Semantic change, also known as semantic shift or semantic progression describes the evolution of word

Word

In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...

 usage — usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. In diachronic (or historical) linguistics

Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

, semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word. Every word has a variety of senses and connotations which can be added, removed, or altered over time, often to the extent that cognate

Cognate

In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...

s across space and time have very different meanings. The study of semantic change can be seen as part of etymology

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

, onomasiology

Onomasiology

Onomasiology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the question "how do you express X?" It is in fact most commonly understood as a branch of lexicology, the study of words .Onomasiology, as a part of lexicology, starts from a concept which is taken to be priorOnomasiology (from — to name,...

, semasiology

Semasiology

Semasiology is a discipline within linguistics concerned with the question "what does the word X mean?". It studies the meaning of words regardless of their phonetic expression. Semasiology departs from a word or lexical expression and asks for its meaning, its different senses, i.e. polysemy...

, and semantics

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....

.

Examples

• Awful - Originally meant "inspiring wonder (or fear)". It is a portmanteau of the words "awe" and "full", used originally as a shortening for "full of awe". In contemporary usage the word usually has negative meaning.
• Demagogue - Originally meant "a popular leader". It is from the Greek
  Greek language
  Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
  
   demagogos (leader of the people), from demos (people) + agogos (leader). Now the word has strong connotations of a politician
  Politician
  A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
  
   who panders to emotions and prejudice
  Prejudice
  Prejudice is making a judgment or assumption about someone or something before having enough knowledge to be able to do so with guaranteed accuracy, or "judging a book by its cover"...
  
  .
• Egregious - Originally described something that was remarkably good. The word is from the Latin
  Latin
  Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
  
   egregius (outstanding) which is from e-, ex- (out of) + greg- or grex (flock). Now it means something that is remarkably bad or flagrant.
• Guy - Guido (Guy) Fawkes
  Guy Fawkes
  Guy Fawkes , also known as Guido Fawkes, the name he adopted while fighting for the Spanish in the Low Countries, belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.Fawkes was born and educated in York...
  
   was the alleged leader of a plot
  Gunpowder Plot
  The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of Scotland by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby.The plan was to blow up the House of...
  
   to blow up the English
  England
  England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
  
   Houses of Parliament
  Palace of Westminster
  The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
  
   on 5 November 1605. The burning on 5 November of a grotesque effigy
  Effigy
  An effigy is a representation of a person, especially in the form of sculpture or some other three-dimensional form.The term is usually associated with full-length figures of a deceased person depicted in stone or wood on church monuments. These most often lie supine with hands together in prayer,...
  
   of Fawkes, known as a "guy," led to the use of the word "guy" as a term for any "person of grotesque appearance" and then to a general reference for a man, as in "some guy called for you." In the 20th century, under the influence of American popular culture
  Culture of the United States
  The Culture of the United States is a Western culture originally influenced by European cultures. It has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, and folklore...
  
  , "guy" has been gradually replacing "fellow," "bloke," "chap" and other such words throughout the English-speaking world
  English-speaking world
  The English-speaking world consists of those countries or regions that use the English language to one degree or another. For more information, please see:Lists:* List of countries by English-speaking population...
  
  , and, in the plural, can refer to a mixture of genders (e.g., "Come on, you guys!" could be directed to a group of men and women).
• Gay - Originally meant feelings of being "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy"; it had also come to acquire some connotations of "immorality" as early as 1637. The term later began to be used in reference to homosexuality, in particular, from the early 20th century, a usage that may have dated prior to the 19th century.

Types of semantic change

A number of classification schemes have been suggested for semantic change. The most widely accepted scheme in the English-speaking academic world is from :

• Narrowing: Change from superordinate level to subordinate level. For example, skyline used to refer to any horizon, but now it has narrowed to a horizon decorated by skyscrapers.
• Widening: Change from subordinate level to superordinate level. There are many examples of specific brand names being used for the general product, such as with Kleenex
  Kleenex
  Kleenex is a brand name for a variety of toiletry paper-based products such as facial tissue, bathroom tissue, paper towels, and diapers. The name Kleenex is a registered trademark of Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. Often used as a genericized trademark, especially in the United States, "Kleenex"...
  
  .
• Metaphor
  Metaphor
  A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
  
  : 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 people use broadcast in the earlier sense.
• Metonymy
  Metonymy
  Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
  
  : Change based on nearness in space or time, e.g., jaw "cheek" → "jaw".
• Synecdoche
  Synecdoche
  Synecdoche , meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:* Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...
  
  : Change based on whole-part relation. The convention of using capital cities to represent countries or their governments is an example of this.
• Meiosis
  Meiosis (figure of speech)
  In rhetoric, meiosis is a euphemistic figure of speech that intentionally understates something or implies that it is lesser in significance or size than it really is. Meiosis is the opposite of auxesis, and also sometimes used as a synonym for litotes...
  
  : Change from weaker to stronger meaning, e.g., kill "torment" → "kill"
• Hyperbole
  Hyperbole
  Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally....
  
  : . Change from stronger to weaker meaning, e.g., astound "strike with thunder" → "surprise strongly".
• Degeneration: e.g., knave "boy" → "servant" → "deceitful or despicable man".
• Elevation: e.g., knight "boy" → "knight".

However, the categorization of has gained increasing acceptance:

• Metaphor
  Metaphor
  A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
  
  : Change based on similarity between concepts, e.g., mouse "rodent" → "computer device".
• Metonymy
  Metonymy
  Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
  
  : Change based on contiguity between concepts, e.g., horn "animal horn" → "musical instrument".
• Synecdoche
  Synecdoche
  Synecdoche , meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:* Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...
  
  : Same as above.
• 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
  Antiphrasis
  An antiphrasis is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used to mean the opposite of its usual sense, especially ironically....
  
  : Change based on a contrastive aspect of the concepts, e.g., perfect lady in the sense of "prostitute".
• Auto-antonymy: 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
  Ellipsis (linguistics)
  In linguistics, ellipsis or elliptical construction refers to the omission from a clause of one or more words that would otherwise be required by the remaining elements.-Overview:...
  
  : Semantic change based on the contiguity of names, e.g., car "cart" → "automobile", due to the invention of the (motor) car.
• Folk-etymology: Semantic change based on the similarity of names, e.g., French contredanse, orig. English country dance.

Blank considers it problematic, though, to include amelioration and pejoration of meaning as well as strengthening and weakening of meaning. According to Blank, these are not objectively classifiable phenomena; moreover, Blank has shown that all of the examples listed under these headings can be grouped into the other phenomena.

Forces triggering semantic 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 :

• 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., "mis-nomers")
• 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")
• Word play/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)
• World view 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)

Practical studies

Apart from many individual studies, etymological dictionaries

Etymological dictionary

An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the OED and Webster's, will contain some etymological information, without aspiring to focus on etymology....

 are prominent reference books for finding out about semantic changes. The internet platform Onomasiology Online shows a bibliography of etymological dictionaries of languages worldwide.

Theoretical studies

Recent overviews have been presented by Blank and . Semantic change had attracted academic discussions already in ancient times. The first major works of modern times were , , , , , and Stephen Ullmann

Stephen Ullmann

Stephen Ullmann was a Hungarian linguist who spent most of his life in England and wrote about style and semantics in Romance and common languages....

. 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 linguistics

Generative linguistics is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of a generative grammar. The term "generative grammar" is used in different ways by different people, and the term "generative linguistics" therefore has a range of different, though overlapping,...

 semantics. More recent works including pragmatic

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the...

 and cognitive

Cognitive linguistics

In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...

 theories are those in , Dirk Geeraerts

Dirk Geeraerts

Dirk Geeraerts holds the chair of theoretical linguistics at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He is the head of the research unit Quantitative Lexicology and Variational Linguistics ....

, and .

As stated above, the most currently used typologies are those by and shown above. Other typologies are listed below.

Typology by Reisig (1839)

Reisig's

Christian Karl Reisig

Christian Karl Reisig was a German philologist and linguist who was a native of Weissensee, Thuringia....

 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)

• Specialization: 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 Ullmann (1957, 1962)

Ullmann distinguishes between nature and consequences of semantic change:

• Nature of semantic change
  • Metaphor
    Metaphor
    A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
    
    : change based on a similarity of senses
  • Metonymy
    Metonymy
    Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
    
    : change based on a contiguity of senses
  • Folk-etymology: change based on a similarity of names
  • Ellipsis
    Ellipsis
    Ellipsis is a series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word, sentence or whole section from the original text being quoted. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence...
    
    : change based on a contiguity of names
• Consequences of semantic change
  • Widening of meaning: raise of quantity
  • Narrowing of meaning: loss of quantity
  • Amelioration of meaning: raise of quality
  • Pejoration of meaning: loss of quality

See also

• Calque
  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.-Calque:...
  
  
• Bastardization / corruption
• Euphemism treadmill
• Genericized trademark
  Genericized trademark
  A genericized trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquial or generic description for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, rather than as an indicator of source or affiliation as intended by the trademark's holder...
  
  
• Language change
  Language change
  Language change is the phenomenon whereby phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of language vary over time. The effect on language over time is known as diachronic change. Two linguistic disciplines in particular concern themselves with studying language change:...
  
  
• Lexicology
  Lexicology
  Lexicology is the part of linguistics which studies words, their nature and meaning, words' elements, relations between words , word groups and the whole lexicon....
  
   and Lexical semantics
  Lexical semantics
  Lexical semantics is a subfield of linguistic semantics. It is the study of how and what the words of a language denote . Words may either be taken to denote things in the world, or concepts, depending on the particular approach to lexical semantics.The units of meaning in lexical semantics are...
  
  
• List of calques
• Onomasiology
  Onomasiology
  Onomasiology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the question "how do you express X?" It is in fact most commonly understood as a branch of lexicology, the study of words .Onomasiology, as a part of lexicology, starts from a concept which is taken to be priorOnomasiology (from — to name,...
  
   and Semasiology
  Semasiology
  Semasiology is a discipline within linguistics concerned with the question "what does the word X mean?". It studies the meaning of words regardless of their phonetic expression. Semasiology departs from a word or lexical expression and asks for its meaning, its different senses, i.e. polysemy...
  
  
• Phono-semantic matching
  Phono-semantic matching
  Phono-semantic matching is a linguistic term referring to camouflaged borrowing in which a foreign word is matched with a phonetically and semantically similar pre-existent native word/root....
  
  
• Retronym
  Retronym
  A retronym is a type of neologism that provides a new name for an object or concept to differentiate the original form or version of it from a more recent form or version. The original name is most often augmented with an adjective to account for later developments of the object or concept itself...
  
  

Further reading

• 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, [Handbücher 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
  Joachim Grzega
  Joachim Grzega studied English and French in Eichstätt, Salt Lake City, Paris-Sorbonne University and Graz. He has taught since 1998 at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. Grzega obtain his doctorate in 2000 in the subjects of the Roman, English and German linguistics. His habilitation...
  
  , Alfred Bammesberger and Marion Schöner, including a list of etymological dictionaries)