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.