Context-induced reinterpretation of phraseological verbs: Phrasal verbs in late modern English

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to examine the semantic changes affecting phraseological verbs, and specifically phrasal verbs (hereafter PVs), during the Late Modern English period (1750–1850). In particular, the objective is to describe cases of context-induced reinterpretation and the related phenomena of lexicalization and/or idiomatization. Semantic changes undergone by PVs to date have mainly been linked to metaphoric and metonymic processes and to analogical thinking (Brinton 1988). However, they have never been examined following a phraseological perspective (Sinclair 1991, 2004), and considering the “extended” context of use (Stubbs 2002) as catalyst for change. In this view, if the meaning of a single word is the result of its interaction with the immediate context (Bublitz 1996), then the semantic evolution of PVs should be seen as the result of their context-induced reinterpretation. The present research has been conducted on the Late Modern English-Old Bailey Corpus (1750–1850), a corpus compiled by drawing texts from the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London Central Criminal Court, and annotated with the Visual Interactive Syntax Learning interface (VISL). The findings reveal that the lexical environment has played a major role in the semantic renewal of PVs: they were affected by the development of aspectual properties in some cases, in others, they were instead characterized by the intensification of the already acquired aspectual features, both driven by processes of lexicalization and idiomatization.