Neuf familles morphologiques de termes médicaux du Moyen Âge : une analyse constructionnelle

The objective of this article is to answer the following research question concerning the morphological analysis of medieval medical neologisms: why do certain French neologisms that emerged in the field of medicine during the Middle Ages manage to survive, while others disappear after some time? Our hypothesis is that morphology, in particular constructional transparency, contributes in a crucial manner to lexical preservation: more specifically, words showing a close formal relation with the Latin equivalent from which they were borrowed, should stand the test of time better than original French creations. Additionally, being embedded in large word families with systematic and transparent correlations between form and meaning should also reinforce the use of these neologisms and help them survive. The study of nine morphological families shows that both criteria seem to be important for the survival of these neologisms. However, the size of the word family does not seem to have an influence on its survival. In a last stage of our analysis, we illustrate how Construction Morphology (Booij, 2010) can be used to represent the semantic and formal properties of affixal derivations.

Jaar van publicatie:2018

BOF-keylabel:ja

IOF-keylabel:ja

Authors from:Higher Education

Toegankelijkheid:Open