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Semantic change is not to be confused with Etymology , another field in diachronic linguistics; etymology is the scientific study of word origin, while semantic change deals with the development of Sense . In fact, semantic change is one of the factors that need to be taken under consideration, in order to evaluate a proposed etymology. HISTORY It is certain that semantic change has occurred since human language first arose. However, the ''study'' of semantic change only dates back to the 1900s. The pioneering work was carried out by the French linguist Michel Bréal , who published his book ''Essai de sémantique'' in 1899 (Paris, 2nd ed.). Bréal was soon followed by most linguists, who defined mechanisms of semantic change in harmony with his findings. Accordingly, in 1921 the German linguist Hermann Hirt classified semantic changes under six categories: (a) narrowing (''Verengerung''), (b) pejoration (''Verschlechterung''), (c) amelioration (''Verbesserung''), (d) extension (''Erweiterung''), (e) metaphor (''Metapher''), and (f) metonymy (''Metonymie'').H. Hirt, ''Etymologie der neuhochdeutschen Sprache'', München 1921, 2nd. ed. A few years later, Jost Trier , a German linguist, who presented his findings in 1934, was the first one to point out the importance of ''lexical / semantic fields''. In his studies, he showed how the structure of the German language had changed between 1200 and 1300. In recent years semantic change has received a large amount of attention, especially within the framework of Pragmatics and Cognitive Linguistics . Nevertheless, the quest for a standard taxonomy of semantic changes, which would adequately account for all attested mechanisms, is still in doubt. Many linguists (chiefly comparatists) would agree with R.S.P. Beekes ' assertion, that "studies on change of meaning do not offer satisfactory results" and no-one has so far presented a full-scale method for interpretation and classification of the data.R.S.P. Beekes, ''Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. An introduction'', Amsterdam 1995, p. 140. There are certain linguistic causes behind this deficiency, related to inherent limitations of historical semantics:
CAUSES OF SEMANTIC CHANGE A major contribution to the theory of semantic change has been Antoine Meillet 's 1905 article 'Comment les mots changent de sens'.''Année sociologique'' 9:1-38; reprinted in Meillet (1921) ''Linguistique historique et linguistique générale''. This article has influenced many later essays, as it addresses the most important aspects of meaning change. Meillet discusses the causes of semantic change:
:Two noteworthy structural mechanisms that affect semantic change are Grammaticalisation and Reanalysis .
TYPES OF CHANGE The four most widely recognised types of semantic change are extension, narrowing, amelioration, and pejoration. The first two represent changes in a word's scope, while the second pair can also cover changes in a word's individual meanings. ; Extension: the widening of a word's range of meanings, often by Analogy or simplification. For example, ''virtue'' was initially a quality that could only be applied to men, like our modern word ''manliness'', but in contemporary society, it can equally be applied to women as well. ''Navigator'' once applied only to ships but the development of planes and cars extended this term to apply to multiple forms of travel. ''Maverick'' used to be a rancher's term for an unbranded cow but can now mean a person who doesn't conform to the conventions of a group. Meanings can be borrowed from other languages ( Semantic Loan s). One popular form of extension is Metonymy or synecdoche wherein a part of an object is used to refer to the whole. For example, in many languages, the word for head can be used as a substitute for the word for person. In English, the phrase "a head", resembles the Latin phrase " Per Capita ." The word "poll", originally meaning the top of the head, can refer to the whole head, and a "poll tax" is a fixed tax applied to each person. The convention of using capital cities to represent countries or their governments is another example of metonymy. ; Narrowing: the reduction in a word's range of meanings, often limiting a generic word to a more specialised or technical use. For example, ''broadcast'' originally meant "to cast seeds out"; with the advent of radio and television, the word was extended to indicate the transmission of audio and video signals. Today, because of narrowing, very few people outside of agricultural circles use ''broadcast'' in the earlier sense. ; Amelioration: the loss of negative connotations or gain of positive ones. For example, ''mischievous'' used to mean "disastrous", where it now only means "playfully annoying". This is often a result of semantic bleaching. ; Pejoration: the development of negative connotations or loss of positive ones. For example, ''notorious'' initially meant "widely known". Yet it has gone through the process of extension to now mean "widely and unfavourably known". ''Awful'' originally had a meaning closer to the modern meaning of ''awesome'', yet it now means the opposite. A famous example is of the word ''gay'', which can mean ''happy'' or ''colorful'' and was used commonly until it became a reference to adjective. See also Euphemism Treadmill . ; Semantic shift or '''semantic drift''': the movement from applying to one set of circumstances to another. This is seen across languages when cognates have different meanings. For instance, the word ''nescius'' ('ignorant') became Old French ''nice'' ('silly' or 'foolish') before it was borrowed into Middle English . Its meaning subsequently changed multiple times: "silly" → "timid" → "fussy" → "dainty" → "careful" → "agreeable" → "kind" or "thoughtful." This last meaning is the current one in English.http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=nice&searchmode=none
; Metaphor: the change in meaning based on an Analogy or likeness between things. For example, a ''crane'' is a bird with a long neck, but the word can now also mean a piece of equipment for lifting weights. The earlier examples of ''maverick'' and ''broadcast'' are also examples of figurative use. ; s. It often begins with extension of a word to include a grammatical function, and the subsequent narrowing of the word (usually after the word has suffered morphological changes) to a solely or predominantly grammatical use. An example of this is the French word ''pas'', which literally means "step" but is also used with ''ne'' in forming negating statements like ''je ne pense pas''''' ("I don't think so") as well as by itself: ''ma voiture a un toit ouvrant, la leur '''pas''''' ("my car is convertible, theirs isn't"). ; ) to undergo an extension while the word replaced may suffer pejoration by dissimilation. For example, ''snogging'' was once an alternative word for ''sex'', though it has now been ameliorated in most registers to mean a French Kiss . More recently, efforts to make language Politically Correct provide a number of examples wherein language is deliberately altered to forms deemed more acceptable or appropriate. For example, in the United Kingdom in the early 1990s the term "blackboard" became perceived by some as being "politically incorrect", and so some schools instructed teachers to refer to it as a "chalkboard" instead."PC or not PC ... that was 1993's burning question; Review of the Year 1993" '' The Sunday Times '' (London); Dec 26, 1993; Maurice Chittenden; Multiple processes Many words go through more than one process. In addition to examples cited above, the word ''punk'' initially meant "a young boy" but was then pejorated to mean " Prostitute ." In the 1970s, the word was then ameliorated to describe a music genre. In some areas, this change has gone even further and "punk" can mean someone who doesn't stand up for himself and thus is pushed around and disrespected. NOTES AND REFERENCES BIBLIOGRAPHY
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