Meaning predictability and conversion
-
,
The article examines the role of conceptual fields and semantic relations in predicting the meaning of novel context-free converted words. To this end, it addresses three basic questions: first, whether there are prediction-related regularities between objects falling within a particular conceptual field (and the corresponding names for these objects) and the general semantic relations between converting and converted naming units; second, whether there are prediction-related associations between a particular conceptual field and the Predictability Rate (PR) and the Objectified Predictability Rate (OPR) of most predictable readings of novel conversions; third, whether there is any association between the semantic fields and the PR and OPR values within selected conceptual fields. A sample of six conceptual fields is considered, looking at lexicographic evidence and speaker competence (native and non-native). The findings suggest that some conceptual fields show semantic relation regularities in actual conversions while others do not, and that the semantic regularities of potential conversions tend to match those of actual conversions.
© Mouton de Gruyter – Societas Linguistica Europaea
Articles in the same Issue
- Verbal islands in Persian
- The indeterminacy of word segmentation and the nature of morphology and syntax
- Developmental parallels in diachronic and ontogenetic grammaticalization: Existential there as a test case
- Having come to be a copula in Sri Lanka Malay: An unusual grammaticalization path
- Causality and causation: A functional approach to causative constructions in Modern Swedish
- Meaning predictability and conversion
- Conventional sound symbolism in terms for organs of speech: A cross-linguistic study
- Book reviews
- Report on the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (Vilnius, 2–5 September 2010)
Articles in the same Issue
- Verbal islands in Persian
- The indeterminacy of word segmentation and the nature of morphology and syntax
- Developmental parallels in diachronic and ontogenetic grammaticalization: Existential there as a test case
- Having come to be a copula in Sri Lanka Malay: An unusual grammaticalization path
- Causality and causation: A functional approach to causative constructions in Modern Swedish
- Meaning predictability and conversion
- Conventional sound symbolism in terms for organs of speech: A cross-linguistic study
- Book reviews
- Report on the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (Vilnius, 2–5 September 2010)
