This document discusses the changing of word meanings over time through semantic change. It notes that word meanings rarely change suddenly, but usually develop new related meanings gradually. It identifies different types of semantic change, such as changes in denotation like generalization or specialization, and changes in connotation like amelioration or pejoration. The document also examines various causes of semantic change, including linguistic causes from habitual word usage, historical causes as concepts change over time, social causes from language shifting between registers, and psychological and foreign influence causes. New needs for names to describe new objects or concepts can also drive changes in word meaning.

1. By:
GUSPERA
1110731012

2. CHANGING OF MEANING
1. Semantics Change
• word meanings rarely change suddenly
• usually words develop new meanings which are
related to previous ones
• these changes take place continually
This change, sometime changed from something
innocuous to something evil, so also the meaning of
the word tawdry has changed from benign to evil,
and sometimes words change their meaning from
something bad to something good.
Ex:
Imp = a young shoot of a plant (before)
= an evil creature (today)
Gay = happily excited, merry and lively (before)
= homosexual (today)

3. Types of semantic change
• Change in denotation:
+ generalisation
- Specialisation
• Change in connotation:
+ amelioration
- pejoration
• Metonomy
• Metaphor
• Grammaticalisation

4. 2. The Causes of Semantics Change:
Linguistic causes
• habitual collocations may permanently affect the
meaning of terms involved
• the sense of the one word may be transferred to
another because of cooccurrence in many contexts.
• e.g.: French negation: passus > ne....pas; persona >
ne..... personne, personne (nobody).
Historical causes
• language sometimes more conservative than
civilization
• objects, institutions ideas, scientific concepts change
in the course of time while the name is retained
• e.g.: carrus>car; parliament, humour (<cardinal
humours); electricity/atom

5. Social causes
• a word passes from ordinary language into
specialised register/jargon
• acquires a more restricted sense (specialisation)
e.g: Lat. trahere (to draw) > Fr. traire (to milk)
• words borrowed from a group-language
(jargon/specialised register) into common use
• can widen their meaning (generalisation)
e.g.: lure (apparatus used by falconers to recall their
hawks) > thing that attracts and invites
Psychological causes
• emotive factors: emotional ‘centres of expansion’ /
‘centres of attraction’, -for metaphorisation.
• taboo>euphemism: important causes of semantic
change
• pseudo-euphemisms: silly (happy, blessed <
cognate Germ. selig)

6. Foreign influence
• foreign model transferred into oneés own language
• e.g.: Great and Lesser Bear (constellations) from
Greek, Classical Antiquity
The need for a new name
• denotations of new objects
• word-formation: flying boats
• borrowing: torpedo
• alter meaning of existing words: tank
Source:
http://www.tuchemnitz.de/phil/english/chairs/linguist/independent/kursmaterialien/semcha
nge/semchange_slides.pdf