Until the author of Lingualia brought it to our attention, we at Booklaunch Towers had not come across the word “het eroseme” or the notion of heterosemy. Shame prompted us (as so often during the day) to ask for help from Wikipedia, via Google, and we now know (though “know” may be claiming too much) that heterosemy is a concept in linguistics concerning words with two or more meanings or functions “that are historically related, but belong to different morphosyntactic categories”.
Thus armed, we explored further, and can now offer the following: a summary of a paper about a heterosemic reportive marker, written—or perhaps carved out of rock—by Björn Wiemer of the Johannes Gütenberg University’s Institute for Slavic Studies, in the online journal Baltic Linguistics.
We confess we only understand the shorter words here like “not” and “but”, many of the other words representing territory far beyond our own self-assurance about language. We therefore offer a prize to any of our better-informed readers who can rewrite it in a way that won’t make us choke on our past participles. If you can bring humour to it too, that would not
be unwelcome.
(Jump over this bit to the next bit if, as
seems likely, you are appalled.)
Lithuanian esą — a heterosemic reportive marker in its contemporary stage
Abstract: From the syntactic point of view, esą is the most diversified Lithuanian evidential marker of all as it covers uses not only in regular paradigms, but also as a function word. This stage can be captured by the notion of heterosemy. Diachronically esą derives from the former neuter of the present active participle of būti ‘to be’, which is homonymous with the regular nom.pl.m form of the same participle. In contemporary Lithuanian, esą has also become an uninflected function word used as a particle and a complementizer after certain groups of verbs. Today its uses as a participle and as a function word coexist. This article provides a corpus-based investigation into the syntactic distribution of this unit, which neatly distinguishes its grammatical und [sic] lexical status and asks in which usage types and why a reportive meaning arises. The study then focuses on frequent cases in which the syntactic status of esą is ambiguous, also taking into account possible discourse pragmatic cues. The second part of the
article starts with an argument for considering the function word uses of esą as results of lexicalization. The rest of the study is devoted to a comparison of esą with functionally equivalent evidential units on a broader areal (basically Eastern European) background. This comparison sheds light on differences and similarities in the etymology, evo-
lution and contemporary syntactic and semantic range of functions of lexicaliSed reportive markers.
(That’s how they speak English at German universities. Impressive, nicht wahr?)
We’ll return to heterosemes in a moment. First let’s look at hypernyms and contranyms, both of which can afford the delight, or pain, of a double-take. These are hypernyms:
• You can reinforce the repair by affixing a patch of flexible material such as leather, material, or vinyl.
• Artists of all kinds attended the festival: dancers, poets, artists and so on.
• Here’s a typical example of her light verse: it contains three verses, each containing four verses.
• Three of my five children are still children.
• Play me any kind of classical music—baroque music, romantic music, classical music—and I’m instantly enraptured.
And now some examples using contranyms (contronyms, auto-antonyms, Janus-words, antagonyms, pharmakon words):
• How will the authorities ever harness AI for the good of society if they continue to
harness it?
• You shouldn’t be sanctioning that kind of behaviour, you should be sanctioning it.
• They were still on their way home, so they didn’t hear the burglar alarm go off,
but they did hear it go off.
• No one seems to have oversight of the project, which is why it suffers from some oversight or other at least once a week.
• When the Iron Curtain came down in 1946, few would have guessed that it would take as long as 50 years before it finally came down.
So much for double-takes based on hypernyms and contranyms, but that was just to get you in the mood. Our next step, as promised, is to go back to heterosemes or contracontexts, and examples of double-takes based on them:
• My aunt started showing the symptoms of Covid, and she thought she’d had it, but she took the test for Covid and it turned out that she’d had it.
• Thanks to the lockdown, the golf course is abandoned, so now we can sneak in and walk around it, whereas in the past we’ve always had to walk around it.
• That snitch! Sure, the snitch letter was anonymous, and it was typed. But she was the one who typed it. She wanted not to be identified: that’s why she didn’t write it. But she wrote it, all right.
• I’ve brought you two salmon. If they’re too much for you, put one of them in the freezer for later, if that’s not too much for you.
• As a canny businesswoman, she exploited the labour pool in a very efficient way, but she was always careful not to exploit it.
• “This back pain of yours must be such a nuisance. How are you today?” “Better, but still not better.”
• Why do you keep filing your application rather than actually filing it?
- In the old days, the Cambodians used to fight with the Laotians, but now they fight with them.
• It was dark by the time we reached the summit, so we thought it safest to return by cable car. Our guide scoffed at our decision. We repeatedly urged him to join us but he wouldn’t climb down and insisted on climbing down.
- Your hoover really sucks. Why don’t you get one that really sucks?
Contracontexts don’t have to involve heteromemes. Specifically, instead of repeating the salient word or phrase, they can incorporate its opposite. Here are some examples:
• Your houseguest is certainly an early bird: he was already up at 6.30; in fact, he
was already down at 6.30.
• Alex is studying for exams; he’s reasonably laid back about it, though unreasonably so.
• We’re enjoying a lull in work at the moment and we’re not enjoying it.
• “Has Mavis had her exam results yet?” “Yes, a few are still outstanding, but the others are outstanding.”
• His last novel was a critical failure, but at least it’s not his last novel, so he still has a chance to redeem himself.
• You podiatrists are all the same: as students, you practise and practise, and get really proficient, but as soon as you graduate and start practising, you get complacent and stop practising, and the quality of your work slumps.
• There are at least three Jewish history lecturers in the department, but Christina, the only Jewish history lecturer in the county, is not one of them.
• He’s the most curious child I’ve ever met, in that he’s the least curious child I’ve ever met.
• The students from modest backgrounds tend to study very hard and excel; it’s the richer students who mess about and who are generally the poorer students.
• Thwart the hackers: your private log-in details are secured only when they’re unsecured.
• What a mess! If it’s you who’s responsible, that shows that you’re irresponsible.
• Of course it’s a private school. It’s a leading public school, for heaven’s sake.