Truth be told: a corpus-based study of the cross-linguistic colexification of representational and (inter)subjective meanings
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Barend Beekhuizen
,
Maya Blumenthal
Abstract
The study of crosslinguistic variation in word meaning often focuses on representational and concrete meanings. We argue other kinds of word meanings (e.g., abstract and (inter)subjective meanings) can be fruitfully studied in translation corpora, and present a quantitative procedure for doing so. We focus on the cross-linguistic patterns for lemmas pertaining to truth and reality (English true and real), as these abstract meanings been found to frequently colexify with particular (inter)subjective meanings. Applying our method to a corpus of translated subtitles of TED talks, we show that (1) the abstract-representational meanings are colexified in patterned ways, that, however, are more complex than previously observed (some languages not splitting a ‘true’-like from ‘real’-like terms; many languages displaying further splits of representational meanings); (2) some non-representational meanings strongly colexify with representational meanings of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, while others also often colexify with other fields.
Funding source: Canadian Network for Research and Innovation in Machining Technology, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Award Identifier / Grant number: RGPIN-2019-06917
Funding source: Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto
Award Identifier / Grant number: Scholars in Residence program 2020
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Lawrence Ora for contributing to the preparation of the data, Mah Noor Amir for her contributions to the initial stages of this project, as well as Songül Gündoğdu and Arsalan Kahnemuyipour for linguistic consultation. Needless to say, they are by no means responsible for the interpretation of the data presented in this paper.
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Research funding: This paper emerged from a Jackman Humanities Institute Scholars in Residence project, ran in May 2020. The further development of the paper was sponsored by a Connaught New Researcher Award and an NSERC Discovery Grant (RGPIN-2019-06917) to Barend Beekhuizen.
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© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Evaluation of keyness metrics: performance and reliability
- Let my speakers talk: metalinguistic activity can indicate semantic change
- The blurring of the boundaries: changes in verb/noun heterosemy in Recent English
- The linguistic organization of grammatical text complexity: comparing the empirical adequacy of theory-based models
- Present perfect and preterit variation in the Spanish of Lima and Mexico city: findings from a corpus analysis
- Lexical borrowing in Korean: a diachronic approach based on a corpus analysis
- Truth be told: a corpus-based study of the cross-linguistic colexification of representational and (inter)subjective meanings
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Evaluation of keyness metrics: performance and reliability
- Let my speakers talk: metalinguistic activity can indicate semantic change
- The blurring of the boundaries: changes in verb/noun heterosemy in Recent English
- The linguistic organization of grammatical text complexity: comparing the empirical adequacy of theory-based models
- Present perfect and preterit variation in the Spanish of Lima and Mexico city: findings from a corpus analysis
- Lexical borrowing in Korean: a diachronic approach based on a corpus analysis
- Truth be told: a corpus-based study of the cross-linguistic colexification of representational and (inter)subjective meanings
