Lexical gaps, cognition and linguistic change

The paper first postulates that lexical gaps can be located by studying lexical configurations of the type suggested in Cruse's Lexical Semantics (1986). By way of illustration it describes gaps in proportional series, hierarchies and sets of complementaries. In a next step three cognitive factors are proposed for explaining these gaps: (I) psychological salience or emotional involvement, (2) perceptual salience, and (3) prototypicality. Finally, there are implications for the study of linguistic change. From a diachronic point of view lexical gaps may manifest themselves in four different ways: they may be permanent, that is evident in a language from the earliest records to the present day; if not permanent, they may have existed at an earlier stage and may then have been 'filled', they may have 'opened up' at some point in the history of a language, or they may have 'opened up' and then 'closed' again.