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Semplates: A new concept in lexical semantics?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Stephen C. Levinson  and
Niclas Burenhult
Stephen C. Levinson*
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
Niclas Burenhult*
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Lund University
*
Language and Cognition Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, P.O. Box 310, NL-6500 AH Nijmegen, The Netherlands [Stephen.Levinson@mpi.nl]
[Niclas.Burenhult@mpi.nl]
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Abstract

This short report draws attention to an interesting kind of configuration in the lexicon that seems to have escaped theoretical or systematic descriptive attention. These configurations, which we dub SEMPLATES, consist of an abstract structure or template, which is recurrently instantiated in a number of lexical sets, typically of different form classes. A number of examples from different language families are adduced, and generalizations made about the nature of semplates, which are contrasted to other, perhaps similar, phenomena.

Keywords

semplatelexical semanticsspacelandscape lexiconmetaphoranalogycultural modelssense relationstoponyms

Information

Type
Short Report
Information
Language , Volume 85 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 153 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by Linguistic Society of America

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