Όψεις του διαλεκτικού λεξιλογίου γύρω από την ψυχονοητική μειονεξία

Abstract

The present paper examines the dialectal vocabulary related to psycho-mental retardation, which is of particular interest in relation to its semantic, morphological, and pragmatic features. The dialectal material on which the study was based derives from the printed volumes of the Historical Dictionary of Modern Greek (ΙΛΝΕ) and the Archive of the Research Centre for Modern Greek Dialects (ΚΕΝΔΙ) of the Academy of Athens. The papaer initially raises the question regarding the semantic vagueness and fluidity of relevant terms both in Modern Greek and in dialects, which reveals the embarrassment of the average speaker and their difficulty in approaching the disorders in question. Next, it explores the pragmatic parameters that have to do with the use of the aforementioned vocabulary and studies the morphological mechanisms related to its productivity. Lastly, in the context of Cognitive Semantics, using the tool of conceptual metaphor, it categorises the corpus under study based on individual "concept fields" at form sources for the verbal expression of the specific disorders.