Formal opacity of derived lexemes as a factor motivating semantic change: the case of Ancient Greek nominals

Title: Formal opacity of derived lexemes as a factor motivating semantic change: the case of Ancient Greek nominals
Author: Masliš, Martin
Source document: Graeco-Latina Brunensia. 2021, vol. 26, iss. 1, pp. 117-133
Extent
117-133
  • ISSN
    1803-7402 (print)
    2336-4424 (online)
Type: Article
Language
 

Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.

Abstract(s)
This paper introduces synchronic formal opacity as a factor motivating semantic change on a par with cultural changes and pragmatic factors. The role of formal opacity in semantic change is investigated within the broader framework of lexicogenesis, i.e. the sum of processes that introduce new pairs of words and meanings in a linguistic system. In contrast to derivation, which introduces new pairs initially marked by formal and semantic transparency, semantic change can affect existing words that are formally and semantically opaque for those who acquire them. Opaque lexemes are described as unmotivated signs lacking a cue structure that would otherwise point speakers to the concepts labelled by them. This semiotic arbitrariness contrasts with motivated signs, that is morphologically transparent words that contain a recognized base morpheme cueing the concept they refer to. While focusing on this dichotomy in the lexicon of Ancient Greek, we argue that every novel derived word was initially motivated and contained a direct reference to the appropriate extra-linguistic concept. If a word ceased to be formally transparent, the motivation was lost, and the cue structure was effaced. The absence of cues enabled the acquirers to abstract any meaning reconcilable with the pragmatic context that, in turn, provided more space for semantic reanalysis. Besides this, semantic innovation effected by the speakers using words creatively was also influenced by the dichotomy between motivated and unmotivated signs. Whereas motivated words allowed speakers to exploit their structural and lexical semantics alike, the meanings of opaque words could be actively extended based only on their lexical semantics, since their structural meaning was inaccessible.
Note
This research is financially supported by the Charles University Research Centre program No. 204053 and the Charles University Grant Agency (GA UK), grant number 424420 "Semantic (in)stability of formally isolated lexemes exemplified on Ancient Greek" ["Sémantická (ne)stabilita formálne izolovaných slov na príklade starej gréčtiny"] awarded at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University.
References
[1] Allen, T. W., Halliday, W. R., & Sikes, E. E. (Eds.). (1936). The Homeric hymns (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

[2] Alpers, K. (1990). Griechische Lexikographie in Antike und Mittelalter. In H. Koch, & A. KrupEbert (Eds.), Welt der Information (pp. 14–38). Stuttgart: Metzler.

[3] Beekes, R. (2010). Etymological dictionary of Greek (2 Vols.). Leiden ‒ Boston: Brill.

[4] Boudelaa, S., & Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (2015). Structure, form, and meaning in the mental lexicon: Evidence from Arabic. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 30(8), 955–992.

[5] Bybee, J. L. (1985). Morphology: A Study of the Relation between Meaning and Form. Amsterdam ‒ Philadelphia: Benjamins. | DOI 10.1075/tsl.9

[6] Campbell, L. (2013). Historical linguistics (3rd ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

[7] Chantraine, P. (1968–1980). Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: Histoire des mots. Paris: Klincksieck.

[8] del Prado Martín, F. M., Deutsch, A., Frost, R., Schreuder, R., De Jong, N. H., & Baayen, R. H. (2005). Changing places: A cross-language perspective on frequency and family size in Dutch and Hebrew. Journal of Memory and Language, 53(4), 496–512. | DOI 10.1016/j.jml.2005.07.003

[9] Dickey, E. (2015). The sources of our knowledge of ancient scholarship. In F. Montanari, S. Matthaios, & A. Rengakos (Eds.), Brill's Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship (2 Vols.; pp. 459–514). Leiden ‒ Boston: Brill.

[10] Diependaele, K., Grainger, J., & Sandra, D. (2012). Derivational Morphology and Skilled Reading: An Empirical Overview. In M. J. Spivey, K. McRae, & M. F. Joanisse (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Psycholinguistics (pp. 311–332). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[11] Dokulil, M. (1962). Tvoření slov v češtině I. Teorie odvozování slov. Praha: Nakladatelství Československé akademie věd.

[12] Dokulil, M. (1978). K otázce prediktability lexikálního významu slovotvorně motivovaného slova. Slovo a slovesnost, 39, 244–251.

[13] Eckardt, R. (2009). APO: Avoid pragmatic overload. In M. Hansen, & J. Visconti (Eds.), Current trends in diachronic semantics and pragmatics (Studies in Pragmatics, 7; pp. 21–41). Bingley: Emerald Publishing.

[14] Evelyn-White, H. G. (Ed. & Transl.). (1914). Hesiod. The Homeric hymns, and Homerica. London: W. Heinemann.

[15] Fortson, B. W. (2003). An approach to semantic change. In R. D. Janda, & B. D. Joseph (Eds.), The Handbook of Historical Linguistics (pp. 648–666.). Malden ‒ Oxford ‒ Melbourne ‒ Berlin: Blackwell.

[16] Fränkel, H. (Ed.). (1986). Apollonii Rhodii Argonautica. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

[17] Furdík, J. (1993). Slovotvorná motivácia a jej jazykové funkcie. Levoča: Peter Modrý.

[18] Gaisford, T. (Ed.). (1848, repr. 1967). Etymologicum Magnum. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[19] Geeraerts, D. (2010). Theories of lexical semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[20] Glynn, D. (2015). Semasiology and onomasiology. In J. Daems, E. Zenner, K. Heylen, D. Speelman, & H. Cuyckens (Eds.), Change of Paradigms – New Paradoxes (pp. 47–80). Berlin ‒ München ‒ Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.

[21] Gow, A. S. F. (Ed.). (1952). Theocritus (Vol. 1; 2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[22] Heine, B., Claudi, U., & Hünnemeyer, F. (1991). From cognition to grammar: Evidence from African languages. In E. C. Traugott, & B. Heine (Eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization (Vol. 1; pp. 149–187). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

[23] Hock, H. (1991). Principles of Historical Linguistics. Berlin ‒ New York: De Gruyter Mouton.

[24] Hopper, P. J. (1991). On some principles of grammaticization. In E. C. Traugott, & B. Heine (Eds.), Approaches to Grammaticalization (Vol. 1; pp. 17–35). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

[25] Janda, M. (2000). Eleusis. Das indogermanische Erbe der Mysterien. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft.

[26] König, E., & Traugott, E. C. (1988). Pragmatic strengthening and semantic change: the conventionalizing of conversational implicature. In W. Hüllen, & R. Schulze (Eds.), Understanding the Lexicon: Meaning, Sense and World Knowledge in Lexical Semantics (pp. 110–124). Tübingen: Niemeyer.

[27] Langacker, R. W. (1977). Syntactic Reanalysis. In C. N. Li (Ed.), Mechanisms of syntactic change (pp. 57–139). Austin: University of Texas Press.

[28] Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., & Jones, H. S. (1996). A Greek-English lexicon [= LSJ] (9th ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

[29] Littré, É. (Ed.). (1853, repr. 1962). Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate, vol. 8. Paris: Baillière (repr. Amsterdam: Hakkert).

[30] Lorimel, W. L. (Ed.). (1933). Aristotelis qui fertur libellus de mundo. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.

[31] Masliš, M. (forthcoming). Formal opacity and semantic (in)stability of derived nominal lexemes in Ancient Greek.

[32] Mathesius, V. (1966). Řeč a sloh. Praha: Československý spisovatel.

[33] Murray, A. T. (Ed. & Transl.). (1919). Odyssey (2 Vols.). London: W. Heinemann.

[34] Nikolaev, A. (2012/2013). Homeric ἀάατος: Etymology and Poetics. Die Sprache, 50(2), 182–239.

[35] Nussbaum, A. J. (2014a). Greek τέκμαρ 'sign' and τέκμωρ 'sign': Why both? In N. Oettinger, & T. Steer (Eds.), Das Nomen im Indogermanischen (pp. 215–260). Wiesbaden: Reichert.

[36] Nussbaum, A. J. (2014b). The PIE Proprietor and His Goods. In H. C. Melchert, E. Rieken, & T. Steer (Eds.), Munus amicitiae Norbert Oettinger a collegis et amicis dicatum (pp. 228–254). Ann Arbor: Beech Stave Press.

[37] Nussbaum, A. J. (2017). Agentive and other derivatives of "τόμος-type" nouns. In C. Le Feuvre, D. Petit, & G.-J. Pinault (Eds.), Verbal adjectives and participles in Indo-European languages (pp. 233–266). Bremen: Hempen.

[38] Oxford English Dictionary Online. (2021). Oxford University Press [accessible at https://www.oed.com/].

[39] Probert, P. (2006). Ancient Greek Accentuation: Synchronic Patterns, Frequency Effects, and Prehistory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[40] Pustejovsky, J. (1995). The Generative Lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

[41] Ramscar, M., Yarlett, D., Dye, M., Denny, K., & Thorpe, K. (2010). The effects of feature‐label‐order and their implications for symbolic learning. Cognitive science, 34(6), 909–957. | DOI 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2009.01092.x

[42] Reitzenstein, R. (1905). Etymologika. In Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (RE; Band V,2; pp. 807–817). Stuttgart: Metzler.

[43] Rix, H., & Kümmel, M. (2001). Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben (2nd ed.). Wiesbaden: Reichert.

[44] Sandell, R. P. (2015). Productivity in Historical Linguistics: Computational Perspectives on Word-Formation in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit. Ph.D. Diss., University of California.

[45] Schreuder, R., & Baayen, H. R. (1995). Modeling morphological processing. In L. B. Feldman (Ed.), Morphological Aspects of Language Processing (pp. 131–154). Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

[46] Snell, B. et al. (Eds.). (1955–2010). Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos [= LfgrE]. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

[47] Štekauer, P. (2005a). Onomasiological Approach to Word Formation. In P. Štekauer, & R. Lieber (Eds.), Handbook of word formation (pp. 207–232). Dordrecht: Springer.

[48] Štekauer, P. (2005b). Meaning predictability in word formation. Novel, context-free naming units. Amsterdam ‒ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

[49] Thompson, S. (1955–1958). Motif-index of folk-literature: a classification of narrative elements in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, mediaeval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

[50] Tichy, E. (1983). Onomatopoetische Verbalbildungen des Griechischen. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften.

[51] Traugott, E. C. (2017). Semantic Change. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics [retrieved 11.04.2021 from https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.323]. | DOI 10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.323]

[52] Traugott, E. C., & Dasher, R. B. (2002). Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[53] Valera, S. (2020). Polysemy Versus Homonymy. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics [retrieved 11.04.2021 from https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.617]. | DOI 10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.617]

[54] Wendel, C. (Ed.). (1974). Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium Vetera (3rd ed.). Berlin: Weidmann.

[55] West, M. L. (Ed.). (1998). Homerus: Ilias. Rhapsodiae I‒XII. Berlin ‒ Boston: B. G. Teubner.

[56] West, M. L. (Ed.). (2017). Homerus: Odyssea. Berlin ‒ Boston: De Gruyter.

[57] West, M. L. (Ed.). (2019). Homerus: Ilias. Rhapsodiae XIII‒XXIV. Indices. Berlin ‒ Boston: B. G. Teubner.