Semantic Reinterpretation Research Articles

Drygt 100 kronor. Is it a bit more than, a bit less than, or around 100 kronor?

The Swedish adverb drygt is often used as an approximator in expressions like drygt 1 meter, where it means ‘a bit more than’ according to dictionaries and most speakers. Here, we show that drygt is undergoing semantic change and being reinterpreted as meaning ‘around’, ‘about’ or even ‘a bit less than’. To study this ongoing semantic reinterpretation, a questionnaire was circulated, reaching some 2 700 participants. The participants were asked about their linguistic intuitions about drygt: does drygt 100 kronor best correspond to 97 kronor, 97–102 kronor or 102 kronor? The results show that younger speakers are more likely than older to prefer the reinterpretations. The change has gone farthest in the south of Sweden, where half of the young speakers interpret drygt as ‘around’ or ‘a bit less than’. The comments to the questionnaire show that most participants are unaware that interpretations other than their own exist. The study also reveals that in translations of Swedish novels made available as parallel corpora, drygt is often translated into equivalents of ‘around’ or ‘a bit less than’. Furthermore, the Danish and Norwegian equivalents of drygt – godt og vel and drøyt – are undergoing a semantic change similar to that of drygt. We discuss how these findings relate to semantic change in general and argue that the change we observe is due to ambiguous contexts and possibly to speakers having different underlying cognitive representations.

Немецкие идиоматические выражения с названиями стран, национальностей и языков: структурно-семантические и лингвокультурологические особенности

The paper examines German idiomatic expressions with the names of countries, nationalities and languages, which are of great interest both from a linguoculturological and a structural-semantic point of view. The aim of the study is to identify and interpret the basic principles of figurative and semantic reinterpretation of components – the names of countries, nationalities and languages – as part of German idiomatic expressions, taking into account their national and cultural specifics, structural and semantic diversity and stylistic features. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that the analysis of idiomatic expressions of various structures, taking into account three different components at the same time, makes it possible to determine the national and cultural specifics of the perception of other cultures by native speakers of German and its reflection in German phraseology to a fuller extent. As a result, it has been revealed that idiomatic expressions with the names of nationalities and languages, which are often phraseological unities or phraseological combinations, primarily have a pronounced negative connotation due to ethnic stereotypes, unlike idiomatic expressions with the names of countries, usually represented by phraseological expressions.

Intertwined grammaticalization, degrammaticalization, and pragmaticalization: The case of ppwun ‘share’ in Korean

This paper investigates the developmental paths and synchronic functions of one of the Korean defective nouns, i.e., ppwun ‘the only thing’, which originated from a full noun pwun ‘share’. Since the earliest data already show a number of grammaticalized functions, this paper attempts to reconstruct the developmental paths based on the semantic and morphosyntactic clues, making use of the synchrony-for-diachrony approach of grammaticalization. The noun pwun, through coalescence with the adjacent genitive marker -s, grammaticalized into a postpositional particle of focus -spwun ‘only’. When the etymologically bi-morphemic -s.pwun was reanalyzed as mono-morphemic, the dependent particle became reanalyzed again, presumably via analogy of nominal compounding, as a full-fledged, independent noun denoting ‘the only thing’, an instance of degrammaticalization by virtue of an increase of morpho-syntactic independence. Further, some such forms were pragmaticalized by acquiring discourse marker functions, i.e., the speaker’s negative stance toward the state of affairs alerting the addressee that something more serious is about to follow. A series of morphosyntactic and semantic-pragmatic changes shows how the linguistic forms have continuously been subject to morphosyntactic reanalysis and semantic reinterpretation resulting in multiply intertwined scenarios of grammaticalization, degrammaticalization, and pragmaticalization, often with their collocating forms.

Aspects of early Chinese global lexical copies surviving in Modern Uyghur

Abstract The Modern Uyghur language has a large number of lexemes copied from Chinese in different periods of Uyghur. Amongst them, there is a special group of lexemes globally copied from Chinese first into the Old Uyghur literary language which is documented in the texts written in various scripts from the 8th to the 14th centuries. Some of these global lexical copies were transmitted to the next stages of Uyghur and are established in Modern Uyghur as part of its lexicon. This paper discusses aspects of this special group of lexemes from the four points, semantic reinterpretation, fusion in form and meaning, multiple copying of the same lexeme, and additions to the lexicon. The aim is to illustrate some important aspects of the historical Sino-Uyghur linguistic and cultural contact reflected in these copies and to provide Uyghur examples to understand aspects of diachronic development of copied lexemes in the recipient language.

Carnivalisation in the Vocabulary of Modern Russian and Chinese Languages

The article is devoted to carnivalization in the vocabulary of the modern Russian and Chinese languages. The study uses the extracts from the contexts of corpora and live media speech in China and Russia as the material. The paper scrutinizes the active use of Russian and Chinese buzzwords, which is viewed as carnivalization in modern vocabulary. The author examines in detail the following aspects of carnivalization in the lexicon of modern Russian and Chinese: widespread use of borrowed words (internal and external), semantic reinterpretation of literary words in new meanings and creation of numerous occasionalisms through language games. The article pays particular attention to the study of the results of carnivalization in modern Russian and Chinese. One can say, that the abuze of buzzwords can also be risky for one’s image. The results of the analysis allow us to draw some particular conclusions that may interest readers in our study: the carnivalization of vocabulary is closely related to the culture of comicality; in the modern language, buzzwords are rapidly activated, the lexical carnival surely becomes universal and manifests itself not only in Russian, but also in Chinese. On the one hand, the speakers, who use carnivalization, express themselves to a sufficient extent with buzzwords, overcoming banality and social isolation, on the other hand, they cause immense misunderstanding and create alienation between different social groups. The author’s contribution to the study is the extraction of examples for analysis from the texts of linguistic corpora and media in Russian and Chinese. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the article analyzes carnivalization in vocabulary for the first time, taking into account the language fashion, using examples of modern Russian and Chinese languages. The article may be interesting to specialists in theoretical, applied and comparative linguistics.

METAPHORIZATION OF GENERALLY USED VOCABULARY IN THE ENGLISH PROFESSIONAL LANGUAGE OF MEDICINE

The article considers the issues concerning semantic reinterpretation of lexical units as one of the methods of medical term formation. The authors analyze the underlying reasons for metaphorization, ways of adapting common lexis to perform terminological functions, and illustrate the mechanism for transferring words into the category of units of the medical terminology system. Analysis of strategies of metaphoric transfer of meaning enables reconstructing the naive picture of the world, which is mapped onto the English metaphoric medical terms and based on common lexis. The most productive groups of motivational features appeared to be associated with the transfer of meaning by the similarity of form (1280 terms, 48.3%), action and its result (541 terms, 18.8%), features of human behavior and condition (392 terms, 13.6%), substances, food and their structure (270 terms, 9.4%). The prevalence of such motivational features can be explained by the naive picture of the world, represented in metaphoric terminology, namely, the objects and phenomena closest to man are subject to reinterpretation. Groups of motivational characteristics are primarily divided into the following categories: object/substance and its features (shape, color, quality, function, position in space, sound), person/group of people (feeling, behavior, action and its result). The set of motivational features of metaphoric term formation reflects a particular image of the world where all necessary components of the human body are present, i.e., man and nature, which have specific features, perform certain functions, and correspond to the main object in medical science. Metaphoric terms are constructed not so much mediated by scientific development of reality but based on associations obtained in the process of sensory-empirical knowledge of the world, as evidenced by the above examples.

ОБРАЗНІСТЬ РОЗМОВНИХ ФРАЗЕОЛОГІЗМІВ ТА ПРИЙОМИ ЇХ ПЕРЕКЛАДУ (НА МАТЕРІАЛІ РОМАНУ К. КЮССЕ «БЛИСКУЧЕ МАЙБУТНЄ»)

This article considers the problem of translation of colloquial phraseology. A comparison of translations into Ukrainian language from the original language. Methods of translation of phraseological units are investigated. Particular attention is paid to Catherine Cusse's novel “A Perfect Future” and its translation into Ukrainian language. The essence of phraseological units, their originality and specificity is revealed. In the article the quality and equivalence of phraseological units translation into Ukrainian language are analysed. This article attempts to reveal the main causes of the translation of phraseological expressions. The relevance of the issue of phraseological translation is proved. The paper studies phraseological units and how they represent the national character of each nation. The emotional aspect has been studied and the impact that it has on the reader or listener. The development of phraseology is analysed. The article discusses French and Ukrainian phraseologisms, their similarities and differences. It has been studied that phraseologisms convey semantic, lexical and grammatical features of language.It was showed that some phraseologies need support and explanation of the text. The main indicator semantic reinterpretation of phraseology is the opposition of literal and figurative value. The direct meaning of phraseological units is practically absent if talk about its etymolog-ical roots, as the basis for its explanation is an unrealistic or imaginary, desirable sit-uation. The article also discusses the problem with the unidirectional approach. It was investigated that rethinking as a form of semantic transformation of phrases is the most common and most productive in French, the newest phraseological units arise as a result of rethinking free phrases. The practical significance of the research results is substantiated. So, the work is devoted to the research of peculiarities of translation into Ukrainian of French phraseological units. This research can be helpful because this work represents a great theoretical value for those who want to take up their future carrier in the field of translations as invaluable reference to the methods and the ways of translation of phraseologisms in everyday life.

Коннотативные особенности наименований лица в американском тюремном жаргоне

The article aims to identify connotative features of a person naming in the American prison slang taking into account emotional, evaluative and stylistic components of their semantics, which create an expressive effect. Scientific novelty of the research lies in analysing, for the first time, connotative semantics of a person naming in prison slang of the American language areal. The results of the study have shown that the stylistic component of the slang naming meaning determines emotional-evaluative colouring, which can significantly modify the logical-thematic content of a word. It is highlighted that emotional-evaluative and expressive components of a lexeme meaning are primarily realised through figurative semantic reinterpretation.

COMPARISON OF THE CATEGORY OF POLYSEMY AT THE PHRASEOLOGICAL LEVEL (ILLUSTRATED BY YAKUT AND KAZAKH PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS)

Purpose of the Study: Research on the meaning structure of phraseological units representing the figurative richness of language has been central up to the present. Words and phraseological units of a language represent a universal basis for polysemy development, with virtually any language unit having enough potential for the development of new meanings. The subject of the study is polysemantic phraseological units of Yakut and Kazakh that have not been specifically studied before.
 Methodology: We analyzed Yakut phraseological units with four meanings and their equivalents in Kazakh. Polysemantic phraseological units of Yakut and Kazakh with a wide range of structural arrangement and a rich figurative potential for the convergent and divergent direction of semantic transfer of linguistic units of indirect nomination have not been studied before. We analyze Yakut phraseological units with the highest number of meaning transfer and compared them to Kazakh phraseological units. Semantic reinterpretation in view of the separate formation of linguistic units of indirect nomination has always been interesting for scholars studying Turkic languages.
 Main Findings: Semantics of Yakut and Kazakh polysemantic phraseological units is complex due to the fact that the meaning of the original free word combination is transferred in Yakut in four directions, which makes it extremely difficult to find their equivalents in Kazakh in view of the specific reflection of the world picture in the compared languages. The limit of development of convergent and divergent semantic transfer of linguistic units of indirect nomination in Yakut is the formation of phraseological units with four meanings, which is indicative of a rich figurative potential of Yakut linguistic units. Considering that phraseological units as semantically reinterpreted separate units and set word complexes already are linguistic units of indirect nomination, their further semantic reinterpretations and transformations must be reinterpreted to a greater extent.

The role of atypical constellations in the grammaticalization of German and English passives

Abstract In this paper we propose an alternative scenario for the grammaticalization of passive constructions in German and English. According to the received view, the development starts with the frequent combinations of copula verbs with past participles, which then increasingly gain in frequency during the grammaticalization process. In contrast to the received view, we argue that marginal – i.e., atypical and infrequent – constellations of constructions play an important role in the grammaticalization process. These constellations are ambiguous in their interpretation, and consequently have an inherent potential to trigger semantic reinterpretation and syntactic reanalysis. The alternative scenario is more consistent with theoretical considerations and the patterns in corpus data of German and English between 1050 and 1350. Our paper supports the hypothesis that the grammaticalization of the passive in German started from constellations of the become copula with past participles of atelic verbs, i.e., activities and semelfactives. By contrast, no such change can be observed in the corresponding construction in English. We discuss the implications of our findings for constructional change and grammaticalization in general.

The Implementation of Communication Strategies to Exchange and Negotiate Meanings in a Simulation of Job Interview

Students of English as a foreign language find it difficult to initiate a talk and exchange meanings in an interaction. They find it hard to break the iceberg and act by asking, commanding and answering to make the speakers or listeners’ intention fulfilled. As such they do not have medium to exchange experiences. The present study aims to explain the way meanings are negotiated and exchanged in the implementation of communication strategies in a simulation of a job interview. The subjects of this qualitative study are students of Indonesian Vocational College. The object of the study is the students’ utterances in the interview. Functional semantic reinterpretation of turn-constructional units of conversation analysis is implemented to explain how the students exchange and negotiate meanings. The findings suggest that the realization of exchange and negotiation of meanings is influenced by moves assigned to speech functions classes and the types of meanings implemented in the act of production and comprehension of the whole communication. The subjects of the present study can be categorized into productive speakers. The students negotiate feelings and attitudes more than that of the content of the proposition.

АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ НЕОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ПРОЦЕССЫ В РУССКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ НОВЕЙШЕГО ВРЕМЕНИ (ПО МАТЕРИАЛАМ СОЦИОЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИХ ИНТЕРНЕТ-ПРОЕКТОВ)

We analyze Russian projects “Word of the Year”, “Dictionary of Changes”, “Dictionary of the Year” (2014–2017), which show what lexical units are in the focus for their importance and relevance for society members. We analyze words as a current part of the thematic group for present moment that reflects dominant ideas of the meaning of a year. We pay attention to the fact that many words have a social and political orientation. We identify the subjective principle of formation of projects’ lists and study neological processes marking changes in the contemporary Russian language vocabulary. We classify represented lexical material according to the nature of neological processes, the way of a word entering the language considering the possibility of its further consolidation the language. Mentioned grouping of lexis enable to identify that the following processes are current for contemporary Russian language: activation of certain lexical-thematic groups with extralinguistic factors, a transformation of lexical semantics and co-occurrence, replenishment of vocabulary due to active processes of modern word creation and borrowing, creative usage of language system possibilities. The most frequent language methods used for verbalization of current phenomena, events, facts of objective reality such as the method of paromynic attraction, the method of blending, verb word formation, suffixation, semantic reinterpretation are considered.

Remotivierung bei Eigennamen

Remotivation, conceived as a combination of semantic re-interpretation and formal re-segmentation, does not only affect appellative signs, but also proper names. First, remotivation processes are contrasted with demotivation processes (de-semantization and de-segmentation) and it is argued against the claim of uni-directionality. Then, four types of remotivation of proper names are elaborated: the sign-based semantic strategies of (1) reanalysis (of words [folk etymology], of clitics, and of affixes) and (2) pleonastic/tautologic doubling (of morphemes); furthermore the usage-based pragmatic strategies of (3) re-contextualization (of context-independent signs) and (4) re-locution (of illocutively meant signs). These processes turn out to be high-grade contingent in the way which linguistic material the speakers/hearers grasp to do their remotivation.

Functional significance of the semantic P600: evidence from the event-related brain potential source localization.

Previous event-related potentials studies of sentence comprehension have usually associated syntactic repair/reanalysis processes with the P600 component. However, the functional significance of the P600 was recently questioned on the basis of the observation of P600 effects in response to the processing of semantically anomalous sentences. In the present study, we investigated the functional significance of the 'semantic P600' using a semantic violation paradigm with a focus-on-syntax instruction. Using a source localization analysis, we tested three alternative hypotheses on the function of the P600: (i) a syntactic function, (ii) an executive function, and (iii) a semantic/integrational function. We assumed that distinct neuronal generators should reflect each of these functions. Although the syntactic generators are expected to be mainly located in the left inferior frontal gyrus, the semantic generators should be observed in the left superior temporal gyrus as well as in the right anterior prefrontal cortex (semantic retrieval); moreover, the generator of executive function (conflict monitoring) should be found in the anterior cingulate cortex. Critically, we defined a dipole model using 17 dipoles, 14 of which were placed in the three regions of interest corresponding to our hypotheses, namely, syntactic, executive, and semantic regions. Our data showed that the P600 effect was significant in the anterior cingulate cortex and marginally significant in the right anterior prefrontal cortex. This finding suggests that the P600 might reflect more general mechanisms of conflict monitoring and semantic reinterpretation leading to a retrieval of world knowledge from long-term memory rather purely syntactic processes.

Roles of frontal and temporal regions in reinterpreting semantically ambiguous sentences.

Semantic ambiguity resolution is an essential and frequent part of speech comprehension because many words map onto multiple meanings (e.g., “bark,” “bank”). Neuroimaging research highlights the importance of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and the left posterior temporal cortex in this process but the roles they serve in ambiguity resolution are uncertain. One possibility is that both regions are engaged in the processes of semantic reinterpretation that follows incorrect interpretation of an ambiguous word. Here we used fMRI to investigate this hypothesis. 20 native British English monolinguals were scanned whilst listening to sentences that contained an ambiguous word. To induce semantic reinterpretation, the disambiguating information was presented after the ambiguous word and delayed until the end of the sentence (e.g., “the teacher explained that the BARK was going to be very damp”). These sentences were compared to well-matched unambiguous sentences. Supporting the reinterpretation hypothesis, these ambiguous sentences produced more activation in both the LIFG and the left posterior inferior temporal cortex. Importantly, all but one subject showed ambiguity-related peaks within both regions, demonstrating that the group-level results were driven by high inter-subject consistency. Further support came from the finding that activation in both regions was modulated by meaning dominance. Specifically, sentences containing biased ambiguous words, which have one more dominant meaning, produced greater activation than those with balanced ambiguous words, which have two equally frequent meanings. Because the context always supported the less frequent meaning, the biased words require reinterpretation more often than balanced words. This is the first evidence of dominance effects in the spoken modality and provides strong support that frontal and temporal regions support the updating of semantic representations during speech comprehension.

Facing interfaces A clustering approach to grammaticalization and related changes

AbstractIt has long been recognized that many instances of change that have been discussed within the framework of grammaticalization studies notoriously defy categorization, for instance because they share properties of grammaticalization and lexicalization (Brinton & Traugott 2005), or because they share some properties of grammaticalization, but not all of them, as in the case of discourse markers (e.g. Ocampo 2006). In order to avoid these classification issues, we will argue that it is more useful to reduce grammaticalization and related changes to their “main mechanisms” (formal reanalysis and semantic reinterpretation), “primitive changes” (micro-changes on the levels of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and/or discourse), and “side effects” (e.g. obligatorification or layering). In grammaticalization and related changes, formal reanalysis and semantic reinterpretation tend to coincide with different sets of primitive changes. Primitive changes will be defined as ternary parameters with the values reduction, expansion, or zero, and it will be seen that they tend to cluster in different ways. Some of these clusters may coincide with changes traditionally labeled “grammaticalization”, “degrammaticalization”, or “lexicalization”, but changes may also cluster in alternative ways. This novel approach to composite changes we term the “clustering approach”, and we aim to show that this model of analysis allows for a more fine-grained account of composite changes than definition-based taxonomies.

Enteignung oder Wiederaneignung der Vergangenheit Die museale Arbeit an der Nationalgeschichte Frankreichs nach der Revolution

<bold>Expropriation or Reappropriation of the Past French National History in Museums after the Revolution</bold> By expropriating ecclesiastical goods, royal treasures, the property of emigrants and of the dissolved academies, the French Revolution set in motion a process of rethinking historical heritage. This handing over of monuments and works of art – artefacts of the past – to the state made them available for a new discourse: the complete history of the French nation. They became “historical monuments”, material sources or testimonies of a past they now had to reproduce in its totality, chronologically and across classes. The monuments were consequently subjected to a semantic reinterpretation: they forfeited their monarchic and religious meanings, acquiring instead historical and national overtones. This process of rethinking and revaluation was by no means linear, nor was it consistent. The first museum exhibition of the national past was opened to the public only after Robespierre's downfall. The historic exhibits were not housed in the Louvre, which restricted itself to universal masterpieces, but in the Musée des monuments français (1795–1816). This and not the Louvre was the place where the uniqueness, the autochthonous, the specific of the nation was harboured and arranged according to centuries, an entire national history on display. The vibrant staging of the past, the reproduction of the “colour” of past centuries on show in this museum prompted several representatives of the “nouvelle école historique” to declare that it had paved the way for the return of historical studies.

Multiple semantic processes at different levels of syntactic hierarchy: Does the higher-level process proceed in face of a lower-level failure?

Humans have special abilities in processing hierarchical, recursive structures. Here we investigated how an upcoming word embedded in a hierarchical structure is semantically integrated into the prior representation during sentence comprehension. Participants read Chinese sentences with a complex verb argument structure “subject noun+verb+numeral+classifier+object noun”, in which the object noun was constrained by the classifier in a local structure and by the verb in a higher-level structure. The semantic congruence between the classifier and the noun, between the verb and the noun, and between the verb and the classifier was manipulated individually or simultaneously to create a local mismatch (i.e., with classifier–noun mismatch), a sequential mismatch (with verb–classifier and classifier–noun mismatches) or a triple mismatch (with verb–classifier, classifier–noun, and verb–classifier mismatches) condition. Event-related potentials locked to the object noun showed increased N400 and late negativity responses over the local mismatch, the sequential mismatch and the triple mismatch conditions. The local mismatch additionally elicited a posterior positivity effect on the object noun. The verb–classifier mismatch elicited a right N400-like effect followed by a posterior positivity (P600) effect on the classifier. The N400 effects demonstrate that the semantic process at a higher syntactic level can proceed in face of the failure of semantic processes at lower levels when no structural re-interpretation is available, and that the semantic congruence between earlier sentence constituents can affect the integration of the upcoming word in the hierarchical structure. The P600 effects suggest the immediate triggering of a co-ordination process across syntactic levels whereas the late anterior negativity effects suggest the initiation of a second-pass semantic re-interpretation process.

Die „Krise“ aus metapherntheoretisch geleiteter Sicht

The “crisis” seen through the lens of metaphor theory. The article considers the “crisis” from the perspective of metaphor theory. Metaphor is understood as a semantic re-interpretation of reality in the sense that the speaker does not only transfer a sign to a different context, but creates new and innovative meaning. Metaphorical expressions bring specific characteristics into focus and are framed by social context. Following this view the paper ties in with new metaphor theories which have given important impulses to recent social and cultural studies. In 2009/2010 managers of machine tool industries as well as further regional actors in Germany were interviewed. The interviews showed that the “crisis” was understood as a ‘wave’ resp. a cyclical phenomenon, but also as a singular situation in the ‘game’ of competition. Regional differences were also uncovered: Only in the region of Stuttgart the crisis was also described as a problematic ‘path’ of regional specialisation.

The curious case of auxiliary -manya in Lwitaxo

Lwitaxo, one of the Luhya languages of Kenya, has an auxiliary verb of the form -many’a that occurs in compound constructions that express either a generic reading (“normally do V”) or a culminative reading (“ended up V-ing”). This verb is identical in form to the lexical verb -many’a ‘(come to) know’. However, while there are attested cases of KNOW verbs grammaticalizing as habitual/generic auxiliaries, there are no such attestations of KNOW verbs grammaticalizing as indicators of culmination. The author proposes that auxiliary -many’a is the unique result of a convergence of factors—sound change, morphophonological analogy, and semantic reinterpretation—that led an original auxiliary, -mala ‘finish’, to shift in form to resemble lexical -many’a.