Historical Linguistics/Semantic Change
Just as the pronunciation of words change over a language history, so do their meanings and connotations. Unlike sound changes and other highly regular processes, semantic change is entirely unsystematic: the change of any one word is independent and generally unaffected by the changes of other words.
Common Types of Semantic Change[edit | edit source]
Influences of Phonetic Similarity[edit | edit source]
Words which sound similar will converge or become more similar in meaning.
- eg. Obnoxious once meant "exposed to injury," but now means "annoying, offensive, or objectionable" - a change motivated by the words resemblance to "noxious"
- eg. Some speakers use "bemused" and "amused" interchangeably.
Widening[edit | edit source]
A word comes to refer to a more general set of things than its earlier use.
Leeched Diminutives[edit | edit source]
A word frequently used as a diminutive changes to refer to the thing it describes generally
- A subset of widening
- eg. New High German Mädchen 'girl' was originally a diminutive of Magd 'girl'
Narrowing[edit | edit source]
A broad category comes to refer to a specific element
- eg. corn, meaning grain, shifted to refer specifically to maize.
- eg. meat, meaning food, shifted to refer specifically to food made from animal flesh.
Pejorization amd Meliorization[edit | edit source]
Respectively, when a word comes to refer to positive or negative instances of its base meaning.
- eg. dom, meaning judgement, became doom, meaning peril, a pejorization.
Semantic Bleaching[edit | edit source]
An intensifier becomes weaker in meaning.
- eg. terribly once meant "so extreme as to be terrifying" whereas now one might say "I terribly glad to see you."
Euphemism[edit | edit source]
Taboo terms are replaced with other existing words.