Regularity in Semantic Change

Cambridge Studies in Linguistics

by Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Richard B. Dasher

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.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction

364 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001