PUBLICATIONS

𝗥𝗘𝗙𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘

Gignac, Nicolas. 2025. Review of Les origines de la sémantique de Franz Bopp à Michel Bréal by Gabriel Bergounioux (Limoges: Lambert-Lucas, 2024). HL https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.00177.gig.

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𝗗𝗘𝗦𝗖𝗥𝗜𝗣𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡
Proceedings of the 37th Journées de linguistique at the Université Laval, Quebec City, March 6-7, 2024.

𝗥𝗘𝗙𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘
Frazer-McKee, Gabriel, Nicolas Gignac & Linda Wong, eds. 2024. Actes Des Journées De Linguistique, vol. 1: Actes des XXXVIIes Journées de linguistique (6 et 7 mars 2024). https://doi.org/10.70637/5egyvv94.

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𝗔𝗕𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧
The current literature on the history of semantics focuses on the epistemological development of theories of word formation and meaning change. However, the interest in this mainly theoretical development reveals a blind spot, namely the establishment of a set of signs surrounding the notion of semantic plurality (commonly referred to as polysemy since the late 19th century). The present lexical semantics study aims to understand how nineteenth-century French and German scholars – the main instigators of research on lexical meaning – lexically, semantically, and conceptually grasped this plurality of meanings before its formalization at the end of the century. The study is based on a 19th-century corpus of 16 German and 14 French texts. The results and their interpretation highlight, among other things, some discrepancies with the contemporary literature, and suggest that the establishment of this linguistic nomenclature associated with the notion of semantic plurality needs to be further refined. This put into perspective the conceptual pivot assumed by contemporary literature through the use of the term polysemy, popularized by Michel Bréal at the end of the 19th century; a pivot that suggests the prior lack of a proper linguistic conception of semantic plurality. This study thus fills the gap in the history of linguistics related to the terminological development around the notion of semantic plurality, as well as its semantic and conceptual understanding around the early formalization of 19th-century research into meaning, argues for a nuanced approach to the development of linguistic ideas, and illustrates how elements of corpus linguistics can be incorporated in (lexical) semantics and in the history of linguistics.

𝗥𝗘𝗙𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘
Gignac, Nicolas. 2024. Étude lexico-sémantique et historique de l’émergence et du traitement de la notion de pluralité sémantique en linguistique allemande et française au xixe siècle. Master thesis, Université Laval. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.20343.33440.

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