13) Exploring the lexicalization of antonyms in the
history of English
23 May 2023
Kathryn Allan, University College London
Across the history of English, different areas of the
lexicon show different lexicalization patterns: there are more partially
synonymous words for some concepts than others, and this can change over time.
Some differences obviously relate to extra-linguistic change: for example,
there are greater numbers of terms related to chemistry as it becomes
established as a scientific discipline (Alexander 2018). However, the
lexicalization of closely related concepts seems much harder to explain: for
example, though scearp and several synonyms are found
frequently in Old English, there appears to be no attested form meaning ‘blunt’
until much later (Allan 2021), and there are more close synonyms for ‘fast’
than ‘slow’ through time. Using data from the Historical Thesaurus of
English, this paper examines the asymmetrical lexicalization patterns of
some antonymous concepts, and considers whether factors such as influence from
other languages or the nature of the concepts themselves might account for the
differences.
