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Changes in Meaning and Function: Studies in historical linguistics with a focus on Spanish
Edited by Jorge Fernández Jaén and Herminia Provencio Garrigós
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 25] 2020
► pp. 47–76

Auditory verbs in the Spanish language

A historical and cognitive approach

 | University of Alicante
The present paper has as its aim to offer an analysis about the most important auditory verbs in the Spanish language from a historical and cognitive-functional approach. Evidence will be offered that the patterns for semantic development and syntactic functioning shown by auditory verbs are iconically motivated by the physiological particularities of the human ear. It will also be demonstrated, following the hypothesis about classical Greek and Hebrew proposed by Sweetser (1990) and Viejo Sánchez (2004), that the abstract meaning of obedecer [to obey] developed by the Spanish verb escuchar [to listen] finds its cultural motivation in certain recurrent contexts coming from religious language. In short, this research work not only provides new evidence supporting the hypothesis of language corporeization but also supplies data confirming that linguistic change processes are connected to cultural and anthropological aspects.
Keywords: auditory verbs, historical semantics, cognitive linguistics
Article outline
  • 1.Theoretical approach and framework
  • 2.Semantic and syntactic properties of hearing
  • 3.Auditory uses in the history of sentir [to feel]
  • 4.Evolution of escuchar [to listen]
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
Published online: 2 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ivitra.25.03fer
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