Onomasiology


Onomasiology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the question "how do you express X?" It is in fact most commonly understood as a branch of lexicology, the study of words.
Onomasiology, as a part of lexicology, starts from a concept which is taken to be prior
and asks for its names. The opposite approach is known as semasiology: here one starts with a word and asks what it means, or what concepts the word refers to. Thus, an onomasiological question is, e.g., "what are the names for long, narrow pieces of potato that have been deep-fried?", while a semasiological question is, e.g., "what is the meaning of the term chips?".
Onomasiology can be carried out synchronically or diachronically, i.e. historically.

Definition

Onomasiology was initiated in the late 19th century, but it received its name only in 1902, when the Austrian linguist Adolf Zauner published his study on the body-part terminology in Romance languages. It was by linguists studying Romance languages that the most important onomasiological works were written. Early linguists were basically interested in the etymology of expressions that were clearly defined, unchangeable, or concrete objects or actions. Later, the Austrian linguists Rudolf Meringer and Hugo Schuchardt started the movement, which emphasized that every study of a word needed to include the study of the object it denotes. Schuchardt also underlined that the onomasiologist, in tracing back the history of a word, needs to respect both the dame phonétique and the dame sémantique.
Another branch that developed from onomasiology and at the same time enriched it in turn was linguistic geography since it provided onomasiologists with valuable linguistic atlases. The first ones are Sprachatlas des Deutschen Reiches by Georg Wenker and Ferdinand Wrede, published beginning in 1888, the Atlas Linguistique de la France by Jules Gilliéron, the Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz by Karl Jaberg and Jakob Jud, the Deutscher Sprachatlas by Ferdinand Wrede et al.. The atlases include maps that show the corresponding names for a concept in different regions as they were gathered in interviews with dialect speakers by means of a questionnaire. In English linguistics, onomasiology and linguistic geography have played only a minor role—the first linguistic atlas for the US was initiated by Hans Kurath, the first one for the UK by Eugen Dieth.
In 1931, the German linguist Jost Trier introduced a new method in his book Der deutsche Wortschatz im Sinnbezirk des Verstandes, which is known as the lexical field theory. According to Trier, lexical changes must always be seen, apart from the traditional aspects, in connection with the changes within a given word-field. After World War II, few studies on onomasiological theory have been carried out. But onomasiology has recently seen new light with the works of Dirk Geeraerts, Andreas Blank, Peter Koch and the periodical Onomasiology Online, which is published at the Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt by Joachim Grzega, Alfred Bammesberger and Marion Schöner. A recent representative of synchronic onomasiology is Pavol Stekauer.

Instruments for the historical onomasiologist

The most important instruments for historical onomasiologists are:

Explanations

When a speaker has to name something, they first try to categorize it. If the speaker can classify the referent as member of a familiar concept, they will carry out some sort of cognitive-linguistic cost-benefit-analysis: what should I say to get what I want. Based on this analysis, the speaker can then either fall back on an already existing word or decide to coin a new designation. These processes are sometimes more conscious, sometimes less conscious.
The coinage of a new designation can be incited by various forces :
  • difficulties in classifying the thing to be named or attributing the right word to the thing to be named, thus confusing designations
  • fuzzy difference between superordinate and subordinate term due to the monopoly of the prototypical member of a category in the real world
  • everyday contact situations
  • institutionalized and non-institutionalized linguistic pre- and proscriptivism
  • flattery
  • insult
  • disguising things
  • taboo
  • avoidance of words that are phonetically similar or identical to negatively associated words
  • abolition of forms that can be ambiguous in many contexts
  • wordplay/puns
  • excessive length of words
  • morphological misinterpretation
  • deletion of irregularity
  • desire for plastic/illustrative/telling names for a thing
  • natural prominence of a concept
  • cultural-induced prominence of a concept
  • changes in the world
  • changes in the categorization of the world
  • prestige/fashion
The following alleged motives found in many works have been claimed to be invalid by Grzega : decrease in salience, reading errors, laziness, excessive phonetic shortness, difficult sound combinations, unclear stress patterns, cacophony.

Processes

In the case of intentional, conscious innovation, speakers have to pass several levels of a word-finding or name-giving process: analysis of the specific features of the concept, onomasiological level, the onomatological level. The level of feature analysis can be spared if the speaker simply borrows a word from a foreign language or variety; it is also spared if the speaker simply takes the word s/he originally fell back on and just shortens it.
If the speaker does not shorten an already existing word for the concept, but coins a new one, s/he can select from several types of processes. These coinages may be based on a model from the speaker's own idiom, on a model from a foreign idiom, or, in the case of root creations, on no model at all. In sum, we get the following catalog of formal processes of word-coining :
  • adoption of
  1. an already existing word of speaker's own language or
  2. a word from a foreign language
The name-giving process is completed with the actual phonetic realization on the morphophonological level.
In order to create a new word, the speaker first selects one or two physically and psychologically salient aspects. The search for the motivations is based on one or several cognitive-associative relations. These relations are:
  • contiguity relations
  • similarity relations
  • partiality relations
  • contrast relations
These relations can be seen between forms, between concepts and between form and concept.
A complete catalog distinguishes the following associative relations :
  • identity
  • "figurative", i.e. individually felt, similarity of the concepts
  • contiguity of concepts
  • partiality of concepts
  • contrast of concepts
  • "literal" or "figurative" similarity between the forms of a sign and the concept
  • strong relation between contents of signs and "literal" similarity of concepts
  • strong relation between contents of signs and contrast of concepts
  • strong relation between contents of signs and "literal" similarity of concepts
  • similarity of the forms of signs
  • contiguity of the forms of signs
  • "literal", i.e. objectively visible, similarity and contiguity of concepts
  • "literal" similarity of referents and strong relation between contents of signs
  • multiple associations
The concrete associations may or may not be incited by a model which can be of speaker's own idiom or a foreign idiom.