Semantic Extensions of body part-term “Eye/ta/” in Thai based on Cognitive Semantics analysis studies

Abstract

The purpose of this research study is to analyze the meaning categories of "eye/ta/", meaning mechanism and sematic extensions of the word "eye" which is body part-term in Thai language. Data were collected from Thai language corpus database by searching for the word "eye" and selected 500 data items in each category (genre) was a total of 2,500 words and selected semantic information that was not relevant to the research objectives, such as names and the meaning of "ta", which is a personal pronoun. (grandfather, person) They were selected to leave only the meanings related to the “eye” in body part-term, which is the basic meaning of the body organs. A total of 1,890 data sets remains, with meanings related to the eye organ, with the word “eye” both appearing alone as well as appearing as a compound word or idiom form. From the analysis, a total of 178 words were found, classified into 6 types meaning. There are 1) ‘Eye body’s part’ 35 item; 2) ‘Person’2 item; 3) ‘Seeing’ 47 item, 4) ‘Thinking Mental and Emotion expression’ 62 item, 5) ‘Shapes’ 25 item 6) ‘Time’ 7 item. This variety of meanings occurring under the semantic mechanism, it is an important part that creates various meanings. The semantic mechanisms found include the metonymy, metaphor, metaphonymy and metaphorical chain, The metonymy, the meaning of ‘eye’ refer to the part instead of the whole part, part for whole and from causes instead of results. In the metaphorical mechanism found 4 conceptual: the eye is a living thing, the eye is a non-living thing, the eye is space and direction and the eye is the container. There are 7 semantic metaphors: 1) The eye is a human 2) The eye is an animal. 3)The eye is a plant. 4) The eye is an object. 5) The eye is a channel. 6) The eye is time. And 7) The eye is space. Meaning extensions concepts are operated under cognitive activities. The important thing is the mechanism of semantic networks, which is an important part that creates various meanings. From the research, it has been found that 4 main groups of shape 4 meaning about space and time, in each group of meanings there are sub-meanings that are separated from meanings can be classified, 1) basic meaning 2) meaning related to organs 3) meaning related to round shape, meaning of the word "eye" extends out of the circle which related to the organ shape of the body in an orderly through a network of paths. It is meant that is, the word "eye" referred to the visual organs on the face, which is the basic. Then the word "eye" expands meaning from the body part to the part of things, the word "eye" expanded its meaning from hole and space of an object to a more abstract meaning and, the last the word “eye” expanded its meaning from space to time meaning.