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As a result of the neurocognitive approach to the lexicon that disciplines such as Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistics carry out and, consequently, the addition of the mental and brain mechanisms that underlie the encoding and decoding of meanings in the field of Semantics, a series of terms or terminological units arises. They can be grouped into three main axes: the lexical mental and brain representations, the computational and associative processes involved in lexical-semantic comprehension and production, and the acquisition and loss of meanings. The main aims of our paper are 1) to assess the inclusion of these Psycholinguistics contents in Lexical Semantics, 2) to analyze their degree of consolidation and vitality in a set of dictionaries of Linguistics, and 3) to identify possible deficiencies in their terminological treatment and draw up a proposal for their conceptual integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines evidential hashtags on Twitter. The analyzed hashtags contain constructions of the verb decir ('to say') that are preceded by the hash symbol (e.g., #dicen, #sedice, #esodicen, #dicenporahí), which have not been analyzed from the perspective of evidentiality. An exploratory and qualitative study was performed using a sample of 94 tweets that were published over six months. The analysis addresses structural and semantic-pragmatic parameters. According to the results of the analysis, evidential hashtags can transmit reportative, quotative and folklore evidentiality. Furthermore, the evidential meaning of the hashtags is accompanied by pragmatic functions such as attenuation, ironic dissociation and argumentative strengthening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers the notion of semantic attenuation (Langacker 1985, 1990) as a bleaching process that involve subjectivity and thus can operate as the basis for the formation of cierto 'certain' as an attenuative marker where assertiveness is downplayed. The notion of intersubjectivity proposed by Delbecque for cierto (2009) is revised based on the range of meanings attested in discourse in Mexican Spanish. Intersubjective-objective uses are to be distinguished from intersubjective-interlocutive ones as the second type depends crucially on the interaction between speech participants. The study shows that the attenuative uses of cierto do not come from the adjectival intersubjective uses but from the fuzzy specific-indefinite determination of cierto and other fixed constructions (en cierta manera 'in some way', hasta cierto punto 'up to some degree/point') which diminish the degree of assertiveness of a sentence. The first samples of attenuation come from modifying scalar properties with negative associations and, from those uses, other assertive reducing effects take place. Finally, the paper shows that the digressive marker por cierto which operates at the level of discourse continuity lacks the semantic properties to fully operate as an attenuative marker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the disciplines that has been studied in recent years under the umbrella of lexical semantics is terminology. This paper investigates the terminology of a specialised language, that of the leather industry, in order to analyse the observable conceptual relationships. The paper first reviews different approaches to the terminological typologization of the conceptual relationships with regard to examples from our corpus. The second part consists of a case study on the term petaquero. Finally, I suggest a typology of the conceptual relations according to the classification suggested by Casas Gómez, adding some relations identified on the basis of the Communicative Theory of Terminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic colour terms are studied from four approaches: linguistic relativism (Gleason & McNeill), linguistic universalism (Berlin & Kay), the neurophysiological model (Kay & McDaniel) and cognitivism (Wierzbicka). Terms of colour share a common chromatic feature. According to Coseriu, they form a two-dimensional lexical area, non-sequential, which would be interpreted as a multidimensional lexical area, hierarchical, non-sequential, from the approach of Wierzbicka. The paper discusses the consequence for language if the hypothesis is correct that, from a physiological point of view, there is a hierarchy in the colour field focused on the RGB model, where the chromatic occupies a nuclear place and the achromatic a peripheral one. Although the paper includes colour terms from several languages, special attention is paid to Spanish and Chinese. The following aspects are in focus: 1) Reference and denotative meaning - their symbolic value; 2) Reference and denotative meaning - their connotative sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the continuity of verbs formed with the preverbs (preverbal morphemes) ante-, pre-, pos(t)- and sub-during the way from Latin to present-day Romance, in particular for Spanish. Without changing the grammatical meaning of the lexical stem, preverbs operate a semantic modification, as Coseriu coined it. The common analysis as the derivational counterpart of suffixation is misleading since preverbs are essentially an instance of composition including an adverb and a verb. Consequently, preverbs are not simple affixes but basic components in semantic terms. This paper shows how the semantic values of the preverbs transcend the verbs which currently contain them in their morpheme structure, independently of being inherited or learned words, or even verbs newly created in Romance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with linguistic synaesthesia, that is, a combination of words inside a phrase that conveys a semantic transposition between different domains of human perception. The effect is particularly pronounced in combinations of sensorial adjectives with nouns that do not belong to the same perceptive domain, as in color chillón 'shrill (= shrilling/crying-out) colours'. The paper aims to delimit the concept of synaesthesia in lexical semantics and to differentiate it from other types of polysemy such as metaphor. Moreover, the paper suggests an explanation for the transposition process and the observable combinatory patterns. It further points out the most efficient paradigm for this explanatory model. The starting point is componential semantics, but features belonging to the semantics of speech as well as to pragmatic and cognitive linguistic theories are also taken into account and examined for their explanatory capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a corpus of ego-documents from the 19th and 20th centuries, the paper offers the result of a variationist analysis to set the factors affecting the selection of forms article + que in relative clauses headed by preposition a with a human antecedent. The data show that, despite the remarkable vitality that still enjoys the traditional form in this context (the pronoun quien), several factors begin to favor the diffusion of the innovative variant in that seminal period. As usual in early stages of language change, the explanatory hierarchy begins with structural factors, among which are selected as significant those related with the antecedent (the distance between antecedent and pronoun, indeterminacy or definite determiner, semantic nature) and with the type of relative clause (non-defining). From the sociolectal point of view, the data show that there has been a change from below, especially in the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La Argentina (1602) is the one and only Renaissance epic poem from the River Plate. The author Martín del Barco Centenera provides with his epic poem one of the foundational texts of this region. Nevertheless, it does not belong to the traditional corpus of epic texts from the Siglo de Oro; an ever-increasing number of studies have been published only recently. Although this epic-heroic poem lacks the figure of a central hero, the decision to write an epic poem is not accidental. By means of a rhetorical and semantic analysis, this paper argues that the lack of epic heroism (vacío heroico) generates potential to discuss the question of heroism in times of the conquest. Barco Centenera wittingly combines this discourse with the topos of the marvellous of the New World. An analysis of the narrative discourse with a special focus on its reflexivity complements the argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to study the historical contact between Aragonese and Catalan lexicon, in the context of the Romance languages, taking into account the historical influence exerted by the Aragonese on the Valencian language, which is also influenced by other Eastern peninsular dialects. We have used a method based on Geolinguistics and documentation, in order to analyze some words from popular authors from Valencia and Aragon of the XVIIIth, XIXth and XXth centuries. This way, our study provides new data and new interpretations on the study of the linguistic contact between the peninsular languages. Also the study provides Valencian words not included in the dictionaries (coscarrana, a tassament), first documentations (acabacases, bolxaca, cara-sol, cútio, estrela, a la gatamau, monyica) and words used in Aragón not included in the DECH (acabacasas, bolchaco, botinchado, a gatomiau, tasamente), or included in the DECH but not in Aragón (botinchado, carasol). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main problems raised by the study of so-called interjective markers or discursive interjections is their highly polyfunctional character. The functional variation of elements as Spanish bueno, oye, mira, venga, vamos o vaya, mainly due to a process of semantic-functional extension, involves changes in the way they signify and operate which typically alter their morphological, prosodic and structural properties, thus significantly hampering their categorial, functional and semantic characterization. In this paper, we apply a dynamic model of categorization to two of these dicursive elements, vamos and vaya, to show that these discursive units have formal, semantic and pragmatic-discursive features that allow to draw (i) two well-defined and easily recognizable grammatical- functional areas, viz., the connective and the interjective one, related to two separate areas: the metadiscursive or textual one, and modal or interactive one; and (ii) a border area in which formal and functional characteristics of the textual and of the modal domains intersect, yielding a use of these elements as illocutionary reinforcement operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to highlight that both neology and terminology are linguistic disciplines that permit, using both general and specialized words, an analysis of the cultural, scientific, economic, political and ideological evolution of a given society throughout its history. For this purpose, it is crucial to distinguish the speaker's perspective from that of the hearer, especially when tackling the pragmatic and discursive implications of terminological neologisms. Both neology and terminology need to be investigated in an interdisciplinary way as new topics of lexical semantics. The goal is to formally, semantically and functionally describe the lexical units that take new functions and meanings according to the context. These lexical units are thereby subject to variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to analyse the way in which the semantic configuration of a lexical form determines the pragmatic senses developed in discourse. Two radically different syntactic forms are used for analysis, the adjective claro and the preposition-connector según. The analysis shows that the pragmatic behaviour of these unrelated forms is determined and restricted by the schematic semantic representation of the base form. Following Langacker (1985, 1990), it is proposed that a process of subjectification via semantic bleaching involves an increasing loss of semantic features, which in turn involves an equally increasing degree of participation of the conceptualizer in the constitution of different types of pragmatic senses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a long tradition of semantic studies regarding the concept of lexical meaning that reflects the importance of sociocultural factors for its description. Some examples are the study of synonymy, some remarks in dictionaries and the typology of linguistic variation. This paper investigates lexical variants from a sociolinguistic point of view in socially stratified samples. The statistical analysis of the data obtained up to now confirms the relevance of sociolinguistic variables such as the degree of (in) formality, the hearer, the topic of the conversation, the situation where communication takes place, and options offered by the lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper shows that Prototype Theory has a great potential for the diachronic semantic analysis of Spanish because it meets the needs of the study of language in use. The object of study we have chosen for this purpose is the verb salir. We first analysed the meanings of the Latin verb SALIRE, and, subsequently, approximately 300 testimonies of salir from early Romance until the 13th century from the Corpus del Nuevo Diccionario Histórico. The analysis of the data brings to light a prototypical change which proves to be crucial for the further development of salir. The case study provides evidence for both the advantages and the limitations of Prototype Theory for the diachronic semantic investigation of polysemic words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we discuss the characteristics that are habitually assigned to collocations: binarism, belonging to the norm and arbitrariness and show that these properties do not in fact define them. 1) The binary relationship between the base and the collocate is contradicted by the possibility of combining the same collocate with a number of bases. 2) The assumption that collocations belong to the norm is refuted by the existence of semantic paradigms formed by bases which combine with the same lexical unit: the collocate. 3) The very existence of semantic paradigms is not an arbitrary phenomenon, but rather, a consequence of the meaning of the units that constitute them, the bases, one of whose semantic features forms part of the meaning of the collocate. Thus, we can conclude that collocations are radial syntagmatic structures in which one semantic feature of the collocate determines its combination with a lexical class of units, bases, which share the same feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores from a cognitive linguistic perspective the continuity between lexical and semigrammaticalized uses of the lexeme caudal in the noun phrase of the type [Det. caudalN1 de N2] in written peninsular Spanish. This structure yields various constructional schemas, going from [[Det. + N1] ([de + N2])] with N1 as nucleus, and more or less lexicalized [Det. N1 de N2] collocations, to [[Det. N1 de] N2] with N2 as nucleus. The meaning of the nominal caudal, linked to the fluvial scenery, presents various quantitative, spatial, tempo-aspectual and qualitative components that predispose it to metaphorical projection from the hydric domain to other domains. In the binominal quantifying construction [[un caudal de] N2] caudal keeps some nominal distributional properties, and certain facets of its lexical meaning persist as well. While the degree of schematization or semantic bleaching varies in function of N2 and of the wider context, caudal does not only quantify N2, it at the same time endows it with an aspectual-appreciatory dimension essentially conceived of in terms of fluidity, continuity and accumulation, i.e., situating N2 in an evolutionary perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on semantic processing in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics over the last decades makes necessary a partial revision of the structural linguistic methodological paradigm. The revision aims at achieving a more flexible formulation of the lexical meaning structure. On the grounds of a conception of meaning as a functional network with a neuropsychological base emerging from the close link between semantic and cognitive parts of the lexicon, this paper intends 1) to address in more detail these related parts, and 2) to discuss evidence derived from an analysis of the processing at this level, along with the major facts we know about the internal organization of our brain. All this leads to the description of a new neurocognitive dimension of lexical content within the framework of lexical semantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper's intention is a programmatic one. After presenting several definitions for the terms semantics of speech and structuralism, the topic is discussed with regard to Coseriu's theoretical framework. After confirming that there is not a methodological assignment within the universal level, I establish the hypothesis that it is due to the impossibility of structuralism for consistently carrying it out. For this purpose, I expound some arguments from Ricoeur, criticizing however that he did not take into account the efforts of structuralism to overcome these limitations. Briefly developing several methodological changes to structuralism, I critically comment on some of Coseriu's remarks on cognitive semantics. This allows a better understanding of the relation between the semantics of language and the semantics of speech. Finally, I propose several ways to methodologically develop the semantics of speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research is to show the application of Cognitive Semantics to the description of nominal compounding in American Spanish. Compounding is a productive morphologic process used to create words with a transparent meaning (apoyacabeza 'head restraint', destapabotellas 'bottle opener' etc.). However, many compounds also have an important level of idiomaticity (ahogabecerro 'tree', bienmesabe 'candy' etc.). The paper shows that Cognitive Semantics can explain the semantic opacity of these idiomatic compounds on the basis of metaphoric and metonymic processes. The data are extracted from the Diccionario de americanismos published by the Real Academia Española. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we start from the controversial distinction between variants and invariants of content-in the framework of the European functional structuralism-, distinction unresolved in many cases in the analysis of the phenomenon of lexical polysemy, to connect this problem, in the field of the interrelationship between lexicon and syntax, with the analysis: 1) of certain constructions with the verb do to check if it has not produced or re-categorization of this verb and 2) of certain tests syntactic-semantic behavior with verbs of state and achievement that would lead us to the possibility that also accept other readings. In both types of studies the essential question to be solved is not, then, whether we are dealing variants or invariants of content, although the phenomenon of lexical polysemy is always present. Based on the theoretical assumptions of the European functional structuralism, we incorporate other of the compositional semantics and some cognitivists orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse labels are anaphoric noun phrases with an abstract head noun which encapsulate the meaning of a previous or subsequent discourse segment. This cohesive device has received many names in the literature, which generally correspond to slightly different conceptions of the phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to identify the features that distinguish discourse labels from the rest of referential cohesive devices, specially, from superordinates, which share some of its semantic features. In order to do this, the main contributions from the literature are examined and confronted with the analysis of examples from a corpus of newspaper editorials. The analysis leads to a proposal to extend the classification of referential cohesive devices, which takes into account not only reiteration but also encapsulation devices and considers discourse labeling as an independent and distinct cohesive function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the functions of the discourse marker en efecto. The main aim is to prove the hypothesis of frequently en efecto, works either as a modal marker or as a connective of confirmation, that is, it acts of a different way spite of sharing the same core meaning. However, this point is obscure in the literature, in which even it is mixed examples of other functions less frequent in the explanations. With the aim of proving this proposal, I have analyzed several traits of each distinguished function on the basis of corpus data. Therefore, we raise the study of corpus from a polifunctional point of view (paradigmatic and syntagmatic). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]