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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.
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however, I carefully chose the words sanction and decimate because different operations seem to have been in effect.
that is, decimate gradually changed from a specific small amount (10%) to a generally great amount (almost all). whereas, sanction was almost newborn with two opposing senses (originally a sacred decree or solemn oath --> approval or disapproval)
are these lumped together under semantic change?
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are these lumped together under semantic change?
Well, they are all kinds of semantic change. I've just don't remember the terms "semantic dirft" amd "semantic shift" from my readings. As to sanction and decimate, the OED has citations all from within 100 years of one another (16th and 17th centuries) for both. Decimate seems to have been learnedly borrowed into English directly from Latin, but sanction entered from French. Not Norman, but as a new legal term from Parisian French. One of the problems with the study of semantic change, is that semantics doesn't have much of a theoretical framework, having been ignored in the structuralist and generative phases of linguistics rather intensely, to work with, so the terminology may be laxer than in semantics or morpho-phonological studies.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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old hand
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I guess the differentiation (if there be one) between shift and drift pales unto insignificance.
It is not so pale in my eyes. Talking of "shift" you normally focus on the initial and the final state, while "drift" emphasizes the gradualness of the change, i.e. intermediate states are known. I see some parallels in paleo-biology.
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Professor R M W Dixon has written a book, The Rise and Fall of Languages, the controversial thesis of which is that languages change at widely variable rates which is best explained by a model of punctuated equilibria. It's a short, fun book to read, and I recommend it.
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ran across another site on punctuated equilibrium and although it's not necessarily related to the topic at hand, when a strange interesting phrase comes up twice in one day, I try to take note. (via a roundabout trip from the fallible fiend...)
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