Att vara semantiska utvidgningar på spåren : Konceptuella motiveringar för betydelseutvidgningarna av engelskans polysema substantiv track

This study examines the various senses of the polysemous noun track and the conceptual motivations for each of these distinct senses. A corpus sample of 600 random instances of the noun track from the BNC was closely analysed with the aid of dictionaries in order to first identify the basic sense of the noun and then to determine the conceptual motivations for the semantic extensions of the remaining senses. The investigation shows that each extended sense appears to have been conceptually motivated by one of the mechanisms of semantic change: specialisation, generalisation, literal similarity, metonymy and metaphor. The results also illustrate the benefits of a cognitive approach in the study of polysemy and lexical change.