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Part of
The Typology of Physical Qualities
Edited by Ekaterina Rakhilina, Tatiana Reznikova and Daria Ryzhova
[Typological Studies in Language 133] 2022
► pp. 189–214

Chapter 7
A new approach to old studies

| HSE University
| HSE University | Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
| HSE University

This chapter gives a description of the old terms typology across 78 world languages. The sample size in the research is relatively big, as compared to the other studies in this volume, which is attributable to two main reasons: the semantics of old terms has already been thoroughly described for at least two languages – English and Russian – and the lexemes with this meaning are in most cases featured by bilingual dictionaries. On the basis of the dictionary data supported by additional expertise we propose a semantic map of the OLD domain. The paper also outlines some cross-linguistically recurrent colexification patterns and addresses the specificity of homonymous combinations of old attributes with different semantic classes of nouns.

Keywords: qualitative adjectives, semantics of oldness, lexical typology, semantic maps
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Semantics of old
  • 3.Data
  • 4.Typological results
  • 5.Dominant systems
    • 5.1Polysemy across frames
    • 5.2Dominant lexeme and its quasi-synonyms
  • 6.Subframes
    • 6.1‘Old person’: Oldness as a gradual property
    • 6.2‘Old person’: Gender opposition
    • 6.3‘Old person’: Speaking of children
    • 6.4‘Old person’ vs. ‘old oak’
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 25 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.133.07vyr
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