Semantic maps and word formation: Agents, Instruments, and related semantic roles

Abstract

The semantic map methodology has been applied mainly to the analysis of the multifunctionality of grammatical morphemes-they allow one to deal with this problem without having to decide between monosemic and polysemic analyses. Similar issues arise when dealing with derivational morphemes and word formation patterns so that this methodology can be extended to their analysis. As a case study, causal semantic roles are surveyed in this paper, both synchronically and diachronically. Only Agents and Instruments seem to have specific word formation patterns, while Force and Means cannot be identified as proper semantic roles in word formation. Semantic maps based on word formation patterns also allow for interesting comparisons to those drawn on the basis of grammatical morphemes. Given that they are based on different data, but semantically overlap to a certain extent, this can help to throw some light on the general validity of the results of the methodology. For instance, from a diachronic perspective there is an interesting difference concerning the evolution of Agent and Instruments markers as grammatical morphemes from word formation patterns-in word formation it is Agents that evolve into Instruments and this is the evolution expected according to the predictions made on the basis of general abstraction scales.

Reconstructing the ditransitive construction for Proto-Germanic: Gothic, Old English and Old Norse-Icelandic

“…According to Malchukov, Haspelmath & Comrie (2007: 53), semantic maps are not only useful for areal variation, but have also proven valid for diachronic studies (cf. Barðdal 2004, Haspelmath 2004, Luján 2010, Narrog 2010, Narrog & Van der Auwera 2011, Grossman & Polis 2012, Luraghi 2014. In Section 5, we make use of Malchukov, Haspelmath & Comrie's semantic map proposal, adapting it for the visual layout of the semantic range of the ditransitive construction in early Germanic, as revealed by the comparison in sections 3.2 and 4.…”

The semantic map model: State of the art and future avenues for linguistic research

“…10; Boye, ), temporal markers (Haspelmath, ), encoding of core arguments (Croft, , pp. 134–147), semantic roles (Clancy, ; Georgakopoulos, ; Grossman & Polis, ; Hartmann, Haspelmath, & Cysouw, ; Haspelmath, ; Luján, ; Luraghi, ; Luraghi, ; Malchukov, ; Malchukov & Narrog, ; Mohammadirad & Rasekh‐Mahand, ; Narrog & Ito, ; Rice & Kabata, ; Wälchli, ), partitive constructions (Koptjevskaja‐Tamm, ), functions of generalized action verbs (Gil, ; Schultze‐Berndt, ), transfer of possession constructions (Collins, ), coordination (Haspelmath, , pp. 20–24; Mauri, ), complementation (Matras, ), adversatives (Malchukov, ), intransitive predication (Stassen, ), secondary predication (van der Auwera & Malchukov, ; Verkerk, ), person‐marking (Cysouw, ), imperative‐hortatives (van der Auwera, Dobrushina, & Goussev, ) negative existentials (Veselinova, ), negative polarity items (Hoekstra, ), intensifying particles (Forker, ), and additives (Forker, ).…”

“…Section 4 here, with Wälchli & Cysouw, , pp. 703–705), the big bulk of research has been adopting a synchronic perspective, and the limited research that has added the diachronic dimension has focused almost exclusively on the grammatical domain (Eckhoff, ; Guardamagna, ; Lichtenberk, ; Luján, ; Luraghi, ; Narrog, ; van der Auwera & Plungian, ). For lexical typology, semantic maps have been conceptualized explicitly as “a strictly synchronous device,” a stance justified by the complexity of the historical relations between lexical meanings (Rakhilina & Reznikova, , p. 113; but see Viberg's, , modality hierarchy, which can be seen as a forerunner of lexical diachronic semantic maps).…”

Instrument and place nouns: A typological and diachronic perspective

“…Work on semantic maps has focused almost exclusively on inflection, but a first step towards extending the model to the study of word formation has been taken by Luján (2010), according to whom the "semantic roles" of 'agent', 'instrument' and 'locative' as well as 'force' and 'means' can be represented in terms of the semantic map displayed in Figure 1 (corresponding to Figure 4 …”