Repérage automatique de la néologie sémantique en corpus à travers des représentations cartographiques évolutives Vers une méthode de visualisation graphique dynamique de la diachronie de la néologie

Semantic change is challenging as is it a subtle and progressive type of change implying on an abstract temporality. In order to detect and analyse it we propose to take advantage of the mechanisms of semantic pivots that we detect with the help of an extension the Automatic Contexonym Organizing Modem (ACOM) created within the paradigm of the Semantic Atlases (SA). This extension, currently in the course of development, will constitute a very fine grained tool offering the following advantages: – objectivity (no manual filtering carried out by the linguist); – to be fine grained on the semantic and temporal planes; – to be dynamic and adaptable to other corpora. Considering that semantic neology (taken here as semantic change at large) is a type of shift from monosemy to polysemy, or more generally the structural reorganization of a polysemy across time, the synchronic analysis of polysemy offered by ACOM can be adapted to the needs of diachrony. In ACOM representations, meanings are organized in terms of semantic distance, and relatively to the origin of axes which represents the prototypical core of meaning. Therefore meanings which are semantically peripheral appear as graphically peripheral too. We then detect whether a peripheral meaning undergoes status change reflecting several linguistic mechanisms at work in the process of semantic change. To make manifest these processes we use data-driven detection with no pre-established typology. We present the advantages of a method that merges several mechanisms under the same umbrella, offering a unified graphical observatory and allowing for adaptability to various corpora and time scales. We therefore offer an objective exploratory approach for the detection and analysis of semantic change, which is illustrated here with examples taken from the French press corpus Le Monde 1997-2004.