Semantic Change
- semantic shift: meanings / concepts change over time
* causes paucity
* change in the best example of what the label refers to / changes in conceptualization in concepts over generations - key factors that cause shifting
* errors and misrepresentation: sometimes speakers are not familiar enough with the labels / words
* creative variation: humans are social and like to play with language
* social-historical factors: old words adapted to new purposes with innovations of tech, society, politics, and culture
* paucity of words: there's an infinite number of things to say and a finite number of words ➝ very likely you’ll use a common word in an uncommon way - types of semantic change
* widening: the range of possible meanings of the word expands. aka generalization
* narrowing: range of possible meanings of the word contracts / gets smaller
* metaphor extension: meaning pattern of a word / phrase is extended to another context
* involves semantic extension across semantic domains
* metonymy: employing the meaning of a word to do service for a concept to which it is closely related
* extension within domains
* pejoration: a word changes from an innately positive meaning to a more innately negative meaning
* process takes a long time
* amelioration: neg ➝ pos meaning - neutral / sideways shift. neg ➝ neg, pos ➝ pos