Colexification

In semantics and lexical typology, colexification is the ability for a language to express different meanings with the same word.

When a language colexifies several concepts, this is generally understood as a sign that these concepts are semantically related.^[1] Research in lexical typology has thus been using colexification as a tool to measure semantic similarity between concepts.

Definition

Colexification describes the case of different meanings being expressed by the same word (i.e., “co-lexified”) in a language. For example, the two senses which are distinguished in English as people and village are colexified in Spanish, which uses pueblo in both cases.

Colexification is meant as a neutral descriptive term that avoids distinguishing between vagueness, polysemy, and homonymy. Some cases of colexification are common across the world (e.g. ‘blue’ = ‘green’); others are typical of certain linguistic and cultural areas (e.g. ‘tree’ = ‘fire’ among Papuan and Australian languages;^[2] or ‘thunder’ = ‘dragon’ in the Sino-Tibetan languages^[3]).

The opposite of “co-lexify” is “dis-lexify”, i.e. 'express two meanings using different lexical forms'.^[4] Thus, Russian colexifies 'arm' and 'hand' using the single word рука, but Spanish dislexifies these two meanings using two distinct words, respectively brazo v. mano.

Examples


Language	Word form	sense 1	sense 2	sense 3
Basque	herri	‘village’	‘people’	‘country’
Spanish	pueblo	‘village’	‘people’
Catalan	sentir	‘feel’	‘hear’
French	femme	‘woman’	‘wife’
	fille	‘girl’	‘daughter’
	grand	‘large’	‘tall (in size)’	‘grown up (in age)’
English	uncle	‘mother's brother’	‘father's brother’	‘aunt's husband’
English	draw	‘pull, drag’	‘depict w/ lines’
Kriol	gilim	‘hit’	‘kill’
Chinese	天 tiān	‘sky’	‘heaven’	‘day’
Japanese	木 ki	‘tree’	‘wood’
Mota	pane-	‘arm’	‘hand’	‘wing’
Italian	ciao	‘hello’	‘goodbye’
Vietnamese	chào	‘hello’	‘goodbye’
LSF		‘hello’	‘thanks’
LSF	(sign)	‘(s.o.) kind, nice’	‘(s.th.) easy’

Use in linguistic studies

“A given language is said to colexify two functionally distinct senses if, and only if, it can associate them with the same lexical form.”
— François (2008: 170)^[5]

The term was coined by the linguist Alexandre François in his 2008 article “Semantic maps and the typology of colexification”. This article illustrated the notion with various examples, including the semantic domains of { STRAIGHT }, { CALL }, { BREATHE }. The latter notion is at the source of a colexification network that is attested in several languages, linking together such senses as ‘breath’, ‘life’, ‘soul’, ‘spirit’, ‘ghost’...: Skr. आत्मन् ātmán; Anc. Gk ψυχή, πνεῦμα; Lat. animus, spīritus; Arab. روح rūḥ, etc. François built on that example to propose a method for constructing lexical semantic maps.

Several studies have taken up the concept of colexification and applied it to different semantic domains and various language families.^[6]

Colexification is also the object of a dedicated database, known as CLiCS “Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications”.^[7] Based on data from more than 2400 language varieties of the world, the database makes it possible to check the typological frequency of individual instances of colexification,^[8] and to visualize semantic networks^[9] based on empirical data from the world's languages.

Notes

^ The only exception would be cases of homophony, when two semantically unrelated words sound (or look) identical for accidental reasons. Homophony is not central to the study of colexification.
^ See Schapper et al. (2016).
^ See Ding & Dong (2024).
^ François (2022:95).
^ See also François (2022:95): “A language colexifies two distinct senses if it can express them using the same lexical form.”.
^ See the bibliography.
^ See List et al. (2018) and Rzymski et al. (2020).
^ For example, the colexification pair ‘hear’–‘feel’.
^ For example, the subgraph around the notion { BRAVE }

References

Brochhagen, Thomas; Boleda, Gemma (2022). "When do languages use the same word for different meanings? The Goldilocks principle in colexification". Cognition. 226: 105179. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105179. hdl:10230/56229.
Di Natale, Anna; Pellert, Max; Garcia, David (2021). "Colexification networks encode affective meaning". Affective Science. doi:10.1007/s42761-021-00033-1. PMC 9382918.
Ding, Hongdi; Dong, Sicong (2024). "Colexification of "thunder" and "dragon" in Sino-Tibetan languages". Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies: 1–23. doi:10.1080/23306343.2024.2383513.
François, Alexandre (2008), "Semantic maps and the typology of colexification: Intertwining polysemous networks across languages", in Vanhove, Martine (ed.), From Polysemy to Semantic change: Towards a Typology of Lexical Semantic Associations, Studies in Language Companion Series, vol. 106, Amsterdam, New York: Benjamins, pp. 163–215.
François, Alexandre (2022). "Lexical tectonics: Mapping structural change in patterns of lexification". Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft. 41 (1). DeGruyter: 89‒123. doi:10.1515/zfs-2021-2041. S2CID 246000538. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
Gast, Volker & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm. 2018. The areal factor in lexical typology. In D. Olmen, T. Mortelmans & F. Brisard (eds), Aspects of linguistic variation, 43–82. Berlin: DeGruyter.
Georgakopoulos, Thanasis; Grossman, Eitan; Nikolaev, Dmitry; Polis, Stéphane (2021). "Universal and macro-areal patterns in the lexicon: A case-study in the perception-cognition domain". Linguistic Typology. 26 (2). doi:10.1515/lingty-2021-2088.
Georgakopoulos, Thanasis, Daniel A. Werning, Jörg Hartlieb, Tomoki Kitazumi, Lidewij van de Peut, Annette Sundermeyer & Gaëlle Chantrain. 2016. The meaning of ancient words for ‘earth’: An exercise in visualizing colexification on a semantic map Archived 2020-07-13 at the Wayback Machine. In Gerd Graßhoff & Michael Meyer (eds), Space and Knowledge. Special issue of eTopoi. Journal for Ancient Studies 6. 418–452.
Jackson, J.; Watts, J.; Henry, T.; List, J.-M.; Mucha, P.; Forkel, R.; Greenhill, S.; Lindquist, K. (2019). "Emotion semantics show both cultural variation and universal structure". Science. 366 (6472): 1517–1522. Bibcode:2019Sci...366.1517J. doi:10.1126/science.aaw8160. hdl:1885/220045. PMID 31857485. S2CID 209424412.
Juvonen, Päivi; Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, eds. (2016). The Lexical Typology of Semantic Shifts. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. ISBN 9783110377675.
Karjus, Andres; Blythe, Richard A.; Kirby, Simon; Wang, Tianyu; Smith, Kenny (2021). "Conceptual similarity and communicative need shape colexification: An experimental study". Cognitive Science. 45 (9). arXiv:2103.11024. doi:10.1111/cogs.13035.
List, Johann-Mattis; Greenhill, Simon; Anderson, Cormac; Mayer, Thomas; Tresoldi, Tiago; Forkel, Robert (2018). "CLiCS²: An improved database of cross-linguistic colexifications assembling lexical data with the help of cross-linguistic data formats". Linguistic Typology. 22 (2): 277–306. doi:10.22425/jul.2015.16.2.63.
Pericliev, Vladimir. 2015. On colexification among basic vocabulary. Journal of Universal Language 16(2). 63–93. doi:10.22425/jul.2015.16.2.63.
Rzymski, C.; Tresoldi, T.; Greenhill, S.; Wu, M.; Schweikhard, N.; Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M.; Gast, V.; Bodt, T.; Hantgan, A.; Kaiping, G.; Chang, S.; Lai, Y.; Morozova, N.; Arjava, H.; Hübler, N.; Koile, E.; Pepper, S.; Proos, M.; Epps, B.; Blanco, I.; Hundt, C.; Monakhov, S.; Pianykh, K.; Ramesh, S.; Gray, R.; Forkel, R.; List, J.-M. (2020). "The Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications, reproducible analysis of cross- linguistic polysemies". Scientific Data. 7 (13): 13. Bibcode:2020NatSD...7...13R. doi:10.1038/s41597-019-0341-x. PMC 6957499. PMID 31932593.
Schapper, Antoinette; San Roque, Lila; Hendery, Rachel (2016). "Tree, firewood and fire in the languages of Sahul". In Päivi Juvonen; Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.). The Lexical Typology of Semantic Shifts. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 355–422. doi:10.1515/9783110377675-012.
Urban, Matthias. 2012. Analyzability and semantic associations in referring expressions. Leiden University PhD dissertation.

External links

CLiCS “Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications”.

[1] The only exception would be cases of homophony, when two semantically unrelated words sound (or look) identical for accidental reasons. Homophony is not central to the study of colexification.

[2] See Schapper et al. (2016).

[3] See Ding & Dong (2024).

[tectonics-4] François (2022:95).

[5] See also François (2022:95): “A language colexifies two distinct senses if it can express them using the same lexical form.”.

[6] See the bibliography.

[7] See List et al. (2018) and Rzymski et al. (2020).

[8] For example, the colexification pair ‘hear’–‘feel’.

[9] For example, the subgraph around the notion { BRAVE }

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