Regularity in semantic change / Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Richard B. Dasher.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, author.

Dasher, Richard B., 1955- author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in linguistics ; 97.

Cambridge studies in linguistics ; 97

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Semantics, Historical.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xx, 341 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This important study of semantic change examines how new meanings arise through language use, especially the various ways in which speakers and writers experiment with uses of words and constructions in the flow of strategic interaction with addressees. There has been growing interest in exploring systemicities in semantic change from a number of perspectives including theories of metaphor, pragmatic inferencing, and grammaticalization. Like earlier studies, these have for the most part been based on data taken out of context. This book is a detailed examination of semantic change from the perspective of historical pragmatics and discourse analysis. Drawing on extensive corpus data from over a thousand years of English and Japanese textual history, Traugott and Dasher show that most changes in meaning originate in and are motivated by the associative flow of speech and conceptual metonymy.

Contents:

1. The framework

2. Prior and current work on semantic change

3. The development of modal verbs

4. The development of adverbials with discourse marker function

5. The development of performative verbs and constructions

6. The development of social deictics

7. Conclusion.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 286-327) and indexes.

ISBN:

1-107-11402-0

0-511-15587-5

0-511-32893-1

0-511-17551-5

0-511-05406-8

1-280-41874-5

0-521-58378-0

0-511-48650-2

OCLC:

437063085