The relation between semantic structure and conceptual structure from a diachronic perspective

The relation between word meaning and conceptual structure is operationalized in the present study in terms of congruence between the semasiological and the onomasiological perspectives on word meaning. Thus, the relation between semantic structure and conceptual structure is investigated from two opposing directions.

Analysis on the semasiological level answers the question: ‘given linguistic element x, what meaning does it express in terms of y?’. Analysis on the onomasiological level answers the question: ‘given concept y, what linguistic element or elements can it be expressed with?’ (cf. Chapter 2). Chapters 3 and 4 suggested that the semantic categories of causal verbs and causal connectives reflect the conceptual

categories of ‘directness’, ‘animacy’ and ‘subjectivity’. Findings presented in Chapters 3 and 4 support the assumption underlying this study that semantic structure reflects conceptual structure from a synchronic perspective.

Additional evidence may be obtained by investigating the same relation from a diachronic perspective. The reasoning presented above implies that the relation between semantic categories and conceptual categories must be diachronically robust. For if usage of causality markers and our conceptual understanding of causality are interrelated, it should be assumed that usage of causality markers does not change (fundamentally) unless the corresponding understanding changes at the same time. Stating the hypothesis that no change in the meaning of dus and daarom (in their causality marking function) is to be expected unless our understanding of causality itself changes in one respect or the other, boils down to saying that within the causality marking function, no semasiological change can occur unless induced by an onomasiologically motivated one.

Strong indications that semasiological semantic change and conceptual factors are related indeed, come from the study of the diachronic development of the Dutch causal verb doen by Verhagen (1998; 2000). Verhagen shows that a relative change in distribution of this causal verb over animacy configurations that occurred (from the 18^th century onward) is paralleled by a change in our understanding of how the social world functions. The change will be illustrated with reference to the fragment in (1) (from the 1872 Dutch novel Sarah Burgerhart, written by Betje Wolff and Aagje Deken; taken (including translation) from Verhagen 2000: 277)

(1) Ja, ik heb genoeg gezegd om u te doen weten, dat ik u bemin…

Yes, I have said enough to you in order to make [lit: do] you know that I love you…

Modern speakers of Dutch are perfectly able to interpret this sentence, but experience a ‘strangeness’ that resides in the marking of the sentence with doen (Verhagen 2000: 262). Nowadays, similar events would rather be linguistically reported making use of laten as a causality marker, as in (2):

(2) Ja, ik heb genoeg gezegd om u te laten weten, dat ik u bemin…

Verhagen contends that it is not (only) doen’s meaning that has changed since the time (1) was written, but rather our understanding of the way people may interact in their social environments. Modern speakers of Dutch would typically categorize the event depicted in (1) and (2) as a case of ‘indirect causation’: as a matter of

principle, nobody can interfere with other people’s minds directly, at least if it concerns processes or states of cognition, emotion or intention to act (Verhagen &

Kemmer 1997; D’Andrade 1987; cf. discussion in Chapter 3). This understanding is typically marked by choosing laten as a marker of the causal relation, signaling that the causee, u (‘you’), is perceived as having a relevant amount of autonomy in this causal process.

Verhagen argues that the 18^th century speaker’s choice of doen in this context must be interpreted along the very same lines: in the 18^th century social relations, the concept of ‘authority’ played a far more important role than it does in

Dutch society nowadays. While people of similar social status were not perceived as being capable of interfering with each other’s minds directly, people carrying authority were construed as having this power indeed. The causer in (1) derives authority from gender differences: the causer is male whereas the causee is female.

Verhagen points out that according to 18^th century culture (at least according to the system of morals present in this novel) the proper relationship between man and wife is one characterized by authority (2000: 276²). On these grounds, Verhagen argues, for 18^th century speakers doen was a logical choice; while for speakers of 21^st Dutch language gender differences would (on average) not license differences in the understanding and linguistic construal of personal interaction.

Verhagen’s findings may be interpreted as an illustration that the close relationship between the linguistic expression of causality and its conceptual understanding, the central hypothesis tested throughout this whole study – may exist not only from a synchronic perspective, but from a diachronic perspective as well.

The findings show that an important change in the usage pattern of doen is induced by a change in the conceptual models of personal and social interaction that guide the interpretation of causal processes marked by doen or its counterpart laten. In other words, in this case, a change in the language user’s conceptualization of causal processes produced an onomasiological ‘problem’ that was solved by revising the relative distribution of usage-schemas over doen and laten, thus causing change at the semasiological level.

The present chapter explores the diachronic ‘robustness’ of the relation between semantic categories and conceptual concepts by investigating the diachronic development of the causal connectives dus and daarom. It aims at providing additional testing of the central hypothesis of this study. Moreover, under the assumption that the relation between concepts and meaning holds from a diachronic perspective as well, the diachronic analysis of dus and daarom is expected to shed more light on their synchronic semantic structure. The findings in Chapter 4 suggest that dus is prototypically used in subjective contexts with an ‘implicit speaker SOC’

and that daarom is prototypically used in objective, animate causality contexts with an ‘explicit SOC’. The differences in distribution are significant (cf. Section 4.5), but the usage frequency of both dus and daarom in their ‘non-prototypical contexts’

is considerable. If the argumentation presented above holds, it is to be expected that the prototypical usage contexts of both dus and daarom remain unchanged over centuries, unless a change occurred at onomasiological level. This will be the hypothesis tested in the present chapter. If the hypothesis is corroborated, findings will be interpreted as additional evidence for the ideas presented in Chapter 4.

2 As a matter of fact, Verhagen (2000: 273; 1998) did not only find evidence for this

‘authority’ explanation in gender factors, but he also found that causers that had to be classified as ‘institutional authorities’ in the particular context, were marked significantly more often with doen. In the 21^st century still, institutional authority may license doen as a causality marker in inducive causative constructions (Verhagen 2000: 270; Verhagen &

Kemmer 1997); cf. discussion in Chapter 2).

The argumentation presented in this section proceed from the assumption that a relation exists between synchronic meaning structure and diachronic semantic change. In the next section this idea will be elaborated.