Demonyms and Lexicography

Abstract

The lexical variation of the demonyms presents a denotative and connotative special complexity. Despite of this, a wide lexicographic description of the conceptual aspects of gentilic words is possible because of their high integration in the general vocabulary of the languages. This proposal deals with the fact that the main sense of demonyms is ‘belonged or related to’. Another senses like ‘natural of’ —frequently considered by lexicographic practicing as its first and principal meaning— ‘produced in’, ‘obtained of’, ‘came from’, etc., or some others secondary or tertiary figurative applications (both adjectival and nominal ) are derivative uses of the general one. From our point of view, this theoretical and methodological model provides a better explanation of the linguistic nature and social and pragmatic uses of demonyms in Spanish language than the traditional ones, that reduced this lexical variation to two uses: 1. ‘came from’ and 2. ‘belonged or related to’. At the end of this work a lexicographical description of gallego, -ga is provided for a better comprehension of the semantic perspective involved in this work.