Argument structure, conceptual metaphor and semantic change
How to succeed in Indo-European without really trying
In contrast to grammaticalization studies of lexical verbs changing into auxiliaries, the realm of semantic
changes associated with lexical verbs is an understudied area of historical semantics. We concentrate on the emergence of verbs of
success from more semantically concrete verbs, uncovering six conceptual metaphors which all co-occur with non-canonical encoding
of subjects in Indo-European. Careful scrutiny of the relevant data reveals a semantic development most certainly inherited from
Indo-European; hence, we reconstruct a dat-‘succeeds’ construction at different levels of schematicity for
Proto-Indo-European, including a novel reconstruction of a conceptual metaphor, success is motion forward, and the
mapping between this metaphor and the verb-class-specific argument structure construction. Hence, this article offers a systematic
analysis of regularity in semantic change, highlighting the importance of predicate and argument structure for lexical semantic
developments.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The dative subject construction
- 3.Success in Germanic
- 3.1(Preverb +) Motion (+ Adverb)
- 3.2Other types of motion conceptualized as success
- 4.Success in Indo-European
- 5.Metaphors for success
- 6.Reconstruction
- 6.1Proto-Germanic
- 6.2Proto-Indo-European
- 7.Summary and conclusion
-
Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Abbreviations
-
References
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