Limitaciones y nuevos retos de la semántica léxica

Abstract

The goals of this contribution are threefold: 1) to provide a brief overview of the limitations in lexical semantics in the past; 2) to outline the attempts to surmount these limitations; 3) to describe new issues and current perspectives in lexical semantics. The starting point is thus a critical discussion of problems dealing with lexical meaning and the nature of semantic oppositions in European structural linguistics, in order to subsequently analyse the efforts which have been made to resolve them via the integration of grammatical meaning, considerations of the close relationship of semantics and pragmatics and the broadening of the horizon towards the cognitive complexity of extra-linguistic features. Finally, we present the new challenges encountered by the traditional restriction of semantics to lexicology, in the domains of the syntax-lexicon interface, lexical variation, terminology, neology, the semantics of locutions and the neurocognitive dimension of the lexicon.