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2022
ВЕСТНИК САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА ИСТОРИЯ
Т. 67. Вып. 3
ИСТОРИОГРАФИЯ, ИСТОЧНИКОВЕДЕНИЕ И МЕТОДЫ ИСТОРИЧЕСКОГО ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
Discourse of Loyalty, Subjecthood and Citizenship: from Medieval to Modern Practices
M. Radulovic
For citation: Radulovic M. Discourse of Loyalty, Subjecthood and Citizenship: from Medieval to Modern Practices. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History, 2022, vol. 67, issue 3, pp. 930-944. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2022.315
The article discusses historical, linguistic, and discursive aspects of the nouns loyalty, subjecthood, and citizenship. The focus is on the historical lexico-semantic changes of the three nouns, which demonstrate that denotations are modified in different historical contexts. The analysis starts with D. Sperber and D. Wilson's assumption that the correspondence between concepts and words may be one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, or a combination of these since it is quite implausible that there is an exhaustive one-to-one mapping between mental concepts and public words. Words can be used in different contexts and discourses, and the synchronic semasiological approach may not always provide the full specification of word meaning, especially when the meaning of abstract nouns is analyzed. As argued by H.-J. Schmid, the formation of concrete concepts is different from the formation of abstract concepts, the latter being more complex as it can depend on many different experiences, which can make it difficult to form a single stable abstract concept. In the report on their experiments, S. J. Crutch and E. K. Warrington's assertion would be that abstract concepts are represented in an associative neural network while concrete concepts have a categorical organization. This suggests that concrete words are more likely to be understood adequately, and, vice versa, abstract words — inadequately. Moreover, our understanding of words and the world can change over time because our experiences and historical circumstances can and do change. This article considers the issue of abstract concept-formation with regard to both synchronic and diachronic lexico-semantic aspects of the nouns loyalty, subjecthood, and citizenship. These aspects are analyzed in accordance with the lexico-semantic frameworks provided by the second edition
Milica Radulovic — PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Nis, 2, Cirila i Metodija st., Nis, 18000, Serbia; milica.radulovic@filfak.ni.ac.rs; mlcradulovic2@gmail.com
Милица Радулович — PhD, доц., Нишский университет, Сербия, 18000, Ниш, ул. Кирилла и Ме-фодия, 2; milica.radulovic@filfak.ni.ac.rs; mlcradulovic2@gmail.com
© St Petersburg State University, 2022
of the University of Glasgow's Historical Thesaurus of English. The aim is to demonstrate that the meanings of the three nouns can be understood more adequately if their lexico-semantic features are compared and contrasted not only synchronically but also diachronically. Another aim is to show that a better understanding of the nouns relies on both synchronically and diachronically contextualized knowledge.
Keywords: loyalty, subjecthood, citizenship, concept, lexico-semantic features, synchronic, diachronic.
Дискурс лояльности, субъектности и гражданственности:
от Cредневековья к современным практикам
М. Радулович
Для цитирования: Radulovic M. Discourse of Loyalty, Subjecthood and Citizenship: from Medieval to Modern Practices // Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. История. 2022. Т. 67.
Вып. 3. С. 930-944. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2022.315
В статье рассматриваются историко-лингвистические и дискурсивные аспекты существительных 'лояльность, 'субъектность' и 'гражданственность'. Основное внимание уделяется историческим лексико-семантическим изменениям трех существительных, которые демонстрируют, что денотации модифицируются в разных исторических контекстах. Анализ начинается с предположения Д. Спербера и Д. Уилсона о том, что соответствие между понятиями и словами может быть взаимно-однозначным, один-ко-многим, многие-к-одному или их комбинацией, поскольку совершенно невероятно, чтобы существовало соответствие, исчерпывающее однозначное сопоставление между ментальными понятиями и публичными словами. Слова могут использоваться в разных контекстах и дискурсах, и синхронический семасиологический подход не всегда может обеспечить полную спецификацию значения слова, особенно когда анализируется значение абстрактных существительных. Как утверждал Х. Й. Шмид, формирование конкретных понятий отличается от формирования абстрактных понятий, причем последний процесс более сложен, поскольку может зависеть от множества различных переживаний, что способно затруднить формирование единого устойчивого абстрактного понятия. В отчете о своих экспериментах Д. Кратч и Э. Уоррингтон утверждают, что абстрактные понятия представлены в ассоциативной нейронной сети, в то время как конкретные понятия имеют категориальную организацию. Это говорит о том, что конкретные слова чаще понимаются адекватно и, наоборот, абстрактные слова — неадекватно. Более того, наше понимание слов и мира может меняться со временем, потому что наш опыт и исторические обстоятельства могут меняться и меняются. В данной статье рассматривается проблема абстрактного концептообразования применительно как к синхроническому, так и к диахроническому лексико-семантическому аспектам существительных 'лояльность', 'субъектность' и 'гражданственность'. Эти аспекты анализируются в соответствии с лексико-семантической структурой, предоставленной вторым изданием «Исторического тезауруса английского языка» Университета Глазго. Цель состоит в том, чтобы продемонстрировать, что значения трех существительных могут быть поняты более адекватно, если их лексико-семантические признаки сравнивать и противопоставлять не только синхронически, но и диахронически. Другая цель состоит в том, чтобы показать, что лучшее понимание существительных опирается на знание, контекстуализированное как синхронически, так и диахронически.
Ключевые слова: лояльность, субъектность, гражданственность, концепт, лексико-се-мантические признаки, синхрония, диахрония.
Introduction1
The nouns loyalty, subjecthood, and citizenship belong to the semantic category of abstract nouns, which are "typically nonobservable and nonmeasurable"2 as opposed to concrete nouns, which are "accessible to the senses, observable, measurable, etc."3 Abstract nouns denote abstractions, such as events, states, qualities and times, and some nouns can have both abstract and concrete denotations4. Generally, the analysis addresses the issue of abstract concept-formation which, as Schmid5 argues, does not only involve naming categories of things because we cannot say that there is one bounded class of entities or experiences we have in our minds when we use abstract words. A concept can be defined as "an enduring elementary mental structure, which is capable of playing different discriminatory or inferential roles on different occasions in an individual's mental life"6. Although, on the one hand, concrete nouns are conceptualized more easily and can have stable denotations as they stand for observable things, on the other hand, as Schmid suggests, it is an illusion that, firstly, all words stand for one single neatly bounded entity and, secondly, that this neatly bounded entity stands for a thing with its own substance. Following these ideas, this article traces the history of denotations of the three nouns. The analysis of the specific historical contexts behind the lexico-semantic changes is beyond the scope of this article.
Nouns belong to the so-called open-class words in the lexical system of a language. R. Quirk, S. Greenbaum, G. Leech, and J. Svartvik point out that the classification into the closed and open classes has been used in the analysis of the Indo-European languages since classical antiquity7. The closed classes include prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, modal verbs, and primary verbs, and the open classes include nouns, adjectives, full verbs and adverbs. Open classes are open in the sense that new words can be added to these groups of words, whereas closed classes are extended only in exceptional cases8. This means that new nouns, both concrete and abstract, can be added to the existing set of nouns because the existing set of nouns (stable lexicalized concepts/signs) cannot describe all there is to describe in the world.
1 The first version of the paper was presented at the international conference "Loyalty, Subjecthood, and Citizenship: Between Empire and Nation", organised by the Institute of History of Saint Petersburg University and the Department of History of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg, 4-5 February 2021, the Russian Federation.
2 Quirk R., Greenbaum S., Leech G., Svartvik J. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London; New York, 1985. P. 247.
3 Ibid.
4 Biber D., Conrad S., Leech G. Longman student grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow, 2002. P. 57.
5 Schmid H.-J. English abstract nouns as conceptual shells. Berlin; New York, 2000.
6 Sperber D., Wilson D. The mapping between the mental and the public lexicon. Language and thought: Interdisciplinary themes. Cambridge, 1998. P. 189.
7 Quirk R., Greenbaum S., Leech G., Svartvik J. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. P. 67-74.
8 In addition, there are two more classes of words: numerals and interjections. Numerals are open-class items in the sense that new members can be added infinitely, but they are also closed classes in the sense that the meanings of numbers are mutually exclusive and mutually defining. Interjections are considered as closed-system items since not many of them are fully institutionalized.
Sperber and Wilson argue that the idea that there is an exhaustive, one-to-one correspondence between concepts and words is quite implausible9. Instead, the authors suggest that the correspondence between concepts and words may be one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, or a combination of these. This is manifested in the lexical system of a language: for example, the lexico-semantic relation of polysemy (which can produce vagueness) and homonymy (which can produce lexical ambiguity) prove that words can lexicalize more than one concept, and the lexico-semantic relation of synonymy proves that one concept can be expressed with different forms. Another corollary of this is that two basic approaches can be taken in the analysis of word meaning: the first, semasio-logical approach, which studies what words can mean, and the second, onomasiological (lexicogenetic) approach, which explains how a concept is matched with a particular word or phrase. The onomasiological approach also explains the so-called "tip-of-the-tongue" phenomenon10 and the possibility to propose our own definitions, conceptualizations and descriptions of words. Traditional, semasiological types of dictionaries provide definitions and meanings of words and phrases, whereas onomasiological dictionaries are based on the concept-to-word direction. The thesaurus, or the synonym dictionary is probably the most well-known type of the onomasiological dictionary. Starting from Sperber and Wilson's11 assumption that mental concepts are not just internalizations of public words, the article examines the meanings of the nouns loyalty, subjecthood, and citizenship in accordance with the lexico-semantic frameworks provided by the second edition of the University of Glasgow's Historical Thesaurus of English12. The analysis aims to show that a better understanding of the nouns is possible if both synchronic and diachronic lexico-semantic features are compared and contrasted. The analysis also aims to demonstrate that a better understanding of the three nouns relies on both synchronically and diachronically con-textualized knowledge.
Theoretical background
F. de Saussure regarded the idea that the linguistic sign is arbitrary as Principle I in linguistics13. In his discussion14 on the nature of the linguistic sign, instead of the notions of concept and sound-image, de Saussure used the notions of signified [signifié] and signifier [signifiant] respectively, and the notion of sign [signe] was used to denote the relation between the signified and the signifier. The arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign means that there is no natural connection between the signified and the signifier, that is, the connection is unmotivated. However, when the relationship between the signified and signifier is more or less stabilized, the sign can be used by all speakers of a language, and therefore, it is not possible for the speaker to choose the signifier or change the sign freely. In other words, when signs are fixed, they are socially recognized form-meaning pairings/lexi-calized concepts/lexemes that belong to a language system (which has its phonological, morphosyntactic and lexical subsystems). When words become more or less stable signs,
9 Sperber D., Wilson D. The mapping between the mental and the public lexicon. P. 185.
10 Hartmann R. R. K., James G. Dictionary of lexicography. London; New York, 1998. P. 101-102, 124.
11 Sperber D., Wilson D. The mapping between the mental and the public lexicon. P. 184-185.
12 The Historical Thesaurus of English. URL: https://ht.ac.uk (accessed: 28.01.2021).
13 De Saussure F. Course in general linguistics. New York, 1959. P. 67.
14 Ibid. P. 65-70.
they become part of the lexicon of a language and can be used in different contexts and discourses to express more or less stable meanings. Words can then be used with different intentions, in different non-institutional and institutional settings, they can establish or break relationships among people, and have different kinds of effects and consequences in real life. For example, S. W. Clavier in her book on the culture of Wales from 1640 to 1688, analyzes the language of Welsh loyalism. The author asserts that "loyalty was a powerful brand and concept in the early modern period, and it was one that was significantly prized in Wales". As the author further argues, "loyalty was a political and religious idea, demonstrated through words, behaviour and ritual, and objects"15. Also, C. M. Barron discusses the concept of loyalty pointing out that "from at least as early as the late thirteenth century there had evolved an awareness that it was the office that mattered and not the officer", and, in this regard, one's "loyalty was to the crown, not the person of the king"16. R. Cust, in his biography of Charles I, argues that "it was possible to distinguish loyalty to the body of public authority that the king stood for from loyalty to his own private per-son"17 (cf. Table 1). In Tables 1, 2 and 3, the abbreviations OE, ME and ModE stand for Old English (OE: between about AD 700 and AD 1150), Middle English (ME: between about AD 1150 and 1500) and Modern English (ModE: since about AD 1500) respectively. Also, the abbreviations c, a, and Dict. stand for circa (about), ante (before) and dictionary respectively. The abbreviation Dict. means that a word appears in a dictionary or a similar type of book, but there is no evidence whether the word has been used in other contexts. As far as dates are concerned, these annotations are followed: 1) when a single date follows a word, this means the word has only one documented citation; 2) a dash that follows a date signals that the word is still in use, and 3) when a word is used with two dates, this shows the first and last recorded dates.
Sperber and Wilson argue that "the kind and degree of correspondence between concepts and words is a genuine and interesting empirical issue"18. Firstly, this means that we rely on the contextual information to understand the concept the word expresses. Secondly, this means that some words do not encode concepts at all, and, for example, this is the case with pronouns. Thirdly, there are concepts that do not have the corresponding words, and, therefore, these concepts are expressed with phrases. Fourthly, words can be used to express more than one concept, as evidenced by polysemy and ad hoc concepts formation, and not all meanings are always listed in the lexicon of a language. Moreover, synonyms demonstrate that more than one word can correspond to the same concept, and homonymy proves that more than one concept can correspond to a single word. Also, we may form our private, idiosyncratic, ineffable, non-lexicalized concepts.
The issues of word meaning, conceptualization of meaning and the organization of the lexical system is discussed in different theories of lexical semantics. In an overview of theories of lexical semantics, D. Geeraerts19 discusses five approaches: historical-philological semantics, structuralist semantics, generative semantics, neostructuralist semantics, and cognitive semantics20. The author defines historical-philological semantics as a theo-
15 Clavier S. W. Royalism, religion and revolution: Wales, 1640-1688. Woodbridge, 2021. P. 161.
16 Barron C. M. The political culture of medieval London. Medieval London: Collected papers of Caroline M. Barron. Kalamazoo, 2017. P. 535.
17 Cust R. Charles I: A political life. Harlow, 2005. P. 342.
18 Ibid. P. 184-189.
19 Geeraerts D. Theories of lexical semantics. Oxford, 2010. P. XIII-XIV
20 Refer to Geeraerts for further details on these theoretical approaches.
Table 1. Lexico-semantic features and synonyms for the noun loyalty
No. Lexico-semantic features Timeline Some synonyms
1 (society/morality) Duty, obligation/recognition of duty/ faithfulness, trustworthiness c1400- sopfxstnes OE; soothness 1297; faith c1250-; reliability 1810-; dependability 1928
2 (society/morality) Duty, obligation/recognition of duty/faithfulness, trustworthiness/ to a promise c1400- sop OE
3 (society/society and the community) Social attitudes/patriotism/ loyalty to sovereign 1531- A) society/society and the community/social attitudes/patriotism: epelwynn OE; patriotism 1716-; matriotism 1856 + 1885; B) society/society and the community/social attitudes/patriotism/loyalty to sovereign: loyalness 1592 + 1727 Dict.; loyality 1646
4 (society/morality) Duty, obligation/recognition of duty/faithfulness, trustworthiness/ fidelity, loyalty/ to sovereign, government 1531- A) society/morality/duty, obligation/recognition of duty/faithfulness, trustworthiness/fidelity, loyalty: holdscipe OE; faithfulness 1388-; adherence 1634-; B) society/morality/duty, obligation/recognition of duty/faithfulness, trustworthiness/fidelity, loyalty/to sovereign, government: loyality 1646; loyalism 1837-
5 (society/society and the community) Kinship, relationship/marriage, wedlock/ state of being 1660 A) society/society and the community/kinship, relationship/marriage, wedlock: xwnung OE; married life 1608-; matrimony c1325; marriage 1297-; B) society/society and the community/kinship, relationship/marriage, wedlock/state of being
6 (society/law) Rule of law/ specifically of marriage 1660 A) society/law/rule of law sibb OE; law c1175-; law and order 1598-; B) society/law/rule of law/specifically of marriage
7 (society/morality) Duty, obligation/recognition of duty/faithfulness, trustworthiness/ fidelity, loyalty/specifically of government employees 1955- A) society/morality/duty, obligation/recognition of duty/faithfulness, trustworthiness/fidelity, loyalty: holdscipe OE; faithfulness 1388-; adherence 1634-; B) society/morality/duty, obligation/recognition of duty/faithfulness, trustworthiness/fidelity, loyalty/ specifically of government
ry that deals with change of meaning. These semantic changes are mentioned: metaphor, metonymy, generalization, and specialization. M. Urban21 describes broadening (generalization), narrowing (specialization), metaphor and metonymy as the "classic" types of semantic change relevant for denotation and coded meaning. Similarly, B. W. Forston IV22 lists and reconsiders the following most common types of semantic change: metaphoric extension, metonymic extension, broadening, narrowing, melioration, and pejoration. In Geeraerts' review of theories of lexical semantics, the next mentioned approach is the
21 Urban M. Lexical semantic change and semantic reconstruction. The Routledge handbook of historical linguistics. London; New York, 2015. P. 374-375.
22 Fortson IVB. W. An approach to semantic change. The handbook of historical linguistics. Malden, 2003. P. 648-652.
structuralist semantics. The structuralist semantics relies on de Saussure's research, and the main idea is that language is a system that has its underlying principles which determine how words and word meanings are related within the language system. Generative semantics is considered a turning point in the history of lexical semantics since it combines the structuralist with the mentalist conceptualization of meaning. Neostructural-ist linguists study the borderline between linguistic meaning and cognition, and, lastly, cognitive semantics studies psychological and cognitive aspects of word meaning, i. e., conceptualizations and contextualizations of words. R. Bellamy refers to "different theories and practices of citizenship from ancient Greece to the present"23, i. e., to a historical review of different conceptions of citizenship that address the four questions related to the rights and duties of citizenship: what is citizenship, who can be a citizen, how we exercise citizenship and where citizenship is situated. For instance, J. G. A. Pocock24 argues that the advent of jurisprudence transformed the conception of the "citizen" from the zoon politikon to the legalis homo, and from the civis or polites to the bourgeois to the burger. The author also discusses the distinction between a classical "citizen" and an imperial or modern "subject" (cf. Tables 2 and 3).
In accordance with Sperber and Wilson's25 idea that mental concepts are not just internalisations of public words, this article considers the issue of abstract concept-formation in relation to synchronic and diachronic lexico-semantic features of the nouns loyalty, subjecthood, and citizenship. The analysis gives insight into historical-philological and mentalist aspects of word meaning. Firstly, this is a thesaurus-based study that examines the superordinate and subordinate semantic categories relative to the three nouns, in accordance with the view of philology as historical-philological, diachronic semantics (not philology as comparative philology, which can be defined as the study of the genetic relations between languages and the reconstruction of protolanguages26). Historical philological semantics classifies types of semantic change by relying on both above-mentioned basic mechanisms of change, the semasiological and onomasiological mechanisms27. Secondly, the analysis takes into account mentalist (conceptual) aspects of meaning. It accepts the structuralist lexical semantic view that the lexicon of a language is a system of related units, and that synchronic aspects of meaning should also be analysed. However, the analysis does not follow the structuralist lexical semantic view that only onomasiology, the mechanism of naming, should be central to the study of the lexicon. In fact, the paper follows Geeraerts's28 findings that structural relational semantics (which is a structuralist lexical semantic approach) cannot fulfill the structuralist goal to explain the major sense relations (hyponymy, synonymy, antonymy, and meronymy) without considering mental representations. This is so because sense relations do not seem to hold between full words, but between words in a specific context with a specific reading. By way of illustration, A. Vromen29 addresses the notion of citizenship in the digital environment, i. e.,
23 Bellamy R. Introduction: The theories and practices of citizenship // Citizenship: Critical concepts in political science. Vol. I. London; New York, 2014. P. 1-19.
24 Pocock J. G. A. The ideal of citizenship since classical times // Ibid. P. 67-85.
25 Sperber D., Wilson D. The mapping between the mental and the public lexicon. P. 185.
26 Geeraerts D. Theories of lexical semantics. P. 1.
27 Ibid. P. 25-31.
28 Ibid. P. 90.
29 Vromen A. Digital citizenship and political engagement: The challenge from online campaigning and advocacy organisations. London, 2017.
the context, development and practices of "digital citizenship" in the social media age, a new conception of citizenship norms. Also, the analysis demonstrates that sense relations are not at the basis of our knowledge of the semantics of words. Rather, our knowledge of the semantics of words is at the basis of our ability to attribute sense relations. Finally, following Geeraerts30, who finds similarities between cognitive lexical semantics and historical-philological semantics, with the difference that cognitive semantics analyzes the issues synchronically, while historical-philological semantics — diachronically, the article takes into account a psychological and encyclopaedic conception of linguistic meaning as well as a flexible nature of meaning. As regards the types of lexico-semantic relations (e. g. hyponymy, synonymy, antonymy, meronymy, etc.), this topic has been discussed extensively. For example, A. Cruse uses the term paradigmatic sense relations instead of the term lexico-semantic relations31. Cruse adopts the view that meanings are conceptual in nature, which is why sense relations are seen as relations between concepts, not lexemes32. Similarly, T. Prcic points out that paradigmatic sense relations are not relations between lexemes, but between specific components of meaning carried by lexemes, relevant to specific contexts33. This particular paper focuses on the formation of abstract concepts, which is, as argued by Schmid, different from the formation of concrete concepts in the sense that the formation of abstract concepts can depend on a range of different experiences, which makes it more difficult to form a single stable abstract concept34. Among all open-class words, the concept-forming power of words has the strongest effects with nouns. For example, full-content nouns have a relatively stable relationship to the experience that the concept frames. This is in line with W. Labov's findings that, although vague, the boundaries of categories of concrete entities have relatively strong conceptual boundaries in the range of contexts, or as the author suggests, "it is not true that everything varies, any more than it is true that everything remains distinct and discrete"35. In his study of the historical origin of the legal differentiation between citizens and non-citizens, K. Kim points out that words can be loaded with ideological significance, and that the longevity of legal terms, such us obligation, action, citizen etc. "only shows their remarkable versatility and ambiguity"36.
Furthermore, Crutch and Warrington37 report the experiments that demonstrate "the first evidence that abstract and concrete word meanings are based in representational systems that have qualitatively different properties"38. Their claim is that abstract
30 Ibid. P. 203.
31 Cruse A. Meaning in language: An introduction to semantics and pragmatics, second edition. Oxford, 2004. P. 141-171.
32 Cruse discusses two types of paradigmatic sense relations: 1) inclusion and identity; 2) exclusion and opposition. The first type includes hyponymy (hyponymy and entailment, hyponymy and transitivity, and taxonymy), meronymy (prototype features of meronymy, parts and pieces, transitivity of meronymy), synonymy (absolute synonymy, propositional synonymy and near-synonymy). The second type includes incompatibility, opposites (complementaries, antonymy, reversives, converses, markedness, and polarity).
33 Prcic T. Semantika i pragmatika reci, drugo, dopunjeno izdanje. Novi Sad, 2008. P. 121.
34 Schmid H.-J. English abstract nouns as conceptual shells.
35 Labov W. The boundaries of words and their meanings. New ways of analyzing variation in English. Washington, 1973. P. 367.
36 Kim K. Aliens in medieval law: the origins of modern citizenship. Cambridge, 2000. P. 173.
37 Crutch S. J., Warrington E. K. Abstract and concrete concepts have structurally different representational frameworks // Brain. 2005. Vol. 128, issue 3. P. 623.
38 Ibid. P. 615.
concepts are represented in an associative neural network while concrete concepts have a categorical organization. As regards the differences between the acquisition of concrete and abstract concepts, Crutch and Warrington39 draw attention to the difference between the acquisition of concrete concepts, which relies on our sensory experience, and the acquisition of abstract concepts, which depends on the co-text, context and discourse in which these abstract concepts are conveyed. Therefore, concrete words have more stable concepts, and abstract words have less stable concepts and trigger more associations and meanings, depending on the co-text and contexts of use. Likewise, Urban40 suggests that it is frequently recognized that semantic change has a sociolinguistic dimension. This is also consistent with Sperber and Wilson's41 view that the stabilization of concepts and words in a speech community is a social and historical phenomenon. It is a slow process that involves collective co-ordination over time.
Analysis and discussion
This section deals with the lexico-semantic features of the nouns loyalty, subjecthood, and citizenship. The lexico-semantic analysis of the nouns is based on the semantic frameworks provided by the second edition of the University of Glasgow's Historical Thesaurus of English. This dictionary is based on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)42 and it includes additional words from A Thesaurus of Old English43. The University of Glasgow's Historical Thesaurus of English was initiated by Professor Michael Samuels in 1965, and the first edition was completed under the supervision of Professor Christian Kay. The present director of the project is Professor Marc Alexander. According to the information given on the website, the historical thesaurus includes almost every recorded word in English from early medieval times to the present day, which means that both diachronic and synchronic lexico-semantic features of the words are given in the dictionary. The thesaurus classifies all words as belonging to three semantic frameworks: the External, Mental, and Social Worlds. These semantic categories are broken down into lower order categories, hierarchically organized from the more general to the more specific semantic groups. Accordingly, the semantic hierarchies determine the general and specific semantic content of all the words in the thesaurus, on the basis of which similarities and differences among the semantic components of the words can be seen.
Data. The thesaurus gives seven results for the noun loyalty, three for the noun citizenship, and two for the noun subjecthood. The nouns loyalty and citizenship belong to the general category of the Social World. The noun subjecthood has two meanings, one belonging to the Social and the other belonging to the Mental World. The analysis relies on the following data provided by the thesaurus: 1) the lexico-semantic features of the nouns loyalty, citizenship and subjecthood given in Tables 1-3 respectively; 2) the first attested date of use and the timeline of the use of the recorded senses, and 3) some examples of synonyms, given in Tables 1-3.
39 Crutch S. J., Warrington E. K. Abstract and concrete concepts... P. 623.
40 Ibid. P. 380.
41 Ibid. P. 198-199.
42 Oxford English Dictionary. URL: https://www.oed.com/ (accessed: 28.01.2021).
43 A Thesaurus ofOld English. URL: https://oldenglishthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk/ (accessed: 28.01.2021).
Loyalty. Table 1 presents the lexico-semantic features and some synonyms for the abstract noun loyalty and shows that the first and the second senses have been used since about 1400. The semantic categories (from the highest to the lowest order categories) for the first sense are society/morality/duty, obligation/recognition of duty/faithfulness, trustworthiness, and the second sense has the additional lexico-semantic feature to a promise. These lexico-semantic features together form the foundation for different ways of conceptualizing loyalty. The synonyms for the first sense in Group A are: sopfxstnes (OE), soothness (1297; ME; no longer in use), faith (used since about 1250), reliability (used since 1810), dependability (1928; ModE; no longer in use). The synonym for the second sense is sop from Old English. Furthermore, A Thesaurus of Old English provides details about the lexico-semantic features of sopfxstnes44. This word can be conceptualized in three ways, i. e., it can be related to three different combinations of lexico-semantic features: 1) mental faculties/spirit, soul, heart/the head as seat of thought/ truth, conformity with absolute standard/truth of speech or thought, veracity; 2) social interaction/an obligation, bounden duty/observance, keeping/truth, faithfulness, good faith, sincerity, and 3) social interaction / an obligation, bounden duty/truth, righteousness, justice, equity. This means that a diachronic relation between the Modern English word loyalty and the Old English word sopfxstnes can be identified as these two words share similar semantic features (e. g. loyalty: society, duty, obligation and sopfxstnes: social interaction, obligation, duty).
Cruse suggests that language users can intuitively identify words as near-synonyms or non-synonyms45, and that absolute synonymy does not constitute a significant feature of natural vocabularies46. Therefore, no one is confused by thesauri, i. e., why certain words are regarded as synonyms. It stands to reason that this view can be accepted because we adjust words to contexts, not contexts to words. In addition, it can be assumed that this view can be accepted for historical thesauri as well for the following reasons: 1) onomasiological dictionaries have concept-to-word direction, which means that not lexemes, but meanings in contexts/conceptualizations of segments of reality can be compared and contrasted; 2) discovering synonyms is based on forming associations and inferences about the qualities ascribed to referents in the physical, social, and mental worlds; this is especially relevant for abstract concept formation, which does not rely on sensory experience; 3) Sperber and Wilson47 indicate that there is a difference between inferences and associations: all inferential relations are associations, but not all associations are inferential; comparing and contrasting different conceputalizations (based on inferences and associations) can be more or less cognitively effortful, more or less subjective and defeasible, so we can expect to have different conclusions about 'how synonymous' synonyms are.
The synonyms for the senses 3-7 are classified into subgroups A) and B). Subgroup B is different from subgroup A in that it has synonyms for the sense that has an additional semantic feature. For instance, the semantic features for the third recorded sense, used since 1531, are these: A) society/society and the community/social attitudes/patriotism and B) society/society and the community/social attitudes/patriotism/loyalty to sovereign. The
44 For further details about this and other words, refer to the University of Glasgow's Historical Thesaurus of English, A Thesaurus of Old English, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Bosworth Toller's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary online.
45 Cruse A. Meaning in language. P. 156.
46 Ibid. P. 155.
47 Sperber D., Wilson D. A deflationary account of metaphors. The Cambridge handbook of metaphor
and thought. Cambridge, 2008. P. 98.
sense B) has an additional semantic feature — loyalty to sovereign — which slightly changes the concept. The synonyms in Group A are: epelwynn (OE), patriotism (since 1716; ModE), and matriotism (1856 + 1885; ModE, no longer in use), and synonyms in Group B are loyalness (1592 + 1727 Dict.; ModE, no longer in use) and loyality (1646; ModE; no longer in use). The synonyms in Group B are different forms belonging to the same morphological/derivational paradigms, but neither of them has survived. This may be evidence that the morphological and phonological forms are arbitrary, i. e. it is not clear why loyality and loyalness have not survived, while loyalty has. Again, A Thesaurus of Old English can be used to discover that words from Old English can be considered synonyms for Middle and Modern English words. For example, the word epelwynn in A Thesaurus of Old English has two senses: 1) social interaction/ a province, country, territory/ native land/ joy of ownership/country and 2) property/ landed property/ownership, possession/joy in land ownership. The relation between loyalty and epelwynn can be identified since these two words share similar semantic features (e. g. loyalty: society and the community, patriotism and epelwynn: social interaction, joy of ownership/country).
The fourth recorded sense, used since 1531, has these semantic features: society/morality/duty, obligation/recognition of duty/faithfulness, trustworthiness/fidelity, loyalty/to sovereign, government. The synonyms in Group A (which does not include the semantic feature to sovereign, government) are: holdscipe (OE) faithfulness (since 1388; ME) adherence (since 1634; ModE). The synonyms in Group B (which includes the semantic feature to sovereign, government) are loyality (1646; ModE; no longer in use) and loyalism (since 1837; ModE). This group also shows that synonyms can be found diachronically through the analysis of the lexico-semantic features of the nouns. According to A Thesaurus of Old English, the noun holdscipe has the following features: social interaction/ power, might/ power, control, sway/ authority/loyalty. The relation between loyalty and holdscipe can be established since these two words share similar semantic features (e. g. loyalty: society, loyalty to sovereign, government and holdscipe: social interaction, power, authority, loyalty). This group also shows that some nouns belong to the same morphological/derivational paradigm. The noun loyalty and loyalism are still used, whereas the noun loyality is no longer in use.
The fifth and the sixth senses of the noun loyalty were used in 1660. The fifth sense has the following features: society/society and the community/kinship, relationship/marriage, wedlock/state of being, and the sixth sense has the following features: society/law/rule of law/specifically of marriage. These semantic features show that the fifth and the sixth senses are different from the senses 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7, which are used in Modern English. The first four senses of the word loyalty have been used for centuries, whereas the seventh sense has been used since 1955.
The last, seventh sense of the noun loyalty has been used since 1955. The semantic features are almost identical with the semantic features relevant for the fourth sense, and the only slight difference is that the fourth sense has the semantic feature to sovereign, government, and the seventh sense has the feature specifically of government employees. Therefore, the synonyms in Group A for both senses are the same. As regards Group B, the synonyms for sense 4 are loyality (1646; ModE; no longer in use) and loyalism (since 1837; ModE), and there are no synonyms for sense 7. The seventh sense has been used since 1955, and no synonyms have been discovered since that date.
Citizenship. Table 2 presents the lexico-semantic features and some synonyms for the abstract noun citizenship.
Table 2. Lexico-semantic features and synonyms for the noun citizenship
No. Lexico-semantic features Timeline Some synonyms
1 (society/inhabiting and dwelling/ inhabitant/inhabitant according to environment) Inhabitant/town-, city-dweller/ status of citizenship 1611 Dict. + a1792- A) society/inhabiting and dwelling/inhabitant/ inhabitant according to environment/town-, city-dweller: burgleod OE; town-dweller 1483-; B) society/inhabiting and dwelling/inhabitant/ inhabitant according to environment/town-, city-dweller/status of citizenship:portery/portary 1565 Scots
2 (society/inhabiting and dwelling) Inhabitant/opposed to foreigner, visitor/status of citizenship a1831- A) society/inhabiting and dwelling/inhabitant: bigenga OE; resident 1463; resider 1632; B) society/inhabiting and dwelling/inhabitant/opposed to foreigner, visitor: citizen c1380-; denizen a1500-; native 1800-; C) society/inhabiting and dwelling/inhabitant/ opposed to foreigner, visitor/ status of citizenship: civility 1382-a1568; denizenship 1603-1871; citizenhood 1871
3 (society/ law) Legal right / right of specific class, person, place/status, rights of being a citizen 1611 Dict. + a1792- A) society/ law/legal right/right of specific class, person, place: frumgifu OE; privilege-privilegium OE + a1225-prerogative c1425-; B) society/ law/legal right/right of specific class, person, place/ status, rights of being a citizen: burhmdden OE; burgessy 1340-1700; civility 1382-a1568; free burghership a1568; burgess-ship a1449-; citizenhood 1871
Table 2 shows that the noun citizenship is related to three sets of lexico-semantic features. The first sense has these features: society/inhabiting and dwelling/inhabitant/inhabitant according to environment/town-, city-dweller/ status of citizenship. Group A gives synonyms for the sense that has the following semantic features: society/inhabiting and dwelling/inhabitant/inhabitant according to environment/town-, city-dweller. These are burgleod (OE) and town-dweller (since 1483; ME). According to A Thesaurus of Old English, the noun burgleod has these semantic features: life and death/humankind/a family, household/an inhabitant/populace of a town, city/a citizen. The relation between citizenship and burgleod can be established since these two words share similar semantic features (e. g. citizenship: inhabitant according to environment/town-, city-dweller and burgleod: populace of a town, city/a citizen). Group B has the synonym portery/portary 1565 (Scots, ModE; no longer in use).
The second sense has these features: society/inhabiting and dwelling/inhabitant/ opposed to foreigner, visitor/ status of citizenship. The synonyms are classified into three groups. Group A has synonyms for the sense that has the semantic features society/inhabiting and dwelling/inhabitant. These are bigenga (OE), resident (1463; ME; no longer in use) and resider (1632; ModE; no longer in use). The dates show that the nouns (which have the above-mentioned lexico-semantic features) have not been used for a very long time.
Group B has synonyms for the sense that has these semantic features: society/inhabiting and dwelling/inhabitant/opposed to foreigner, visitor. These are the nouns citizen (since about 1380), denizen (since before 1500) and native (since 1800). Group C has the following synonyms: civility (1382 — before 1568; no longer in use), denizenship (1603-1871; ModE, no longer in use), and citizenhood (1871; ModE, no longer in use). The last form citizenhood is morphologically related to the form citizenship, but it is no longer in use.
The third sense has the following features: society/ law/legal right/right of specific class, person, place/ status, rights of being a citizen. The synonyms are classified into two groups. Group A has synonyms for the sense that includes the semantic features: society/ law/legal right/right of specific class, person, place. These are the nouns frumgifu (OE), privilege-priv-ilegium (OE) + (since before 1225; ME and ModE), prerogative (since about 1425). The noun privilege-privilegium is a very old word; it was used in Old English, then reappeared before 1225 and has been used ever since. Group B has synonyms for the sense which includes these semantic features: society/law/legal right/right of specific class, person, place/ status, rights of being a citizen. These are the following nouns: burhrndden (OE), bur-gessy (1340-1700; ME-ModE; no longer in use), civility (1382-before 1568; ME-ModE; no longer in use), free burghership (before 1568; no longer in use), burgess-ship (since before 1449) and citizenhood (1871; ModE; no longer in use). The nouns burhrndden (OE), burgessy (1340-1700; no longer in use), burghership (before 1568, no longer in use) and burgess-ship (since before 1449) belong to the same diachronic derivational paradigm, and only the last noun is still used in Modern English.
Subjecthood. Table 3 presents the lexico-semantic features and some synonyms for the abstract noun subjecthood.
Table 3. Lexico-semantic features and synonyms for the noun subjecthood
No. Lexico-semantic features Timeline Some synonyms
1 (society/authority) Subjection/condition of being a subject 1856- A) society/authority/subjection: geongordom OE; danger c1350-1535; subjection a1397-; vassalry 1594-c1600; vassalage 1595-; subserviency 1646-; subordination 1651-; subordinancy 1680-; B) society/authority/subjection/condition of being a subject: subjectship 1775-; subjectdom 1877
2 (the mind/language/ linguistics/study of grammar/syntax, word order) Syntactic unit/constituent/ state of being 1970- A) the mind/language/linguistics/study of grammar/syntax, word order/syntactic unit/constituent: constituent 1933-; taxeme 1933-; syntaxeme 1947-; tagma 1949-; B) the mind/language/linguistics/study of grammar/syntax, word order/syntactic unit/constituent/state of being: subject 1615-; supposite c1620; nominative 1824
The noun subjecthood is homonymous as it denotes two different concepts. The noun subjecthood which means subjection has been used since 1856. The general and specific semantic categories are the following: society/authority, subjection/condition of being a subject. The synonyms for the first sense can further be classified into two groups: A) synonyms for the sense society/authority/subjection and B) synonyms for the sense society/authority/ subjection/condition of being a subject. Group A gives synonyms from Old English, Middle English, and Modern English, and Group B gives synonyms used in Modern En-
glish. Some nouns belong to the same diachronic morphological/derivational paradigm, and the data show that some morphological and phonological forms have survived, and others have not. For example, in Group A, these are: subjecthood (since 1856) and subjection (since before 1397), vassalry (between 1594 and about 1600; no longer in use) and vassalage (since 1595), subordination (since 1651), subordinancy (since 1680). In Group B, these are: subjectship (since 1775) and subjectdom (documented in 1877).
The semantic categories for the second meaning of the noun subjecthood, which has been used since 1970, are the mind, language, linguistics, study of grammar/syntax, word order/syntactic unit/constituent/state of being. The synonyms can be classified into two groups: A) synonyms for the sense: the mind/language/linguistics/study of grammar/syntax, word order/syntactic unit/constituent and B) synonyms for the sense: the mind/ language/linguistics/study of grammar/syntax, word order/syntactic unit/constituent/state of being. The noun subjecthood can be used as a linguistic term, and, in this case, although it encodes an abstract concept, it has a limited, and, therefore, stable meaning.
Conclusion
The University of Glasgow's Historical Thesaurus of English shows that lexico-seman-tic features of words can be identified as higher and lower order categories, and that these categories can be employed in the analysis of synonymy of both concrete and abstract words. This synchronic and diachronic analysis supports Sperber and Wilson's assumption that it is implausible that there is an exhaustive one-to-one mapping between mental concepts and public words. The following arguments for this conclusion can be given: firstly, the analysis shows that the nouns loyalty and citizenship are examples of polysemy, and the noun subjecthood is a homonym: the forms loyalty and citizenship denote related concepts, and the form subjecthood denotes unrelated concepts. Secondly, the analysis demonstrates that some nouns can exist for centuries, whereas some have a short/shorter lifespan. This means that ideas and concepts can be dissociated from words and that the lexical system can change, which, on the other hand, does not mean that concepts also disappear. Thirdly, this diachronic analysis shows that synonyms can be found in Old English when similarities among lexico-semantic features are discovered. Fourthly, nouns can appear, disappear, and reappear. For example, the noun privilege-privilegium was first registered in Old English, and another date shows that the noun has also been used since before 1225. This means that the relation between a concept and a word can be lost and then reestablished, and that the relation between a word and a concept as well as the relation between a word and its synonym can remain constant for a long time. Next, the analysis confirms that synonyms can belong to the same morphological/derivational paradigm, but not all forms have the same expiry date. For instance, the noun subjectship has been used since 1775, and the noun subjectdom was registered in 1877, but it is no longer in use.
In relation with Crutch and Warrington's assumption that abstract concepts are represented in an associative neural network, while concrete concepts have a categorical organization, the following can be stated. It does not seem likely that when we communicate, we rely on detailed categorizations of abstract concepts as our knowledge and experiences are limited. As a result, we do not always understand abstract concepts since our knowledge of words and the world is limited. However, abstract nouns are used in shared contexts and discourses, therefore, in order to communicate and understand ideas, it is neces-
sary to relate abstract nouns to their proper historical contexts, correctly and clearly. The University of Glasgow's Historical Thesaurus of English demonstrates that it is possible to categorize abstract nouns in accordance with lower and higher order semantic categories/ features. Our ability to form inferential and associative relations between concepts is limited, however, categorizations based on synchronically and diachronically contextualized data that provide further information about the use of vocabulary can improve, organize and refine our knowledge of how words can be used in different contexts and discourses.
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Статья поступила в редакцию 10 января 2022 г.
Рекомендована к печати 8 июня 2022 г.
Received: January 10, 2022 Accepted: June 8, 2022
