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Study on the Semantic Evolution of the Spanish Adjective “Guapo” from the Perspective of Area Studies

Yixin Zhao

Advances in Linguistics Research / 2026,8(2): 126-137 / 2026-05-26 23 17

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• Information:

  Central South University, Changsha, China

• Keywords:
  Guapo; Semantic Change; Area Studies; Social Structure Transformation; Linguistic Regional Variation
• Abstract: The core meaning of the Spanish adjective “guapo” shifted from “brave” to “handsome” between the mid-18th century and the 19th century. This study retrieves all full tokens of “guapo” (1638-1889) from the Corpus del Nuevo Diccionario Histórico de la Lengua Española (CNDHE) (n=790). Only adjectival uses of the masculine form “guapo” (excluding the feminine “guapa”) were retained, and cases where the senses cannot be clearly determined as either “brave” or “handsome” were excluded. Each token was manually coded for sense (brave/handsome) by the author following a predefined coding scheme. To ensure reliability, the author re-coded a random 40% sample after an interval of two months, achieving an inter‑temporal agreement rate of 96.3%; all discrepant cases were jointly re‑examined and finalized. The findings show that the frequency of the “handsome” sense gradually surpassed that of “brave” from 1750 onwards, yet this sense was not officially included in authoritative dictionaries until 1884. Distinguishing itself from the cognitive linguistics approach in existing research, this study adopts a sociolinguistic and historical linguistic framework to situate lexical semantic change within the macro-historical context of Spain’s transformation from a traditional agricultural society to a modern nation-state. By integrating social structural transformation, regional variation, state-building processes, and collective psychological change, this study shows how social transformation, regional differences, and cognitive tendencies jointly correlate with the semantic evolution of “guapo”. This change reflects the joint effects of internal cognitive mechanisms (metaphor/metonymy) and external social-structural transformation, rather than either factor alone. The findings demonstrate that Spain’s modernization process provided the social conditions for this shift. At the same time, cognitive mechanisms shaped its direction and trajectory, manifesting the temporal dislocation and spatial heterogeneity between the central Madrid region and the peripheral Andalusia region.
• DOI: 10.35534/lin.0802011 (registering DOI)
• Cite: Zhao, Y. X. (2026). Study on the Semantic Evolution of the Spanish Adjective “Guapo” from the Perspective of Area Studies. Advances in Linguistics Research, 8 (2), 126-137.