Semantic Change in Word Formation

Bibliographic Data

ID3988454
AuthorsFranz Rainer (0000-0001-7258-535X, Vienna University of Economics and Business, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume43
Issue2
Publication date2005-01-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0024-3949 • E-ISSN: 1613-396X
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ling.2005.43.2.415
OpenAlexW2095106429
LanguageEN
Citations received10

The present article seeks to provide an answer to the following question: according to which mechanisms may a pattern of word formation develop a new meaning? In order to keep the task to a manageable size only changes will be considered, the result of which stays within the same type of pattern (affixation, compounding, etc.). Hence, we will not discuss how affixes develop out of compounds or similar phenomena. The only scholar who, to the best of my knowledge, has addressed this issue in a systematic and comprehensive manner is Jaberg (1905), who claimed that semantic change in affixation is always the result of semantic change in individual words plus reanalysis. Our study will reveal, however, that, though this is in fact the most common scenario, there is yet another, hitherto ignored mechanism of semantic change in word formation where no lexical change is involved. This mechanism, which will be called "approximation," allows a mismatch to arise between a word formation pattern and a neologism formed according to it, if the distance is bridged by metaphor or metonymy

Epistemology · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Mechanism (biology) · Metaphor · Metonymy · Natural language processing · Neologism · Semantic change · Semantic property · Task (project management) · Word (group theory) · Word formation · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Lexicography and Language Studies · Linguistics and language evolution · linguistics and terminology studies · Philosophy