Semantic inheritance in the lexical paradigms of Old English Strong VerbsThe case of "Weaxan"

Resumen

This work presents a semantic examination of the Old English lexical paradigms based onstrong verbs. Its aim is two-fold: to offer an innovative and systematized methodology forthe analysis; and to describe the patterns of semantic derivation found in those paradigmswhich exhibit morphologically related words sharing the form and meaning of the base ofderivation. Besides, the methodology designed is described in detail and illustrated throughthe paradigm of the Old English verb Weaxan (‘to wax, grow, increase; to be produced; toprosper, flourish; to grow in honour; to become powerful; to take shape’). The analysisfocuses on the part of speech of the verb, and its theoretical foundation is based on theEnglish lexical database WordNet (Princeton, 2010). Research data, which has beenthoroughly revised and updated, has been obtained from the lexical database of Old EnglishNerthus (Martín Arista et. al 2016). As a result of the examination, it has been possible toidentify not only how the original meaning of a primitive verb derives into new meanings;but also, to specify what the nature of the deviation is in terms of meaning specification. Theoutcomes of the study turn out that semantic derivation in these paradigms can be enclosedwithin six conceptual-semantic relations, to wit: troponymy, -troponymy, backwardpresupposition, cause, synonymy, and opposition. Additionally, statistics on the frequencyof occurrence of these relations are offered. The main conclusion is that there are significantdifferences in terms of frequency of the distinct semantic relations since both synonymy andtroponymy clearly outnumber the relations at the opposite extreme, namely: opposition andtroponymy.