Settings and participants: analogous semantic extensions in conceptually remote domains

This article concerns a phenomenon, claimed to be semantic in nature, observed in expressions from conceptually distant categories. The effects in question constitute modifications of lexical categories such that the form of these words is retained, but their meanings undergo essential, and yet analogous, shifts. The two domains selected for the purpose of this study are so-called meteorological expressions (e.g., it’s raining, snow fell etc.) and names of political states (France, Mexico, Vietnam etc.). The domains are independent of each other and constitute unrelated areas of knowledge. What is intriguing though is the similarity of semantic shifts, also known as conversion or zero-derivation, taking place in these categories. The term ‘semantic extension’ has been chosen as a convenient shorthand for the phenomenon in question. The article argues that due to altered profiles imposed on essentially the same base the semantic extension under investigation results in shifts between the profiles of a ‘setting’, ‘participant’ and ‘process’. In a comparative perspective between the two domains, settings and participants alternate on a regular basis. The analysis applied here adopts tools exploited in cognitive grammar (e.g., profile, base). If semantic extensions towards settings and participants can be confirmed in such distant domains, further research can be undertaken in other domains. If related semantic effects are found in more domains, the semantic categories of a setting and participant should be included in descriptive grammars.