Diachronic Prototype Semantics: A Contribution to Historical Lexicology (review)

Geeraerts provides a well-reasoned apologetic for prototype semantic theory. Ch. 1 identifies four features of prototypically organized semantic categories, each of which is correlated with a hypothesis about mechanisms of semasiological change (polysemy) in the lexicon and then illustrated with a case study (Ch. 2). First, that the exemplars of a category exhibit a membership gradience is correlated with the fact that in the case of legging ‘a tight-fitting pair of pants worn by women’ the core remains intact, but the fringe area of allowed variation broadens. Second, that categories exhibit family resemblances in the form of radical clusters of interlocking and overlapping meanings is correlated with a clustered set of changes in word meaning, illustrated with vergrijpen ‘to assault, steal, rape’. The process of diachronic semantic development lacks rigidity, as evidenced by new meanings arising through the joint influence of several existing ones, by meanings developing marginal nuances that do not subsist in time but crop up occasionally, and by concepts and subconcepts being disproportionately important in semantic range. Third, that categories exhibit fuzzy borders is correlated with incidental ‘semantic polygenesis’, i.e., ‘the same reading of a particular lexical item may come into existence more than once in the history of a word, each time on an independent basis’ (24). This he illustrates with a novel metaphorical extension from seventeenth-century and contemporary Dutch. Fourth, that a set of criterial, necessary and sufficient attributes fails to define a category is correlated with the recognition that encyclopedic information may at any moment be the starting point for the birth of a new reading.

Ch. 3 suggests a classification of meaning changes based upon the role of prototypicality in lexical change, a role that broadens the traditional semasiological perspective with an explicitly onomasiological (identifying and naming) perspective. Prototypes are dynamic and account for the functional requirements of cognitive efficiency through informational density, structural stability, and flexible adaptability. Prototype theory is said to achieve explanatory adequacy and to achieve the same kinds of functionality achieved by natural phonology.

Ch. 4 concerns the relationship between isomorphism (one form, one meaning) and prototypical polysemization. His claim is that isomorphism applies to conceptual categories as a whole but that the categories themselves are subject to prototyical polysemization.

Ch. 5 implements Thomas Kuhn’s theory of paradigms to show how an adherence to prototype semantics enables researchers to see the data with a new perspective. Five observations discriminate between the apparent synomyms vernietigen and vernielen (both, ‘to destroy, kill, commit suicide’).

Vernietigen

1. 1. abstract concepts more prominent

2. 2. core concept is destruction of conceptual arrangements

3. 3. metonymic extensions to abstract concepts

4. 4. of the subgroups of the set involving persons abstract subgroup dominates

5. 5. when nominalized, there is no metonymic extension

Vernielen

1. 1. material concepts more prominent

2. 2. core concept is destruction of constructed edifaces (buildings)

3. 3. metonymic extensions to cultivation

4. 4. of the subgroups of the set involving persons concrete subgroup dominates

5. 5. when nominalized, it is metonymically extended to form ‘damage’

G presents a wealth of detail and, although one may quibble over some of the interpretations of the supporting data, the main arguments remain intact and make powerful claims for the explanatory adequacy of prototype semantics.