The process of normativization as a factor of lexicosemantic change: the verb “assabentar”

Abstract

This study is part of a research project that analyzes the influence of the linguistic norm on the evolution of contemporary Catalan. The research covers the different components of the language (pronunciation and spelling, morphology, syntax, lexicon and phraseology). Here we study the influence of the norm on the evolution of the lexicon: we focus on “assabentar”. This verb belongs to an important group of words that, recovered from medieval texts, have reached a significant frequency of use in Catalan, especially in writing and in oral registers of medium and high formality. We will show that “assabentar” had fallen into disuse at the end of the 15th century but reappeared at the beginning of the 20th century with new meanings and constructive variants. The reader will find here a) the analysis of the evolution of “assabentar” since the first attestations; b) the description of the use of this same lexical type in neighboring languages (Old French and still today in Occitan: “assavanter” and “assabentar”, respectively); and c) the take-off of “assabentar”, the rooting of the verb in contemporary texts, the development of new senses and the constructive changes it has undergone and, finally, the parallel regression of “enterar”.