Mahardhika, Jimmy: The Ship That Saved No One: Semantic Capture, Lexical Continuity, and the Re-Centring of Meaning

Radical semantic change can occur beneath lexical continuity. Semantic capture names the process by which a discourse preserves its inherited vocabulary while displacing the operative centre that organises its reference, function, affect, and verification. Using a simple rescue-ship parable as a philosophical model, this article shows how a promised ship remains named while the messenger gradually becomes the locus through which allegiance, expectation, and fulfilment are reorganised. Semantic c