Lexical Creativity and Semantic Underspecification in Abstract Nouns
When speakers struggle to name or evaluate a referent, they often resort to lexical creativity, particularly metaphorical processes. This paper analyzes various groups of nouns that undergo resemanticization in abstract contexts. Nouns with originally concrete meanings, such as anestesia or ancla, a...
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| Formato: | Artículo publishedVersion |
| Lenguaje: | Español |
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Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires
2025
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| Acceso en línea: | https://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index.php/filologia/article/view/16854 https://repositoriouba.sisbi.uba.ar/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.cgi?a=d&c=filologia&d=16854_oai |
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I28-R145-16854_oai |
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Universidad de Buenos Aires |
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I-28 |
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R-145 |
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Repositorio Digital de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) |
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Español |
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spa |
| topic |
neology semantic change generative lexicon abstract nouns underspecification neología cambio semántico léxico generativo nombres abstractos infraespecificación |
| spellingShingle |
neology semantic change generative lexicon abstract nouns underspecification neología cambio semántico léxico generativo nombres abstractos infraespecificación Straccia, Julieta Lexical Creativity and Semantic Underspecification in Abstract Nouns |
| topic_facet |
neology semantic change generative lexicon abstract nouns underspecification neología cambio semántico léxico generativo nombres abstractos infraespecificación |
| description |
When speakers struggle to name or evaluate a referent, they often resort to lexical creativity, particularly metaphorical processes. This paper analyzes various groups of nouns that undergo resemanticization in abstract contexts. Nouns with originally concrete meanings, such as anestesia or ancla, acquire abstract, underspecified meanings that enable metaphorical and hyperbolic references to social situations. Similarly, nouns like balazo and cañonazo (whose established meanings specify the ontological subtype disparo) lose this specification in their neological sense, relying on context for interpretation. This underspecificity allows for their interchangeability. Finally, nouns denoting natural phenomena, such as diluvio, tormenta and tsunami, also become underspecified upon resemanticization, making them interchangeable with one another.
In this article I focus on the analysis of the established and neological meanings of the following names: anestesia, ancla, filtro, pelotón, bolsón, tormenta, diluvio y tsunami. It has been observed that these nouns re-semanticize general like abstract nouns through metaphorical processes, giving rise to new, underspecified meanings. The general nature of these nouns is related to the variety of possible referents they present, which is reflected in an underspecified semantic structure. This study examines underspecification in the lexical field by exploring phenomena related to lexical creativity. Specifically, it investigates the boundaries between discursive metaphor and lexical metaphor in relation to nominal neologisms. |
| format |
Artículo publishedVersion |
| author |
Straccia, Julieta |
| author_facet |
Straccia, Julieta |
| author_sort |
Straccia, Julieta |
| title |
Lexical Creativity and Semantic Underspecification in Abstract Nouns |
| title_short |
Lexical Creativity and Semantic Underspecification in Abstract Nouns |
| title_full |
Lexical Creativity and Semantic Underspecification in Abstract Nouns |
| title_fullStr |
Lexical Creativity and Semantic Underspecification in Abstract Nouns |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Lexical Creativity and Semantic Underspecification in Abstract Nouns |
| title_sort |
lexical creativity and semantic underspecification in abstract nouns |
| publisher |
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires |
| publishDate |
2025 |
| url |
https://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index.php/filologia/article/view/16854 https://repositoriouba.sisbi.uba.ar/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.cgi?a=d&c=filologia&d=16854_oai |
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AT stracciajulieta lexicalcreativityandsemanticunderspecificationinabstractnouns AT stracciajulieta creatividadlexicaeinfraespecificacionsemanticaennombresabstractos |
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1851374701481295872 |
| spelling |
I28-R145-16854_oai2025-11-17 Straccia, Julieta 2025-07-17 When speakers struggle to name or evaluate a referent, they often resort to lexical creativity, particularly metaphorical processes. This paper analyzes various groups of nouns that undergo resemanticization in abstract contexts. Nouns with originally concrete meanings, such as anestesia or ancla, acquire abstract, underspecified meanings that enable metaphorical and hyperbolic references to social situations. Similarly, nouns like balazo and cañonazo (whose established meanings specify the ontological subtype disparo) lose this specification in their neological sense, relying on context for interpretation. This underspecificity allows for their interchangeability. Finally, nouns denoting natural phenomena, such as diluvio, tormenta and tsunami, also become underspecified upon resemanticization, making them interchangeable with one another. In this article I focus on the analysis of the established and neological meanings of the following names: anestesia, ancla, filtro, pelotón, bolsón, tormenta, diluvio y tsunami. It has been observed that these nouns re-semanticize general like abstract nouns through metaphorical processes, giving rise to new, underspecified meanings. The general nature of these nouns is related to the variety of possible referents they present, which is reflected in an underspecified semantic structure. This study examines underspecification in the lexical field by exploring phenomena related to lexical creativity. Specifically, it investigates the boundaries between discursive metaphor and lexical metaphor in relation to nominal neologisms. Ante la dificultad de nombrar o valorar un referente, los hablantes recurren a la creatividad léxica, particularmente a procesos metafóricos. En este trabajo analizaremos diversos grupos de nombres que evidencian la resemantización en los nombres abstractos. Así, nombres cuyo sentido establecido es de tipo concreto, como anestesia o ancla, se resemantizan con sentidos abstractos infraespecificados, que permiten aludir de manera metafórica e hiperbólica a situaciones sociales. Otro caso es el de nombres como balazo y cañonazo: mientras que en el sentido establecido se especifica el subtipo ontológico (disparo), en el sentido neológico no se especifican ontológicamente y su sentido se observa en el contexto. Esta infraespecificidad habilita la intercambiabilidad de estos nombres. Finalmente, otros nombres cuyo sentido establecido corresponde al tipo ontológico fenómenos naturales, como diluvio, tormenta y tsunami, al resemantizarse se infraespecifican y pasan a ser intercambiables entre sí. En el presente trabajo nos centramos en el análisis de los sentidos establecidos y neológicos de los siguientes nombres: anestesia, ancla, filtro, pelotón, bolsón, tormenta, diluvio y tsunami. Hemos observado que estos nombres se resemantizan como nombres abstractos generales, por medio de procesos metafóricos, y dan lugar a nuevos sentidos infraespecificados. El carácter general que presentan estos nombres se relaciona con las variedades de posibles referentes que presentan, lo que se refleja en una estructura semántica infraespecificada. En este trabajo nos proponemos, así, analizar el fenómeno de la infraespecificación en el ámbito del léxico, a partir del análisis de diversos fenómenos asociados a la creatividad léxica, con el propósito de analizar los límites entre metáfora discursiva y metáfora léxica asociados a neologismos nominales. application/pdf https://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index.php/filologia/article/view/16854 spa Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires https://revistascientificas.filo.uba.ar/index.php/filologia/article/view/16854/14908 Derechos de autor 2025 Julieta Straccia Filología; Vol. 1 No. 57 (2025); 91-106 Filología; Vol. 1 Núm. 57 (2025); 91-106 2422-6009 0071-495X neology semantic change generative lexicon abstract nouns underspecification neología cambio semántico léxico generativo nombres abstractos infraespecificación Lexical Creativity and Semantic Underspecification in Abstract Nouns Creatividad léxica e infraespecificación semántica en nombres abstractos info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion https://repositoriouba.sisbi.uba.ar/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.cgi?a=d&c=filologia&d=16854_oai |