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Theories Of Language Change

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There are various theories about language change given by Linguists and they have given different typologies regarding Language change. Language change can broadly divided into two types.
i. External Language Change ii. Internal Language Change
External language change generally occur because of borrowing whereas internal language change is caused by addition loss of sound and change of lexical items and the coinage of new words. Level wise language change can be divided into
1.2.4.1. Sound Change: Sound change is the process of language change which changes the pronunciation (phonetic) or sound system (phonology) of the language. Sound change is often divided into regular vs. irregular sound change. Regular …show more content…

Meaning change has long been the poor relation within historical linguistics but between few decades there has been much important work in both historical linguistics and a study of semantics. One reason to neglect this semantic change is that the changes themselves seem to be irregular. It was supposed that semantic change is fuzzy and self-contradictory in nature and cannot be easily predicted. This is the reason that just about all linguistic theories scholars concentrate on the structural aspects of language. There is always a disagreement among scholars regarding the classification of semantic change. Semantic change is neither an exact change in meaning, nor does it happen immediately. Instead it involves the altering, removing and adding one meaning behind a word by following two generalizations. The first is that meaning tend more towards negative connotations over the positive. The second is that a word may change to be more subjective and toward expressing what can be possible. Although there are no apparent laws in semantic change, many types of sematic change have been identified. The most general way to describe the change, is with the term ‘semantic shift’, this shows just the slight change. If the word is studied closer, even the semantic shift can be classified into more specific form of change. There are different types of change which are noticed. The most neutral way of referring to change is simply to speak to semantic shift. Changes in the meanings of root morphemes are usually subsumed under the heading of semantic change. Semantic shift represents general culture of geographical changes, rather than those introduced by a class of imaginative speakers. The large part of semantic change has been produced by the school of SOCIOLOGCAL LINGUISTICS in Paris consisting of the students of Antonie Meillet. The follower of this school follows the view of the French

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