Regularity in Semantic Change

AvElizabeth Closs Traugott,Richard B. Dasher

Inbunden, Engelska, 2001

Del 97 i serien Cambridge Studies in Linguistics

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Beskrivning

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.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2001-12-20
Mått:158 x 237 x 28 mm
Vikt:710 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Cambridge Studies in Linguistics
Antal sidor:362
Förlag:Cambridge University Press
ISBN:9780521583787

Utforska kategorier

Språkvetenskap och lingvistik inom Språk och ordböcker

Mer om författaren

Elizabeth Closs Traugott is Professor of Linguistics and English at Stanford University. Her previous books include A History of English Syntax (1972), Linguistics for Students of Literature (with Mary L. Pratt, 1980) and Grammaticalization (with Paul J. Hopper, Cambridge, 1993). Richard B. Dasher is Director of the US-Japan Technology Center, Executive Director of the Center for Integrated Systems and Consulting Associate Professor at the School of Engineering, Stanford University. His previous publications include historical work on Japanese honorifics in Papers in Linguistics, other research in Papers from the 7th International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL), and various scholarly journals.

Recensioner i media

'How does it come about that linguistic expressions change their meanings over time, or, to be more precise, that speakers start using established linguistic expressions with novel meanings? What is the nature of semantic change, and - more importantly - can we generalize about different instantiations of semantic change not only within individual languages but also cross-linguistically? The book under review, by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Richard B. Dasher, provides bold answers to such big questions.' Journal of Linguistics

Innehållsförteckning

List of figures; Preface and acknowledgements; Conventions; List of abbreviations; 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; Primary references; Secondary references; Index of languages; Index of names; Index of subjects.