Shifting of meaning as a creative resource: Chromatic Neology

Abstract

Abstract: Colour words have symbolic meanings, which have been acquired over the years and through different cultures. This is why «colour» words are widely used to create new lexical units. In this article, the authors analyse an aspect of the names of colours that is relatively unstudied: their role in the shifting of meaning of a language’s new lexical units.
This linguistic study is based on fundamental linguistic anthropology concepts and also on the theoretical assumptions of Cognitive Semantics. After establishing fundamental notions, the study analyses a corpus of lexicographical polylexical neologisms containing a colour word. It focuses on the analysis of those units that include the word «green». The authors’ objective is to determine the semantic mechanisms and conceptual relationships that have generated new meanings of colour words or containing a colour word.

Key words: neology, shifting of meaning, semantic change, colours, metaphor, metonymy, cognitive linguistics.