Onomasiology
Onomasiology is a branch of lexicology (= the study of words). It departs from a concept in the (extralinguistic) reality (= an idea, an object, a quality, an activity etc.) and asks for its designations (or: its names). The opposite approach is known as semasiology: here you depart from a word and ask what it means, what concepts the word refers to. By onomasiology many linguists automatically think of diachronic questions, i.e. questions on how and why things change their names.
1. Explanations of Lexical/Onomasiological Change
When Speaker has to name a particular Referent in Context (speaker-hearer situation, type of discourse, communicative goal, syntactical co-text), s/he first tries to categorize it by the perception of its global and local features (perceptual level with concept generating). If Speaker can classify the Referent as member of a familiar Concept, s/he, while carrying out a cost-benefit-analysis (conversational maxims: motoric and cognitive effort on the cost side vs. persuasion, representation, image, relationship and aesthetics on the benefit side), can fall back on an already existing word (provided that s/he was not mistaken in the classification of the Referent or in the choice of the word, thus unintentionally triggering off lexemic change in the parole) or s/he can, more or less consciously, decide to coin a new designation.
The (intentional or non-intentional) coinage of a new designation can be incited by various forces, which can also co-occur. A new catalog of forces, which has long time been missing, reads the following items: onomasiological fuzziness (i.e. difficulties in classifying the referent or attributing the right word to the referent, thus mixing up designations) dominance of the prototype (i.e. fuzzy difference between superordinate und subordinate term due to the monopoly of the prototypical member of a category in the real world) social reasons (i.e. contact situation with “undemarcation” effects) institutional and non-institutional linguistic pre- and proscriptivism (i.e. legal and peer-group linguistic pre- and proscriptivism, aiming at “demarcation”) flattery insult disguising language (i.e. “mis-nomers”) taboo (i.e. taboo concepts) aesthetic-formal reasons (i.e. avoidance of words that are phonetically similar or identical to negatively associated words) communicative-formal reasons (i.e. abolition of the ambiguity of forms in context, keyword: “homonymic conflict and polysemic conflict”) word play/punning excessive length of words morphological misinterpretation (keyword: “folk-etymology”, creation of transparency by changes within a word) logical-formal reasons (keyword: “lexical regularization”, “deletion of suppletion”, creation of consociation) desire for plasticity (creation of a salient motivation of a name) anthropological salience of a concept (i.e. anthropologically given emotionality of a concept, “natural salience”) culture-induced salience of a concept (“cultural importance”) changes in the referents (i.e. changes in the world) world view change (i.e. changes in the categorization of the world) prestige/fashion (based on the prestige of another language or variety, of certain word-formation patterns, or of certain semasiological centers of expansion)
The following alleged motives found in previous works have proven to be invalid: decrease in salience, reading errors, laziness, excessive phonetic shortness, difficult sound combinations, unclear stress patterns, cacophony. Using the “word death” metaphor the valid motives, which are also tied to the seven conversational maxims presented above, can be localized on con-scious-subconscious continuum, where the gradual subconscious loss of a word can be compared to “natural (word) death” and where the conscious avoidance of a word can be compared to “(word) murder” (these two poles embrace several intermediate degrees): - [“natural word-death” = lack of motivation]
- subconscious “creation of lexical life” with “involuntary word-slaughter, negligent lexicide” = onomasiological fuzziness, dominance of the prototype, social reasons, morphological misinterpretation; subconscious “creation of lexical life” = logical-formal reasons; analogy
- relatively conscious “creation of lexical life” = ?logical-formal reasons, anthropological salience/emotionality of a concept, desire for plasticity, culture-induced salience of a concept, flattery, insult, word play, excessive length; analogy
- “creation of lexical life” with “(voluntary) word-slaughter” = communicative-formal reasons, prestige/fashion
- “first-degree word murder, first-degree lexicide” and “creation of lexical life” = non-institutional linguistic pre- and proscriptivism, institutional linguistic pre- and proscriptivism, taboo, aesthetic-formal reasons, world view change, disguising language; [conscious “creation of lexical life” = change in things, new concept, ?world view change]
Subconscious innovations come up in the form of folk-etymologies, meto-nymies, synecdoches, generalization, specialization, cohyponymic transfer, “syntactic recategorization” (i.e. conversion), morphological alteration or phon-etic-prosodic alteration.
2. Processes of Lexical/Onomasiological Change
In the case of intentional, conscious innovation Speaker has to pass several levels of a word-finding, or name-giving, process: analysis of the specific features of the concept, onomasiological level (where the semantic components for the naming units, the so-called iconemes, are selected [“naming in a more abstract sense”]), and the onomatological level (where the concrete morphemes are selected [“naming in a more concrete sense”]). The level of feature analysis (and possibly the onomasiological level) can be spared if Speaker simply borrows a word from a foreign language or variety; it is also spared if Speaker simply takes the word s/he originally fell back to and shortens it by way of morpheme deletion (ellipsis), morpheme shortening (clipping), morpheme symbolization (acronymy and short-forms), or blending of its elements (blending).
If Speaker does not shorten an already existing word for the concept, but coins a new one, s/he can select from several types of processes: various forms of composing (incl. blends and phraseologisms), back-derivation, adoption of an already existing word, syntactical recategorization (i.e. conversion), several forms of alteration, word-play and root creation. The coinages may be based on a model from Speaker’s own idiom, on a model from a foreign idiom, or, in the case of root creations, on no model at all. In sum, we get the following catalog of formal processes of word-coining: adoption of either (a) an already existing word of Speaker’s own idiom (semantic change) or (b) a word from a foreign idiom (loanword) syntactical recategorization (i.e. conversion) composition (lato sensu, i.e. compounds and derivations, which are, very consciously, not further subclassified) morpheme deletion (ellipsis) morpheme shortening (clipping) morpheme symbolization (acronyms and short-forms) blendings (including folk-etymologies, although these come up non-intentionally) back-derivation reduplication morphological alteration (e.g. number change, gender change) clarifying compounds (i.e. tautological compounds) wordplaying phonetic-prosodic alteration (e.g. stress shift in E. ímport vs. impórt) graphic alteration (e.g. E. discrete vs. discreet) phraseologism root creation (including onomatopoetic and expressive words)
The process is completed with the actual phonetic realization on the morphonological level (which may possibly be influenced by a foreign sound model). In order to create a new word on the onomatological level, Speaker first selects one or two physically and psychologically salient aspects on the onomasiological level (respecting the situational context, i.e. the conversational maxims and the motives for innovating). The search for the motivations (iconemes) is based on one or several cognitive-associative relations. These relations are: identity (e.g. with loans) “figurative”, i.e. individually felt, similarity of the concepts, partially in connection with contiguity of concepts (e.g. with metaphor) contiguity of concepts, partially in connection with “ figurative” similarity of the concepts (e.g. with metonymy) partiality of concepts (e.g. with synecdoche) contrast of concepts (e.g. with antiphrasis) “literal” or “figurative” similarity between the forms of a sign and the con-cept (e.g. with onomatopoetic words) strong relation between contents of signs and “literal” similarity of con-cepts (e.g. with generalization of meaning) strong relation between contents of signs and contrast of concepts (e.g. with auto-antonymy) strong relation between contents of signs and “literal” similarity of concepts and partially contiguity of the forms of signs (e.g. with speciali-zation of meaning) (“literal”) similarity of the forms of signs (e.g. with folk-etymology) contiguity of the forms of signs (e.g. with blending, but also with mor-pheme deletion, shortening and symbolization) “literal”, i.e. objectively visible, similarity and contiguity of concepts (e.g. with cohyponymic transfer) “literal” similarity of referents and strong relation between contents of signs (e.g. with conceptual recategorization) multiple associations (e.g. with certain forms of word-play)
The concrete associations can or cannot be incited by a model, which may be of Speaker’s own idiom or a foreign idiom. The differentiation between models from Speaker’s own language vs. foreign models with both the cognitive-associative aspect and the formal aspect shows that loan influences cannot easily be included as a separate unique process in an overall scheme. Loan influence can become effective on various levels. Foreign influence of the cognitive-associative type triggers off (analogous) loan meaning on the perceptual level, and loan rendering and loan translation on the onomasiological level (and, as to loan translation, also on the onomatological level). Formal foreign influence comes up on the perceptual level in the form of full loans, near-loans (i.e. morphological pseudo-loans) and false loans (i.e. folk-etymological adaptions), on the onomatological level in the form of pseudo-loans (i.e. morpholexical pseudo-loans, semo-lexical pseudo-loans and coinages with assumed foreignized material that accidentally also exists in the foreign language—for the correct classification of assumed pseudo-loans the knowledge of the chronological development is vital!), and on the morphonological level in the form of phonetic loans. (Loan creations and the so-called substituting loan meanings are not linguistic, but cultural loans and therefore have to be excluded as ghost phenomena in a linguistic terminology). As has been illustrated, formal type (1a), semantic change, is often subclassified in traditional literature, based on the cognitive-associative bases of the onomasiological word-finding level. Deterioration and amelioration of meaning as well as litotes and hyperbole can all be applied to one of the types already mentioned so that they do not have to be seen as separate categories. The definition of metaphor and metonymy underlines that some instances of semantic change show a mixed character. The position of ellipsis is doubtful. It could theoretically only be regarded as semantic change in cases where the determinans is deleted; but then it is hard to distinguish from specialization of meaning. A subclassification parallel to the one of semantic changes can prin-cipally also be established for the other cases, which, in traditional literature, has only vaguely been done in connection with compounds (e.g. determinative vs. possessive compounds). Link: Onomasiology Online
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