Essay On Semantic Change

The first traditional typology of semantic change is the division into changes whose result is more positive meaning so called ‘amelioration’ and those which gives more negative meaning known as ‘pejoration’. The second traditional classification of changes in meaning is in terms of whether it becomes ‘broader or narrower’. The third dimension on which certain semantic changes may be classified in whether the result from ‘metaphor or metonymy’. In metaphorical meaning change, speakers perceive some sort of similarity between one concept (the source concepts) and the concept (the target concept). Metonymy like metaphor in was some sort of connection between concepts, but in this case there is no similarity between, but they are closely linked in some other way for example one is part of or contains the other. This type metonymy is sometimes known as ‘paras pro toot’ (part for whole) and the reverse, so called ‘totun pro partr’ (whole for part) is also possible. The fourth way in which Semantic changes has traditionally been classified depends on whether they are driven by factors within the language itself, or by language, external factors the

When we speak of sematic change (or a language more generally) when a number of language users, have only a single speaker created a new uses? The later situation is sometimes dismissed as a case of language change but consider that a semantic or other type of change always start in some speaker’s here and now. The phenomena are in that sense