Abstract
From the Middle Ages onwards plant ashes were commonly used throughrout Europe in the elaboration of soap and glass. These ashes were known by different names depending on the vegetables employed and the quality of the product. In Spain sosa (soda) and barrilla (barilla) were the most widespread. Due to the reconceptualization of their primary references, these two words underwent considerable semantic changes during the XVIIIth and the XIXth centuries. The aim of this paper is to survey these changes focusing on their intralinguistic factors.
Highlights
Due to the reconceptualization of their primary references, these two words underwent considerable semantic changes during the XVIIIth and the XIXth centuries
19 Las primeras noticias de la planta y del procedimiento de elaboración de la barrilla en inglés datan de 1618: «I am thanks to God, come to Alicant in Spain, for I am to send thence a commodity cald Barillia for making crystal glass, and I have already treated with Signor Andriotti for a good round parcel of it to the value of £ 2, 000
This Barrillia is a strange kind of vegetable [...] I think earthy shrub that bears berries like bar berries
Summary
A pesar de que tanto la ciencia positivista como la primera terminología insistieran en propugnar definiciones muy rígidas de término (monosémico, biunívoco), desde siempre se ha sabido que no podían ser otra cosa que idealizaciones, pues la realidad las desmentía con incesantes ejemplos de polisemia, sinonimia, tránsito léxico entre disciplinas, etc.[2]. En el siglo XVIII se inocularon a la nomenclatura química sin perder los significados anteriores a su empleo como términos, de modo que generaron a su alrededor una polisemia y una sinonimia asombrosa si tenemos en cuenta que ambos pertenecían a una disciplina que se jactaba de tener un lenguaje sistemático[3]. A finales del siglo XIX el uso de barrilla había menguado fundamentalmente a una sola acepción, la botánica, mientras que sosa, por el contrario, había sido agraciada con nuevos significados. Espero que pueda ser de provecho para los interesados en la historia de la lengua y de la ciencia
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