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Change in life, change in language : a semantic approach to the history of English / Begoña Crespo.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Crespo García, Begoña, author.
- Series:
- Studies in English medieval language and literature ; vol. 37.
- Studies in English medieval language and literature, 1436-7521 ; vol. 37
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- English language--Semantics, Historical.
- English language.
- English language--Middle English, 1100-1500--Semantics.
- Semantics.
- English language--Middle English--Semantics.
- English language--Early modern, 1500-1700--Semantics.
- English language--Early modern--Semantics.
- English language--Early modern.
- Physical Description:
- 145 pages ; 22 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Frankfurt am Main : Peter Lang Edition, [2013]
- Summary:
- This book provides the reader with a description of the semantic change that took place over two periods of the history of English language: Middle English and Early Modem English. In view of the fact that semantic change is the type of change by which the relationship between language and society can be traced best, notes on the socio-historical background of the period have been included. They are followed by the analysis of language change in general in which some of the literature on the topic is reviewed and the author's interpretation of change as being caused by external factors is made clear. For this reason, terminology and concepts relating to the field of socio-historical linguistics have been incorporated in the analysis. The core of the work is semantic change and the linguistic study of vocabulary items which belong to the field of person-rank nouns. The results of the analysis indicate a tendency towards specialisation in the meaning of lexical categories which runs parallel to specialisation in society. Book jacket.
- Contents:
- Socio-historical background of the English language (12th-17th centuries)
- Middle English in context
- Towards the revival of English
- Late Medieval and Early Modern English
- Language change in Medieval and Renaissance England
- Theoretical approaches to linguistic change
- Factors involved in language change
- External factors
- Internal factors
- Language interference through contact
- Interference
- Other contact situations : bilingualism and diglossia
- Changes in different levels of language
- Semantic change : a change 'social and linguistic'
- The meaning of the word meaning
- Related assumptions : the concept of 'semantic field' and broad categorisations of reality
- Changing the meaning
- Definitions
- Causes
- Models to classify changes in meaning
- Corpus material and methodology
- Semantic changes in person-rank nouns
- Meaning change in combination with other variables
- Final remarks
- References.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Constance L. Rosenthal Book Fund.
- ISBN:
- 9783631634530
- 3631634536
- OCLC:
- 841670129
- Publisher Number:
- 99954172459
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