Chapter 7: Semantics and Lexicon
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Elizabeth Closs Traugott
Abstract
Selected topics in research on semantic change are discussed with focus on work based in Cognitive Linguistics and neo-Gricean pragmatics. Recent work on metaphor and metonymy, grammaticalization, subjectification, and collostructional analysis are highlighted and shown to provide theoretical underpinnings for some traditional taxonomies of semantic change. As the inventory of form-meaning pairs in a language, the historical lexicon reflects semantic change; it also reflects how vocabulary size has changed in English, and how borrowings have affected the typological ways in which meanings are packaged into words.
Abstract
Selected topics in research on semantic change are discussed with focus on work based in Cognitive Linguistics and neo-Gricean pragmatics. Recent work on metaphor and metonymy, grammaticalization, subjectification, and collostructional analysis are highlighted and shown to provide theoretical underpinnings for some traditional taxonomies of semantic change. As the inventory of form-meaning pairs in a language, the historical lexicon reflects semantic change; it also reflects how vocabulary size has changed in English, and how borrowings have affected the typological ways in which meanings are packaged into words.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- Abbreviations VII
- Chapter 1: Introduction 1
- Chapter 2: Periodization in the History of the English Language 8
- Chapter 3: Phonology 36
- Chapter 4: Prosody 57
- Chapter 5: Morphology 77
- Chapter 6: Syntax 102
- Chapter 7: Semantics and Lexicon 123
- Chapter 8: Idioms and Fixed Expressions 140
- Chapter 9: Pragmatics and Discourse 165
- Chapter 10: Onomastics 185
- Chapter 11: Orthography 200
- Chapter 12: Styles, Registers, Genres, Text Types 218
- Chapter 13: Standards in the History of English 238
- Index 253
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- Abbreviations VII
- Chapter 1: Introduction 1
- Chapter 2: Periodization in the History of the English Language 8
- Chapter 3: Phonology 36
- Chapter 4: Prosody 57
- Chapter 5: Morphology 77
- Chapter 6: Syntax 102
- Chapter 7: Semantics and Lexicon 123
- Chapter 8: Idioms and Fixed Expressions 140
- Chapter 9: Pragmatics and Discourse 165
- Chapter 10: Onomastics 185
- Chapter 11: Orthography 200
- Chapter 12: Styles, Registers, Genres, Text Types 218
- Chapter 13: Standards in the History of English 238
- Index 253