Lexical Variation and Change

This article discusses the contribution of cognitive linguistics to diachronic lexicology and describes how lexical studies within cognitive linguistics are gradually and naturally evolving toward a sociolexicological approach that links up with sociolinguistics. It takes the distinction between semasiology and onomasiology as its basic organizing principle. Based on this distinction, the article charts the field of onomasiology (probably the lesser known of the two subfields of lexicology) and examines the contribution of cognitive linguistics to that field. It also illustrates the importance of sociolexicology for the study of onomasiological variation and change, with references to sociolinguistic studies at large within cognitive linguistics. There are two ways in which cognitive linguistics contributes to diachronic semasiology: by employing such mechanisms of semantic change as metaphor and metonymy, which cognitive linguistics has shed new light on, and by exploiting the prototype-based structure of polysemy. This article also considers prototype theory, modulations on the core cases, the development of radial sets, semantic polygenesis, semantic change from subsets, and referential and nonreferential types of meaning.SCOPUS: ch.b