Programm 74. StuTS

Verbs meaning ‘insult’ stem from a wide array of sources. Thus, by examining their etymology, they are a great opportunity of studying the ways and motivations of semantic change. For example, the English verbs insult (originally Latin ‘to leap at somebody repeatedly’), and offend (orig. Lat. ‘to strike at somebody’) reveal a metaphorical connection of physical violence and mental violence, while Eng. defame (orig. Lat., lit. ‘to remove good reputation’) and Ger. verleumden (meaning the same, cf. OHG liumunt ‘reputation’) point to the performativity of speech acts and the capability of insults to alter the social position of the insultee.
The paper describes the different pathways that verbs of insult have taken in several ancient Indo-European languages (Old High German, Old Norse, Latin, Greek, Middle Welsh, and Hittite) and explains these semantic changes by linguistic and sociological means.

In etymological research, two factors are of importance: phonological correspondence and semantic plausibility. While the phonological correspondence is corroborated by established methodology, semantic plausibility is often overlooked. Research within the typological possibilities of semantic change is clearly needed, since it is the only way of confirming if two words are truly connected in two languages.
For this paper, “we rely on the theoretical assumption that semantic change, although not predictable, is not arbitrary, but motivated“ (Pozza 2020: 236). Thus, it is fruitful to describe the semantic change that has led to the meanings of lexemes belonging to the same semantic field in order to broaden our understanding of the mechanics and possibilities of semantic change.
Speech act verbs in different languages can seldomly be traced back and connected to a common word meaning said speech act. Because of that, they make a great starting point for research of semantic change. This paper focuses on metalexemes in ancient Indo-European languages meaning ‘to insult, slander, offend, defame, etc’. Featured languages include Old High German, Old Norse, Latin, Greek, Middle Welsh, and Hittite.
The semantic development of the researched lexemes depict a wide array of semantic means: metaphor, metonomy and synecdoche, antonomy and negation, and polysemy. Not only linguistic, but also sociological arguments will be taken into account for the description of the semantic changes.

Info

Tag: 26.10.2023
Anfangszeit: 14:30
Dauer: 00:25
Raum: NIG Raum 2
Track: Historical Linguistics
Sprache: en

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