Tracking semantic change infl- monomorphemes in theOxford English Dictionary

Abstract

This study aims to track diachronic semantic shift in a small set of monomorphemes collected from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), carrying the initial fl- phonestheme, such as flounder, flummox, flail, etc. The purpose is to determine the semantic behavior of fl- monomorphemes by identifying OED key words, which are then classified into eleven conceptual categories of semantic features. Five features of the eleven are conjectured as major on the basis of frequency of occurrence and frequency of combination with other features. Features which share similar progression rates are hypothesized to be linked through the natural process of metonymy (MTA, SV, SBT). Early emergent features are viewed as primary (MTA and MTL). From there, directionality of shift is assessed by comparing co-emergent with post-attestation features. Although no general pattern is discernible on this scale, several case studies of unexpected semantic shift towards minor features as in flummer and flourish show promising results for the field of historical lexical semantics.

Keystrokes: A practical exploration of semantic drift in timed word association tasks

“…Semantic drift–or its alternative labelling as change, progression, shift or development–has had multidisciplinary treatments from: sociology and anthropology looking at how language is used in society and different cultures and observing dynamic change [ 25 ]; psychology where word associations are measured for change over time or how bias is built into cognitive structures for interpreting contexts [ 26 ]; computer science where machine learning can be used to measure or predict changes in word meaning and usage or even patterns of change measured over time [ 27 ]; then in linguistics scholars have looked at the social factors of language and cultural norms, identity and how different social groups influence semantic change. This can be observed through historical frames by looking at the evolution of language over time [ 28 ] and then the changing use of general language through lexicography, sometimes evidenced through dictionary analysis and definitions [ 29 ].…”

Approche cognitive diachronique de l’émergence du phonesthème fl- : réanalyse phonosymbolique et transmodalité dans le lexique anglais (OED)

“…Cette étude vise à approfondir un nombre de questions lexicographiques et lexicologiques posées par Smith (2016). Cette étude a proposé une méthodologie pour tracer l'historique des changements sémantiques chez les monomorphèmes en fl-, notamment pour répondre aux questions suivantes :…”

“…Smith (2016) propose une analyse sémique des 103 lexies monomorphémiques en fl-retenues pour le corpus, générées à partir de l'OED3 version électronique. Il est bien entendu nécessaire ici de se poser la question de la pertinence d'une analyse sémique pour une approche cognitive.…”