In semantics and lexical typology, colexification is the ability for a language to express different meanings with the same word.
When a language colexifies several concepts, this is generally understood as a sign that these concepts are semantically related.The only exception would be cases of homophony, when two semantically unrelated words sound (or look) identical for accidental reasons. Homophony is not central to the study of colexification. Research in lexical typology has thus been using colexification as a tool to measure semantic similarity between concepts.See Gander (2021), Karjus et al. (2021).
Definition Colexification describes the case of different meanings being expressed by the same word (i.e., "co-lexified") in a language. For example, the two senses which are distinguished in English as people and village are colexified in Spanish, which uses in both cases.Online Spanish-English Cambridge dictionary, entry pueblo.
Colexification is meant as a neutral descriptive term that avoids distinguishing between vagueness, polysemy, and homonymy. Some cases of colexification are common across the world (e.g. 'blue' = 'green'); others are typical of certain linguistic and cultural areas (e.g. 'tree' = 'fire' among Papuan and Australian languages;See Schapper et al. (2016). or 'thunder' = 'dragon' in the Sino-Tibetan languagesSee Ding & Dong (2024).).
The opposite of "-lexify" is "-lexify", i.e. 'express two meanings using different lexical forms'.François (2022:95). Thus, Russian colexifies 'arm' and 'hand' using the single word , but Spanish dislexifies these two meanings using two distinct words, respectively v. .
Examples
+LanguageWord formsense 1sense 2sense 3Basque'village''people''country'Spanish'village''people'Catalan'feel''hear'French'woman''wife''girl''daughter''large''tall (in size)''grown up (in age)'English'mother's brother''father's brother''aunt's husband''pull, drag''depict w/ lines'Kriolgilim'hit''kill'Chinese'sky''heaven''day'Japanese'tree''wood'Motapane-'arm''hand''wing'Italian'hello''goodbye'VietnameseLSF (sign) 'hello''thanks'(sign)'(s.o.) kind, nice''(s.th.) easy'
Use in linguistic studies The term was coined by the linguist Alexandre François in his 2008 article "Semantic maps and the typology of colexification". This article illustrated the notion with various examples, including the semantic domains of { }, { }, { }. The latter notion is at the source of a colexification network that is attested in several languages, linking together such senses as 'breath', 'life', 'soul', 'spirit', 'ghost'...: Sanskrit ; Ancient Greek , ; Latin , ; Arabic , etc. François built on that example to propose a method for constructing lexical semantic maps.
Several studies have taken up the concept of colexification and applied it to different semantic domains and various language families.See the bibliography.
Colexification is also the object of a dedicated database, known as CLiCS "Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications".See List et al. (2018) and Rzymski et al. (2020). Based on data from more than 2400 language varieties of the world, the database makes it possible to check the typological frequency of individual instances of colexification,For example, the colexification pair 'hear'–'feel'. and to visualize semantic networksFor example, the subgraph around the notion { } based on empirical data from the world's languages.
See also Homograph Onomasiology Ontology Polysemy Synonymy Semantic change Semantic maps
Notes
References
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Gast, Volker & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm. 2018. The areal factor in lexical typology. In D. Olmen, T. Mortelmans & F. Brisard (eds), Aspects of linguistic variation, 43–82. Berlin: DeGruyter.
Georgakopoulos, Thanasis, Daniel A. Werning, Jörg Hartlieb, Tomoki Kitazumi, Lidewij van de Peut, Annette Sundermeyer & Gaëlle Chantrain. 2016. The meaning of ancient words for 'earth': An exercise in visualizing colexification on a semantic map . In Gerd Graßhoff & Michael Meyer (eds), Space and Knowledge. Special issue of eTopoi. Journal for Ancient Studies 6. 418–452.
Pericliev, Vladimir. 2015. On colexification among basic vocabulary. Journal of Universal Language 16(2). 63–93. .
Urban, Matthias. 2012. Analyzability and semantic associations in referring expressions. Leiden University PhD dissertation.
External links CLiCS "Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications".