Meaning and Grammar Change
Historical Linguistics and Language Families
Course 1 · Chapter 7 · Meaning and Grammar Change
Chapters 2 to 4 followed sounds. Words and grammar change too, and the same logic applies: the changes are not random, they fall into recognisable types, and a pattern seen today is evidence for how patterns formed before. This chapter covers three of them: change of meaning, change by analogy, and the way words become grammar.
Semantic Change
Chapter 1 gave a first table. Wikipedia's article on semantic change organises the types using Bloomfield's 1933 scheme and adds more:
| Type | What happens | Example from the source |
|---|---|---|
| Widening (broadening) | a word's sense expands | brand names used generically, such as Kleenex |
| Narrowing | from a general to a specific sense | skyline: any horizon, then one lined with skyscrapers |
| Amelioration | a shift to a more positive sense | terrific: "terrifying" to "astonishing" to "very good"; nice: "agreeable, delightful" (1769), then "kind, thoughtful" (1830) |
| Pejoration | a shift to a more negative sense | awful: "awe-inspiring" to "very bad"; egregious: remarkably good to "remarkably bad or flagrant" |
| Metaphor | change by similarity | broadcast: casting seeds to transmitting signals |
| Metonymy | change by nearness | jaw: "cheek" to "mandible" |
| Synecdoche | change by part-whole relation | capital cities standing for governments |
| Hyperbole (strengthening) | a word becomes stronger | kill: "torment" to "slaughter" |
| Meiosis (weakening) | a word becomes weaker | astound: "strike with thunder" to "surprise strongly" |
Analogy
Wikipedia defines analogical change as a process in which word-forms "perceived as breaking rules or ignoring general patterns" are altered "to more typical forms that follow them."
- Morphological levelling. The verb help once had the past tense holp and past participle holpen. These were replaced by helped, through the analogy of other past-tense forms with -ed (jumped, carried, defeated).
- Analogy that breaks rules. Analogy does not always regularise. American English dove (past of dive) was formed on the pattern of drove (from drive) and strove (from strive).
- New words by analogy. Software (from hardware), then firmware and vapourware after it, and the humorous underwhelm (from overwhelm).
The general form of an analogy is "A is to B as C is to D." The page does not list brethren, kine or the extension of plural -s in its linguistics section, so they are not used here.
Grammaticalisation
Grammaticalisation is the process by which words shift from expressing objects or actions to serving grammatical functions. Content words such as nouns and verbs can become auxiliaries, case markers, inflections or connectives. Hopper and Traugott's cline runs:
Each step is more grammatical and less lexical than the one before it.
Examples from the source
- will: Old English willan ("to want", "to wish") became an auxiliary for intention, and later for future time. In speech it reduces to 'll.
- -ly and -like: both suffixes derive from a Proto-Germanic word meaning "body" or "corpse".
- going to to gonna: an example of phonetic erosion. (You met this in Phonetics and the IPA 8 and in Chapter 1.)
- Romance future: Latin cantare habeo ("I have to sing") took on future meaning and became the future tense in most Romance languages, as in French chanterai.
The mechanisms
| Mechanism | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Semantic bleaching | loss of lexical content, leaving only grammatical content |
| Decategorialisation | loss of features tied to the original word class, such as number marking on English that |
| Phonetic erosion | loss of phonetic substance, though not required for grammaticalisation |
| Obligatorification | increasing obligatoriness of a structure, such as grammatical number |
A debate: does it only go one way?
The unidirectionality hypothesis holds that change generally moves from less to more grammatical; Heine calls grammaticalisation "a unidirectional process". Critics argue that counterexamples exist, such as degrammaticalisation in North Saami. Lyle Campbell says advocates often minimise or redefine these cases, and Richard Janda cites over 70 works critical of the hypothesis. The source leaves the question open, and so does this course.
Try It Yourself
Name the type of semantic change in each: skyline; jaw; awful; kill; astound; terrific.
📄 View solutionShow the analogy behind helped replacing holp, and explain why dove is an analogy that does not regularise.
📄 View solutionPlace willan to will to 'll on the cline, and name two mechanisms at work. Then give one argument for and one against unidirectionality.
📄 View solutionChapter 7 Quick Reference
- Semantic change: widening, narrowing, amelioration, pejoration, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole, meiosis
- Analogy: odd forms pulled into line (holp to helped); it can also create irregularity (dove)
- Cline: content word > grammatical word > clitic > inflectional affix
- Mechanisms: semantic bleaching, decategorialisation, phonetic erosion, obligatorification
- Unidirectionality is a hypothesis, not a law; critics cite degrammaticalisation