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Semantic change (also semantic shift, semantic progression, semantic development, or semantic drift) is a form of language change regarding the evolution of word usage—usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. In diachronic (or historical) linguistics, semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word. Every word has a variety of
senses A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the central nervous system re ...
and connotations, which can be added, removed, or altered over time, often to the extent that cognates across space and time have very different meanings. The study of semantic change can be seen as part of
etymology Etymology () The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words ...
, onomasiology,
semasiology Semasiology (from el, σημασία, ', "signification") is a discipline of linguistics concerned with the question "what does the word ''X'' mean?". It studies the meaning of words regardless how they are pronounced. It is the opposite of o ...
, and
semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
.


Examples in English

* Awful — Literally "full of awe", originally meant "inspiring wonder (or fear)", hence "impressive". In contemporary usage, the word means "extremely bad". * Awesome — Literally "awe-inducing", originally meant "inspiring wonder (or fear)", hence "impressive". In contemporary usage, the word means "extremely good". * Terrible — Originally meant "inspiring terror", shifted to indicate anything spectacular, then to something spectacularly bad. * Terrific — Originally meant "inspiring terror", shifted to indicate anything spectacular, then to something spectacularly good. * Nice — Originally meant "foolish, ignorant, frivolous, senseless." from Old French ''nice'' (12c.) meaning "careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish," from Latin ''nescius'' ("ignorant or unaware"). Literally "''not-knowing''," from ''ne-'' "not" (from PIE root ''*ne-'' "not") + stem of ''scire'' "to know" (compare with science). "The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj." eekley-- from "timid, faint-hearted" (pre-1300); to "fussy, fastidious" (late 14c.); to "dainty, delicate" (c. 1400); to "precise, careful" (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early); to "agreeable, delightful" (1769); to "kind, thoughtful" (1830). * Naïf or Naïve —Initially meant "natural, primitive, or native" . From
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
naïf,
literally ''Literally'' is an English adverb. It has been controversially used as an intensifier for figurative statements. History The first known use of the word ''literally'' was in the 15th century, or the 1530s, when it was used in the sense of "in ...
"''native''". The masculine form of the French word, but used in English without reference to gender. As a noun, "natural, artless, naive person," first attested 1893, from French, where
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...
''naif'' also meant ''"native inhabitant; simpleton, natural fool."'' * Demagogue — Originally meant "a popular leader". It is from the Greek ''dēmagōgós'' "leader of the people", from ''dēmos'' "people" + ''agōgós'' "leading, guiding". Now the word has strong connotations of a
politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...
who panders to emotions and prejudice. * Egregious — Originally described something that was remarkably good. The word is from the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
''egregius'' "illustrious, select", literally, "standing out from the flock", which is from ''ex''—"out of" + ''greg''—(''grex'') "flock". Now it means something that is remarkably bad or flagrant. * Gay — Originally meant (13th century) "lighthearted", "joyous" or (14th century) "bright and showy", it also came to mean "happy"; it acquired connotations of immorality as early as 1637, either sexual e.g., ''gay woman'' "prostitute", ''gay man'' "womaniser", ''gay house'' "brothel", or otherwise, e.g., ''gay dog'' "over-indulgent man" and ''gay deceiver'' "deceitful and lecherous". In the United States by 1897 the expression ''gay cat'' referred to a hobo, especially a younger hobo in the company of an older one; by 1935, it was used in prison slang for a homosexual boy; and by 1951, and clipped to ''gay'', referred to homosexuals. George Chauncey, in his book ''
Gay New York ''Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940'' is a 1994 history book by George Chauncey about gay life in New York City during the early 20th century. An updated 2019 edition commemorates the Stonew ...
'', would put this shift as early as the late 19th century among a certain "in crowd", knowledgeable of gay night-life. In the modern day, it is most often used to refer to homosexuals, at first among themselves and then in society at large, with a neutral connotation; or as a derogatory synonym for "silly", "dumb", or "boring". * Guy — Guy Fawkes was the alleged leader of a plot to blow up the English Houses of Parliament on 5 November 1605. The day was made a holiday, Guy Fawkes Day, commemorated by parading and burning a ragged manikin of Fawkes, known as a ''Guy''. This led to the use of the word ''guy'' as a term for any "person of grotesque appearance" and then by the late 1800s—especially in the United States—for "any man", as in, e.g., "Some ''guy'' called for you." Over the 20th century, ''guy'' has replaced ''fellow'' in the U.S., and, under the influence of American popular culture, has been gradually replacing ''fellow'', ''bloke'', ''chap'' and other such words throughout the rest of the
English-speaking world Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the '' Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest languag ...
. In the plural, it can refer to a mixture of genders (e.g., "Come on, you guys!" could be directed to a group of mixed gender instead of only men).


Evolution of types

A number of classification schemes have been suggested for semantic change. Recent overviews have been presented by Blank and . Semantic change has attracted academic discussions since ancient times, although the first major works emerged in the 19th century with , , and . Studies beyond the analysis of single words have been started with the word-field analyses of , who claimed that every semantic change of a word would also affect all other words in a lexical field. His approach was later refined by . introduced
Generative Generative may refer to: * Generative actor, a person who instigates social change * Generative art, art that has been created using an autonomous system that is frequently, but not necessarily, implemented using a computer * Generative music, mus ...
semantics. More recent works including
pragmatic Pragmatism is a philosophical movement. Pragmatism or pragmatic may also refer to: *Pragmaticism, Charles Sanders Peirce's post-1905 branch of philosophy * Pragmatics, a subfield of linguistics and semiotics *'' Pragmatics'', an academic journal i ...
and cognitive theories are those in , Dirk Geeraerts, and . A chronological list of typologies is presented below. Today, the most currently used typologies are those by and .


Typology by Reisig (1839)

Reisig's ideas for a classification were published posthumously. He resorts to classical rhetorics and distinguishes between * Synecdoche: shifts between part and whole * Metonymy: shifts between cause and effect * Metaphor


Typology by Paul (1880)

* Generalization: enlargement of single senses of a word's meaning * Specialization on a specific part of the contents: reduction of single senses of a word's meaning * Transfer on a notion linked to the based notion in a spatial, temporal, or causal way


Typology by Darmesteter (1887)

* Metaphor * Metonymy * Narrowing of meaning * Widening of meaning The last two are defined as change between whole and part, which would today be rendered as ''synecdoche''.


Typology by Bréal (1899)

* Restriction of sense: change from a general to a special meaning * Enlargement of sense: change from a special to a general meaning * Metaphor * "Thickening" of sense: change from an abstract to a concrete meaning


Typology by Stern (1931)

* Substitution: Change related to the change of an object, of the knowledge referring to the object, of the attitude toward the object, e.g., ''artillery'' "engines of war used to throw missiles" → "mounted guns", ''atom'' "inseparable smallest physical-chemical element" → "physical-chemical element consisting of electrons", ''scholasticism'' "philosophical system of the Middle Ages" → "servile adherence to the methods and teaching of schools" * Analogy: Change triggered by the change of an associated word, e.g., ''fast'' adj. "fixed and rapid" ← ''faste'' adv. "fixedly, rapidly") * Shortening: e.g., ''periodical'' ← ''periodical paper'' * Nomination: "the intentional naming of a referent, new or old, with a name that has not previously been used for it" (Stern 1931: 282), e.g., ''lion'' "brave man" ← "lion" * Regular transfer: a subconscious Nomination * Permutation: non-intentional shift of one referent to another due to a reinterpretation of a situation, e.g., ''bead'' "prayer" → "pearl in a rosary") * Adequation: Change in the attitude of a concept; distinction from substitution is unclear. This classification does not neatly distinguish between processes and forces/causes of semantic change.


Typology by Bloomfield (1933)

The most widely accepted scheme in the English-speaking academic world is from : * Narrowing: Change from superordinate level to subordinate level. For example, ''
skyline A skyline is the outline or shape viewed near the horizon. It can be created by a city’s overall structure, or by human intervention in a rural setting, or in nature that is formed where the sky meets buildings or the land. City skylin ...
'' formerly referred to any horizon, but now in the US it has narrowed to a horizon decorated by skyscrapers. * Widening: There are many examples of specific brand names being used for the general product, such as with '' Kleenex''. Such uses are known as generonyms: see genericization. *
Metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
: Change based on similarity of thing. For example, '' broadcast'' originally meant "to cast seeds out"; with the advent of radio and television, the word was extended to indicate the transmission of audio and video signals. Outside of agricultural circles, very few use ''broadcast'' in the earlier sense. * Metonymy: Change based on nearness in space or time, e.g., ''jaw'' "cheek" → "mandible". * Synecdoche: Change based on whole-part relation. The convention of using capital cities to represent countries or their governments is an example of this. * Hyperbole: Change from weaker to stronger meaning, e.g., ''kill'' "torment" → "slaughter" *
Meiosis Meiosis (; , since it is a reductional division) is a special type of cell division of germ cells in sexually-reproducing organisms that produces the gametes, such as sperm or egg cells. It involves two rounds of division that ultimately ...
: Change from stronger to weaker meaning, e.g., ''astound'' "strike with thunder" → "surprise strongly". * Degeneration: e.g., ''knave'' "boy" → "servant" → "deceitful or despicable man"; ''awful'' "awe-inspiring" → "very bad." * Elevation: e.g., ''knight'' "boy" → "nobleman"; ''terrific'' "terrifying" → "astonishing" → "very good".


Typology by Ullmann (1957, 1962)

Ullmann distinguishes between nature and consequences of semantic change: * Nature of semantic change **
Metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
: change based on a similarity of senses ** Metonymy: change based on a contiguity of senses **
Folk-etymology Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more famili ...
: change based on a similarity of names **
Ellipsis The ellipsis (, also known informally as dot dot dot) is a series of dots that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. The plural is ellipses. The term origin ...
: change based on a contiguity of names * Consequences of semantic change ** Widening of meaning: rise of quantity ** Narrowing of meaning: loss of quantity ** Amelioration of meaning: rise of quality ** Pejoration of meaning: loss of quality


Typology by Blank (1999)

However, the categorization of has gained increasing acceptance: *
Metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
: Change based on similarity between concepts, e.g., ''mouse'' "rodent" → "computer device". * Metonymy: Change based on contiguity between concepts, e.g., ''horn'' "animal horn" → "musical instrument". * Synecdoche: A type of metonymy involving a part to whole relationship, e.g. "hands" from "all hands on deck" → "bodies" * Specialization of meaning: Downward shift in a taxonomy, e.g., ''corn'' "grain" → "wheat" (UK), → "maize" (US). * Generalization of meaning: Upward shift in a taxonomy, e.g., ''hoover'' "Hoover vacuum cleaner" → "any type of vacuum cleaner". * Cohyponymic transfer: Horizontal shift in a taxonomy, e.g., the confusion of ''mouse'' and ''rat'' in some dialects. * Antiphrasis: Change based on a contrastive aspect of the concepts, e.g., ''perfect lady'' in the sense of "prostitute". *
Auto-antonymy An auto-antonym or autantonym, also called a contronym or antagonym among other terms, is a word with multiple meanings (senses) of which one is the reverse of another. For example, the word '' cleave'' can mean "to cut apart" or "to bind togethe ...
: Change of a word's sense and concept to the complementary opposite, e.g., ''bad'' in the slang sense of "good". * Auto-converse: Lexical expression of a relationship by the two extremes of the respective relationship, e.g., ''take'' in the dialectal use as "give". *
Ellipsis The ellipsis (, also known informally as dot dot dot) is a series of dots that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. The plural is ellipses. The term origin ...
: Semantic change based on the contiguity of names, e.g., ''car'' "cart" → "automobile", due to the invention of the ''(motor) car''. *
Folk-etymology Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more famili ...
: Semantic change based on the similarity of names, e.g., French ''contredanse'', orig. English ''country dance''. Blank considered it problematic to include amelioration and pejoration of meaning (as in Ullman) as well as strengthening and weakening of meaning (as in Bloomfield). According to Blank, these are not objectively classifiable phenomena; moreover, Blank has argued that all of the examples listed under these headings can be grouped under other phenomena, rendering the categories redundant.


Forces triggering change

Blank has tried to create a complete list of motivations for semantic change. They can be summarized as: * Linguistic forces * Psychological forces * Sociocultural forces * Cultural/encyclopedic forces This list has been revised and slightly enlarged by :Compare and * Fuzziness (i.e., difficulties in classifying the referent or attributing the right word to the referent, thus mixing up designations) * Dominance of the prototype (i.e., fuzzy difference between superordinate and subordinate term due to the monopoly of the prototypical member of a category in the real world) * Social reasons (i.e., contact situation with "undemarcation" effects) * Institutional and non-institutional linguistic pre- and proscriptivism (i.e., legal and peer-group linguistic pre- and proscriptivism, aiming at "demarcation") * Flattery * Insult * Disguising language (i.e., "misnomers") * Taboo (i.e., taboo concepts) * Aesthetic-formal reasons (i.e., avoidance of words that are phonetically similar or identical to negatively associated words) * Communicative-formal reasons (i.e., abolition of the ambiguity of forms in context, keyword: "homonymic conflict and polysemic conflict") * Wordplay/punning * Excessive length of words * Morphological misinterpretation (keyword: "folk-etymology", creation of transparency by changes within a word) * Logical-formal reasons (keyword: "lexical regularization", creation of consociation) * Desire for plasticity (creation of a salient motivation of a name) * Anthropological salience of a concept (i.e., anthropologically given emotionality of a concept, "natural salience") * Culture-induced salience of a concept ("cultural importance") * Changes in the referents (i.e., changes in the world) * Worldview change (i.e., changes in the categorization of the world) * Prestige/fashion (based on the prestige of another language or variety, of certain word-formation patterns, or of certain semasiological centers of expansion)


The case of reappropriation

A specific case of semantic change is reappropriation, a cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group, for example like with the word queer. Other related processes include pejoration and amelioration.


Practical studies

Apart from many individual studies, etymological dictionaries are prominent reference books for finding out about semantic changes. A recent survey lists practical tools and online systems for investigating semantic change of words over time. WordEvolutionStudy is an academic platform that takes arbitrary words as input to generate summary views of their evolution based on Google Books ngram dataset and the Corpus of Historical American English.


See also

*
Calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...
* Dead metaphor * Euphemism treadmill *
False friend In linguistics, a false friend is either of two words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. Examples include English ''embarrassed'' and Spanish ''embarazada'' 'pregnant'; English ''parents'' ...
* Genericized trademark * Language change * Lexicology and lexical semantics *
List of calques A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
* Newspeak *
Phono-semantic matching Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with phonetically and semantically similar words or roots fro ...
*
Q-based narrowing In the Neo-Gricean approach to semantics and pragmatics championed by Yale linguist Laurence Horn, the Q-principle ("Q" for "Quantity") is a reformulation of Paul Grice's maxim of quantity (''see'' Gricean maxims) combined with the first two sub-ma ...
* Semantic field * Skunked term * Retronym


Notes


References

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Vanhove, Martine (2008), ''From Polysemy to Semantic change: Towards a Typology of Lexical Semantic Associations'', Studies in Language Companion Series 106, Amsterdam, New York: Benjamins. * * Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2003)
Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew
Palgrave Macmillan, .


Further reading

* AlBader, Yousuf B. (2015)
Semantic Innovation and Change in Kuwaiti Arabic: A Study of the Polysemy of Verbs
* AlBader, Yousuf B. (2016)
From ''dašš l-ġōṣ'' to ''dašš twitar'': Semantic Change in Kuwaiti Arabic
* AlBader, Yousuf B. (2017)
Polysemy and Semantic Change in the Arabic Language and Dialects
* Grzega, Joachim (2000), "Historical Semantics in the Light of Cognitive Linguistics: Aspects of a new reference book reviewed", ''Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik'' 25: 233–244. * Koch, Peter (2002), "Lexical typology from a cognitive and linguistic point of view", in: Cruse, D. Alan et al. (eds.), ''Lexicology: An international handbook on the nature and structure of words and vocabularies/lexikologie: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von Wörtern und Wortschätzen'', andbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft 21 Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, vol. 1, 1142–1178. * Wundt, Wilhelm (1912), ''Völkerpsychologie: Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte'', vol. 2,2: ''Die Sprache'', Leipzig: Engelmann.


External links


Onomasiology Online
(internet platform by Joachim Grzega, Alfred Bammesberger and Marion Schöner, including a list of etymological dictionaries)
Etymonline, Online Etymology Dictionary of the English language

Exploring Word Evolution
An online analysis tool for studying evolution of any input words based on Google Books n-gram dataset and the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). {{DEFAULTSORT:Semantic Change Historical linguistics Lexicology Semantics Semantic relations