Linguistics Encyclopedia.pdf

The linguistics encyclopedia 280
LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC CHANGE
Besides changes in the grammar of language, modifications also occur in the vocabulary,
both in the stock of words, lexical change, and in their meanings, semantic change.
Words may be added or lost in conjunction with cultural changes. The many hundreds of
words that once dealt with astrology when the art of divination based on the stars and
their supposed influence on human affairs was more in vogue, have largely disappeared
from the world’s languages, while large numbers of new words related to technological
developments are constantly revitalizing their vocabularies.
Some of the word-formation processes by which lexical changes occur in English are:
Process Examples
compounding sailboat, bigmouth
derivation uglification, finalize
borrowings yacht (Dutch), pogrom (Russian)
acronyms UNESCO, RADAR
blends smoke + fog > smog; motor + hotel > motel
abbreviations op. cit., ibid., Ms
doublets person, parson
back formations (typewrite < typewriter; burgle < burglar)
echoic forms and miaow, moo, splash, ping
inventions
clipping prof for professor, phone for telephone
proper names sandwich holiday, Old English dogge, a specific breed > dog; semantic
narrowing, from the general to the particular, e.g. Old English mete ‘food’ > meat, a
specific food, i.e. flesh, Old English steorfan ‘to die’ > starve; shifts in meaning, e.g.
lust used to mean ‘pleasure’, immoral ‘not customary’, silly ‘happy, blessed’, lewd
‘ignorant’, and so on.
The etymological meaning of a word may help to determine its current meaning.
English words such as television or telephone can be deduced from their earlier Greek
and Latin meanings with respect to the components tele ‘at a distance’, vision ‘see’,
phone ‘sound’. Such is not always the case, however. Borrowed words as well as native
forms may undergo semantic change so that etymological knowledge of a word may not
be sufficient to assess its meaning. Compare thefollowing: