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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. 173–194

Form and meaning in the development of verbal polysemy

| National Autonomous University of Mexico

The question of how form and meaning interact in processes of change is of particular significance to historical linguists. Most commonly, innovations in meaning are assumed to lead the way, with changes at the formal level following as a consequence. By contrast, the possibility of a formal change being responsible for the emergence of a new meaning is seldom envisaged. The present paper explores these issues in relation to the polysemous Spanish motion verb alcanzar ‘to reach’, which in the course of time developed the new senses ‘to understand’ and ‘to be sufficient’. The diachronic analysis of the two developments brings into view a meaning-to-form change in the first case but suggests a form-to-meaning path in the second case.

Keywords: alcanzar , polysemy, Spanish, semantic change, formal change
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Development of alcanzar ‘understand’: Structural change as the result of a change in meaning
  • 3.The rise of alcanzar’s ‘sufficiency’ sense: Semantic change triggered by formal change
    • Extent function
    • Reaching distant objects in space
    • Scalar construal of abstract Goals
    • The capacity for rational thought and its insufficiency
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
  • Corpus
Published online: 2 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ivitra.25.08mel
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