Regularity in Semantic Change

Download or read book Regularity in Semantic Change written by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-03-24 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new and important study of semantic change examines the various ways in which new meanings arise through language use, especially the ways in which speakers and writers experiment with uses of words and constructions. Drawing on extensive research 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.