A new book: From Polysemy to Semantic Change. Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations

[Stéphane Robert]

 From Polysemy to Semantic Change. Towards a typology of lexical semantic 
associations
Edited by Martine Vanhove. Llacan (Inalco, CNRS), Fédération TUL

Studies in Language Companion Series 106. 2008. xiii, 404 pp.

<http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=SLCS%20106>http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=SLCS<http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=SLCS%20106>%20106

This book is the result of a joint project on lexical and semantic typology 
which gathered together field linguists, semanticists, cognitivists, 
typologists, and an NLP specialist. These cross-linguistic studies concern 
semantic shifts at large, both synchronic and diachronic: the outcome of 
polysemy, heterosemy, or semantic change at the lexical level. The first 
part presents a comprehensive state of the art of a domain typologists have 
long been reluctant to deal with. Part two focuses on theoretical and 
methodological approaches: cognition, construction grammar, graph theory, 
semantic maps, and data bases. These studies deal with universals and 
variation across languages, illustrated with numerous examples from 
different semantic domains and different languages. Part three is dedicated 
to detailed empirical studies of a large sample of languages in a limited 
set of semantic fields. It reveals possible universals of semantic 
association, as well as areal and cultural tendencies.

Table of contents

Semantic associations': A foreword
Martine Vanhove vii–xiii
Part I. State of the art

Approaching lexical typology
Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm 3–52
Part II. Theoretical and methodological issues

Words and their meanings: Principles of variation and stabilization
Stéphane Robert. 55–92

The typology of semantic affinities
Bernard Pottier. 93–105

Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change: Around the eye
Peter Koch. 107–137

Mapping semantic spaces: A constructionist account of the "light verb" 
xordæn 'eat' in Persian
Niloufar Family. 139–161

Semantic maps and the typology of colexification: Intertwining polysemous 
networks across languages
Alexandre Francois. 163–215

A Catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation
Anna Zalizniak. 217–232

Semantic associations and confluences in paradigmatic networks
Bruno Gaume, Karine Duvignau and Martine Vanhove. 233–264
Part III. Case studies

About 'eating' in a few Niger-Congo languages
Emilio Bonvini. 267–289

Eating beyond certainties
Christine Hénault. 291–301

 From semantic change to polysemy: The cases of 'meat/animal' and 'drink'
Pascal Boyeldieu. 303–315

Is a 'friend' an 'enemy'? Between "proximity" and "opposition"
Sergueï Sakhno and Nicole Tersis. 317–339

Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental 
perceptions: A crosslinguistic perspective
Martine Vanhove. 341–370

Cats and bugs: Some remarks about semantic parallelisms
Michel Masson. 371–386

General index. 387–395

Index of languages. 397–400

Index of names. 401–404

__________

Stéphane ROBERT
CNRS LLACAN, Langages Langues et Cultures d'Afrique Noire, 
http://llacan.vjf.cnrs.fr
CNRS Fédération Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques, 
http://www.typologie.cnrs.fr
<robert at vjf.cnrs.fr>