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Zuzanna Bułat Silva
3. The lexeme dolor in Spanish dictionaries
On the basis of Spanish language dictionaries (Moliner 2007 /1966/; Seco
1999) four meanings of the lexeme dolor may be visualized as in Figure 1).
SOMETHING OR SOMEONE THAT CAUSES PAIN
(1) physical sensation
of suffering
(2) emotion
(spiritual pain)
(3) regret,
repentance
Figure 1. Radial network of dolor
The central meaning of dolor is ‘physical suffering’, that is, in terms of
NSM primes, ‘something bad is happening in my body now, I feel something
bad because of this’. Dolor as emotion, ‘spiritual pain’, is a metaphorical extension
of this meaning (‘I am thinking about something bad that happened, I feel
something bad because of this’). It can be further instantiated as ‘regret’ or ‘repentance’,
or in other words, ‘I am thinking about something bad I did, I feel
something bad because of this’. The fourth meaning, ‘something that causes
pain’, is a metonymical extension of ‘emotional suffering’.
The meaning, which I am talking about here, is meaning (2), ‘spiritual pain’.
In Moliner (2007: 1076) it is defined as sentimiento causado por un desengaño
o un mal trato moral recibido, o por ver padecer a una persona querida ‘feeling
caused by disappointment or having been treated immorally or by having
seen the suffering of someone we love’. And the example given by Moliner
(2007) is el dolor por la muerte de su hijo, roughly, ‘grief after his son’s death’.
As the above example demonstrates neatly, dolor in its emotional sense is
rarely translated as ‘pain’ by the Spanish-English dictionaries. Its usual counterparts
are ‘grief’ or ‘sorrow’. Dolor is also translated by means of verbs: con
todo el dolor de mi corazón tuve que decirle que no, ‘it broke my heart, but
I had to turn him down’ and no sabes el dolor que me causa su indiferencia,
‘you have no idea how much his indifferent attitude hurts me’ (COSD 2009).
There is a Spanish name Dolores, literally ‘Pains’. 2 It comes from a name
given to the Virgin Mary, Virgen de los Dolores. Actually it is one of the feminine
names referring to suffering, such as Angustias, ‘Sorrows’, Soledad,
2
The diminutives of Dolores are Lola and Loles, the former one slightly derogatory.