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What are etymological (and etymographical ) units made of: vocables or lexemes ?

What are etymological (and etymographical ) units made of: vocables or lexemes ?. Éva Buchi (ATILF/CNRS & U niversité de Lorraine). Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Institute for Linguistics Budapest, January 27 2015. Metalexicological and metalexicographical topic.

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What are etymological (and etymographical ) units made of: vocables or lexemes ?

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  1. What are etymological (and etymographical) units made of: vocables or lexemes? Éva Buchi (ATILF/CNRS & Université de Lorraine) HungarianAcademy of Sciences, Research Institute for Linguistics Budapest, January 27 2015

  2. Metalexicological and metalexicographical topic Theoreticalin its essence, but poses practicalproblems to practitioners of historicallexicology and lexicography ATILF lab (Nancy, France) Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom) European Master in Lexicography

  3. Etymological dictionary words ‘dictionary in which are traced back to their earliest appropriate forms and meanings’ (Hartmann & James, Dictionary of lexicography, 1998) Lacks technical rigour  ambiguous Threefold terminology established within the theoretical framework of Meaning-text theory (Mel’čuk 2012: 1: 21-44)

  4. MTT provides a threefold terminology • Wordform‘segmental linguistic sign that is autonomous and minimal, i.e., that is not made up of other wordforms’ table1SINGULAR ~ tables1PLURAL • Lexeme ‘set of wordforms, and phrases, that are all inflectional variants’ TABLE1 • Vocable‘set of lexical units –lexemes or idioms– whose signifiers are identical, whose signifieds display a significant intersection, and whose syntactics are sufficiently similar’ TABLE TABLE3 ‘surface of a stone’ TABLE2 ‘arrangement of data’

  5. Schematic representation Vocable TABLE Lexeme TABLE1 Lexeme TABLE2 Lexeme TABLE3 table1 ‘article of furniture consisting of a flat top and legs’SINGULAR table2 ‘arrangement of data in rows and colums’SINGULAR table3 ‘upper flat surface of a cut precious stone’SINGULAR Wordforms tables2 ‘arrangements of data in rows and colums’PLURAL tables3 ‘upper flat surfaces of a cut precious stone’PLURAL tables1 ‘articles of furniture consisting of a flat top and legs’PLURAL

  6. Etymological dictionaries ‘dictionary in which are traced back to their earliest appropriate forms and meanings’ (Hartmann & James, Dictionary of lexicography, 1998) Lexemes? Wordforms? Vocables? words No indication in theoretical work Current practice in etymological dictionaries?

  7. The problem only presents itself with polysemous vocables Example: Spanish ESCAPARATE m.n. ESCAPARATE1m.n. ‘glass-door cabinet used for displaying delicate things’ ESCAPARATE2m.n. ‘shop window used for displaying samples of what is sold in the shop’

  8. Corominas, Breve dicc. etimológico de la lengua castellana, 19733 Borrowing from Old Dutch schaprade n. ‘closet (in particular kitchen cupboard)’

  9. Corominas’s approach is in accordance with Untermann’s “For me, etymology is defined as: establishing and describing the process which produces a new sequence of phonemes and assigns a meaning to it, using given vocabulary and given grammatical means, in order to meet a requirement which emerges” (Krisch 2010: 317, quoting Untermann 1975: 105)  Derivatives and compounds merit an etymology  Semantic evolutions do not This choice in favour of the vocable is quite common Counterexamples?

  10. Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 200224 1) ‘Cue’; 2) ‘headword’; 3) ‘keyword’; 4) ‘hurtful remark’ 4) Homonyms! Vocable!

  11. TLF (Trésor de la langue française, ATILF 1971-1994) s.v. agio AGIO1 ‘excess value of one currency over another’ AGIO2 ‘bank fees (interest, commission, exchange)’ AGIO3 ‘dishonest speculation (stock exchange)’ Etymology: “Empr[unt] à l’ital[ien] aggio” Vocable! “Borrowing from Italian aggio”

  12. Etymology of AGIO revised in the context of TLF-Étym TLF-Étym = Steinfeld, Nadine (dir.) (2005–): Trésor de la Langue Française Étymologique (TLF-Étym). Nancy: ATILF: http://www.atilf.fr/tlf-etym Selective revision of the etymologies contained in the TLFi(Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé) Entry agio compiled by Franz Rainer, professor at Vienna University of Economics and Business

  13. First attestations AGIO1 ‘excess value of one currency over another’ (1679) AGIO2 ‘bank fees (interest, commission, exchange)’ (1723) AGIO3 ‘dishonest speculation (stock exchange)’ (1727)

  14. Italian AGGIO Cortelazzo/Zolli: Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana (19992): AGGIO1 ‘excess value of one currency over another’ (1498)  AGIO1 [AGGIO2 ‘discount on the amount of a tax granted to a state employee’ (1892)] ø AGGIO ‘bank fees’ (Italian SPESE DI COMMISSIONE)  AGIO2 ø AGGIO ‘dishonest speculation’ (Italian SPECULAZIONE DISONESTA)  AGIO3

  15. Three etymologies! Rainer 2011 in TLF-Étym AGIO1 ‘excess value of one currency over another’ 1679 Borrowing from Italian AGGIO1 ‘excess value of one currency over another’ 1498 AGIO2 ‘bank fees (interest, commission, exchange)’ 1723 Internal creation: semantic evolution from FrenchAGIO1 (common denominator: ‘commission’) AGIO3 ‘dishonest speculation (stock exchange)’ 1727 Internal creation: semantic evolution from FrenchAGIO2 (common denominator: ‘profit’)

  16. AGIO3 coined in the aftermath of the Law affair James Law (1671-1729) Scottish economist, Controller General of Finances of France Became a millionaire by issuing huge amounts of share certificates of his Mississipi Company to the French These shares were ultimately rendered worthless, and initially inflated speculationabout their worth led to a chaotic economic collapse in France in the 1720 Coining of AGIO3 ‘dishonest speculation’ strongly linked to a French economic context

  17. What are etymological units made of: vocables or lexemes? Dictionaries are made up of vocableslike Spanish ESCAPARATE, German STICHWORT1 and STICHWORT2, and French AGIO But Spanish ESCAPARATE2 ‘shop window’ cannot be considered a Dutch borrowing, and French AGIO3 ‘dishonest speculation’ cannot be considered an Italian borrowing These lexemes deserve to be individually etymologized (as internal creations)

  18. For this reason I advocate a contrario that individual lexemes, not whole vocables, are best hypostatized as etymological (and etymographical) units This seems quite obvious: etymologies which put the different lexemes of a vocable to the centre of their attention are better etymologies Then why did the discipline of etymology have to wait for 2015 for this finding to be put forward?

  19. The answer lies in the terminology we use Ultimately, in our conceptualization of the units which constitue the lexicon of a language If ESCAPARATE2 ‘shop window’ = “meaning” of the “word”ESCAPARATE, there is no need for etymologizing it Only “words” = linguistic signs = sets of signifiers, signifieds, and syntactic properties may and should be etymologized If ESCAPARATE2 ‘shop window’ = lexeme = set of signifier, signified, and syntactic properties Then the stage is set for the lexeme becoming the etymological (and etymographical) unit

  20. Case study: Engl. HARMONICA and related nouns HARMONICA1 ‘musical instrument (invented by B. Franklin) consisting of a series of rotating glass bowls of differing sizes played by touching the dampened edges with a finger, glass harmonica’ (since 1762) OED3 (2000-): HARMONICA2 ‘small rectangular wind instrument with free reeds recessed in air slots from which tones are sounded by exhaling and inhaling, mouth organ’ (since ?) HARMONICA3 ‘component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes, organ stop’ (since 1852)

  21. Etymology OED3: Etymology:  feminine of Latin harmonicusharmonic adj. and n., used subst. First testimony: 1762 B. Franklin Let. 13 July in Exper. & Observ. Electr. (1769) 433   In honor of your musical language, I have borrowed from it the name of this instrument, calling it the Armonica Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat

  22. Identity of the addressee = important lead Father Beccarià from Turin Borrowing from Italian armonico adj. ‘having a pleasing combination of notes, harmonious’ Written form harmonica from 1777 on: written Latinization (= a form of adaptation: this does not make it a borrowing from Latin) HARMONICA1 ‘glass harmonica’ (since 1762): borrowing from Italian (with instant and subsequent adaptations)

  23. German HARMONIKA DFWB2 (1995-): HARMONIKA1 ‘glass harmonica’ (since 1772 [Harmonica]): borrowing from English HARMONICA1 HARMONIKA2 ‘small rectangular wind instrument with free reeds recessed in air slots from which tones are sounded by exhaling and inhaling, mouth organ’ (since 1830 [Mund-Harmonika; Harmonika since 1880]) HARMONIKA3 ‘portable keyboard wind instrument in which the wind is forced past free reeds by means of a hand-operated bellows, accordion’ (since 1844)

  24. No etymologies are provided for HARMONIKA2/3 Extralinguistic (historical) knowledge: the accordion was invented in 1829 by Cyrill Demian in Vienna, who patented it HARMONICA2 ‘mouthorgan’ (since 1830 [Mund-Harmonika ; Harmonikasince 1880]) • Seems to be an internalcreation as well (semantic intersection: /wind instrument/) • The compound Mund-Harmonikaseems to indiateitwascoined on HARMONIKA3 HARMONIKA3 ‘accordion’ (since 1844) Internal German creation (semantic innovation)

  25. Back to English This hypothesis should be tested by analyzing the first written testimonies of the lexeme (which the OED3 does not provide) HARMONICA2 ‘mouth organ’ (since ?) Probably borrowing from German If HARMONICA1 ‘glass harmonica’ was still in use when HARMONICA2 ‘mouth organ’ appeared (which seems to be the case), rather than a borrowing, it should be considered a loan meaning

  26. Hungarian HARMONIKA EWU (1993-1997): borrowing from German HARMONIKA1 ‘glass harmonica’ (from 1810 [Harmonikát]) HARMONIKA2 ‘mouth organ’ (since 1845 [Hármonika]) HARMONIKA3 ‘accordion’ (since 1881) Three independent borrowings (or rather a borrowing and two loan meanings)!

  27. To conclude Borrowing from Italian Borrowing from English Borrowing from German Engl. HARMONICA1 ‘glass harmonica’ (1762) < It. Engl. HARMONICA3 ‘organ stop’ (1852): internal creation Germ. HARMONIKA1 ‘glass harmonica’ (1772) < Engl. Germ. HARMONIKA2‘mouth organ’ (1830): internal creation Germ. HARMONIKA3 ‘accordion’ (1844): internal creation Hung. HARMONIKA1 ‘glass harmonica’ (1810) < Germ. Hung. HARMONIKA2‘mouth organ’ (1845) < Germ. Hung. HARMONIKA3 ‘accordion’ (1881) < Germ. Engl. HARMONICA2 ‘mouth organ’ (?) < Germ. (?)

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