Between good and bad. A pattern of lexicalization in Spanish
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54166/rhle.2009.04.02Keywords:
Lexicalization, Lexicalization pattern, Historical lexicography, Negative semantic field, Positive semantic field, Metaphor, Spanish, Latin, West Romance languagesAbstract
The paper diachronically examines the concept of lexicalization pattern in Spanish, focusing on two semantic fields: the negative field of Spanish and the positive one. The positive field analyzes the iteras and locutions formed with four lexical radicals, ben-, bien-, bon- and buen-, coming from the Latin etimos bene and bonus. The negative core analyzes the words and locutions formed with one radical, mal-, derived from the Latin etimos male and malus. The paper shows, quantitatively and qualitatively, that the lexical negative field is much more productive than the positive one (three to one) to lexicalize and to acquire fixation and cohesion, and, at the same time, the negative field is much more flexible to metaphoryze, weakening and even losing its referential and etymological meaning. The corpus is based on various dictionaries: two for Spanish, Diccionario de Autoridades and DRAE, (2001), four for Latin and five for West Romance languages. The paper intends to show whether the negative lexicalization pattern found in Spanish is a diachronic path exclusive of this language or is shared by other Romance languages.
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References
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