Contagion and consociation. Two key concepts in diachronic semantics and semantic change studies

Abstract

There are certain linguistic phenomena of great importance in the most current semantics whose relevance can be traced, stage by stage, from the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century. In this article we want to focus on one of them, which is essential in diachronic semantics: the change of meaning caused by the frequent contact of words in the same context. This phenomenon is behind two fundamental concepts for the stage of semantics called “historical semantics”, both for the French current of this stage and for the German one: contagion, described by Michel Bréal, and consociation, described by Hans Sperber. The central part of this work is dedicated to the description of these two concepts and their immediate repercussions. However, this phenomenon begins to be treated more frequently from the moment that Stephen Ullmann includes it in his classification of semantic changes, as a previous step to the ellipsis originated by lexical combination. It is from this classification that this type of change later reaches the cognitive studies on semantic change. Along the way, the origins of the concept have been somewhat forgotten. We hope that this article will help to recover them.