Lexical neutralisation: a case study of the lexical opposition ‘day’/‘night’

Abstract

This article is concerned with the adoption the principle of neutralisation into the field of the lexicon. Its starting point is the way the concept of lexical neutralisation is defined in the writings of E. Coseriu. In the central focus are questions on the semantic status of the unmarked term of neutralisable lexical oppositions. It is argued that Coseriu’s claim that the unmarked term has two linguistic valeurs at the same time (specific/oppositive and neutral/generic) is problematic from a strictly structural–functional point of view because it contradicts with the postulate that language-specific meanings are homogeneous and unitary. The article explores the possibility of an alternative structural–functional approach to the semantic variation of the unmarked term that may be more consistent with this postulate. In addition, the general claim that neutralisations are always unidirectional (one of the terms of an opposition can semantically encompass another, but not vice versa) is also explored with regard to the lexicon domain. As a case study, Coseriu’s often-mentioned lexical example Tag/ Nacht in German is analysed using historical and current corpus data. The principle of neutralisation predicts that only Tag can have the neutral meaning ‘24-h period’, whereas the term Nacht is excluded from being used in a neutral way. First, our analysis shows that this principle might be true for present-day German but does not account for earlier stages of German and other Germanic languages (diachronic argument). Second, examples derived from a non-European language (Basketo) show that the unidirectional neutralisation relation between the lexical units for ‘day’ and ‘night’ does not hold universally (typological argument). From these empirical findings, conclusions are drawn regarding a general semantic theory of neutralisation.