Gustavo Rubino Ernesto – False Cognates English – Portuguese

PDF #62 – Gustavo Rubino Ernesto – False Cognates English – Portuguese, 2.06.2019, Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen

This paper investigates several word etymologies in order to present a strong connection between word origins and false friends linking two major languages of the world. It is important to show that some of the ways in which lexical meanings typically change over time, affect one or even more languages, in the case of this paper English and Brazilian Portuguese. Semantic change itself is rarely neat, and usually involves more than simply the shift from a single ‘old’ meaning to a single ‘new’ meaning. Much more often, one or more meanings declines or drops out of use over time, or additional new meanings emerge from existing senses, perhaps changing the prototypical use of the word.