Semantic Structure of the Lexical Field FIX-SPOIL

Lexical-typological works have been focused only on particular lexical fields or on a narrow circle of homogeneous abstract domains. This is not accidental, because approaches to lexical typology are based on the typology of specific situations. Therefore, when the lexeme is abstract, it is also necessary to somehow "divide" its meaning into specific situations. In this case, the parameters of such a "division" are rather poorly predicted, and it may not be feasible, that is, the approach to abstract lexemes should be based on other principles. The verbs which form the focus of the present study – Russian verbs chinit’ (fix) and portit’ (spoil) – can be considered as abstract. Indeed, these verbs indicate how the action started and ended, but do not specify its specific content. On the other hand, they are non-homogeneous: fixing and spoiling can denote dramatically different sets of specific actions, e.g., fixing a roof is very different from fixing a clock. The only semantic component that unites these meanings is that something had been broken or spoiled (we do not know how exactly) and the person made it better (we do not know how exactly). Thus, the most intriguing question for us is how almost completely different specific meanings of the lexical field FIX-SPOIL can be combined into one abstract lexeme, and what parameters are at work for a language to decide whether frames can be united or not. Our goal was to try to apply the same approach to the abstract lexical field FIX-SPOIL that is applied to specific lexemes, to find out how different specific meanings of the lexical field FIX-SPOIL can be combined into one abstract lexeme, and by what parameters languages "decide" which specific meanings can be combined and which can not. We assumed that abstract lexemes can be studied in the same way as concrete ones, and the parameters of combining meanings into lexemes are be cognitively conditioned and manifest in diachrony through metaphorical shifts. To achieve our aim, we undertook the following steps: study the etymology of lexemes fix and spoil and their synonyms in Russian and Spanish; analyze the definitions of these verbs in several dictionaries; and analyze their contexts in synchronic and diachronic corpora. Based on the results of the above analyses, we have created a questionnaire that can be used when increasing the selection of languages and further studying the fields. We have also built a preliminary lexical and semantic maps. We found the parameters by which Russian and Spanish describe the FIX-SPOIL field and showed that they are cognitively conditioned. Moreover, it seems that the approach that has been applied so far mainly to specific lexemes has shown itself well in working with abstract verbs – we were able to ‘divide’ them into specific situations, so we can conclude that for typology, abstract verbs are arranged in the same way as concrete ones.