The Motivations for the Semantic Change in the Category Green in Arabic: A Synchronic and Diachronic Corpus-Based Analysis

Abstract

The present article analyses the semantic structure of the colour term أخضر (aḫḍar) (green) in Arabic to establish whether it has undergone a change in terms of meanings and prototypes and to identify the motivating factors for its semantic change. The current study compares and contrasts the polysemy of أخضر (aḫḍar) (green) in premodern texts and modern texts. To explore the meanings of the word أخضر (aḫḍar) (green) and to identify its most frequent collocates and thus most prototypical meanings, the study employs the ArabiCorpus (Arabic Corpus Search Tool). The data collected on the term are analysed in accordance with Rosch’s [1] [2] prototype theory, and Lakoff and Johnson’s [3] conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor. The results show that أخضر (aḫḍar) scores highly in its average occurrence in both premodern texts and modern texts and maintains its favourable meaning despite the variance in its prototypical meanings across the selected subcorpora. Its semantic expansion is motivated by conceptual metonymy, conceptual metaphor and loan translation respectively.