Semantic Change

Zusatztext

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1, LMU Munich (Institut für Englische Philologie), course: Hauptseminar, language: English, abstract: Semantic change deals with change in meaning, understood to be a change in the concepts associated with a word [] (Campbell 1998: 255). To some of you, Campbells definition may seem a bit simplistic. Some scholars, too (for example Blank whom well be hearing of later on), argue that its not one meaning of word that changes, but with semantic change a new meaning is added to the already existing meaning or meanings of a word and then this new meaning is lexicalised, or one of the already lexicalised meanings is no longer used and becomes extinct. I think Campbells definition can suffice as a basis for our little immersion into semantic change. And what is more important than a theoretically watertight definition is a practical insight into semantic change. So lets have quick look on what exactly changes when words change their meanings.

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