A new type of linguistic sign
Metasemy2
A new type of morphological expressive linguistic means and the corresponding linguistic sign are described:
metasemy1
— an expressive linguistic means that is an operation on the signified of the target lexeme; and
metasemy2
— a sign whose signifier is a metasemy1. Thus, the English
metasemy2
painting
, when applied to a human proper name, such as, e.g.,
Turner, produces a derived lexeme, in this case,
painting
(Turner) = [a]
Turner ‘[a] painting by Turner’ (I have seen two excellent Turners). A formal description of
the Russian metasemy2
pomeščenie
‘place2’ is presented, based on the
analysis of the Russian phrase u otca ‘at father’s’ = ‘at father’s place2’, where the underlying
lexeme otec ‘father’ and the derived lexeme
pomeščenie
(otec) are involved, the meaning
‘place2’ being expressed by the metasemy2
pomeščenie
. The English
and French translational equivalents of this phrase, Eng. at father’s and Fr. chez le père, are
shown to have different organizations: in at father’s, the meaning ‘place2’ is carried by the
’s-form, and in chez le père, by the preposition chez. A tentative list of known
Russian metasemies2 is supplied, as well as the similar lists for English and French. A metasemy2 always
expresses a metonymic semantic relation between the underlying lexeme and the resulting derived lexeme; it is a derivational
morphological means, parallel to derivational affixes. Metasemy2 seems to exist universally.
Article outline
- 1.Stating the problem
- 2.Relevant linguistic facts about the Russian phrases of the u otca ‘at father’s’ type
- 3.The
‘X’s place2’ metonymic sign: A metasemy2
- 3.1The properties of the
sign
- 3.1.1The signified of
- 3.1.2The signifier of
- 3.1.3The syntactics of
- 3.2The
metasemy2 in linguistic representations
- 3.3The lexical entry of the
metasemy2
- 3.4The ‘L’s place2’ phrases in English and French
- 4.Derivational metasemies2
- 4.1Derivational metasemies2 in Russian
- 4.2Derivational metasemies2 in English and French
- 5.Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Abbreviations and notations
- Author queries
-
References
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