Abstract
THE LEXICAL FIELD OF NACIÓN IN THE REPUBLICAN LANGUAGE IN SPAIN (1876-1899) The analysis of this lexical field is carried out according to the two fundamental axis of the language: paradigmatu: and syntagmatic. Made up of words which refer to the political organisation of a community : nación, patria, pais and pueblo, this field is studied, for methodological reasons, during the period from 1876, the time of the restoration of the monarchy and the establishment of a parliamentary system, until the year following the 1898 disaster. The corpus under examination comes from partisan doctrinal texts, manifestos and political programs. Semantically, the terms considered are regrouped around the idea of «political community ». Some difficulties in the delimitation of this lexical whole arise in so far as the chosen terms are not entirely equivalent on account of linguistic and ideological factors, and in particular, affective ones. The semantic analysis of nación, which has a complex and sometimes ambiguous significance, underlines the differences between fédérales and unitarios within the Republican party. Moreover the comparison of this term with others sets off shades of meanings linked with political tendencies of different discourses and reveals partial or total identities between terms. Taking one word for another is not a commonplace problem of terminology.