Regularity in Semantic Change: 97 (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, Series Number 97) - Hardcover

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs; Dasher, Richard B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521583780 ISBN 13: 9780521583787

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2001

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Authors

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0521583780
• ISBN 13: 9780521583787
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 362