Quote:

I've always heard it called semantic change. Edward Sapir wrote about drift in his Language but he was talking about the tendency of languages to start changing (semtantically, morphologically, syntacticly) and then head in a certain direction (or a set of similar changes cross linguistically.



meaning shift - 696gh
meaning drift - 916gh
semantic change - 70,400gh

so my latter question regarding a formal term seems to be answered (thanx j_____d), and I guess the differentiation (if there be one) between shift and drift pales unto insignificance.

[edit for typo]

Last edited by tsuwm; 10/15/05 03:47 AM.