Search results for "Polysemy"
showing 10 items of 23 documents
From Thinking to Raging: Reflexes of Indo-European *men- Polysemy in Homer
2020
This paper aims at investigating the semantic value of the verb μαίνομαι “to rage, to be furious” in Homeric Greek, in order to clarify the striking semantic relationship between the common ‘irrational’ meaning of the verb and the original ‘rational’ meaning of the Indo-European root *men- “to think”, to which the verb traces back. The corresponding words for μαίνομαι in other Indo-European languages (e.g. OInd. mányatē; Av. mainyeite; OIr. (do)moiniur; OCS mъnjo; Lit. miniu) can be translated as “to think”, thus showing an opposite meaning. From a textual analysis of all the occurrences of μαίνομαι in the Iliad and the Odyssey, the study aims at finding semantic traces of the original mean…
Do discourse markers exist? On the treatment of discourse markers in Relevance Theory
2008
Abstract This paper critically reviews three Relevance Theory (RT) ideas on connectives: the distinction between conceptual and procedural meaning, connectives as strictly procedural elements, and monosemy as the best explanation of multifunctional connectives. These three ideas underlie the description of connectives and related sets of markers within RT. Data from colloquial conversations, however, provide evidence which calls these ideas into question. Therefore, it is argued that conceptual and procedural features can coexist within a single marker, that the concept of apposition markers should be reconsidered, that conceptual expressions can connect two utterances, and that polysemy pr…
The Polysemy of the verbs «pegar», «apegar» and «empegar» in Catalan : a synchronic manifestation of semantic change
2015
In this paper we study the polysemy that the verbs pegar ('hit/stick'), apegar ('stick') and empegar ('stick') possess today in the Catalan language. First of all, we perform a thorough description of the meanings that each of these verbs have acquired not only in the standard but also in the colloquial language. Each of the meanings has been differentiated from the others by analysing the most prominent dictionaries currently available and a corpus of written texts. Additionally, a number of surveys on the spoken language have also been taken into account. Our research has shown that in the different Catalan dialects they do not always have the same meanings or the same verb forms. To be a…
From visual perception to evidentiality: A functional empirical approach to se ve que in Spanish
2019
Abstract The Spanish sequence se ve (que) presents intricate functional polysemy, including constructionalization as an evidential. The present paper investigates its different formal-functional combinations and degrees of specialization as an evidential construction. The following questions were addressed: (1) How many different senses can be distinguished in the sequence se ve (que) and what are their respective frequencies? (2) How do these senses correlate with the morphosyntactic behavior of the sequence se ve (que)? (3) Which senses of se ve (que) are more closely related to each other, and how does the evidential construction relate to this polysemous network? The semantic and formal…
A Comparative Analysis of Translations of Lucian Blaga’s Poetry into English
2020
Abstract The complexity of Lucian Blaga’s poetry is a matter of common knowledge. Part of this complexity is related to the elements of prosody that Blaga skilfully employs, to say nothing of the philosophical vein which infuses his writings, and which derives, understandably, from his philosophical work. Mention should also be made of the lyrical character of Blaga’s dramatic works, which adds significantly to the effort of translating his writings into English, or any other language for that matter. In what follows, we intend to offer a bird’s eye view of the volumes that have been translated into English and to analyse a selection of poems comparatively, in order to signal challenges and…
Classification of prefix aiz- ‘away’ meanings: from Jānis Endzelīns approach to nowadays
2019
The polysemic nature of prefixes in Latvian causes problems in prefix classification. Several authors in different time periods have proposed diverse prefix classification systems. In this research, three different classification systems of prefix aiz- ‘away’ are compared – the classification system created by Endzelīns (1971) in 1907, the classification system created by Soida in 1970 (printed in 2009), and the classification system proposed by Vulāne (2015). To ascertain which meanings are used nowadays the examples are drawn from the corpus. There are 11 prefixes in the Latvian language used in word-formation. In this research, prefix aiz- is chosen as it has a rich meaning system althou…
Towards a reconstruction of Indo-European culture: semantic functions of IE *men-
2002
Indo-European language reconstruction has allowed us to advance some hypotheses with regard to possible reconstructing cultural contents of what has been defined “Indo-European ideology” (Campanile 1992). The method of textual comparison, which compares no longer and not merely single lexical items or single syntactic constructions, but the whole literary systems too, is able to bring out linguistic and extra-linguistic reference contexts. The interest in reconstructing the Indo-European “basic lexicon” is renewed in the light of recent typological criteria of root classification (according to their active or stative meaning): the focus today is on drawing up the so-called “global etymologi…
PROTOTIPI O FORME SCHEMATICHE? PER UNA FORMA ENUNCIATIVA DI CATEGORIZZAZIONE
2006
The paper aims at explaining the notion of lexical polysemy by means of some theoretical metalinguistic construction.
Actuaciones de alumnos instruidos en la resolución algebraica de problemas en la hoja de cálculo y su relación con la competencia en el método cartes…
2013
Presentamos resultados de una investigación en la que, entre otros objetivos, se pretendía determinar cómo influía la enseñanza de la resolución algebraica de problemas en la hoja de cálculo en la competencia en el método cartesiano. La comparación de los cuestionarios administrados antes y después de la enseñanza puso de manifiesto un aumento del uso polisémico de la equis cuando se resolvía con lápiz y papel, y una disminución del uso del lenguaje del álgebra en los problemas de edades. Mostramos que estos resultados pueden atribuirse a la aparición de estrategias de resolución en la hoja de cálculo en las que las situaciones descritas en el enunciado se modelizaban mediante relaciones fu…
Possession and volition in the development of modal meanings: a case-study from Sicilian
2019
This article analyses two Sicilian modal constructions involving vuliri 'want' + infinitive and aviri a ‘have to’ + infinitive. They are used to express modal values, both non-epistemic and epistemic, and futurity. Based on Langacker's Cognitive Grammar assumptions, we describe the semantic network associated with each modal, as well as their semantic overlap. In addition, we describe how modal values interact with temporal-aspectual inflection. Our analysis shows that the epistemic values of vuliri are quite peripheral, while aviri a shows a high degree of polysemy, both in the non-epistemic and in the more abstract epistemic domain. The non-epistemic-to-epistemic shifts depend on the cont…