"Semantic Narrowing (Specialization)." In Buru (Malayo-Polynesia, Moluccas of Indonesia) topographic elevationals express three elevational values (UP, DOWN, and ACROSS) and general elevational morphemes only two (UP and DOWN) (Table 6). I suspect that these claims are probably sometimes wrong or at least misleading because, first, the authors do not provide unambiguous evidence that the relevant items refer on the basis of the geophysical environment and not simply to the vertical dimension. Linguist. How can psychological factors influence semantic narrowing? They are narrowing, broadening, amelioration, pejoration, and semantic reclamation. Hayward, R. J. Leiden: Brill. The same is true for the subclass of elevational demonstratives, but with a further complication because elevation constitutes an additional semantic component on top of the basic demonstrative meaning (which is distance-based and/or person-based). Semantic reclamation is often a political and controversial act, as these words become special to one particular group. These are extralinguistic causes (not involving language) and linguistic causes (involving language). What are some examples of semantic change? Natural language changes tend to take longer than extralinguistic causes. Amelioration is a type of semantic change that elevates a word's meaning over time. Reesink, G. P. (2000). Typol. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA. Semantics (Chapter 5) - Language Transfer - Cambridge Core Structures and Their Functions in Usan: A Papuan Language of Papua New Guinea. The demonstratives also express temporal meanings similar to Tulil, i.e., UP = FUTURE and DOWN = PAST, and the items with the LEVEL-meaning do not cover temporal functions. Let's learn about the causes of semantic change, the different types of semantic change, and look at some examples. Front. Out of six demonstrative forms (with anaphoric and deictic variants), only one (tatu) co-expresses the elevational meaning UP and the deictic meaning distal. Distance contrasts in demonstratives, in The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, eds M. S. Dryer and M. Haspelmath (Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology). With time, the negative meaning of the word weakened, and it changed from 'frightful' to 'severe'. In early Middle English (around 1200), sely (as the word was then spelled) meant 'happy, blissful, blessed, fortunate,' as it did in Old English. Bril (2004, p. 120) provides another example from Nlmwa-Nixumwak (Oceanic), where so-called directionals, which are regularly added to deictic or anaphoric suffixes, which, in turn, are added to pronouns or determiners to form demonstratives, can be used for respectful reference to people of a higher social status. See Diessel (1999, pp. This metaphorical extension is the opposite of what has been found in Mandarin Chinese. Psychological factors can influence narrowing as they can occur when a language undergoes widespread changes. doi: 10.1017/cbo9781139086677.003, Boroditsky, L. (2001). Hyslop, C. (1993). A Grammar of Dime. The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01712/full#supplementary-material. doi: 10.1017/9781108333818.017. Ga in Lak and the three there-s: deixis and markedness in Daghestan, in NSL 7: Linguistic Studies in the Non-Slavic Languages of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Republics, ed. By registering you get free access to our website and app (available on desktop AND mobile) which will help you to super-charge your learning process. Amelioration occurs for different extralinguistic reasons, such as cultural factors and changes in society over time. 11:1712. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01712. Towards a Typology of Spatial Deixis. In the Himalayas, only Sino-Tibetan languages have elevationals. The demonstrative system of Tanacross (Holton, 2019). . The topographic elevationals can be followed by another marker from a smaller set that contains only three items that encode general elevation and the meaning out in front but also seem to have some additional meanings that are not explicitly discussed in the grammar (Dixon, 1972, p. 48). Norman: SIL. Uphill and downhill in a flat world: the conceptual topography of the Yupno house. Berlin: de Gruyter. By registering you get free access to our website and app (available on desktop AND mobile) which will help you to super-charge your learning process. Aspects of Edolo Grammar. The hypothesis has been supported by data from atoll-based languages (Palmer, 2015; Palmer et al., 2017), and two languages spoken in the Hindu Kush mountain range (Heegrd and Liljegren, 2018). The elevational demonstratives of Baskeet, Tauya, Galo, and Kurtp seem to pattern alike. This means that in terms of cardinal directions and gravity (i.e., location above sea level) uphill and upstream differ (Gary Holton, p.c.). Another important factor to keep in mind when investigating the meaning of elevational demonstratives is scale or domain of use. Second, elevational demonstratives only rarely refer to geomorphic landmarks and they do not make use of an absolute frame of reference comparable to cardinal directions. Create flashcards in notes completely automatically. Which is an example of a potential psychological factor? The Structure of Kiranti Languages. For example, the word 'cool' was originally used in the context of jazz music but as the popularity of jazz increased, the word became associated with anything trendy. Does language shape thought? Expressions such as "learning to think in French" reflect a common belief that learning a particular language requires adopting a worldview which, to some extent, is unique to that language. Elevation in the spatial deictic systems of Alor-Pantar languages, in The Alor- Pantar Languages: History and Typology, ed. This means that the values DISTAL and PROXIMAL (and also MEDIAL for those languages that make a ternary distinction) are either obligatorily co-expressed or optionally combined with elevational items if the elevationals are morphemes that are formally independent of the distance-based deictics. 'Sick' derives from the Old English word 'seoc' and from the Proto-Germanic word 'seuka' which meant 'ill, diseased, feeble, weak; corrupt; sad, troubled, deeply affected'. LEXICAL SEMANTICS: Examples: 1. . The metaphor can be explained by the direction of the biological growing process of upright human beings in the course of time. Figure 1. Spatial Expression in CAAC: An Oceanic Language Spoken in the North of New Caledonia. The identificational context of use has been and/or is also called predicative use (e.g., in the first typological paper on this topic written by Killian, unpublished.). This can be because of cultural changes that lead to a change in how the word is categorised (causing a semantic change). Semantics refers to the study of meaning. (2004). However, only on the island of New Guinea and immediately adjacent islands, in particular in the New Guinea Highlands, elevational demonstratives are found across a large range of different language families. When functioning as demonstrative determiners, they can be employed with nouns such as vnu(=a) day, atade(=e) week, vgam(=e) month, or lalng(=a) year, whereby demonstratives can precede or follow the noun (27). Yu, N. (1998). These values can be ordered along the elevational hierarchy that reflects cross-linguistic frequency of occurrence (23): Elevational demonstratives with the meanings UP and DOWN are more commonly found than those with the meanings LEVEL or ACROSS (Table 7). Languages belonging to this type are Sanzhi Dargwa, Hua (Yagaria dialect), Central Alaskan Yupik, Kurtp (9), (22), and Galo (19). There are three other languages in my sample that do not employ their elevational demonstratives with temporal meaning, but make use of the same or a very similar type of metaphor, namely Yupno (which belongs to the same language family as Tulil), Avar, and Lak.16 Yupno speakers have been found to consistently use topographic (i.e., geocentrically anchored) gestures toward the ground for referring to the present, uphill for reference to the future and downhill for past (Nez et al., 2012). Recalling the type of food people in ancient Egypt used to eat. How does the environment shape spatial language? I first lay out the conceptional and notional background for verticality and its relation to deixis, and describe morphological, syntactic and semantic properties of elevational demonstratives. Upload unlimited documents and save them online. 188189). Examples of Semantics: Meaning & Types | YourDictionary What did 'pretty' mean in Middle English? In such a context, the anchor point can be the actual location of the speaker, or her/his home village can serve as conventionalized anchor point (similar to the conventionalized use of Sanzhi Dargwa demonstratives mentioned above). Today, the original meanings of the word are still in use: I'm sorry, I can't come to work today. What is the term given to the opposite of narrowing? Broadening can be caused by both extralinguistic and linguistic causes, such as a change in worldview, or linguistic analogy. Because other forms need further research they will only be mentioned in passing. The first type (general) corresponds to Burenhults verticality proper and global elevation, and the second term (topographic) to his geophysical elevation. General elevationals are used in accordance with the gravitational axis. Semantic Memory: Definition & Examples - Simply Psychology This additional semantic component is either not expressed by a separate morpheme and then part of the basic demonstrative stem, or it is expressed by a separate morpheme. The adverbial context can be considered the minimal context of use probably attested for all languages in my sample. In three languages of my sample, the UP-demonstratives carry the temporal meaning FUTURE, whereas the DOWN-demonstratives encode PAST (Tulil, Ma Manda, and Towet dialect of Nungon). The term, 'cool', was popular within the language of jazz musicians, as it referred to a specific style of music ('cool jazz')! A number of languages in my sample have not only elevational demonstratives but some more terms.19 Other semantic distinctions with which elevational demonstratives are combined or are in complementary distribution in languages with rich demonstrative systems are, Direction/movement: TOWARD vs. AWAY FROM20. . Place naming strategies in lower Tanana Dene, in Language and Toponymy in Alaska and Beyond: Papers in Honor of James Kari, eds G. Holton and T. F. Thornton (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press), 121138. Sociocultural factors can influence narrowing as a major shift in a country's politics or social landscape will lead to semantic changes. It may also be referred to as semantic amelioration or semantic elevation. Originally meaning "lighthearted", "joyous" or "happy", the word has undergone a complete shift in meaning to now refer to a homosexual person. But by the year 1400, with language developing from Old English to Middle English, the word 'pretty' had taken on a new meaning which was 'manly, gallant'. Ma Manda (FinisterreHuon), has a three-level contrast in elevation (DOWN/UP/LEVEL), in contrast to Tulil, which has only terms for UP and DOWN, co-expressed with distance such that we arrive at six items (Pennington, 2016, pp. Doctoral dissertation, University of Jena, Jena. Semantic universals and linguistic relativism. The opposite of broadening is a process called narrowing. Semantic change is a process where a word is given a new meaning. Leer, J. In the proximal domain, fine grained semantic distinctions such as those encoded by elevational demonstratives are superfluous since this domain is accessible to the interlocutors who in the default case of a normal conversation are located in close proximity to each other. The data for this paper mainly come from grammatical descriptions of some 50 languages with elevational demonstratives from a range of different language families across the globe. Will you pass the quiz? For example, demonstratives in the Athabaskan language Tanacross (Alaska) morphologically and semantically combine deictic meaning (distality) with specific topographic and elevational morphemes. Demonstratives: Form, Function, and Grammaticalization. Amha, A. (1980). "Amelioration (word meanings)." However, those languages constitute a minority. West Greenlandic. Among the languages examined in this paper, Movima is particularly rich in demonstratives with unusual meanings such as temporary possession or standing position (Haude, 2006, pp. Learning about which words have been elevated and taken on a positive meaning shows us how societal perceptions of language have changed over time. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. The latest version of the Topographic Correspondence Hypothesis, which is called Sociotopographic Model, states that languages spoken in similar topographic environments tend to have similar systems of absolute spatial reference, whereby social and cultural factors also play a role (Palmer et al., 2017). Morphosyntax of Kewapi. Eipo and Andi and have all three types of demonstratives (Tables 2, 5); Manambu has UP and DOWN (Table 8), and Muna has just UP (Table 1). 1, first person; 2, second person; 3, third person; A, most agent-like argument of a transitive verb; ABL, ablative; ABS, absolutive; ACC, accusative; ACT.FOC, action focus; ADD, additive focus; ART, article; AZR, adjectivalizer; CERT, certainty; CLF, nominal class; CMPL, completive aspect; COMP, comparative; COOR, coordinator; COP, copula; CQ, content question; CTR, contrastive; CURR.REL, current relevance; D, d-classifier; DAT, dative; DEM, demonstrative; DERIV, derivational affix; DOWN, down(ward); DST, distal; DU dual, number; DUR, durative; DXVB, deictic verb; EMPH, emphasis; EXIS, existential; F, feminine; FUT, future; GEN, genitive; H, hearer; IMP, imperative; INCL, inclusive; INST, instrumental; IPFV, imperfective; IRR, irrealis; ITER, iterative; LOC, locative; M, masculine; MAN, manner; MIR, mirative; N, neuter; NMLZ, nominalizer; NON.FUT, non-future; NPST, non-past; NSG, non-singular; PFV, perfective; PL, plural; PN, proper name; POL, polite; PROG, progressive; PROX, proximal; PROXH, hearer-proximal; PROXS, speaker-proximal; PRS, present; PRT, particle; PST, past tense; PURP, purposive; REL, marker of relative clause; REMPST, remote past tense; REP, reported; RN.TOP, relator noun with the meaning top; S, speaker; SG, singular; SR, subordinator; SUB, subject; SUBJ, subject cross-referencing; TAG, tag particle; TOPIC, topic; TSR, temporal subordinator; UP, up(ward); VIS, visible; VOC, vocative. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. This metaphorical correspondence is said to result from the fact that if human beings moved by crawling on the ground their head would be in front and their feet would come last. Recalling that April 1564 is the date on which Shakespeare was born. Semantics Examples in Literature Lesson Summary Activities FAQs Semantics and You Now that you understand how difficult it can be for people to know they are understanding all words in the. In this paper, I have largely ignored the morphological and syntactic properties of elevational demonstratives as well as their use in discourse (e.g., as anaphors or cataphors). Berlin: de Gruyter. How can you kill bunnies just for fun ?! By contrast, in a relative frame of reference there is a ternary relation because in addition to the figure and the ground (relatum or ground object) there is an anchoring point (=the origin of the coordinate system). The Manambu Language of East Sepik, Papua New Guinea. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag. Instead, they co-occur with determiners. If we consider the entire greater Hindu Kush Himalayan Region, we have to add some more Indo-Aryan languages. Table 1 shows the demonstrative system of Muna (Malayo-Polynesian, Sulawesi). Utrecht: LOT. In Maale, only the adverbial use is found. Holton (2019), who discusses the Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Den languages spoken in the Artic, which is generally rather flat, notes that even though the Alaska territory includes some of the highest mountains in North America, the speakers of Na-Den languages, which have elevational demonstrative, do not live in the mountains. Semantic narrowing is a type of semantic changeby which the meaningof a word becomes less general or inclusive than its earlier meaning. 8486; Heeschen, 1998, p. 143). These include narrowing, broadening, amelioration, and pejoration. Canberra: Australian National University. Gravelle, G. (2010). The word, 'hound', traditionally referred to any type of dog. Treis, Y. Some examples of amelioration include dizzy, pretty, Knight, Lord, and Lady. As was just said, the vertical axis is special because of its natural grounding in gravity. From Space to Time: Temporal Adverbials in the Worlds Languages. The meaning of a word doesn't just change in an instant, it can take many years. In linguistics, amelioration is the upgrading or elevation of a word's meaning, as when a word with a negative sense develops a positive one. Elevation refers to the expression of a location of a figure with respect to the ground on the vertical axis. The last context (iv) has several subtypes (presentative, identifier, localizer, and copular demonstratives, see Killian, unpublished for the full typology, explanations and examples). Amelioration: Definition, Meaning & Example | StudySmarter Consider these two examples that reveal the two different meanings we associate the word 'lady' with: Of course she only drinks champagne and wears silk - she is a proper lady! The position of a figure above or over a ground object is usually defined by gravity and thus in most instances in practice absolute (see also Clark, 1973). Elevational meanings have repeatedly been grouped together with grammatical items that refer to salient landmarks (e.g., seawards/landwards, upriver/downriver). G. Senft (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics), 99128. Dadibi Grammar: Morpheme to Sentence. Amelioration is a term used to describe when a words meaning changed from negative to positive. the term 'pass away' can be used to describe someone dying. How many types of semantic changes are there? A Grammar of Nungon: A Papuan Language of the Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. No language has been reported so far to have demonstratives for the other two axes.2. There are many examples of semantic change that can be found in our day-to-day speech! The meaning of the word changed, referring to someone's way of thinking instead. When the referent is not potentially visible and also not located on the path of a nearby river, but is separate from the speaker by at least a mountain range (i.e., global scale), then the same items function as labels for cardinal directions (19), and elevational differences are ignored. You're sick! For instance, Tanacross and other Northern Dene languages have genuine topographic elevational systems (in addition to the general elevational demonstratives) that conventionally extend to the micro level. Semantic Change - Types of Semantic Change | Types - LiquiSearch Which sentence DOESN'T use an ameliorated word? . Lakskij Jazyk: Fonetika I Morfologija [The Lak Language: Phonetics and Morphology]. Ngiyambaa. An example of Semantic Widening Guy - Guido (Guy) Fawkes was the leader of the plot to blow up the English Houses of Parliament. A Grammar of Hup. However, by Middle English, the main meaning of the word 'dizzy' had become 'to suffer from vertigo' which is the meaning we associate with the word nowadays. Lexis and Semantics Summary: Definition and Examples An old lady with short white hair who usually wears a red coat. The demonstrative system of Makalero (Huber, 2011, p. 232). However, by the 1800s, the process of amelioration had changed this, and the word came to mean that someone was kind and thoughtful. The structure of Daga demonstratives (Murane, 1974, p. 38). doi: 10.1016/0749-596x(92)90006-j. This will cause a psychological change in how people view a word and its meaning. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. . Broadening is the process in which the meaning of a word becomes more generalised over time. Fig. I propose that this can be explained in the following way: in the proximal domain, fine grained semantic distinctions are superfluous since this area is accessible to the interlocutors who in the default case of a normal conversation are located in close proximity to each other [(see also Imai, 2003, p. 42) for a similar observation].
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