Semantic Change
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 April 2017
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199772810-0155
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 April 2017
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199772810-0155
Introduction
Semantic change is the subfield of historical linguistics that investigates changes in sense. In 1892, the German philosopher Gottlob Frege argued that, although they refer to the same person, Jocasta and Oedipus’s mother, are not equivalent because they cannot be substituted for each other in some contexts; they have different “senses” or “values.” In contemporary linguistics, most researchers agree that words do not “have” meanings. Rather, words are assigned meanings by speakers and hearers in the context of use. Linguists distinguish semantic change from changes in “lexis” (vocabulary development, often in cultural contexts), although there is inevitably some overlap between the two. Semantic changes occur when speakers attribute new meanings to extant expressions. Changes in lexis occur when speakers add new words to the inventory, e.g., by coinage (“affluenza,” a blend of affluent and influenza), or borrowing (“sushi”). Linguists also distinguish organizing principles in research. Starting with the form of a word or phrase and charting changes in the meanings of that the word or phrase is known as “semasiology”; this is the organizing principle for historical dictionaries. Starting with a concept and investigating which different expressions can express it is known as “onomasiology”; this is the organizing principle for thesauruses.
General Overviews of Semantic/Pragmatic Change
General overviews may be divided into textbooks and overview articles, edited collections, and journals.
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Article
- Acceptability Judgments
- Acoustic Phoneitcs
- Acquisition, Second Language, and Bilingualism, Psycholin...
- Adpositions
- Affixation
- African Linguistics
- Afroasiatic Languages
- Agreement
- Algonquian Linguistics
- Altaic Languages
- Analogy in Language and Linguistics
- Anaphora
- Animal Communication
- Aphasia
- Applicatives
- Arawak Languages
- Argument Structure
- Artificial Languages
- Athabaskan Languages
- Australian Languages
- Austronesian Linguistics
- Auxiliaries
- Balkans, The Languages of the
- Berber Languages and Linguistics
- Bilingualism and Multilingualism
- Biology of Language
- Blocking
- Caddoan Languages
- Caucasian Languages
- Causatives
- Celtic Languages
- Celtic Mutations
- Chomsky, Noam
- Chumashan Languages
- Classifiers
- Clauses, Relative
- Clinical Linguistics
- Cognitive Linguistics
- Colonial Place Names
- Comparative Reconstruction in Linguistics
- Comparative-Historical Linguistics
- Complementation
- Complexity, Linguistic
- Compositionality
- Compounding
- Computational Linguistics
- Conditionals
- Conjunctions
- Connectionism
- Consonant Epenthesis
- Contrastive Analysis in Linguistics
- Conversation Analysis
- Conversation, Maxims of
- Conversational Implicature
- Cooperative Principle
- Coordination
- Copula
- Creoles
- Creoles, Grammatical Categories in
- Critical Periods
- Cross-Language Speech Perception and Production
- Definiteness
- Dene-Yeniseian
- Dependencies
- Dependencies, Long Distance
- Derivational Morphology
- Determiners
- Dialectology
- Dialogue
- Diglossia
- Disfluency
- Distinctive Features
- Dravidian Languages
- Ellipsis
- Endangered Languages
- English as a Lingua Franca
- English, Early Modern
- Ergativity
- Eskimo-Aleut
- Euphemisms and Dysphemisms
- Evidentials
- Exemplar-Based Models in Linguistics
- Existential
- Existential Wh-Constructions
- Experimental Linguistics
- Fieldwork
- Finite State Languages
- First Language Attrition
- Formulaic Language
- Francoprovençal
- French Grammars
- Frisian
- Gabelentz, Georg von der
- Gender
- Genealogical Classification
- Generative Syntax
- Genetics and Language
- Gestures
- Grammar, Categorial
- Grammar, Construction
- Grammar, Descriptive
- Grammar, Functional Discourse
- Grammars, Phrase Structure
- Grammaticalization
- Harris, Zellig
- Heritage Languages
- History of Linguistics
- History of the English Language
- Hmong-Mien Languages
- Hokan Languages
- Honorifics
- Humor in Language
- Hungarian Vowel Harmony
- Iconicity
- Ideophones
- Idiolect
- Idiom and Phraseology
- Imperatives
- Indefiniteness
- Indo-European Etymology
- Inflected Infinitives
- Information Structure
- Innateness
- Interface Between Phonology and Phonetics
- Interjections
- Intonation
- IPA
- Iroquoian Languages
- Islands
- Jakobson, Roman
- Japanese Word Accent
- Jones, Daniel
- Juncture and Boundary
- Kiowa-Tanoan Languages
- Kra-Dai Languages
- Labov, William
- Language Acquisition
- Language and Law
- Language Contact
- Language Documentation
- Language, Gender, and Sexuality
- Language Geography
- Language Ideologies and Language Attitudes
- Language in Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Language Revitalization
- Language Shift
- Language Standardization
- Languages of Africa
- Languages of the Americas, Indigenous
- Languages of the World
- Learnability
- Lexemes
- Lexical Access, Cognitive Mechanisms for
- Lexical Semantics
- Lexical-Functional Grammar
- Lexicography
- Linguistic Anthropology
- Linguistic Areas
- Linguistic Landscapes
- Linguistic Prescriptivism
- Linguistic Profiling and Language-Based Discrimination
- Linguistic Relativity
- Literature and Linguistics
- Loanwords
- Machine Translation
- Mande Languages
- Markedness
- Mass-Count Distinction
- Mathematical Linguistics
- Mayan Languages
- Mental Health Disorders, Language in
- Mesoamerican Languages
- Metaphor
- Metathesis
- Metonymy
- Minority Languages
- Mixed Languages
- Mixe-Zoquean Languages
- Modification
- Mon-Khmer Languages
- Morphological Change
- Morphology
- Morphology, Subtractive
- Movement
- Munda Languages
- Muskogean Languages
- Nasals and Nasalization
- Negation
- Niger-Congo Languages
- Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages
- Northeast Caucasian Languages
- Nostratic
- Number
- Numerals
- Oceanic Languages
- Papuan Languages
- Penutian Languages
- Philosophy of Language
- Phonetics
- Phonetics, Articulatory
- Phonological Research, Psycholinguistic Methodology in
- Phonology
- Phonology, Computational
- Phonology, Early Child
- Pidgins
- Polarity
- Politeness in Language
- Polysemy
- Pragmatics, Acquisition of
- Pragmatics, Computational
- Pragmatics, Experimental
- Prague Linguistic Circle, The
- Presupposition
- Pronouns
- Psycholinguistics
- Quechuan and Aymaran Languages
- Questions
- Reciprocals
- Reduplication
- Reflexives and Reflexivity
- Relevance Theory
- Salish Languages
- Saussure, Ferdinand de
- Semantic Change
- Semantic Maps
- Semantic Roles
- Sentence Processing in Monolingual and Bilingual Speakers
- Sign Language Linguistics
- Sociolinguistics
- Sociolinguistics, Variationist
- Sonority
- Sound Change
- South American Indian Languages
- Specific Language Impairment
- Speech Perception
- Speech Production
- Speech Synthesis
- Suppletion
- Switch-Reference
- Syllables
- Syncretism
- Synonymy
- Syntactic Change
- Syntactic Knowledge, Children’s Acquisition of
- Tense, Aspect, and Mood
- Tone
- Tone Sandhi
- Topic
- Transcription
- Transitivity and Voice
- Translation
- Trubetzkoy, Nikolai
- Tucanoan Languages
- Tupian Languages
- Typology
- Usage-Based Linguistics
- Uto-Aztecan Languages
- Valency Theory
- Verbs, Serial
- Visual Word Recognition
- Voice and Voice Quality
- Vowel Harmony
- Whitney, William Dwight
- Word Classes
- Word Formation in Japanese
- Word Stress
- Writing Systems
- Yiddish
- Zapotecan Languages