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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.
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This new and important study of semantic change examines how new meanings arise through language use, especially the various ways in which speakers and writers experiment with uses of words and constructions in the flow of strategic interaction with addressees. In the last few decades there has been growing interest in exploring systematicities in semantic change from a number of perspectives including theories of metaphor, pragmatic inferencing, and grammaticalization. As in earlier studies, these have for the most part been based on data taken out of context. This book is the first detailed examination of semantic change from the perspective of historical pragmatics and discourse analysis. Drawing on extensive corpus data 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. is Professor of Linguistics and English at Stanford University. Her previous books include A History of English Syntax (1972), Linguistics for Students of Literature (with Mary L. Pratt, 1980) and Grammaticalization (with Paul J. Hopper, 1993). ELIZABETH CLOSS TRAUGOTT B . D A S H E R is Director of the US–Japan Technology Management Center and Consulting Associate Professor at the School of Engineering, Stanford University. Previous publications include historical work on Japanese honorifics in Papers in Linguistics and other research in various scholarly journals. RICHARD In this series CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS General Editors: S . R . A N D E R S O N , J . B R E S N A N , B . C O M R I E , W. DRESSLER, C. J. EWEN, R. LASS, D. LIGHTFOOT, P. H. MATTHEWS, R. POSNER, S. ROMAINE, N. V. SMITH, N. VINCENT 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 S A R A H M . B . F A G A N : The syntax and semantics of middle constructions: a study with special reference to German A N J U M P . S A L E E M I : Universal grammar and language learnability S T E P H E N R . A N D E R S O N : A-Morphous morphology L E S L E Y S T I R L I N G : Switch reference and discourse representation H E N K J . V E R K U Y L : A theory of aspectuality: the interaction between temporal and atemporal structure E V E V . C L A R K : The lexicon in acquisition A N T H O N Y R . W A R N E R : English auxiliaries: structure and history P . H . M A T T H E W S : Grammatical theory in the United States from Bloomfield to Chomsky L J I L J A N A P R O G O V A C : Negative and positive polarity: a binding approach R . M . W . D I X O N : Ergativity Y A N H U A N G : The syntax and pragmatics of anaphora K N U D L A M B R E C H T : Information structure and sentence form: topic, focus, and the mental representations of discourse referents L U I G I B U R Z I O : Principles of English stress J O H N A . H A W K I N S : A performance theory of order and constituency A L I C E C . H A R R I S and L Y L E C A M P B E L L : Historical syntax in cross-linguistic perspective L I L I A N E H A E G E M A N : The syntax of negation P A U L G O R R E L L : Syntax and parsing G U G L I E L M O C I N Q U E : Italian syntax and universal grammar H E N R Y S M I T H : Restrictiveness in case theory D . R O B E R T L A D D : Intonational phonology A N D R E A M O R O : The raising of predicate