Spanish Language Evolution: Lexicon, Morphology, and Semantics

Establishment, Incorporation, and Loss

Changing Lexicon

• Words alter their shape and/or subject.
• New words are created.
• Some words disappear.

Hometown

Estate Glossary

Many words come from Latin. For example, "son" comes from the Latin word filius.

Learned Words

These words come from Latin and have not evolved. For example, fabulare (to speak) and fables are doublets.

Substrate Words

These words come from languages that were spoken in the Iberian Peninsula before Roman colonization. For example, chatarra (scrap) comes from Euskera (Basque).

Loanwords

These words come from people who have lived alongside Castilian speakers (Arabic, etc.) and languages with which Castilian has maintained political and social contact. The lexicon of the language has been adding new words to refer to new realities (e.g., e-mail, fax). Others, on the contrary, have disappeared because the realities they referred to have disappeared. There are other reasons that new words have been incorporated, for example, to distinguish oneself and not be understood by others.

Extension and Renewal Procedures

Expanding Meanings of Existing Words

For example, pasar (to happen) can also mean "to go after the other."

Change of Meaning

When we expand the meaning of a word, it sometimes loses its first sense and retains only the second. For example, paella can refer to the container or the rice dish.

Formation of Words

Words can be formed from another by derivation, composition, or abbreviation.

Loanwords

Words can be borrowed from other languages. For example, laser and canapé.

Semantic Calques

This involves the incorporation of meanings from foreign words to corresponding words in the language itself. For example, the English word "window" has influenced the Spanish word ventana.

Morphological Procedures

Derivation

From a word's lexeme, a prefix or suffix can be added. For example, re/leer (re/read), pan/ad/ero (bread/mak/er). These can result in words that exist in the dictionary, such as in+móvil+izar (im+mobil+ize).

Composition

This involves combining two lexemes, such as lava+plata (dish+washer) or verde+blanco (green+white).

Parasynthesis

This involves adding a prefix and a suffix to a lexeme, such as en+roj+ecer (to redden), or combining two lexemes and a suffix, such as quince+añ+ero (fifteen+year+old).

Abbreviation

This is a significant reduction of a word. Modes of abbreviation include:

• Shortening: cine (cinema), bici (bike)
• Abbreviation: Used only in written language.
• Acronyms: ESO, ONU
• Initialisms: RENFE

Loanwords

These are words borrowed from other languages, such as Anglicisms, Gallicisms, and Italianisms.

Semantic Calques

This is the incorporation of new meanings from foreign words to corresponding words in the language itself (e.g., ratón for "mouse", ventana for "window").