In this research a linguistic study has been carried out from the perspective of cognitive semantics on the mechanisms of categorization and semasiological lexical generation of popular plant names (phytonyms). More specifically, of the mechanisms of categorization and semasiological lexical generation: metaphor and metonymy with which polysemy is achieved. Thus, some theoretical tools of cognitive semantics such as Geeraerts' Prototype Theory (1997 and 2010) will be used. In short, cultural history and experience are the basis for the creation of phytonyms and most of them have originated from changes 3) Ephemeral semantic changes: semantic polygenesis and 4) Encyclopedic nature of semantic change.
TopMethodology
We made a search of the possible existing phytonyms in the locality of Xixona, Alacant. To carry out this task we used the manuals of Pellicer (2000 and 2004), Climent (1985, 1988, and 1993) and Masclans (1981). Once located, we began interviews with several informants. First with the visualization of images and then with field work, that is, with visits to identify phytonyms. We selected possible interviewees. The characteristics we were looking for in these informants were that they knew the countryside and also that they were recognized for their wisdom about plants and their uses: farmers, shepherds, forest rangers, hunters, healers (almost always women)... but with direct knowledge of phytonyms, without the influence of the cultured or standard model1.
From this first part, an inventory was made which has served us for the study of the lexicon, as mentioned above, from the perspective of cognitive semantics. As a reference we have used the manuals of Geeraerts (1997 and 2010) and as examples those of Martines (1999, 2000a and 2000b) and Montserrat (2007). We have used Geeraerts’ prototype theory and studied the mechanisms of semasiological lexical generation.
Cognition And Linguistic Expression Of The World
The following is a brief description of the basic concepts of cognitive linguistics, the paradigm in which the most current work on semantics is inserted, since this will be the theory we will adopt. We will describe, above all, the following concepts: categorization, prototype theory and lexical generation mechanisms. For a more exhaustive study see Ungerer and Shmid (1996), Cuenca and Hilferthy (1999) and Geeraerts (1997 and 2010).
Cognitive semantics emerged in the 1980s as part of cognitive linguistics, a loosely structured stream of theorists who opposed the autonomy of grammar and the secondary position of semantics in generativist language theory. Four are the specific contributions of cognitive semantics to the study of word meaning: the prototype model of category structure, the conceptual theory of metaphor and metonymy, idealized cognitive models and frame theory, and the contributions of cognitive semantics to the study of meaning change. These four themes illustrate three main ideas of a cognitive linguistic conception of language: the belief in contextual flexibility, the pragmatics of meaning, the conviction that meaning is a cognitive phenomenon that exceeds word boundaries, and the principle that meaning implies perspective (Geeraerts 2010, p. 182).
Semantics from the cognitive point of view is encyclopedic because it attempts to prove that our thinking is experiential and imaginative. The human mind is able to deal with its environment because of its ability to imagine, that is, to create elaborate representations of the world around us and to represent our own view of the world around the organism (Chafe, 1990, p. 80).