1979
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Jean-Pierre Étienvre, « Pour une sémantique du jeu de cartes en Espagne: analyse de la parasynonymie naipe/carta », Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez, ID : 10.3406/casa.1979.2301
To refer to playing cards in Spanish, two words are used, whereas all other latin languages have — or have had — only one. Perfect synonymy being an illusion long since disposed of, one challenges here the traditional lexicographic pattern (naipe = carta, and vice versa) which is found in all dictionnaries. The analysis is based on the observation of more than 300 cases where the following semantic distribution can be observed: naipe refers to the playing-card as substance or object, carta to its ludic function. This semantic distribution was systematically used in classical Spanish up to the middle of the XVIIth century. The the use of naipe became less frequent, and that of carta gradually spread to cover the former field of meaning of naipe, so as to relegate the latter to a specialised lexicon. Yet, in figurative phrases, as well as in memorized dexies» (meaning units), the former semantic distribution — elsewhere irretrievably altered — remains practically unchanged, even today. This phenomenon of preservation is but one of the many characteristic features of the semantics of card- playing in Spain.