not complete, the interpretation of the data can be perturbed. For instance, to return to the present study, it can have been noticed that all the parallelisms belong to modern languages of Western Europe (Romance and Germanic) but this is simply because our basic sources were Sainean and Guiraud. The conclusions that can be drawn are necessarily provisional. However, semantic parallelisms allow us to reduce the subjectivity of the observer and, if cautiously handled, they can be of enough use to invite the researchers to go deeper into the matter.

References Bloch, O. & Wartburg, W. 2002 [1932]. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Cazeneuve, J. 1961. La mentalité archaïque. Paris: Colin. Codrington, R.H. 1891. The Melanesians, Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dottenville, H. 1973. Mythologie française. Paris: Payot. 1929. FEW = Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. Eine Darstellung des gallo-romanischen Sprachschatzes. Bonn: Fritz Klopp. Frechet, C. & Martin, J.B. 1998. Dictionnaire du français régional de l’Ain. Paris: Edition Bonneton. Godefroy, F. 1982. Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française. Paris: Champion. Gordon, P. 1998. Le géant Gargantua. Paris: Arma Artis. Guiraud, P. 1967. Structures étymologiques du lexique français. Paris: Larousse.

.  Without forgetting those of Dottenville (1973) or Gordon (1998) the – significant – import of which is impaired by an adventurous use of linguistics.

 Michel Masson Hue, J.L. 1982. Le chat dans tous ses états. Paris: Grasset. Janson, H.W. 1952. Apes and Apelore in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. London. Kluge, F. 1995 [1883]. Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Lecouteux, C. 1995. Démons et génies du terroir. Paris: Imago. Levy-Bruhl, L. 1927. L’âme primitive. Paris: F. Alcan. MacDermott, W.C. 1938. The Ape in Antiquity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Masson, M. 1999. Matériaux pour l’étude des parallélismes sémantiques. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle. Mounin, G. 1965. Un champ sémantique: La dénomination des animaux domestiques. La Linguistique 1: 31–54. Picitto, G. & Tropeza, G. 1985. Vocabolario siciliano. Palermo: Centro di Studi filologici e linguistici siciliani. Le Robert & Collins. 1987. Dictionnaire français-anglais/anglais-français. Glasgow, Paris. Sainean, L. 1905–1907. La création métaphorique en français et en roman [Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie 1, 10]. Halle: Niemeyer. Simin Palay. 1991. Dictionnaire du béarnais et du gascon moderne. Paris: Editions du CNRS. van Gennep, A. 1943 [1998]. Le folklore français. Paris: Editions A. Picard. Villeneuve, R. 1998. Dictionnaire du diable. Paris: Omnibus. Walter, P. 2003. Mythologie chrétienne, fêtes, rites et mythes du Moyen Age. Paris: Imago.

General index

A abstract  62–64, 96, 102, 166, 346, abstracted  61, 62 abstraction  45, 64, 68, 97 access(ed)  56, 59, 61, 66, 68, 71, 76, 77–79, 235, 251 accessibility  74, 76, 78, 79 accessing  56, 59, 74, 76 acquire  31, 36, 37 acquisitive modal  37  acquisition  18, 20, 43, 159, 254 lexical acquisition  244 acronym  78 actionality  40 active  8, 15, 62, 275–77, 282, 293, 296, 347, 359 active meaning  275, 293, 346 active zone  70, 86 activation  78, 79, 89, 281 activity activity verbs  156 controlled activity  282, 298, 345, 347, 350 noncontrolled (uncontrolled) activity  307, 311, 345, 347, 350 mental activity  363 undergone activity  275–78, 282, 296–98 adaptability  66 advertisement  79, 88, 89 affected  142, 149, 151–55 agent  142, 153, 154, 158, 274, 281, 292, 329 external agent  158 agentive  296, 298 agitated  151, 158 Aktionsart  33, 40, 41, 44 affix  297, 324, 327, 336 AIDS  78 Alsatia  77 ambiguity  37, 56, 66, 76, 82, 90, 191, 240

analogical extension  172 anaphora  159 animate  8, 9, 15, 151, 296, 307, 311, 312, 357 ambivalence  79, 293, 298, 305, 311 Amor  73 analytic  76, 77 analytical process  76 analytical terms  76 anchoring  80, 85 anchoring process  86 animal  189, 194, 195, 200, 303–307, 326 anthropology  371, 372 anthropology of senses  342, 360 antonyms  239 application domain  61, 64, 66, 74, 76, 80, 81 aquamotion  8, 15, 17, 18 answer  4, 15, 332–34, 338 arbitrary  57, 59, 78, 114, 165 architecture of meaning  60, 61 area  41, 174, 342, 360 linguistic area  31, 111, 344, 363, 366 areal  18, 29–31, 34, 35, 40, 41, 108, 170, 174, 343 areal distribution  19, 36, 108 argument  38, 40, 142, 143, 147, 273, 364 argumentation  28, 36 argumentative strategy  72  arm  14, 16, 19, 23, 24, 28, 35, 36, 57, 60, 173–75 Armor  72, 73 atelic  144, 156 atoms  167, 168, 170, 193 atomistic approach  163 attractor  70, 80–82, 86 meaning attractor  81 auditory  341, 347, 348, 350–52, 354, 368

aunt  21, 24, 60, 175, 325 automatic analysis  234 automatic language processing  247, 251 automobile  59, 72, 89 avoidance  72 B bachelor  70, 71 background(ed)  60, 61, 66, 70–72, 89, 115 baguette  81 basic vs. derived  32 bi-directional  294 bite  270–74, 280, 291, 292, 295, 299, 300 black hole  64 black mood  376 blanc (see also white)  72 bleu  60, 71 blow  155, 183–85, 190, 191, 195–97, 199, 200, 311, 312 blue helmet  66, 68 Bourgogne  66, 67 body  24 body-part  12, 14, 18, 19, 22, 23, 27–32, 38, 43, 45, 57–60, 85, 108, 154 human body  12, 18, 29, 95, 108, 120, 121, 189, 287 borrowing  225, 226, 294 breathe  182–92, 308, 313 bridging context  348, 351, 357, 358 brother  21, 22, 24, 25, 60, 323, 326–28 bug  78, 376–79, 384 bureau  69 buy  70, 71 C call  179, 181 car  59, 72, 88, 89 carnival  382–84 

 general index Carolinas  77  Castafiore  77 categorization  14–18, 23, 31, 40, 41, 43–45, 57, 58–60, 74, 170, 177 linguistic categorization  3, 14, 59, 107 categorized  71 categorizing  10, 56, 142 cattle  326, 337 caviar  55, 71 change (cf. also variation)  6, 80, 88, 108, 110, 112–15, 120, 121 contact-induced change  4, 42, 174 semantic change  3, 4, 6, 107, 109, 193, 218, 264, 293, 300, 303, 304, 325, 336, 342, 343, 345, 346, 349, 360, 361, 366, 369 lexical change  6, 42, 108, 111, 115, 127, 129 historical change  193 meaning change  111, 114, 116, 148 formal change  297 diathesis change  310 reference change  88 typological change  153 child  34, 233, 234, 256  cible  61 classification  16, 18–20, 36, 38, 127, 144, 151, 260, 372 typological classification  4, 342, 353, 366, 369 pre-linnéan classification  372 classifier  76, 103, 296, 298 clergyman  72 cline  146, 147, 347 cluster  146, 152 clustering  237, 242 co-compounds  33  co-compounding  32, 34, 35 confluence  256 coded unit  77, 78 coercion  70, 86 cognition  14, 24, 56, 146, 264, 295, 341, 342–44, 352–54, 360, 363 cognitive  20, 21, 40, 56, 64, 68, 73, 90, 93, 96, 108–10, 113–19, 122, 127, 139, 140,

148, 172, 173, 175, 176, 217, 222, 233, 251, 291, 300, 343, 347, 348, 368 cognitive access  74 cognitive constraint  261 cognitive efficiency  66, 75 cognitive linguistics  59, 146, 346 cognitive meaning  31, 352, 358, 359, 364, 365 cognitive mechanism  86 cognitive perception  342, 346 cognitive predisposition  14, 24 cognitive process  68, 146, 219, 385 cognitive processing  160 cognitive psychology  24, 254 cognitive science  65, 287 cognitive semantics  10, 30, 34, 79, 87, 107 cohyponymy (co-hyponymy)  102, 242, 245, 251 intra-domain co-hyponymy  245, 251 inter-domain co-hyponymy  245, 251 colexification  95, 168–76, 180–84, 186, 188, 191–93 colloquial  143, 248, 293, 298, 299, 322, 349, 357, 358, 364, 365 colour (color)  15–17, 21, 22, 24, 38, 58, 308 communication  56, 66, 81, 90 companion  320–32, 334–36 compensation  283, 326, 333, 334, 336 complement  84, 148, 357 complementation  38 complementarity  317–19, 328, 329, 335–37 completive  357 composition  112, 114, 118, 120–22, 125, 126, 171, 361 compositional  59, 76, 140, 144, 145 compositionality  37, 139, 146, 159 compound(ed)  7, 60, 76–78, 85, 105, 120–22, 125–27, 129, 145, 171, 191, 223, 292, 345, 352, 358, 363, 365

copulative compound  33 compounding  6, 27, 32, 33–35 computer  65 concept  14, 26, 58, 66, 68, 69, 102, 103, 107, 109, 126, 188, 189, 191, 262, 319 innate concept  24 source concept  110, 111, 113, 116, 117, 125, 127, 129 target concept  110, 111, 113, 116, 117, 119–21, 123, 125, 127, 129 universal concept  25 conceptual domain  10–12, 14, 15, 21, 25, 38, 43, 44, 120, 129, 227 conceptualization  23, 68, 93, 99 conceptualization style  127, 129 dependent conceptualization (concept dependency)  120–23, 125, 126 independent concept  120, 121 concrete  62, 223, 292, 346, 347 confluence  234, 244–47, 256, 258, 260, 261 connotation  71–74, 144 connotative  72 construal  57, 59, 61, 74, 80, 83, 87, 90 construe  59, 80 construed  56, 57, 64, 74, 79, 81, 83 construction (of meaning, of reference)  38, 59, 60, 65, 77–79, 90, 146–50, 159 Construction Grammar (CG)  139, 147 basic tenets of CG  146 constructionist  139 contamination (between roots)  295  context, contextual  cultural context  189 discursive context  268, 275, 277, 286 grammatical context  86 non orthonomic context  275 pragmatic context  81

general index  situational context  79, 80 social context  190 socio-cultural context  275 verbal context  80–84 contextual interactions  70 contextual meaning  80, 81, 86, 299 contextual meaning attractors  81 contextual relations  82 contiguity  66–68, 113–16, 119–26 continuum  57, 245, 251 controlled vs. passive  296 conventional  64, 145 copula  39 copularization  39 copularizing lexeme  39 copulative state construction  345 co-referentiality  99 corpus linguistics  233, 234 co-semy  102 co-text  268, 277, 286 count-mass distinction (difference)  41 cross-linguistic  cross-linguistic identification  43, 45, 46, 220 cross-linguistic pattern  3, 4, 6, 29, 37, 40  cry  179, 181 culture (cultural)  19, 24–26, 31, 56, 59, 70–76, 80, 95, 97, 102, 105, 108, 342, 360, 366, 369, 379, 371 cut  222, 250 cutting and breaking events  16, 17, 44 D damaged  153 dancer  78 data  data collection  13, 17, 18, 43–45 comparative data  110, 118, 127 diachronic data  118, 291, 334  database  169, 182, 185, 192, 219, 226, 227, 234, 239, 257, 258, 260  defined descriptions  76  deformation  61

deictic verb  17, 18, 24 demotivation  69, 77, 78, 126 denotation  8, 11–13 denotation-based techniques  12, 13  dense  94, 237, 238, 240, 242, 244, 259, 261 density  94, 237, 238 depth dimension (of language)  56, 70, 73, 74, 79, 82, 87–90  derivation  28, 32, 122, 188, 217, 220–22, 224, 225, 251, 292, 293, 295, 336, 345, 361 syntactic derivation  224  derivational  6, 10, 26, 27, 32, 33, 36, 113, 226, 233, 292, 359, 363, 365 derivative  122, 218, 219, 221, 222, 224–26, 292, 295, 347 morphological derivative  224 derm  76 designation  60, 72, 73, 75 determiner  103 deterministic  59 detrimental  26, 298, 299 devour  141, 271, 276–78, 280, 283, 287, 291, 293, 296, 297 diachrony (diachronic)  6, 27, 28, 34, 107, 108, 113, 116–18, 127, 129, 217–21, 223, 224, 227, 291, 292, 300, 303, 307, 317–19, 323, 334, 336–38, 341, 348, 349, 353, 357, 358, 368  die  41, 42, 172, 187, 188 death  41, 42, 187, 189, 190 dimension  16, 17, 38 diminutive  34, 177, 378 disambiguation  82, 85, 139, 148, 247, 262, 263 disambiguate  248, 249, 251 disambiguating  80, 247 discourse  20, 55, 61, 72, 78, 79, 85, 90, 99, 252, 268, 272, 274, 284, 286, 353 discourse situation  80, 81 discrete  57, 160, 261 divinity (see also supernatural being)  179, 190 DNA  78 domain-categorization studies  16, 45

domains of instantiation  74, 96  door  233, 234, 256 down  20, 24, 75 dreadful creatures  378  drink  143, 270, 281–83, 287, 293, 294, 303, 307–13 drunk  308, 310, 311, 313, 374, 380, 381 drunkard  374 drunkenness  371, 373, 374, 376, 380, 381 dugout  76 dual  319, 332, 334–36 dual marker  335 E each other (see also reciprocal)  320, 322, 328, 331 earth’s crust  64 eat  25, 139–45, 160, 286–88, 303, 304, 309, 312 economy  19, 40, 41, 60, 66, 79, 90, 245, 246, 248, 252 edge  235–39, 242, 244, 249, 258, 259 non-reflexive edges  258, 260  efficiency  66, 75 referential efficiency  74 electric current  64 emotion  31, 156 enantiosemy (enantiosemic)  293, 321, 327, 328, 330–32, 336 encyclopedic knowledge  70, 76 enemy  317, 327, 338 equivalence  55, 56, 76 etic grid  13, 163, 170, 177, 186, 199 etic vs. emic definitions  13  etymology (etymological)  73, 109, 110, 118, 218, 264, 291, 292, 294, 295, 318, 322, 324, 325, 332, 346, 349, 353, 376 event  24, 36, 39, 59, 87, 96–99, 244, 345 evolution  78, 261 existential (domain)  96 experience controlled experience  351 noncontrolled experience  345, 347, 350 experiential knowledge  147, 150

 general index explanation  15, 19, 23, 24, 28, 29, 35 exploiting  151 extension vs. intention  11 extra-linguistic  70, 73, 74, 80 eye  28, 31, 58, 115, 129, 131, 132, 342, 359–61 eyeball  116, 119, 120, 123, 125–31, 133 eyebrow  116, 119, 120, 122–24, 126–32 eyelash  107, 109, 126–32 eyelid  107, 109, 116, 119, 122–24, 126–32 F father  21, 22, 24, 25, 33, 72, 321 feel  174, 251–55, 258, 259, 342, 343, 347–49, 351, 352 fellow  317, 320, 321, 330, 332 fennel  76 figure  61, 74, 81, 85, 86 figurative  85, 88, 144, 175, 296, 299, 348 finger  14, 16, 19, 24, 28, 30, 59, 113, 115, 173, 174 firefly  75 floury  83 folk roots  76 follow  318, 322–24, 334 fond (see also ground)  61 fool  84 foot  14, 23, 27, 30, 57, 61, 83, 85 force-dynamics  146 fox  69 frame  44, 70, 71, 78, 79, 107, 115, 121–24, 126, 129 fridge  67 friend  317–20, 322–38 friendship  317, 320, 321, 325, 327, 333, 334 frozen expressions  144  fruit  31, 41, 133, 233, 234, 256 fused  152 G “gavagai”-problem  12 Georgia  77 get up  67 ghost  189–91, 334, 379, 380, 383 give  25, 38, 140 glass  66, 77 gloomy  377, 381 383

gluon  65 go  17, 36, 39, 62, 84 grammar  37, 38, 40, 43, 57, 84 grammaticalization  6, 35, 36, 192, 298, 300, 319, 361 grand  84 graph  179, 235–46, 249, 250, 252, 253, 263 graph theory anonymous graph  242 connected graph  246  dynamic graph  93 field graph  238, 243, 261  laboratory graph  236  large graph  236, 237 lexical graph  234, 238  oriented graph  242 paradigmatic graph  234, 235, 239, 243, 244, 256, 257, 260, 261 random graph  235–38, 260, 261 reflexive graph  245, 246 small world graph  238 symmetrical graph  245 grasp (see also prehension, seize, take)  217, 218, 221, 225, 228, 253, 255, 259, 361, 363–66, 368 greens  55, 60, 71, 72 grève (see also strike)  77 ground (see also fond)  15, 61, 74, 81, 86 H hair  28, 41, 78, 79, 122, 124, 125, 128–30, 132 hammer  64 hand  14, 16, 19, 23, 24, 28, 35, 36, 39, 57, 59 head  23, 60, 69, 78, 79, 108, 223, 225, 230 hear (hearing)  22, 25, 85, 96, 174, 222, 224, 229, 251–55, 258, 259, 287, 308, 312, 313, 341–56, 360, 361, 363, 368 heart  30, 31, 85 heat  46, 72 heed  341, 347–49, 351, 352, 355, 357, 361 hepatitis  55, 72 heterosemy (heterosemous)  4, 27, 28, 31, 36, 77, 292, 294,

320, 324, 335–37, 341, 345, 346, 349, 350, 358, 359, 364, 368 history  62, 69–73, 77, 223, 293, 345, 353 historical  6, 14, 19, 71, 77, 93, 220, 223, 226, 233, 292, 348, 357, 364, 365, 369, 379, 384 historical depth  297, 317, 336 hit  140–43, 151, 154, 278, 310 homology  64, 102 homonym (homonymy, homonymous)  94, 95, 126, 218, 247, 249  hurting  154, 155 hyperonym (hyperonymy)  100, 102, 172, 242, 251, 271, 272, 288, 298 hyponym (hyponymy)  100, 291–93, 297, 300, 346 hypotenuse  60 I iconicity  10, 57 ideeme  97 idiosyncrasy (idiosyncratic)  37, 44, 141, 145–47, 150, 159 idiom  144, 145, 147, 297, 298, 371, 374 idiomatic  140, 144, 145, 150, 295, 297 inalienable  58, 85 inanimate  9, 151, 292, 296, 299, 310–12, 357 incidence  80, 85, 235, 238, 239, 242–45 inchoative  144, 151, 159, 365 indefinite  16, 292 index  59, 76 inference inferential  34 information theory  64, 65 insect  78, 373, 374, 376–81, 383–85 instantiation  72, 74, 93, 96 instantiated  63, 80 instrumental  81, 320 intension (descriptive intension)  11 interaction  5, 27, 32, 37–42, 61, 70, 83–85, 89, 159, 262

general index  interjection  357 inter-linguistic  55, 57 internal reception  342, 347, 353, 363 intrafield associations (see also polysemy)  343 intransitive  32, 33, 39, 143, 144, 152–58, 296 island (notional)  30, 139, 146, 148, 149–51, 155–57, 158–60 shared  152 isolectic sets  192, 199, 209 isosemy  94, 317 isotopic(s)  80–82, 84, 86, 88, 89 semantic isotopics  80, 81, 84, 86 isotopies  276, 279, 281 itch  143, 280, 285, 293 J jalopy  72 jaundice  55, 72 K kinship (see also parental relations)  15–17, 21, 24, 25, 73  knee  57 know (knowing)  259, 287, 295, 341–43, 355, 357–61, 365 knowledge  251, 252, 255, 256, 341–44, 359, 360, 365 L landmark  84, 96 language contact  109, 114, 174 language pathologies  244 LASER  78 latent  79, 83, 96 layering (semantic layering)  88, 89 learn (learning)  253, 255, 259, 295, 348, 349, 355, 358, 360, 361, 364–66 left  58 leg  14, 23, 57, 60 lexemic dissemination  104 lexical  lexical derivation  171, 172 lexical semantics  5, 8, 32, 35, 37–39, 41, 42, 84, 178, 233, 262, 366

lexical typology  16–18, 33, 37, 38, 42, 43, 46, 163–65, 167, 177, 193, 263, 341 lexical-typological research  3, 6, 7, 16, 21, lexical unit  9, 165, 168, 180, 271, 272, 288 lexicalization  5, 6, 13, 15, 17, 24, 25, 35, 41, 42, 67, 343 lexicalization pattern  5, 13, 17, 19, 20, 24, 343 lexicalization hierarchies  21 lexicalization implications  21 lexicology  5, 13, 113 lexicon-grammar interaction  3, 5, 6, 37, 38, 41–43, 45 life  187, 188, 190–92 light verb (LV)  144–46, 148, 150–52, 156, 159, 160 light verb construction (LVC)  140–42, 145, 146, 159  linkage  82–84, 86 listen  341, 345, 347–55  literacy  341, 342, 360, 369 liver  31, 67 locative  320, 324, 333 love  12, 39, 296, 297, 299, 317, 318, 325, 331 Louisiana  77 M malleability  56, 61 mapping  64, 139, 346, 348, 360 markedness  20, 22, 23, 25 Markov chain  245–47 masticate  271, 291, 292 match  321, 332 mate  317, 326–28, 330–32, 335 matrix  245, 246, 249, 253, 254, 260 meaning meaning construction  139, 146, 159 meaning extension  149, 275 meaning shift  80, 251 descriptive meaning  11–13 lexical meaning  14, 38, 44, 225 meat  256, 303–307 memory  73, 74, 78, 90, mental  44 mental access  68

mental predicates  342 mental process  63, 93 mental properties  62 mental states  30 mentality  379 meta-language  13, 36, 43, 46 metaphor  12, 31, 34, 46, 61–66, 68–70, 72, 74, 75, 85, 97, 100, 107, 113, 115, 118–21, 126, 128–33, 144, 157, 168, 262, 371, 374, 382 metaphorical extension  144, 296 metaphorization  98 methodology  42–45 metonymy  66, 67–70, 74–77, 85, 100, 107, 120, 172, 191, 293 metonymical extension  75 middle  28, 29 Milky way  64 mind  187–89, 191 modal (domain)  96  monkey  372, 374, 375, 379 monosemy  165 monosemist  165, 166 monosemous  165 morphosemy  102 morphosyntactic constructions  297 motion  8, 9, 15, 16, 18, 24, 31, 36, 38, 40, 158 motion event  17, 20 motion verb  17, 20 motivation  6, 27, 32, 35, 43, 45, 74, 75, 78, 104, 110, 150, 182, 185, 336 motivated  24, 59, 126, 140, 141, 159, 173 mother  21, 24, 25, 33, 336 mouse  75 mouth  23, 28, 79, 233, 234, 256 mouthpiece  79 movement  62, 75, 85, 158 N Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM)  13, 20, 25, 26, 45, 220, 354 neighbour  325, 328, 330, 331 neologism  65 negation  58, 59

 general index network  69, 80, 139, 151, 163, 164, 166, 167, 172, 173, 177, 178, 181, 184–86, 236, 239, 240, 242, 244, 260, 261, 328, 342, 372, 373, 384, 385 fabric of networks  73 paradigmatic network  234, 235, 260 small world network  237 noeme  93, 98, 100 noemia  98 noise  64, 259 nominalization  89, 325 north  58, 72, 73 notional (domain)  96, 97 numerals  30  O obey  341, 343, 347–55 oneself  194, 200, 299, 318, 333, 350, 377, 381 onomatopoeic  384 opacity  76, 78 opaque  74, 145, 150 opposition  319, 330–34, 336–38 orthomorphy  95 orthonym (orthonymy)  99, 271, 287 orthonymic  268, 270–72, 274, 275, 277, 279, 281, 286–88 orthosemy  100, 288 orthoseme  271 other of two  320–22, 332 override principle  87 P parallel corpora  13, 18 parallel texts  18, 20, 35, 44 paraphrase (paraphrasing)  55, 56 parasemiosis  99 parasemy  93, 94, parasynonymy  101  parental relations (see also kinship)  60 partner  321, 323, 326, 328, 331, 332, 334–36 passive  298, 311 patient  142–44, 159, 281, 282 patientive  296  pen  69 perception  15, 17, 22, 24, 25, 31, 251, 252, 254–56, 341–43,

346–48, 354, 359–61, 365, 368, 369 intellectual perception  342, 343, 346, 352–54, 360, 361, 363, 365, 366, 368 mental perception  341, 342, 347, 353–55, 360, 361, 363, 368 physical perception  251, 252, 255, 341, 343, 354 peronymy  100 phonetic set  379 pillowcase  78 pit  63, 80, 83 placenta  321, 336 plasticity  55, 56, 70, 74, 79, 80, 90 plumber  78 Poisson’s law  238 policeman  72 polynomy  99, 100 polyreference  55, 60 polysemiosis  99, 100 polysemy (see also intrafield associations) polysemy vs. monosemy  165, 166 polysemy vs. precise meaning  25, 26 polysemy vs. semantic generality  28 polysemy (polysemous) patterns  4, 6, 36, 37, 43, 178, 186, 190, 341, 361, 366 diachronic polysemy  225 inherited polysemy  225 inner structure of polysemy  226 intrafield polysemy  22, 27 loose polysemy  275 narrow polysemy  275 overlapping polysemy  166, 167 structural polysemy model  34 synchronic polysemy  218, 219, 222–24, 292, 345, 364 transfield polysemy  348 polysyntaxy  99 poor  88, 142 port  82 possession  30, 35, 38, 40, 296, 298 posture  16, 31 power law  238, 239

pragmatic  7, 10–12, 34, 36, 67, 81, 85, 146, 147, 317, 345, 348, 349, 353, 357 prefix  325, 330, 332 prefixation  112, 115, 224, 293, 295 prehension (see also grasp, seize, take)  341, 342, 346, 361, 363–68  prepositional usage  296 preverb (PV)  140–42, 144–46, 148, 149–59 preverbal  139–41  price  311, 333, 334, 338 priest  72 primary vs. secondary sources  17, 43, 44 Principal Component Analysis  254 productivity  139–41, 144–46, 148, 159 productive  35, 60, 141, 145, 147, 155, 159, 226, 327, 328, 336, 363 profile  35, 39, 42, 61, 80 profiled  60, 61, 81, 86, 120 profiling  74, 86 property property selection  74, 76 shared abstract properties  62–65, 80, 234 typologically relevant properties  20 proto-agent  142 proto-language  174  proto-patient  142–44, 159 proto-role  142 prototype  25, 30, 80, 81, 87, 97, 165, 181 prototypical  39, 41, 63, 67, 86, 95, 181, 188, 306 proverb  89 Prox  244, 247, 254, 256, 258, 260 proxemy  93, 94, 233, 245, 250–52, 255, 258, 303, 304, 307, 308, 311, 313, 314, 346 proximity  319, 322, 324, 325, 379 puns  73, 79, 81, 88 Q questionnaires  12, 13, 17, 18, 43 quotation  78, 79 quotation formation mode  78

general index  R reanalysis  67 reciprocal (see also each other)  28, 29, 299, 320, 323, 324, 328, 330, 331 reconstruction  193, 222, 223, 324 reconstruction of historical change  193  linguistic reconstruction  217–19 record player  59 red  71, 72, 82, 174 reference (see also scale)  56–60, 72, 74, 86, 88, 164, 274, 275, 277, 282, 287, 288 referential  56–58, 60, 62, 64, 66–69, 72, 74–80, 90, 99, 275, 281, 282 referentiality  99 referenciation  77 reference (referential) path (pathway)  56, 59, 60, 68, 74–79 referential efficiency  74 referent  55, 57, 59, 60, 62, 66–68, 71, 74–76, 78, 79, 83, 99, 175 reflexive  28, 29, 191, 192, 194, 198, 200, 297–99, 311, 330, 349 register  300, 346, 348 regulation  56 relative  21, 336 remember  253, 352, 354, 355 representation  66, 68, 71, 78, 80, 90 representational  70, 79 resonance  89, 335 resonate  73 right  58, 166, 170, 171, 173, 273, 276, 277, 298, 310 roe  55, 71 roof  58, 66 root  170, 183, 189, 292–94, 300, 323, 330, 332–34, 357 rotate  158 rotation  158 S salience  17, saliency  173 salient  19, 26, 31, 59–61, 68, 75, 76, 97, 120, 123, 124, 127–29, 173, 182, 187

scale (see also reference)  18, 31–33, 38, 57, 58, 186, 238, 385 referential scale  57, 74 scenario  70–72, 74 scene  79, 80 schema  62–64, 69, 87, 93, 100, 102 analytic schema  98, 102 image schema  62 mental schema  96, 98, 105 schematic  62–64, 72 Schubert  66, 67 science  65, 66 scientific  64–66, 75 scientific vocabulary  64 scientific frontier  75 scope  85 second  318, 320–23, 334, 335 see  25, 251–55, 258, 259, 341–43, 346, 354, 357–61 segment(ed)  57, 243 segmentation  23, 24, 57, 59, 74 segmenting  56 seize (see also grasp, prehension, take)  225, 253, 341, 363  selection  71, 74, 76 selected  59, 61, 76 selecting properties  56, 60, 62 self  191, 192 sell  70 semantic semantic affinity  10, 93, 94, 102, 306, 307, 346 semantic analogy  298, 317 semantic association  3, 6, 10, 28, 31, 178, 233, 251, 256, 260, 300, 317, 319, 320, 327, 331, 333–35, 342, 345, 346, 348, 349, 352–54, 363, 365, 368, 381 semantic borrowing  225 semantic calque  191, 217, 225, 226 semantic connection  172, 173, 178, 179, 181, 182, 185, 193, 318, 345, 346 semantic derivation (see also derivation)  220–22, 225, 251 semantic evolution  304, 334 semantic extension  22, 30, 31, 164, 183, 185, 189, 295,

297, 298, 321, 327, 333, 336, 342, 344–47, 354, 364, 369 semantic field  16, 82, 101, 104, 295, 297, 298, 303, 330, 333, 343 semantic groupings  233, 234, 245, 251, 252, 258, 342  semantic map  11, 34, 37, 164, 167, 169, 177, 178, 180–82, 192, 193, 199 semantic parallel  291, 300, 301, 323, 369 semantic parallelism  371, 372, 381 semantic primes  123, 233, 288, 342  semantic primitive  13, 26 semantic proximity  94, 139, 234, 239 semantic proximity relations  239 semantic nuance  189 semantic relations  27, 43, 73, 74, 95, 239, 300, 303, 317, 318, 322, 330  semantic shift (see also change)  6, 27–29, 31, 67, 69, 70, 77, 83, 87, 163, 170, 190, 291, 292, 294, 295, 298, 303, 306, 320, 336, 371 semantic space  39, 139, 146, 148, 150, 151, 160, 177, 307, 308 semantic typology  13, 45, 219, 341 semantic universe  80, 81 semantics  5, 8, 11, 13, 32, 34–46, 60, 70–74, 78, 79, 107, 116, 140, 145, 147, 159, 160, 163, 165, 174, 178, 187, 190, 191, 217, 233, 251, 262, 264, 267, 268, 295, 342, 354, 357, 364, 366 semasiological  108, 111, 219, 268, 286–88 seme  96, 275–79  sememe  275, 277, 282 semic density  94 semiotization  99 sensation  291, 296–98 sense (physical)  22, 24, 342, 343, 347–50, 352, 353, 360, 365, 368 sensory (modalities)  226, 341–43, 345–47, 352, 360, 368

 general index sentence  9, 40, 56, 58, 67, 78–88, 140, 147, 240, 251, 272, 274, 275, 286 septentrion  72 serial verbs (serialization)  114, 117, 351, 361  setting  41, 82, 84 sexual intercourse  285, 297, 309  shape vs. substance  127–30 sharing  319, 325–27, 337 short path  237, 238, 241, 246, 247, 254, 255 sign  94, 96, 97, 100 sight (see also vision)  22, 343, 363, 368 similarity  10, 37, 114, 150, 226, 262, 263, 317, 328, 333 cotaxonomic similarity  115, 124 metaphorical similarity  113, 115, 128–33 singularia vs. pluralia tantum  41, 44, 45 slang  154, 296, 299, 352, 353 small world  233, 236–40, 242–44, 247, 256 hierarchical small world  233, 236, 239, 240, 242–44, 247, 256, 260, 261 smell  22, 25, 187, 251, 255, 259, 295, 343, 348, 350–52, 355, 359 social role  72 soul  163, 187–99, 201, 282 south  58, 72 space (see semantic space) spatial  16, 28–30, 57, 58, 76 spatial relations  29 speaker  58, 72, 76, 78, 79, 90 specialist vocabulary (see also technical vocabulary)  76 spirit spouse  321, 322, 327, 331, 336 square  61, 62, 83 stability  61 stabilization  55, 56, 70, 90 stative-active alignment  40 stick  76, 82 stimuli  18, 43, 44 stochastic flow  234 straight  166–68, 171, 173 strike (see also grève)  77 stylistic  69, 71 subjective  73, 86, 88

substance (see also shape vs. substance)  312 substitutes  56 suffer  149, 156, 157, 276–78, 281, 297, 298, 308, 311–13 suffering  151, 291, 300 suffixation  111–13, 115, 122 supernatural being (see also divinity)  381, 385 supernatural force  380 superordination  114 superordinate verb  291, 345 suppletion  8, 38 surface  154 swallow  283, 293, 308, 311 synchrony  307 synaesthesic fields  96, 102 synonym (synonymy)  55, 56, 72, 101, 233, 235, 239, 242, 244, 257, 258, 267, 299, 303, 325 syntagmatic  67, 73, 114, 115, 117, 120, 122, 239 syntax  5, 84, 85, 142, 143, 147, 159, 160 syntactic  4, 9, 38, 40, 58, 67, 83–85, 139, 140, 143, 145, 147, 148, 150, 159, 160, 224, 273, 349, 353, 357, 364 T table  69, 77, 78, 84 take (taking; see also grasp, prehension, seize)  243, 253, 255, 259, 342, 361, 363–65, 368 taste  22, 25, 44, 96, 197, 226, 270, 291, 307, 343, 347, 348, 351 taxeme taxonomic subordination  113–15, 117, 125, 128–32 taxonomic superordination  115 technical (see also specialist vocabulary)  technical term  75, 84 telic  41, 144 temperature  11, 12, 44, 46 temporal (domain)  96  tender  61, 83 terminology  75, 78

terminology (terminological) creation  75, 75 thigh  57 think  253, 255, 259, 342, 348, 350, 354, 355, 361, 365, 366 time (see also while)  67, 146 tip  60, 62 toe  14, 57, 113, 115, 121 toothbrush  79 topology  153, 235, 263 train  62, 63, 221, 224, 226, 230 transitive  32, 33, 39, 142 transitive vs. intransitive verb  296 transfield (see also polysemy) transfield association  343, 344, 353, 354, 360, 368 transfield extention  222 transfield semantic shift  27 transparent  74, 76, 145, 150, 182, 380, 381 trimorph  98 transfer  61, 64, 65, 67–69, 74 transferred  62, 64, 66 translation  56, 75, 269, 274, 277, 279, 286, 287 translational equivalent  12, 36, 42 transnumeral  127 transnumeral noun  130 transparency  74–76, 78, 79, 145 transparent  74, 76, 145, 150, 182, 380, 381 try  291 turkey  77 U unambiguous  141, 159, 220 uncle  21, 22, 24, 60, 73, 175 understand  217, 222, 224, 225, 228, 229, 251, 253–56, 258, 259, 311–13, 341, 343, 346–52, 354, 355, 357–61 unidirectional  8, 343, 346 unity  61–63 universal  4, 5, 13, 14, 18, 19, 24–26, 29, 32, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 44, 55, 58, 76, 93, 95, 105, 114, 123, 147, 160, 163, 164, 171, 175–79, 181, 182, 186, 187, 192, 193, 199, 233, 234, 251, 256, 260, 264, 267, 268,

general index  275, 286–88, 291, 300, 335, 352–54, 359, 360, 363, 368 universal lexicalization meaning  25, 26, 35  universal vs. languagespecific lexicalizations  5 implicational universal  176, 368 lexical universal  25, 341, 360 semantic universal  353, 368 universally  10, 25, 26, 170, 187 up  20, 75 utterance  55, 61, 66, 73, 74, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 86, 89, 90, 94, 99, 357 V vagueness  26, 46, 168, 169 value  18, 33, 44, 59–61, 66, 67, 69, 70, 72, 78, 80, 83, 84, 87, 103, 153, 178, 245, 283, 298, 307, 310, 311, 321, 333

variation (cf. also change)  4, 10, 15, 26, 31, 35, 40–42, 56, 57, 60–63, 70, 74, 80, 83, 148, 217  Venus  77 verb verb formation  139, 159 verbal notion  141 verbal scene  79 vertex (vertices)  234–38, 240–50, 252, 253–56, 258, 261, 307 fictitious vertex  248, 249 vessel  372 Virginia  77 vision (cf. also sight)  24, 342–44, 352, 354, 357–62, 368, 369 virtueme  96 vocabulary  6, 42, 107, 109, 116 volitional subject  142 volume  69, 70

W want  26, 31, 38, 342 weekend  71 while (see also time)  67 white  71, 72, 80, 83 White House  66 word  5, 7 word vs. sense  170, 171 word class  38–40, 44, 114  word family  6, 26, 43 word formation (word forming)  27, 32, 37, 111, 112, 126, 223, 224 word list  12, 17, 44, 45 possible word  5, 7 Y yes, no  58

Index of languages

A Adamawa  314 African languages  29, 30, 58, 233, 275, 281–83, 287, 288, 297, 299, 303, 305, 308, 329, 343, 345, 360 Afroasiatic   199, 257, 282, 318, 344, 350, 353, 354, 363  Albanian  19, 110, 322, 327 Altaic  219, 257 American Indian languages  58 Amerindian languages  103 North American  20 Arabic  102, 104, 183, 188–92, 198, 200, 291, 300, 304, 306, 308, 309, 311, 314, 318, 324, 337, 344, 350, 355, 358, 361, 364, 366 Classical  358 Standard  189, 191, 192, 198, Yemeni  192, 198 Araki  183–85, 344, 352, 355, 361, 366 Asian languages  178, 267, 282, 294 Southeast  37, 178 Atlantic  268, 279, 287, 304, 314, 315, 337, 344, 345 Australian languages  17, 178, 255, 262, 342, 344, 345, 348, 359, 360, 363, 368 Austronesian  30, 35, 58, 197, 198, 291, 296, 318, 320, 324, 332, 334, 337, 338, 344, 351–53, 363 Avestic  293, 323, 334 Aztec-Tanoan  28 B Bagwalal   40 Bahasa  110, 117, 121, 130, 132

Baltic  19, 41 Eastern  19 Western  19 Bantu  57, 67, 182, 199, 268–70, 280, 304–106, 314, 344, 352, 359 Bambara  110, 117, 130, 131, 287, 304, 306, 314 Banda  75 Bashkir  326 Basque  28 Beja  199, 200, 306, 308, 309, 314, 318, 329, 344, 347, 355, 357, 360, 361, 366 Benue-Congo  268 Bislama   174 Breton  292, 320, 325, 337 Bulgarian  322, 326 Byelorussian  330 C Cap Verdian Creole of Santiago  354 Catalan  108, 117, 130–32, 174, 377, 381 Caucasian  40, 219, 257 Celtic  73 Chadic  314, 354 Chinese  57, 58, 76, 81, 99, 103, 110, 117, 127, 130–32, 196, 209, 244, 262, 298 Corsican  375 Creole  17, 174, 345, 353, 354, 360 Cushitic  306, 314 Czech  226, 230, 306, 309, 311 D Dadjo-Sila  304, 306, 308, 309, 314 Daghestanian  40 Danish  327, 348

Dravidian  257 Duala  268, 280 Dutch  15, 376, 383 E Engadinian  108, 117, 130–32 English  8, 9–11, 14, 15, 20, 23, 36, 40, 44, 45, 55, 57, 59, 60, 67, 69, 71, 75, 76, 78, 82, 84, 88, 89, 95, 101, 104, 110, 127, 132, 140, 141, 144, 148, 159, 166–72, 174, 178, 183, 184, 191, 218, 220, 224, 226, 227, 251, 257, 269, 282, 294, 295–97, 304, 306, 309, 311, 314, 318, 322, 323, 326, 327, 331, 334, 343, 344, 348, 355, 358, 361, 363, 365, 366, 368, 380 Old  320, 323, 358, 375 Eskimo  197, 304, 314, 318, 319, 321, 325, 331, 333–35, 337, 338, 344, 353 Proto-Eskimo  319  Eskimo-Aleut  197, 304, 314, 318, 319, 321, 325, 331, 333, 334, 337, 338 Eastern  347 Estonian  14, 30, 35, 46, 110, 118, 132 Eurasian languages  35 Ewe  34 F Finnic  30 Finnish  19, 36, 46, 363 Finno-Ugric  19, 30, 35, 40 Fon  271, 273, 274 Fongbe  268, 304, 306, 314

 Index of languages French  19, 20, 39, 67, 69, 71, 72, 75, 76–78, 81, 84, 85, 88, 89, 95, 101, 103, 104, 108, 130–32, 140, 141, 143, 154, 159, 166, 167–71, 176, 178, 183–85, 188, 189, 218, 221, 222–24, 226–30, 234, 239, 244, 247, 248, 251, 252, 254, 257, 269, 282, 283, 297–99, 303, 304, 306, 314, 322, 323, 326, 327, 334, 335, 341, 344, 346, 348, 349, 355, 358, 361, 365, 366, 371, 373, 375–77, 379, 381, 382, 384 African  28–30, 58, 62, 75, 103, 233, 269, 275, 281–83, 287, 288, 294, 297, 299, 303, 305, 308, 329, 343, 345, 360 Ancient  105, 267, 318, 325, 326, 334, 371, 381 Colloquial  143, 293, 298, 299, 322, 349, 357, 358, 364, 365 Modern  3, 4, 16, 19, 27, 29, 33, 35, 40, 105, 108, 141, 143, 192, 198, 221, 293, 305, 320, 385 Old  6, 39, 66, 67, 72, 84, 108, 111, 126, 171, 221, 223, 227, 228, 230, 244, 293–95, 320, 322, 323, 326, 327, 330–32, 334, 335, 337, 358, 364, 365, 375, 376, 378, 382, 384 Slang  154, 299 Standard  11, 16, 22, 24, 33, 34, 40, 164, 189, 191, 192, 198, 227, 240, 242, 244, 257, 283, 344 Friulian  108, 130–32 Fulani  268, 270, 279 Fula  304, 306, 314 G Galician  108, 117, 119, 130–32 Gaelic  110, 130–32 Scottish  110 Gallo-Latin  325 Gbaya-Manza-Ngbaka  344 Gbaya ’Bodoe  353, 360 Gbe  268, 270

German  27, 41, 42, 45, 58–60, 67, 76, 110, 130, 132, 217–19, 221, 224, 225–27, 294, 296, 297, 304, 306, 309, 311, 314, 322, 323, 325–27, 330, 331, 334, 335, 344, 349, 355, 358, 361, 363, 366, 368, 380 Early Middle  368 Middle Low  326 Modern  27 Old-High  322, 326, 327, 334 Germanic  19, 35, 67, 294, 304, 344, 368, 374, 385 Greek   34, 59, 76, 183, 188, 190, 192, 194, 195, 221, 228, 229, 293, 294, 317, 319, 323, 325–27, 330–32, 335, 341, 349, 363, 382, 383 Ancient  371, 381 Classical  190, 194, 358 Modern  19 Gur  268, 270, 279, 314, 337, 344, 358 Gurunsi   268, 344 H Halia  28 Hausa  110, 117, 130, 131–33, 282, 303, 309, 311, 312, 314, 354 Hawaiian  21 Hebrew  191, 373, 383 Biblical  371 Modern  383 Hindi  35 Hopi  110, 117, 130–32 Hungarian  19, 34, 110, 131, 132, 262, 363 I Ibo  57, 71 Icelandic  330 Old  6, 39, 66, 67, 72, 84, 108, 111, 126, 171, 221, 223, 227, 228, 230, 244, 293–95, 320, 322, 323, 326, 327, 330–32, 334, 335, 337, 358, 364, 365, 375, 376, 378, 382, 384 Indo-European  40, 102, 118, 217, 219, 251, 257, 288, 291–93, 300, 304, 318, 319, 324, 334, 338, 348, 349, 353, 357, 358, 363, 368

Inuit  183, 197, 291, 292, 297, 304, 306, 309, 314, 319, 321, 324, 327, 329, 332, 333, 335–37, 347, 355, 361, 366 Inuktitut   336 Irish  292, 320, 326, 327, 337, 341 Old  320, 323, 358, 375 Iroquois  21 Italian  14, 19, 23, 27, 41, 108, 130, 132, 174, 217, 227, 344, 348, 351, 354, 355, 361, 365, 366 J Japanese  14, 15, 23, 25, 110, 117, 127, 130, 132 Jinghpaw  305, 306, 314 K Kanak  344 Kasem  268, 272, 318, 324, 328, 337, 344, 350, 355, 358, 359–61, 364–66 Kayardild  31 Khoisan  28 Kikongo  268, 280 Kirundi  268, 271, 274, 280 Kono  35 Korean  244, 298 !Kung  28 Kuot  30, 31 Kwa  57, 71, 268, 314 L Laal  305, 306, 308, 309, 314 Ladin  108, 130, 132 Lahu  110, 117, 130–32, 305, 306, 314 Lakon  344, 351, 355, 361, 366 Langi  57 Lao  30, 31, 37 Latin   188, 190, 334, 336, 337 Classical  8, 21, 144, 166, 173, 183, 188–90, 194, 195, 222, 260, 291, 308, 314, 318, 324, 337, 341, 344, 350, 358, 364, 365 Late  69, 109, 174, 223, 225, 230, 319 Colloquial  143, 293, 298, 299, 322, 349, 357, 358, 364, 365 Vulgar  292 Lavukaleve  23

Index of languages  Lettish  330 Letton  295 Lithuanian  44, 300, 325, 330 Lo-Toga   175 M Makonde  182, 183, 199, 305, 306, 314, 352, 355, 361, 366 Malagasy  58 Mandarin  57, 76, 110, 196, 200, 257 Mande  35, 314 Manding  287 Mari  35, 40, 227 Mooré  279 Mota  318, 320, 321, 324, 332, 337 Mwesen  318, 324, 337 Mwotlap  174, 178, 183, 184, 187, 190, 197, 200, 291, 296–98, 300, 306, 309, 314, 318, 320, 332, 337, 344, 351, 355, 361, 364, 366, 368 N Na-Dene  28 Nahuatl  110, 117, 130–32, 183, 190, 197, 200, 291, 292, 299, 300, 304, 306, 309, 310, 314, 318, 328, 337 Istmo-Mecayapan  110 Native languages of Amazonia  297 Navajo  28 Ngbandi  305, 306, 308, 309, 314 Ngbugu  305, 306, 308, 309, 314 Nêlêmwa  183–85, 198, 344, 352, 354, 355, 361, 366 Nepali  110, 119, 130 Niger-Congo  35, 199, 257, 267, 268, 270, 282, 287, 300, 304, 305, 308, 318, 324, 328, 344, 350, 353, 357, 358, 363 Nilo-Saharan  35, 199, 318, 344, 350, 353, 357 Nilotic  35 Nogaï  326 Non-Australian languages  342 Non-European languages  354 Non-Eurasian languages  35 Norse  322, 323, 326, 334 Old  6, 39, 66, 67, 72, 84, 108, 111, 126, 171, 221, 223, 227, 228, 230, 244, 293–95, 320,

327, 330–32, 334, 335, 337, 358, 364, 365, 375, 376, 378, 382, 384 North American languages  20 Norwegian  36 Nyawaygi  25 O Occitan  108, 117, 119, 122, 130–32, 372, 380, 384 Oceanic  28, 29, 174, 175, 197, 198, 298, 354 Olrat  344, 351, 355, 361, 366 Ommura  354 P Palenquero  345, 352, 353, 355, 357, 360, 361, 366 Pama-Nyungan  305, 315 Papuan  23, 30 Papua New Guinea  30, 354 Papago  28 Persian  146, 148, 149, 151, 159, 160 Picard  382 Polish  226, 228, 333 Polynesian  35, 314 Portuguese  19, 99, 108, 117, 130, 132, 244, 257, 282, 297, 354 Brazilian  282, 283 Proto-Austronesian  332, 334 Proto-Bantu  305, 306 Proto-Gbaya  305, 306, 308, 309, 314 Proto-Indo-European  118, 334 Proto-Inuit  319 Proto-Oceanic  174 Proto-North-Central Vanuatu  174 Proto-SBB  305, 306 Proto-Slavic  294, 330 Proto-Slavonic  118 Q Quechua  110, 118, 131 Highland Chimborazo  110 R Rhaeto-Roman  375 Romance  116, 117, 119, 128, 188, 222, 225, 282, 344, 374, 379, 385 Romanian  108, 130–32 Rumanian  14, 23

Russian  14, 15, 19, 22, 23, 28, 33, 40–44, 110, 117, 130–32, 183, 184, 187, 189, 190, 196, 200, 222, 223, 226–28, 298–300, 307, 318, 320, 322, 323, 325–27, 330–32, 334, 335, 337, 338, 344, 349, 355, 357, 358, 361, 364, 366 Colloquial  143, 293, 298, 299, 322, 349, 357, 358, 364, 365 Dialectal  319, 320, 322–24, 330, 349 Modern  3, 4, 16, 19, 27, 29, 33, 35, 40, 105, 108, 141, 143, 192, 198, 221, 293, 305, 320, 385 Old  6, 39, 66, 67, 72, 84, 108, 111, 126, 171, 221, 223, 227, 228, 230, 244, 293–95, 320, 322, 323, 326, 327, 330–32, 334, 335, 337, 358, 364, 365, 375, 376, 378, 382, 384 S Samoan  30, 35 Sanskrit  57, 188, 190–92, 194, 200, 294, 295, 323, 325, 331, 334, 349 Sar  183, 199, 200, 271, 272, 305, 306, 308, 309, 314, 350, 354, 355, 357, 358, 360, 361, 366 Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi (SBB)  328 Sardinian   108 Campidanian  108 Logudorian  108 Spanish  19, 58, 85, 108, 111, 117, 130–32, 297, 304, 327, 328, 352, 357, 379, 381 American  20, 58, 71, 75, 77, 93, 96, 127, 236, 261, 307 Mexican  328 Savosavo  23 Semitic  102, 219, 344 Serbo-Croatian  19 Sicilian (Sic.)  375, 376, 378, 379 Sino-Tibetan  257, 345 Slavic  19, 40, 218, 228, 294, 322, 325, 330, 332, 333, 337, 344, 349

 Index of languages Common  10, 14, 18, 25, 27, 32, 34, 35, 40, 55, 57, 60, 62–64, 71, 76–78, 94, 100, 101, 103, 109, 139, 140, 147, 148, 150, 160, 164, 167, 170, 174, 175, 179, 181, 186, 234, 242, 244, 251, 269, 271, 274, 275, 277, 288, 291, 294, 297, 299, 300, 309, 321, 325, 332, 334, 336, 342, 344, 348, 349, 351, 352, 359, 371, 382 Eastern  19, 304, 305, 314, 319, 321, 328, 329, 333, 334, 336, 344, 347 Western  19, 170, 305, 314, 317, 319, 327, 344, 361, 373, 385 Slavonic  118, 332 Old  6, 39, 66, 67, 72, 84, 108, 111, 126, 171, 221, 223, 227, 228, 230, 244, 293–95, 320, 322, 323, 326, 327, 330–32, 334, 335, 337, 358, 364, 365, 375, 376, 378, 382, 384 Slovenian  19 Sorabic  323 High  21, 23, 31, 35, 36, 63, 126, 177, 179, 181, 237–39,

242, 243, 247, 252, 254, 258, 269, 322, 323, 326, 327, 334 Sotho  110, 119, 130–32 Northern  110, 123, 124 Sudanic  304, 305, 314, 315 Central  305, 314, 315 Eastern  304, 314 Suya  354 Swahili  110, 118, 130–32, 305, 306, 309, 314, 344, 352, 355, 357, 360, 361, 366 Swedish  11, 15, 20, 36, 41, 110, 117, 118, 130, 227, 348 T Tai-Kadai  30 Tamang  345, 347, 355, 361, 366 Tamil  110, 117, 130 Tatar  40 Tibetan  34, 35, 110, 118, 130–32, 257, 345 Tibeto-Burman  178, 305, 314, 342, 345, 353, 360 Tswana  67, 344, 347, 355, 359, 361, 366 Turkana  35 Turkic  40, 326 Turkish  326, 363 Tzeltal  110, 117, 130–32 U Ubangian  35, 314

Ukrainian  227, 244 Umbugarla  31 Uto-Aztecan  304, 314 V Vietnamese  35 Vili  304, 306, 309, 314, 344, 352, 355, 361, 366 W Wadyiginy  31 Warlpiri  305, 306, 315 Welsh  320, 326, 384 West-Atlantic  344 Wolof  57, 60, 287, 304, 306, 315, 318, 329, 350, 355, 357, 360, 361, 363, 366 Y Yélî Dnye  30 Yiddish  34 Yir Yoront  110, 123 Yolngu  31 Yulu  305, 306, 308, 309, 314, 315, 328, 331, 337, 344, 350, 355, 358, 360, 361, 366 Yupik  319, 321, 324, 327–29, 331, 333, 335, 336, 344 Z Zande  35

Index of names

A Abello  236 Adamic  238 Adams  292 Afshar  142 Aikhenvald  7, 38, 43 Aksu-Koç  47 Albano Leoni  136  Albert  261 Alexandre  163, 268, 279, 318, 344 Allègre  64, 65 Altenberg  52 Ameka  16 Ancel  236, 261 Andersen  16, 17, 23, 24, 116 Anderson  177 Andrews  263 Angola  268 Apresjan  225 Arnaud  81 Auwera van der  16, 37 B Bach  16 Bahner  91 Bailly  194, 240, 244, 257, 261 Balbachan  69, 85 Barabási  238, 242, 261, 263 Barcelona  369 Barnes  51 Barsalou  115 Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot  214 Behrens  5, 37, 41 Benac  240, 244, 257, 261 Bencheikh  314, 341, 344 Bentley  268, 280 Benveniste  218, 219, 286, 335 Berlin  16, 21, 24, 58, 263, 264 Berman  18 Bermann  246, 262 Bernini  214  Bertaud du Chazaud  262 Bianconi  261

Blank  6, 107, 108, 113–15, 123, 218, 225, 383 Blažek  306, 314 Bloch  382 Boguraev  92 Boisson  90  Bonvini  139, 160, 267, 268, 294, 297–300, 303, 314, 315, 318, 344 Booij  49 Bosa  264 Bossong  40 Boster  50  Botne  41, 42 Bottineau  215 Bouillon  86, 307, 312 Bourget  104 Bowerman  17, 18, 20, 43, 45, 46 Boyeldieu  139, 143, 160, 199, 256, 268, 271, 281, 303, 314, 315, 318, 344 Bril  198, 344 Brown  5, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23–26, 28, 31, 42, 57, 116, 173, 174, 176 Bruner  65 Buck  134, 219, 230, 292, 293, 295, 300, 317, 319, 327, 330, 341, 363, 368 Bulakh  217 Butterworth  264 C Camden  174 Carapezza  135 Carruba  214 Cazeneuve  379, 380 Cecchi  236 Chamoux  197, 314, 318 Chandernagor  103 Chantraine  319, 330, 349 Chappell  38 Chen  244, 262 Choi-Jonin  214

Chukwu  90 Clark  174 Clarke  115 Classen  369 Codrington  380 Cohen  372 Comrie  264 Corbett  7, 41, 46 Corbin  59, 60, 76, 83 Coseriu  109 Creissels  67, 344 Cristofaro  38 Croft  4, 20, 39, 115, 177, 181 Cruse  115 Culioli  57, 62, 85 Cuyckens  91 Cysouw  16 Cernyx  300, 319 D Dabir-Moghaddam  142 Dahl  22, 25, 38, 46, 264 Dasher  107, 218 Dauzat  221, 226 De Colombel  327 Dedrick  24 De Hoop  47 Deignan  83, 85 Denning  50 De Reuse  336 De Swart  86 Detges  109 DeVelle  86 Dihoff  315 Dirven  50 Divjak  49 Dixon  7, 38, 43 Doko  282 Dottenville  385 Dowty  142 Dozy  314 Dragina  49 Droste  91 Dryer  49

 Index of names Dubois  301 Dunham  55, 64 Durie  264 Duval  214 Duvignau  233, 234, 242, 244, 251, 254, 262, 264 Dvorák  108, 119 E Eckardt  134 Edelman  263 Enfield  24, 30, 31, 36, 37, 46, 178 Englebert  134 Erdös  236, 262 Ernout  222, 319, 325, 330 Evans  4, 5, 12, 13, 17, 21, 31, 46, 178, 218, 222, 255, 262, 341, 342, 344–46, 348, 351–54, 359, 360, 363 F Family  6, 26, 60, 109, 119, 139, 148, 178, 197, 199, 256, 282, 294, 295, 297, 299, 321, 323, 327–30, 332, 365 Fazly  161 Featherston  107 Fellbaum  239, 262 Ferrer  236, 262 Fillmore  70, 71, 93, 115, 146 Folena  369 Foley  24 Fortescue  197, 292, 319, 321, 324, 327, 329, 332–34 Fossard  262 François  11, 34, 95, 163, 174, 178, 183, 190, 197, 296–98, 314, 318, 344 Frechet  381 Fuchs  233, 247, 264 G Gaffiot  195 Gak  219 Gambarara  135 Ganenkov  217 Gaume  94, 178, 233, 234, 239, 246, 251, 254, 262–64, 307, 311, 313, 314, 346 Geeraerts  115, 165 Gentner  127 Gévaudan  108, 110, 113, 116 Ghomeshi  142, 143

Giacalone-Ramat  214 Giannoulopoulou  46 Gil  16 Gladkova  226 Goddard  13, 25, 26, 36, 45, 46, 123, 220, 233, 263 Godefroy  384 Goldberg  70, 87, 140, 146, 148 Goldin-Meadow  51  Gordon  385 Gouffé  267, 282, 287, 294, 297, 298, 303, 309, 310, 314 Grandi  34 Granger  52 Greenberg  17, 21, 22, 25, 303, 305, 306 Greimas  81 Gries  91 Grimm  341 Grunig  88 Gruntov  217 Gruntova  217 Grzega  113, 123 Guare  237, 238, 263 Guillaume  93 Guiraud  373, 375, 385 Guizot  240, 244, 257, 263 H Haim  142 Hakami  160 Hale  305, 315 Hammarström  30 Harkins  31 Harnish  46 Haser  347 Haspelmath  11, 16, 33, 34, 38, 42, 163, 166, 167, 169, 174, 177, 178, 180, 185, 260, 263 Hathout  262 Havlová  219 Heine  28–31, 35, 36, 107, 219, 298, 319, 320, 343, 361 Helmlinger  268, 280, 299 Hénault  139, 143, 160, 219, 291, 294, 303, 318 Hénault-Sakhno  219, 318 Herman  215 Heusing  134  Hill  19 Hogeweg  47 Hoiting  20 Honest  72

Hopper  67 Howes  342, 352, 354 Huberman  238, 263 Hue  382 Hundsnurscher  47 Hunston  85 I Ide  239, 240, 247, 263 Imai  127 Iordanskaja  43 J Jaberg  123 Jackendoff  146 Jacobson  292, 328 Jameson  24 Janson  373, 374, 381 Javorskaja  219 Jelinek  47 Jeong  236, 261, 263 Job  43, 79, 270 Johnson  64, 93, 107, 115, 233, 263, 287, 346 Joseph  91 Juravsky  32–34 K Kaplan  292 Karimi-Doostan  140, 145 Karov  239, 263 Kay  16, 21, 24, 58, 93, 146, 174 Kazimirski  314, 364 Kehayov  47 Keller  108, 109 Kellerman  48 Kemmer  33 Kenesei  46 Kepser  136 Kern  262 Khanina  26, 38, 46 Kibrik  42 Kita  20 Kittay  133 Kittilä  38, 46 Kleiber  63 Kleinberg  238, 263 Kleparski  230 Kluge  314, 381 Koch  5, 6, 27, 28, 32, 42, 46, 107–10, 113, 115, 116, 118, 219, 225, 227, 233, 263, 349 Kochen  237, 263

Index of names  König  263 Koptjevskaja-Tamm  3, 9, 12, 15, 22, 25, 38, 41, 43, 44, 46, 57, 349, 364 Kövecses  46, 68, 115 Kratzer  47 Krifka  13 Kustova  225 Kuteva  29–31, 35, 36, 107, 219, 298, 319, 320, 361 L Lafaye  240, 244, 257, 263 Lakoff  34, 63, 64, 68, 93, 107, 115, 165, 233, 263, 287, 346 Lang  17, 18, 133, 220, 378 Langacker  57, 59–63, 71, 79, 86, 93 Laughren  305, 315 Launey  292 Lazard  140, 142 Lebart  239, 263 Lecouteux  379, 385 Lee  78, 79 Lehmann  37 Lehrer  5 Lekens  314 Leuschner  50 Levison  46 Levy-Bruhl  379, 380 Lichtenberk  27, 73, 77, 345 Liebert  115 Lindström  30, 46 Lipka  69 Lo Piparo  135 Lowe  327 Lucy  41 Lutzeier  47 Lynch  298 M MacDermott  386 MacLaury  16, 17, 24  Maffi  16, 24, 174 Mahieu  336 Maisak  17, 18, 45 Majid  11, 14, 16–18, 23, 45 Malchukov  47 Mallory  292, 300, 319, 322, 323, 325, 326, 331, 334 Manus  199, 314, 344 Marashi  161 Margueron  369

Martin  42, 46, 70, 104, 261, 275, 381 Marzo  6, 27, 32, 42 Maslova  23 Mason  263 Masson  346, 371, 372 Matisoff  31, 116, 178, 305, 314, 342, 343, 346, 360 Mathieu  254, 263 Maysak  217 McDaniel  24 McGregor  38 Meeussen  343 Megerdoomian  140 Meillet  222, 319, 325, 330 Merlan  40 Michaelis  62, 87 Mihatsch  108, 110, 119, 127, 128 Milgram  237, 263 Monier-Williams  194 Moñino  311, 314, 318, 344, 345, 353, 360 Moravcsik  46 Morrissey  48 Mounin  373 Moyse-Faurie  231 Mugdan  49 Muller  262 Murguía  136 N Naïm  192, 198 Nash  305, 315 Neiemier  51 Nerlich  115, 165 Nerlove  16, 17, 20 Nespoulous  262 Neu  135 Newman  16, 235, 261, 263 Nichols  7, 32, 33, 36, 40 Nitti  215 Norri  123 North  20, 37, 58, 72, 73, 161, 174, 319, 344 Nougayrol  314 Núñez  64  Nurse  369 O Oesterreicher  110, 263 Ojutkangas  30 Oltvai  263 Onions  314 Ouattara  92

Ozanne-Rivierre  58 Özyürek  20 P Padučeva  225 Palayer  314 Panther  135 Paperno  43 Paprotté  82 Paradis  46 Paramei  24, 46 Pardalos  261 Pardeshi  267, 282, 294, 298 Partee  47 Partridge  219, 300, 319, 335 Pauliat  196 Pavlenko  44 Pawley  301 Payne  16 Perelmutter  49 Pérennec  76 Perrin  318, 344, 357 Peterson  51 Petterlini  268, 280 Pfeifer  293, 295, 300, 319 Picitto  386 Pierrard  134 Pimenta  262  Pisani  325 Plank  46 Plemons  246 Ploux  39, 263 Pokorny  221 Polinsky  48 Pottier  93, 96, 219, 271, 288, 317, 346 Prabhakar  263 Pustejovsky  86, 225 Pustet  39 Pütz  50 Q Quint  354 R Radden  68, 115 Raible  263 Rakhilina  17, 18 Rassinoux  268 Rastier  81 Ravasz  238, 242, 263 Ravi  263 Redner  236, 263 Reig  198

 Index of names Reis  136 Renou  215 Rényi  262 Resende  261 Rey  221–23, 293, 294, 296, 297, 317, 319, 348, 365 Ricca  17, 18, 36 Rice  215 Riemer  10, 13, 165, 346 Robert  55, 73, 74, 84, 87, 89, 223, 240, 242, 244, 247, 257, 258, 262, 263, 283, 288, 314, 318, 380 Roberts  142 Rodegem  268, 280 Romney  16 Roper  199, 314 Rosch  165 Rosier  134 Roulland  215 Roulon-Doko  62, 360 Rousseau  215 Ross  264 S Sabban  135 Sainean  371–79, 381, 382, 385 Sakhno  163, 196, 219, 222, 294, 295, 317, 318, 320, 344, 349 Salem  239, 263 Samiian  143 Sandra  215 Sasse  5, 12, 37, 40 Saussure  165 Schildt  91 Schmid  115 Schmitt  134 Schneider  339 Schrag  261 Schröpfer  219 Schwarze  134 Schweickard  134 Segurola  268 Seydou  268, 279 Sharifian  31, 46 Shipley  77 Sigman  236, 264 Simin Palay  376–78 Sinclair  80, 83 Slobin  20

Solé  236, 262 Song  46, 89, 382 Sornicola  136 Soutet  224 Sridhar  263 Staden van  48 Stassen  39 Stchoupak  194 Stefanowitsch  91 Steinberg  108 Steinkrüger  108 Stenta Krosbakken  136 Stevenson  148 Strogatz  234, 236–38 Stromboli  136 Svorou  28, 29 Sweetser  31, 218, 222, 223, 229, 251, 255, 264, 295, 321, 341–47, 351, 353, 354, 359, 363, 365, 368 T Tadmor  42 Talmy  16, 19, 20, 61, 79, 87, 93 Tamm  46 Tatevosov  40 Taylor  115 Temple  59, 60, 76, 83 Terrill  23 Tersis  197, 292, 314, 317, 318, 327, 336, 344 Therrien  338 Thoiron  90 Thom  105 Todd  215 Tolstoj  218 Tolstaja  219 Tomasello  263 Tonietto  244, 262, 264 Traugott  67, 107, 218 Tropeza  376, 378 Trubačev  218, 219 Tryon  301 Tyler  178 U Ungerer  115 V Vahedi-Langrudi  140 Vandeloise  61

van Gennep  382 Vanhove  23, 31, 46, 107, 154, 163, 199, 233, 234, 255, 306, 314, 318, 341, 344 Van Raemdonck  134 Vasmer (Fasmer)  292, 319 Véronis  239, 263 Veselinova  38, 46 Viberg  17, 18, 20, 22, 24, 36, 37, 42, 233, 255, 264, 341, 343–45, 352, 357 Victorri  79, 233, 239, 247, 263, 264 Vidalenc  66, 75 Viehweger  91 Villeneuve  378, 379, 382 Vine  191 Vinogradov  218, 226 Virbel  262 Vitter  261 Vittrant  47 W Waltereit  109, 115 Wälchli  7, 11, 17, 18, 20, 30, 32–35, 41, 44, 46 Walter  384 Wartburg  382 Watts  234, 236–38 Wegener  23 Wierzbicka  13, 24–26, 28, 31, 41, 45, 123, 148, 189, 220, 233, 263, 264, 287, 288, 305, 315, 317, 342, 354 Wilkins  17, 19, 23, 31, 116, 120, 178, 218, 222, 233, 255, 262, 264, 341, 342, 344–46, 348, 351–54, 359, 360, 363 Woodbury  51 Y Yaguello  85 Yu  337 Z Zalizniak  170, 217, 219, 222, 345 Zampolli  91 Zawada  91 Zúñiga  17, 18

Studies in Language Companion Series A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers’ website, www.benjamins.com 109 Narrog, Heiko: Modality in Japanese. The layered structure of the clause and hierarchies of functional categories. Expected March 2009 108 Barðdal, Jóhanna and Shobhana L. Chelliah (eds.): The Role of Semantic, Pragmatic, and Discourse Factors in the Development of Case. Expected February 2009 107 Butler, Christopher S. and Javier Martín Arista (eds.): Deconstructing Constructions. xx, 294 pp. + index. Expected January 2009 106 Vanhove, Martine (ed.): From Polysemy to Semantic Change. Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations. 2008. xiii, 404 pp. 105 Van Valin, Jr., Robert D. (ed.): Investigations of the Syntax–Semantics–Pragmatics Interface. xxiv, 484 pp. Expected November 2008 104 Mushin, Ilana and Brett Baker (eds.): Discourse and Grammar in Australian Languages. 2008. x, 239 pp. 103 Josephson, Folke and Ingmar Söhrman (eds.): Interdependence of Diachronic and Synchronic Analyses. 2008. viii, 350 pp. 102 Goddard, Cliff (ed.): Cross-Linguistic Semantics. 2008. xvi, 356 pp. 101 Stolz, Thomas, Sonja Kettler, Cornelia Stroh and Aina Urdze: Split Possession. An areallinguistic study of the alienability correlation and related phenomena in the languages of Europe. 2008. x, 546 pp. 100 Ameka, Felix K. and M.E. Kropp Dakubu (eds.): Aspect and Modality in Kwa Languages. 2008. ix, 335 pp. 99 Høeg Müller, Henrik and Alex Klinge (eds.): Essays on Nominal Determination. From morphology to discourse management. 2008. xviii, 369 pp. 98 Fabricius-Hansen, Cathrine and Wiebke Ramm (eds.): 'Subordination' versus 'Coordination' in Sentence and Text. A cross-linguistic perspective. 2008. vi, 359 pp. 97 Dollinger, Stefan: New-Dialect Formation in Canada. Evidence from the English modal auxiliaries. 2008. xxii, 355 pp. 96 Romeo, Nicoletta: Aspect in Burmese. Meaning and function. 2008. xv, 289 pp. 95 O’Connor, Loretta: Motion, Transfer and Transformation. The grammar of change in Lowland Chontal. 2007. xiv, 251 pp. 94 Miestamo, Matti, Kaius Sinnemäki and Fred Karlsson (eds.): Language Complexity. Typology, contact, change. 2008. xiv, 356 pp. 93 Schalley, Andrea C. and Drew Khlentzos (eds.): Mental States. Volume 2: Language and cognitive structure. 2007. x, 362 pp. 92 Schalley, Andrea C. and Drew Khlentzos (eds.): Mental States. Volume 1: Evolution, function, nature. 2007. xii, 304 pp. 91 Filipović, Luna: Talking about Motion. A crosslinguistic investigation of lexicalization patterns. 2007. x, 182 pp. 90 Muysken, Pieter (ed.): From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics. 2008. vii, 293 pp. 89 Stark, Elisabeth, Elisabeth Leiss and Werner Abraham (eds.): Nominal Determination. Typology, context constraints, and historical emergence. 2007. viii, 370 pp. 88 Ramat, Paolo and Elisa Roma (eds.): Europe and the Mediterranean as Linguistic Areas. Convergencies from a historical and typological perspective. 2007. xxvi, 364 pp. 87 Verhoeven, Elisabeth: Experiential Constructions in Yucatec Maya. A typologically based analysis of a functional domain in a Mayan language. 2007. xiv, 380 pp. 86 Schwarz-Friesel, Monika, Manfred Consten and Mareile Knees (eds.): Anaphors in Text. Cognitive, formal and applied approaches to anaphoric reference. 2007. xvi, 282 pp. 85 Butler, Christopher S., Raquel Hidalgo Downing and Julia Lavid (eds.): Functional Perspectives on Grammar and Discourse. In honour of Angela Downing. 2007. xxx, 481 pp. 84 Wanner, Leo (ed.): Selected Lexical and Grammatical Issues in the Meaning–Text Theory. In honour of Igor Mel'čuk. 2007. xviii, 380 pp. 83 Hannay, Mike and Gerard J. Steen (eds.): Structural-Functional Studies in English Grammar. In honour of Lachlan Mackenzie. 2007. vi, 393 pp.

82 Ziegeler, Debra: Interfaces with English Aspect. Diachronic and empirical studies. 2006. xvi, 325 pp. 81 Peeters, Bert (ed.): Semantic Primes and Universal Grammar. Empirical evidence from the Romance languages. 2006. xvi, 374 pp. 80 Birner, Betty J. and Gregory Ward (eds.): Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning. Neo-Gricean studies in pragmatics and semantics in honor of Laurence R. Horn. 2006. xii, 350 pp. 79 Laffut, An: Three-Participant Constructions in English. A functional-cognitive approach to caused relations. 2006. ix, 268 pp. 78 Yamamoto, Mutsumi: Agency and Impersonality. Their Linguistic and Cultural Manifestations. 2006. x, 152 pp. 77 Kulikov, Leonid, Andrej Malchukov and Peter de Swart (eds.): Case, Valency and Transitivity. 2006. xx, 503 pp. 76 Nevalainen, Terttu, Juhani Klemola and Mikko Laitinen (eds.): Types of Variation. Diachronic, dialectal and typological interfaces. 2006. viii, 378 pp. 75 Hole, Daniel, André Meinunger and Werner Abraham (eds.): Datives and Other Cases. Between argument structure and event structure. 2006. viii, 385 pp. 74 Pietrandrea, Paola: Epistemic Modality. Functional properties and the Italian system. 2005. xii, 232 pp. 73 Xiao, Richard and Tony McEnery: Aspect in Mandarin Chinese. A corpus-based study. 2004. x, 305 pp. 72 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt, Adam Hodges and David S. Rood (eds.): Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories. 2005. xii, 432 pp. 71 Dahl, Östen: The Growth and Maintenance of Linguistic Complexity. 2004. x, 336 pp. 70 Lefebvre, Claire: Issues in the Study of Pidgin and Creole Languages. 2004. xvi, 358 pp. 69 Tanaka, Lidia: Gender, Language and Culture. A study of Japanese television interview discourse. 2004. xvii, 233 pp. 68 Moder, Carol Lynn and Aida Martinovic-Zic (eds.): Discourse Across Languages and Cultures. 2004. vi, 366 pp. 67 Luraghi, Silvia: On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases. The expression of semantic roles in Ancient Greek. 2003. xii, 366 pp. 66 Nariyama, Shigeko: Ellipsis and Reference Tracking in Japanese. 2003. xvi, 400 pp. 65 Matsumoto, Kazuko: Intonation Units in Japanese Conversation. Syntactic, informational and functional structures. 2003. xviii, 215 pp. 64 Butler, Christopher S.: Structure and Function – A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories. Part 2: From clause to discourse and beyond. 2003. xiv, 579 pp. 63 Butler, Christopher S.: Structure and Function – A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories. Part 1: Approaches to the simplex clause. 2003. xx, 573 pp. 62 Field, Fredric: Linguistic Borrowing in Bilingual Contexts. With a foreword by Bernard Comrie. 2002. xviii, 255 pp. 61 Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.): Meaning and Universal Grammar. Theory and empirical findings. Volume 2. 2002. xvi, 337 pp. 60 Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.): Meaning and Universal Grammar. Theory and empirical findings. Volume 1. 2002. xvi, 337 pp. 59 Shi, Yuzhi: The Establishment of Modern Chinese Grammar. The formation of the resultative construction and its effects. 2002. xiv, 262 pp. 58 Maylor, B. Roger: Lexical Template Morphology. Change of state and the verbal prefixes in German. 2002. x, 273 pp. 57 Mel’čuk, Igor A.: Communicative Organization in Natural Language. The semantic-communicative structure of sentences. 2001. xii, 393 pp. 56 Faarlund, Jan Terje (ed.): Grammatical Relations in Change. 2001. viii, 326 pp. 55 Dahl, Östen and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages. Volume 2: Grammar and Typology. 2001. xx, 423 pp. 54 Dahl, Östen and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages. Volume 1: Past and Present. 2001. xx, 382 pp. 53 Fischer, Olga, Anette Rosenbach and Dieter Stein (eds.): Pathways of Change. Grammaticalization in English. 2000. x, 391 pp. 52 Torres Cacoullos, Rena: Grammaticization, Synchronic Variation, and Language Contact. A study of Spanish progressive -ndo constructions. 2000. xvi, 255 pp.

51 Ziegeler, Debra: Hypothetical Modality. Grammaticalisation in an L2 dialect. 2000. xx, 290 pp. 50 Abraham, Werner and Leonid Kulikov (eds.): Tense-Aspect, Transitivity and Causativity. Essays in honour of Vladimir Nedjalkov. 1999. xxxiv, 359 pp. 49 Bhat, D.N.S.: The Prominence of Tense, Aspect and Mood. 1999. xii, 198 pp. 48 Manney, Linda Joyce: Middle Voice in Modern Greek. Meaning and function of an inflectional category. 2000. xiii, 262 pp. 47 Brinton, Laurel J. and Minoji Akimoto (eds.): Collocational and Idiomatic Aspects of Composite Predicates in the History of English. 1999. xiv, 283 pp. 46 Yamamoto, Mutsumi: Animacy and Reference. A cognitive approach to corpus linguistics. 1999. xviii, 278 pp. 45 Collins, Peter C. and David Lee (eds.): The Clause in English. In honour of Rodney Huddleston. 1999. xv, 342 pp. 44 Hannay, Mike and A. Machtelt Bolkestein (eds.): Functional Grammar and Verbal Interaction. 1998. xii, 304 pp. 43 Olbertz, Hella, Kees Hengeveld and Jesús Sánchez García (eds.): The Structure of the Lexicon in Functional Grammar. 1998. xii, 312 pp. 42 Darnell, Michael, Edith A. Moravcsik, Michael Noonan, Frederick J. Newmeyer and Kathleen M. Wheatley (eds.): Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume II: Case studies. 1999. vi, 407 pp. 41 Darnell, Michael, Edith A. Moravcsik, Michael Noonan, Frederick J. Newmeyer and Kathleen M. Wheatley (eds.): Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume I: General papers. 1999. vi, 486 pp. 40 Birner, Betty J. and Gregory Ward: Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English. 1998. xiv, 314 pp. 39 Wanner, Leo (ed.): Recent Trends in Meaning–Text Theory. 1997. xx, 202 pp. 38 Hacking, Jane F.: Coding the Hypothetical. A comparative typology of Russian and Macedonian conditionals. 1998. vi, 156 pp. 37 Harvey, Mark and Nicholas Reid (eds.): Nominal Classification in Aboriginal Australia. 1997. x, 296 pp. 36 Kamio, Akio (ed.): Directions in Functional Linguistics. 1997. xiii, 259 pp. 35 Matsumoto, Yoshiko: Noun-Modifying Constructions in Japanese. A frame semantic approach. 1997. viii, 204 pp. 34 Hatav, Galia: The Semantics of Aspect and Modality. Evidence from English and Biblical Hebrew. 1997. x, 224 pp. 33 Velázquez-Castillo, Maura: The Grammar of Possession. Inalienability, incorporation and possessor ascension in Guaraní. 1996. xvi, 274 pp. 32 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt: Grammaticalization of the Complex Sentence. A case study in Chadic. 1996. xviii, 501 pp. 31 Wanner, Leo (ed.): Lexical Functions in Lexicography and Natural Language Processing. 1996. xx, 355 pp. 30 Huffman, Alan: The Categories of Grammar. French lui and le. 1997. xiv, 379 pp. 29 Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth, Michael Fortescue, Peter Harder, Lars Heltoft and Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen (eds.): Content, Expression and Structure. Studies in Danish functional grammar. 1996. xvi, 510 pp. 28 Herman, József (ed.): Linguistic Studies on Latin. Selected papers from the 6th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics (Budapest, 23–27 March 1991). 1994. ix, 421 pp. 27 Abraham, Werner, T. Givón and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.): Discourse, Grammar and Typology. Papers in honor of John W.M. Verhaar. 1995. xx, 352 pp. 26 Lima, Susan D., Roberta L. Corrigan and Gregory K. Iverson: The Reality of Linguistic Rules. 1994. xxiii, 480 pp. 25 Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.): Semantic and Lexical Universals. Theory and empirical findings. 1994. viii, 510 pp. 24 Bhat, D.N.S.: The Adjectival Category. Criteria for differentiation and identification. 1994. xii, 295 pp. 23 Comrie, Bernard and Maria Polinsky (eds.): Causatives and Transitivity. 1993. x, 399 pp. 22 McGregor, William B.: A Functional Grammar of Gooniyandi. 1990. xx, 618 pp.

21 Coleman, Robert (ed.): New Studies in Latin Linguistics. Proceedings of the 4th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Cambridge, April 1987. 1990. x, 480 pp. 20 Verhaar, John W.M. S.J. (ed.): Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Pidgins and Creoles in Melanesia. 1990. xiv, 409 pp. 19 Blust, Robert A.: Austronesian Root Theory. An essay on the limits of morphology. 1988. xi, 190 pp. 18 Wierzbicka, Anna: The Semantics of Grammar. 1988. vii, 581 pp. 17 Calboli, Gualtiero (ed.): Subordination and Other Topics in Latin. Proceedings of the Third Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Bologna, 1–5 April 1985. 1989. xxix, 691 pp. 16 Conte, Maria-Elisabeth, János Sánder Petöfi and Emel Sözer (eds.): Text and Discourse Connectedness. Proceedings of the Conference on Connexity and Coherence, Urbino, July 16–21, 1984. 1989. xxiv, 584 pp. 15 Justice, David: The Semantics of Form in Arabic. In the mirror of European languages. 1987. iv, 417 pp. 14 Benson, Morton, Evelyn Benson and Robert F. Ilson: Lexicographic Description of English. 1986. xiii, 275 pp. 13 Reesink, Ger: Structures and their Functions in Usan. 1987. xviii, 369 pp. 12 Pinkster, Harm (ed.): Latin Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Proceedings of the 1st International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Amsterdam, April 1981. 1983. xviii, 307 pp. 11 Panhuis, Dirk G.J.: The Communicative Perspective in the Sentence. A study of Latin word order. 1982. viii, 172 pp. 10 Dressler, Wolfgang U., Willi Mayerthaler, Oswald Panagl and Wolfgang Ullrich Wurzel: Leitmotifs in Natural Morphology. 1988. ix, 168 pp. 9 Lang, Ewald and John Pheby: The Semantics of Coordination. (English transl. by John Pheby from the German orig. ed. 'Semantik der koordinativen Verknüpfung', Berlin, 1977). 1984. 300 pp. 8 Barth, E.M. and J.L. Martens (eds.): Argumentation: Approaches to Theory Formation. Containing the Contributions to the Groningen Conference on the Theory of Argumentation, October 1978. 1982. xviii, 333 pp. 7 Parret, Herman, Marina Sbisà and Jef Verschueren (eds.): Possibilities and Limitations of Pragmatics. Proceedings of the Conference on Pragmatics, Urbino, July 8–14, 1979. 1981. x, 854 pp. 6 Vago, Robert M. (ed.): Issues in Vowel Harmony. Proceedings of the CUNY Linguistics Conference on Vowel Harmony, May 14, 1977. 1980. xx, 340 pp. 5 Haiman, John: Hua: A Papuan Language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. 1980. iv, 550 pp. 4 Lloyd, Albert L.: Anatomy of the Verb. The Gothic Verb as a Model for a Unified Theory of Aspect, Actional Types, and Verbal Velocity. (Part I: Theory; Part II: Application). 1979. x, 351 pp. 3 Malkiel, Yakov: From Particular to General Linguistics. Selected Essays 1965–1978. With an introduction by the author, an index rerum and an index nominum. 1983. xxii, 659 pp. 2 Anwar, Mohamed Sami: BE and Equational Sentences in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. 1979. vi, 128 pp. 1 Abraham, Werner (ed.): Valence, Semantic Case, and Grammatical Relations. Workshop studies prepared for the 12th International Congress of Linguists, Vienna, August 29th to September 3rd, 1977. 1978. xiv, 729 pp.