Construal operations in semantic change: the case of abstract nouns

The representations in fig. 7 and 8, respectively, are assumed to be different
specifications of the schematic structure underlying the verb upgiva ‘to give
away’, of which the noun uppgift is derived.
Summarizing, the meaning category of uppgift includes both the meaning
‘information’ and the related but distinct (i.e. lexical) meaning ‘task’. The
former meaning has contextual variants focusing on either the form of the verbal
message or the content expressed. The meaning ‘task’ is linked to ‘information’
(and its variants) by means of a different construal of the profile, in turn related
to different bases of the underlying schematic structure.
2.4. Fråga ‘question’
In Modern Swedish the central meaning of fråga is ‘question’, which according
to SAOB is elaborated as “request for information about a state of affairs of
which one is ignorant” (my translation). The complex meaning is derived from
the verb fråga “to ask”, elaborated as “x asks for information from z”. The
underlying schematic structure is thus the same as for uppgift. That is, the
schematic structures of fråga and uppgift, respectively, are variants of the
general action chain (see 2.2, 2.3.), where the TR transfers an entity (LM1) to a
recipient (LM2). In Fig. 9, illustrating the schematic structure of ‘question’, the
profiled entity LM1 is the ‘question’, which is understood in relation to the
cognitive domain STATE OF AFFAIRS. The entire action chain in turn is related
to the domain COMMUNICATION.
TR LM1 LM2
‘question’
[STATE OF AFFAIRS]
COMMUNICATION
Fig. 9. The schematic structure of ‘question’.
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