MERO, AYER Y HOY. Análisis semántico desde una perspectiva diacrónica del adjetivo/adverbio mero

Abstract

Mero’s polysemy poses a series of questions which find an answer from a diachronic perspective, particularly from the Cognitive Semantics’ point of view. We want to highlight two of them: one is the apparent regionalism observed in some meanings. As regionalism in this case we mean those meaning created and used exclusively in the north part of Latin America. That is to say, el mero mero ‘the boss’ or ya mero ‘almost’ have no obvious relation to ‘simple’ the most used meaning for mero in the whole of the Spanish world. On the other hand, for those who managed a wider variety of meanings for mero, there is a second problem, that is it’s double capacity in describing the noun negatively as in ‘simple’ or positively as in ‘pure’, ‘exact’ or ‘great’, just to mention some of them. This leads us to wonder; Where all those meanings come from? and How can mero have so opposite meanings? This study puts forth that some of mero’s meanings that seem recent have roots in the origin of language, which goes further than Latin, in this case in the Hittite language, while other meanings originate in other well-known meanings. On the other hand, by putting together a diachronic schema, constituted by new and old uses for mero from different sources like the dictionary and diverse databases as the RAE’s, NOW and CEMC, it becomes possible to locate the phenomenon of the capacity of our adjective to describe positively or negatively on a timeline and in this way determine the reason for this capacity thanks to the contexts provided by the databases that facilitate interpretation.