Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms - Definition and Examples. Spatial reference in weightlessness: perceptual factors and mental representations. As stated in Section Verticality Within the Domain of Spatial Language above, demonstratives are deictic and express distance-based meanings with the speaker (ego) as deictic center or person-based meanings that additionally consider the position of the hearer. In Makalero and Baskeet, the relation is UP = east and DOWN = west, (and Baskeet has additionally over there = north/south). Cogn. Definition and Usage of the French Word 'Enchant', Definition and Examples of Word Boundaries, 6 Common Myths About Language and Grammar, Word Play: Having Fun With the Sounds and Meanings of Words, Five Words That May Not Mean What You Think They Mean, Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia, M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester, B.A., English, State University of New York. doi: 10.1515/lingty-2019-0001. The structure of Muna demonstratives (van den Berg, 1989/2013, p. 89). Another important factor to keep in mind when investigating the meaning of elevational demonstratives is scale or domain of use. Pennington, R. (2016). 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. What does it now refer to? 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'. The second subset, which contains the intensifier d-, expresses additional distance or contrast. There are five major types of semantic change. There are two types of semantics: logical and lexical. The word has been ameliorated over time and nowadays we use 'nice' in a positive sense - meaning someone or something that is good and pleasant. From a word used to describe something that causes fear, terribly is now an alternative for 'very': The case of the word 'sick' is a more recent example of amelioration. Below, we will discuss the characteristics of these, and look at examples of each type of semantic change. In general, demonstratives can be bound and unbound forms, whereby the bound forms are normally clitics and not affixes (Diessel, 1999, p. 2225). Aikhenvald, A. I did not come across any language that always distinguishes all four types formally. Instead, they co-occur with determiners. Have a look at the table below to see some examples of extralinguistic and linguistic causes of semantic change. EXAMPLES: My oldest cousin is female. 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. Post, M. W. (2011). . Narrowing is when the meaning of a word becomes more specialised whereas broadening happens when a word's meaning changes to be more generalised. Levinson (2018, pp. It now specifically refers to devices that are created to fulfil a specific purpose. All languages with LEVEL or ACROSS elevationals also have DOWN and UP elevationals. Doctoral dissertation, James Cook University, Cairns. ThoughtCo. I then propose the elevational hierarchy along which the basic elevational meaning categories can be ordered. Friedman, V. (1994). 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. Spatial coordinate systems in demonstrative meaning. Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms. With time, the negative meaning of the word weakened, and it changed from 'frightful' to 'severe'. All datasets generated for this study are included in the article/Supplementary Material. In Tidore, the elevational deictic verbs ine upward and tora downward are used in two temporal expressions, namely mulamula ine early morning, at sunrise (morning + upward) and lobino tora early evening, shortly after the sunset prayer (lit. Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia, M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester, B.A., English, State University of New York. Lang. Literally means "using formal methods for the study of meaning." 2.Semantic change, also known as semantic shift or semantic progression) that describes the . Reesink, G. P. (1999). How does the environment shape spatial language? 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. Let me show you an example to make this a little more concrete. Amelioration is less common than its opposite - pejoration. For example, demonstratives in the Athabaskan language Tanacross (Alaska) morphologically and semantically combine deictic meaning (distality) with specific topographic and elevational morphemes. 12, 99142. Amelioration is less common than the opposite historical process, called pejoration . Doctoral dissertation, La Trobe University, Melbourne. This is an example of narrowing. The description of object B as over the head entails a relative (to an external upright observer) or absolute frame of reference as determined by gravity.3 We make use of an intrinsic frame of reference when we refer to object A, which is located at the same elevation of the head of the person and aligned with it along the same horizontal axis, as over the head. The Structure of Kiranti Languages. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 65, 157167. Sociocultural factors can influence narrowing as a major shift in a country's politics or social landscape will lead to semantic changes. For example, in Andi (Table 5), only the distal demonstrative roots can attach elevational suffixes. A minimal system of elevational demonstratives consists of one item for UP or one item for DOWN, but far more common is to have one term for each of the values UP and DOWN. J. Pers. We will cover five types of semantic change: narrowing, broadening, amelioration, pejoration, and semantic reclamation. *Correspondence: Diana Forker, diana.forker@uni-jena.de, Demonstratives, Deictic Pointing and the Conceptualization of Space, View all Evidence for sociotopography. The word 'terrific' comes from the Latin word 'terrificus' which meant 'causing terror or fear, frightful'. The adverbial use normally refers to the occurrence of elevational demonstratives in the function of spatial adverbs (3), (24). Narrowing is a process where a word's meaning changes to become more specific. However, over the years, the meaning of this word broadened to refer to any type of work or job. Be perfectly prepared on time with an individual plan. For example, imagine if, in 200 years, the word 'stupid' changes its meaning and refers to someone or something good or even clever. The intrinsic frame of reference entails that the ground and the origin of the coordinate system that serves as anchoring point are identical and the spatial relation between the figure and the ground is binary. Verticality is not inherently deictic because the ground or anchoring point is not exclusively the speaker (Fillmore, 1982, pp. In languages such as Manambu, Sougb, or Nlmwa-Nixumwak, in which the morphemes with the elevational semantics can be readily identified and are sometimes also used with lexical items other than demonstratives (e.g., verbs), the elevationals resemble English non-deictic expressions such as up. Cogn. Munich: Lincom. Later the word 'hlafweard' shortened - first it became 'hlaford' and then by the 13th century it was simply 'lord'. Stop procrastinating with our study reminders. 41, 768799. Directional systems in Athapaskan and Na-Dene, in Athapaskan Linguistics: Current Perspectives on a Language Family, eds E. Cook and K. D. Rice (Berlin: de Gruyter), 575622. Imai, S. (2003). Uphill and downhill in a flat world: the conceptual topography of the Yupno house. In order words, the word can be used in more contexts than it could originally. See also: When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. of the users don't pass the Semantic Change quiz! It is important to remember when discussing this form of semantic change that, unlike amelioration, the word may still also be used in the pejorative sense. Lerne mit deinen Freunden und bleibe auf dem richtigen Kurs mit deinen persnlichen Lernstatistiken. The handling editor declared a shared affiliation, though no other collaboration, with the author DF at the time of the review. Even among the few languages which clearly have topographic elevationals, there are three languages not spoken in the mountains, but in lower hills (Dyirbal), on a flat island (Iaai) and in a flat area of Alaska (Tanacross). doi: 10.3758/bf03205000. For example, Sanzhi Dargwa has a general elevational system clearly based on an abstract vertical axis (Forker, 2019). Front. In the future, this line of research should be extended to languages with rich demonstrative systems such as the languages discussed in this paper. The three body planes and axes. If we break the term 'extralinguistic' down we can see that it refers to factors that are 'extra' so exist outside the language itself. For example, demonstratives in the Athabaskan language Tanacross (Alaska) morphologically and semantically combine deictic meaning (distality) with specific topographic and elevational morphemes. 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. In Sanzhi, the projection occurs not only within the local, peripersonal sphere, for example, items on a table in front of the speaker are located as UP when they are further away and DOWN when they are closer to the speaker (but always in front of the speaker). J. Mem. How many types of semantic changes are there? Elevation and spatial orientation in Alaska, in Paper Presented at the 52th Annual Meeting of the SLE, Leipzig. Also called melioration or elevation. However, since we know that other elevational terms such as ABOVE or BELOW can, in principle, be employed within intrinsic and relative frames of reference, it is desirable in future research on elevational demonstratives to systematically test if there are any elevational demonstratives that can also be used in that way. I will discuss the interaction of deixis with elevation in the Section The vertical dimension and its relation to deixis after having described in more detail elevational meanings. Amelioration is when a word's meaning changes from negative to positive over time. This can include a word becoming taboo, or being linked with a taboo within the culture. These are extralinguistic causes (not involving language) and linguistic causes (involving language). 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). A Grammar of Moskona: An East Birds Head Language of West Papua, Indonesia. The original meaning of 'attitude' was 'position, pose'. Notes on the Zayse language, in Omotic Language Studies, ed. 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. Cats are fish. Mandarin and English speakers conceptions of time. Front. In Old English, the word 'dizzy' meant 'foolish'. However, for this paper the answer to that question is largely irrelevant, because I am only interested in the combined forms, i.e., the co-occurrence of demonstratives and elevational morphemes. What is an example of a linguistic cause? From this, we can see that amelioration is a process that can take centuries to occur. Hafniensia 50, 129160. 240, 263, 271). Dixon further adds that river is the more specific meaning and the other terms translated by hill rather mean not river and can also refer to locations such as cliffs or trees. On the development of elevation deictics in Hmong-Mien, in Paper Presented at the 52th Annual Meeting of the SLE, Leipzig. 94, 187). Create flashcards in notes completely automatically. Grimes (1991, p. 170) does not provide a precise definition for the term emic, but writes that the concept away from an emic center as it is expressed by the topographic demonstrative lawe in Buru indicates energy directed away from the actor. It is possible though not unambiguously clear from the description that this formulation can be translated into away from the speaker.. doi: 10.1075/sl.27.1.04dix. Widening/Extension => range of meanings of a word increases so that the word can be used in more contexts than were appropriate before the change -dog =>1) specific powerful breed of dog => all breeds or races of dog Broadening is the process in which the meaning of a word becomes more generalised over time. Some systems of spatial deixis in Papuan languages, in Here and There: Cross-Linguistic Studies on Deixis and Demonstration, eds J. Weissenborn and W. Klein (Amsterdam: Benjamins), 81110. Eipo (Mek, Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea) has two subsets of demonstratives (Table 2). Vignettes of Cora locatives. In their demonstrative systems, languages repeatedly combine elevation with distance. The term, 'cool', was popular within the language of jazz musicians, as it referred to a specific style of music ('cool jazz')! No language has been reported so far to have demonstratives for the other two axes.2. 7, 101117. The basic semantic values that elevational demonstratives encode can be ordered along a hierarchy (UP/DOWN > LEVEL/ACROSS) that reflects cross-linguistic tendencies in the frequency of the respective elevational values. For the (b) subtypes, the question can be asked what the nature of the elevational morpheme is, in particular, whether they are themselves deictic or non-deictic. This means that different social or ethnic groups may experience semantic change differently for different words. Examples were given in (16) and (19) from Galo. This can be because of cultural changes that lead to a change in how the word is categorised (causing a semantic change). Table 2. Huber, J. For instance, the speaker who uttered (19) is located in a village at around 100 m above sea level and Itanagar, where he would like to go, is situated at around 440 m and thus higher, and to the south but not visible from his village. Today, the original meanings of the word are still in use: I'm sorry, I can't come to work today. Elevation as a category of grammar: Sanzhi Dargwa and beyond. A Grammar of Aguaruna. With time, this meaning changed once again, to 'attractive, skillfully made' until it shifted to 'fine'. The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland. Charachidz, G. (1981). (iii) The global scale, e.g., locations on other continents that are never visible from the location of the speaker. (1955). The four basic verticality values expressed by elevational demonstratives are UP, DOWN, LEVEL, and ACROSS. Semantic Narrowing (Specialization). Similarly, 'meat', has also undergone semantic narrowing over the years.
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