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Sémantique cognitive et changement lexical

2017

Abstract

Our contribution accounts for the eminent role of cognitive semantics for the study of lexical change. First, we discuss the principles of cognitive semantics and show how they fit to explain semantic change within the lexicon. On the one hand, the notion of frame semantics turns out to be an explicative principle for metonymic (“domain highlighting”) as well as for metaphorical innovation (“domain mapping”), on the other hand the application of prototype theory to semantic change affects not only taxonomic, but also some special kinds of metonymic and metaphorical change. In a further step we deal with the integration of semantic and other types of lexical innovation, like word formation and loans. Until today, these aspects of lexical change have mainly been dealt with in entirely distinct sub-disciplines of linguistics and have been taken as essentially unrelated. However, empirical data reveal that semantic change often has to be considered within multilayered processes of lexic...