Semantic Change in Words Loaned to Swedish

Författare

Björn Torstensson

Summary, in English

This thesis examines the diachronic semantic development in terms of metonymization and metaphorization for 30 nouns loaned into the Swedish language between the 13th and 20th centuries from a cognitive-semantic point of view.
Through the framework of Lexical Meaning as Ontologies and Construals (LOC) combined with a study of the occurrence of metaphorization, metonymization, widening and narrowing in semantic development, it examines to what extent metonymization can be said to be a more common mechanism of lexical semantic change than metaphorization, and to what extent words lose semantic width initially after the loaning period and then regain it over time. The results indicate that metonymization is the more frequent mechanism and that an initial narrowing occurs directly after loaning in most cases. However, the results also reveal that in order to reach a satisfactory understanding of this matter, the socio-cultural context of the loans must be considered to a greater extent than has been done in this thesis.

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