JALC : Journal of Applied Linguistics and Studies of Cultural
Vol. 4 No. 1 (2026): May

POLYSEMY AND MEANING EXTENSION OF JAVANESE BODY-PART TERMS: COGNITIVE SEMANTIC STUDY

Muhammad Walimsyah Sitorus (STIT Al-Ittihadiyah Labuhanbatu Utara)
Murniati Br Barus (Universitas Sumatera Utara)
Nanda Dwi Astri (Universitas Prima Indonesia)
Gumarpi Rahis Pasaribu (STIT Al-Ittihadiyah Labuhanbatu Utara)



Article Info

Publish Date
20 May 2026

Abstract

Body-part terms are a productive source of lexical meaning extension, but Javanese research has mainly described selected metaphors and proverbs rather than the distribution of related senses in a general corpus. Purpose: This study identifies the body-part lexemes attested in a contemporary Javanese treebank, distinguishes literal and extended uses, and reconstructs the cognitive mechanisms linking their senses. Method: A corpus-assisted qualitative analysis was conducted on the UD Javanese-CSUI treebank containing 1,000 sentences and 14,343 tokens. Thirty-one candidate body-part forms were searched, normalized into lexical families, and examined through concordance-based contextual analysis. Metaphorical extension was diagnosed through perceived similarity, while metonymic extension was identified through contiguity, function, or part-participant association. Results: Fifty-seven raw tokens were retrieved; one proper name was excluded, leaving 56 relevant tokens in 12 lexical families. Extended uses accounted for 29 tokens (51.8%). The domain ATI/MANAH dominated the extended data and lexicalized emotion, moral disposition, inner voice, and psychological stability. TANGAN/ASTA encoded control and responsibility, while SIKIL, KUPING, LENGEN, and JANTUNG produced participant, evaluative, object-part, and emotional extensions. Conclusion: Javanese body-part polysemy is systematic but distributionally unequal. Internal-state meanings are highly conventionalized, whereas object and participant extensions are sparse in the sampled corpus. The findings support a usage-based semantic-network model and provide a replicable basis for Javanese lexicography and figurative-language annotation.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

jalc

Publisher

Subject

Arts Humanities Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media

Description

JALC : Journal of Applied Linguistics and Studies of Cultural ISSN 3026-5347 is the journal of linguistics that publishes research articles and theoretical articles in linguistic science. The scope of this journal includes linguistics, both micro and macro. The scope of linguistics is ...