The intuition of meaning from speech. Its application to the Latin *KR- root word family in a historical bilingual dictionary

Abstract

This paper sets the foundations for a historical dictionary of the Latin language with equivalences to Spanish. A dictionary which often lacks conceptual definitions, since these are only useful as a reference to a reality. But words are also used without a reference, and this action is called specifically «to give meaning». When the word does not refer, but means, the concept is not capable of representing the intuited meaning. The meaning of words coincides with their use, and there is no way to perceive the essence of meaning except through direct contact with the uses of the word. Drawing on some philosophers of language of the 19th-20th centuries, and on certain notions of cognitive linguistics, we conclude that it is possible to expose the historical path of a word through its own uses, by means of a historical narrative, so that the user of the dictionary grasps, through his/her own experience, its meaningful essence. As an application, the lexicographic articles corresponding to several words of the Latin word family with root *kr 'to emit a sudden and shrill sound' are added