Resumen de El juego entre sinónimos y homónimos en la farmacopea medieval: senaçio, seneçio y cardo bendito
- español
Los trabajos realizados recientemente sobre textos médicos antiguos en el marco del DGTMAE y la edición crítica de la Sinónima de los nonbres délas medeçinas griegos e latynos e arábicos nos ofrecen un extenso material sobre estos términos y nos permiten aclarar el texto en cuestión. Así, por ejemplo, el galicismo que acabo de tratar aparece también en la versión castellana del Tratado de Cirugía de Guido de Cauliaco como creissones1 (fo. 157r) y creysones (fo. 186r).
- English
One ot the major problems in the study of medieval medical texts is to determine the exact meaning of plant names. Sometimes their change of meaning can only be explained by an interaction of homonymy and synonymy. It is a well known phenomenon that frequently homonymous or nearly homonymous words are confused.
Due to the trasmission of medieval plant names by means of synonym lists, such a confusion often has consequences: when a word X with a meaning A is wrongly made a synonym of a word Y with the meaning B, then all the synonyms (Z1 to Zn) of X will be potential synonyms of Y. This leads to polysemy, because Z1 to Zn can appear further on with the meaning B.
Such a process can be observed with respect to some plant names which have caused problems in the interpretation of Old Spanish medical texts. The plant name senecio (originally meaning the common groundsel, SENECIO VULGARIS L.) was sometimes used instead of senacion (water cress, NASTURTIUM OFFICINALE R. BR). AS a consequence, we find that the term cardo bendicho, a synonym of senecio, can also be used in reference to the water cress. As a last issue we argue that even the synonymy of cardo bendicho and senecio was not an original one, but could be due to a similar process.
