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SEMANTIC CHANGE

SEMANTIC CHANGE, also semantic shift. Change in the meanings of words, especially with the passage of time, the study of which is historical semantics. Investigators of changes in meaning have established a set of semantic categories, such as GENERALIZATION, in which the meaning and reference of a word widen over the years (pigeon once meant a young dove and now means all members of the family Columbidae), and SPECIALIZATION, in which the meaning of a word narrows over the years (deer once meant any four-legged beast and now means only members of the family Cervidae). Such categories are not always sharply distinguishable; one may shade into another or develop from another. For example, before it meant a young dove, pigeon meant a young bird; it therefore specialized from young bird to young dove, then generalized from young dove to all dove-like birds. For scholarly convenience, the processes of semantic change are often described as if each operates alone, the ‘story’ of a word being told without bringing in too many other words. Such stories, however, are often complex and disseminate across whole networks of words. When a part of such a network is considered (such as the set of all barnyard fowls), many processes can be seen working together: the reference of one word widens while narrowing another (chicken generalizing to include the meaning of hen), the reference widens in one period and narrows in another, sometimes establishing regional preferences (cock in BrE, rooster in AmE), and the reference extends figuratively (chick coming to mean a young woman) or idiomatically (no spring chicken), permitting a special use in one place but not another (in ScoE, hen as a term of endearment for women in and around Glasgow, comparable to duck(s) in parts of England). It has proved useful, therefore, to discuss semantic change in terms of webs of shifting forms and relationships rather than words on their own.

See BACK-FORMATION, CATACHRESIS, COMPUTER USAGE, CONVERSION, DERIVATION, DETERIORATION, EPONYM, ETYMOLOGY, EUPHEMISM, FIGURATIVE EXTENSION, FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE, HOMOGRAPH, HOMONYM, HOMOPHONE, JANUS WORD, LOCALISM, MELIORATION, METAPHOR METONYMY, PEJORATION, POLYSEMY, RADIATION.

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	Les Remarques de l'Academie Francaise sur le quinte-Curce de Vaugelas.(Review) Magazine article from: The Modern Language Review; 1/1/1999; ; 564 words ; ...neologism, including those produced by affixation and by semantic change. In fact the book focuses mainly on Anglo-American influence...into new compounds or semi-compound forms; affixation and semantic change are really discussed only in so far as they interact with... Read more
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	Language and society. (reprint 2007).(Brief article)(Book review) Magazine article from: Reference & Research Book News; 5/1/2009; 128 words ; ...1960s, but mostly during the 1970s. Among the topics are language and social man (1974), sociological aspects of semantic change (1975), language and the theory of codes (1994), and anti-languages (1976). ([c]2009 Book News, Inc., Portland... Read more
	Semantic changes within the domain boy in panchronic perspective.(Linguistics) Magazine article from: Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies; 1/1/2004; ; 700+ words ; ...linguistics studies par excellence--semantic Change--can be understood as conventionalisation...construction. From this perspective, semantic change appears as a natural consequence of...principles which condition the mechanism of semantic change in a particular case taking as an... Read more
	Churls, Harlots and Sires: the semantics of Middle English synonyms of man.(Linguistics) Magazine article from: Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies; 1/1/2003; ; 700+ words ; ...linguistics such as, Bechstein (1863), Paul (1880), Breal (1879), Trench (1892) devoted much effort to the issue of diachronic semantic change, the second half of the 20th century was, until the 1980s, marked by a particular dearth of publications on the problems... Read more
	Forced smiles.(Artificial Happiness: The Dark Side of the New Happy Class)(Book review) Magazine article from: New Criterion; 9/1/2006; ; 700+ words ; ...depressed, what was once considered to be an inescapable part of the human condition has been elevated (or is it reduced?), by a semantic change, to an illness. And since good health care is now regarded as a right, the corollary of unhappiness being an illness is... Read more
	Chicken or hen?: domestic fowl metaphors denoting human beings.(LINGUISTICS)(Table)(Report) Magazine article from: Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies; 1/1/2006; ; 700+ words ; ...from other languages. This work discusses some of the reasons that have traditionally been adduced to explain word loss and semantic change, and see how they can be applied to the field of generic denominations of fowl. It also investigates the various ways in... Read more
	Disavowing the Public. Magazine article from: School Administrator; 9/1/1994; 97 words ; ...to convince Texans that students are getting a good education. But Governor Ann Richards said she was disturbed by the proposal to drop the word. The state education department agreed with the governor and no such semantic change is expected. Read more

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	GENERALIZATION Book article from: Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language GENERALIZATION. A process of SEMANTIC CHANGE that widens the meaning of a WORD...continue indefinitely alongside later changes that have become dominant, as was...dove in the 16c. In the process of change, terms may acquire further meanings... Read more
	SPECIALIZATION Book article from: Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language SPECIALIZATION. A process of SEMANTIC CHANGE in which narrowing occurs in the meaning of a word. In Middle English, deer meant a four-legged beast (compare Dutch dier and German... Read more
	symbolic execution Book article from: A Dictionary of Computing symbolic execution A form of semantic analysis/proof of a program in...is made to see if the state has changed. Each state change is recorded. A logical path through...converted into an ordered set of state changes. The final state for each path... Read more
	PEJORATION Book article from: Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language PEJORATION. A term in LINGUISTICS for the process of SEMANTIC CHANGE in which there is a depreciation or ‘downward’ shift in the meaning of a word, phrase, or lexeme: for example, Old... Read more
	DETERIORATION Book article from: Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language DETERIORATION. 1. An emotive term for LANGUAGE CHANGE seen as evidence of linguistic and social decline. 2. Also pejoration . A category of SEMANTIC CHANGE , in which the meaning of a word or phrase depreciates with time: crafty once meant ‘... Read more

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