Semantic Maps and Word Formation: Agents, Instruments, and Related Semantic Roles

The semantic map methodology has been applied mainly to the analysis of the multifunctionality of grammatical morphemes—they allow one to deal with this problem without having to decide between monosemic and polysemic analyses. Similar issues arise when dealing with derivational morphemes and word formation patterns so that this methodology can be extended to their analysis. As a case study, causal semantic roles are surveyed in this paper, both synchronically and diachronically. Only Agents and Instruments seem to have specific word formation patterns, while Force and Means cannot be identified as proper semantic roles in word formation. Semantic maps based on word formation patterns also allow for interesting comparisons to those drawn on the basis of grammatical morphemes. Given that they are based on different data, but semantically overlap to a certain extent, this can help to throw some light on the general validity of the results of the methodology. For instance, from a diachronic perspective there is an interesting difference concerning the evolution of Agent and Instruments markers as grammatical morphemes from word formation patterns—in word formation it is Agents that evolve into Instruments and this is the evolution expected according to the predictions made on the basis of general abstraction scales.