good
CHANGE Of MEANING
Word-meaning is liable to change in the course of the historical development of language. Changes of lexical meaning may be illustrated by a diachronic semantic analysis of many commonly used English words. The word fond (OE. fond) used to mean ‘foolish’, ‘foolishly credulous’; glad (OE, glaed) had the meaning of ‘bright’, ’shining’ and so on.
Change of meaning has been thoroughly studied and as a matter of fact monopolised the attention of all semanticists whose work up to the early 1930’s was centered almost exclusively on the description and classification of various changes of meaning. Abundant language data can be found in almost all the books dealing with semantics. Here we shall confine the discussion to a brief outline of the problem as it is viewed in modern linguistic science.
To avoid the ensuing confusion of terms and concepts it is necessary to discriminate between the causes of semantic change, the results and the nature of the process of change of meaning.1 These are three closely bound up, but essentially different aspects of one and the same problem.
Discussing the causes of semantic change we concentrate on the factors bringing about -this change and attempt to find out why the word changed its meaning. Analysing the nature of semantic change we seek i See St. Ullmann. The Principles of Semantics. Chapter 8, Oxford, 1963. 28 to clarify the process of this change and describe how various changes of meaning were brought about. Our aim in investigating the results of semantic change is to find out what was changed, i.e. we compare the resultant and the original meanings and describe the difference between them mainly in terms of the changes of the denotational components.
The factors accounting for semantic changes may be roughly subdivided into two groups: a) extra-linguistic and b) linguistic causes.
By extra-linguistic causes we mean various changes in the life of the speech community, changes in economic and social
Word-meaning is liable to change in the course of the historical development of language. Changes of lexical meaning may be illustrated by a diachronic semantic analysis of many commonly used English words. The word fond (OE. fond) used to mean ‘foolish’, ‘foolishly credulous’; glad (OE, glaed) had the meaning of ‘bright’, ’shining’ and so on.
Change of meaning has been thoroughly studied and as a matter of fact monopolised the attention of all semanticists whose work up to the early 1930’s was centered almost exclusively on the description and classification of various changes of meaning. Abundant language data can be found in almost all the books dealing with semantics. Here we shall confine the discussion to a brief outline of the problem as it is viewed in modern linguistic science.
To avoid the ensuing confusion of terms and concepts it is necessary to discriminate between the causes of semantic change, the results and the nature of the process of change of meaning.1 These are three closely bound up, but essentially different aspects of one and the same problem.
Discussing the causes of semantic change we concentrate on the factors bringing about -this change and attempt to find out why the word changed its meaning. Analysing the nature of semantic change we seek i See St. Ullmann. The Principles of Semantics. Chapter 8, Oxford, 1963. 28 to clarify the process of this change and describe how various changes of meaning were brought about. Our aim in investigating the results of semantic change is to find out what was changed, i.e. we compare the resultant and the original meanings and describe the difference between them mainly in terms of the changes of the denotational components.
The factors accounting for semantic changes may be roughly subdivided into two groups: a) extra-linguistic and b) linguistic causes.
By extra-linguistic causes we mean various changes in the life of the speech community, changes in economic and social