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. Examples of Semantic Memory Recalling that Washington, D.C., is the U.S. capital and Washington is a state. Zhirkov, L. I. With respect to the languages of this paper, this claim is only partially confirmed. This is an example of narrowing. Elevation refers to a change in the connotations of a word, occuring in one of two ways. The term 'semantic shift' can also be used to refer to the changing meanings of words. Narrowing is a process where a word's meaning changes to become more specific. (2014). The elevational values in both subsets are obligatorily co-expressed with the deictic meaning DISTAL. Hatam has even two terms for UP (nyo sloping up, hu vertically up), but only one for DOWN (mu) (Reesink, 1999, pp. (a) No occurrence of elevational morphemes outside these forms. If we consider the entire greater Hindu Kush Himalayan Region, we have to add some more Indo-Aryan languages. 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. In Andi and Manambu, the elevational markers are only used with the deictic demonstratives and thus belong to the (a) subtype. The languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea, but in different areas of the country, and they belong to two different language families. This means that one of the three demonstratives expresses proximity to the hearer, and therefore the deictic center is not the speaker, but the hearer. This means that within a house there are four directions/locations, namely upstream, downstream, inland, and across because traditionally houses have been built with the door toward the water (Holton, 2000, p. 298). (2012). Languages have a plethora of linguistic means to express locations of objects along the vertical axis, e.g., A is above/over B, A is higher than B, A can be upward, uphill, up the road with respect to B. They are narrowing, broadening, amelioration, pejoration, and semantic reclamation. Utrecht: LOT. Berlin: de Gruyter. Amelioration is less common than the opposite historical process, calledpejoration. For example, the original meaning of ambassador was . 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). Gossner, J. D. (1994). What are some examples of semantic change? Semantic change often occurs as societal values change. A Grammar of Makalero: A Papuan Language of East Timor. One example of semantic change would be the word 'hound'. The term semantics (from the Greek word for sign) was coined by French linguist Michel Bral (1832-1915), who is commonly regarded as a founder of modern semantics. Cognition 124, 2535. Doctoral dissertation, James Cook University, Cairns. In this article, we will show some examples of amelioration along with the definition and its importance to the English Language. Changes in the social, economical or political status of a country can have a significant impact on semantics. The handling editor declared a shared affiliation, though no other collaboration, with the author DF at the time of the review. The elevational demonstrative morphemes themselves cannot be clearly separated further and no unambiguous part with purely elevational meaning can be identified. J. Pers. 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. Table 1. Haude, K. (2006). Pejoration is a term used to describe the process where a word that once had a positive meaning acquires a negative one. Introduction: demonstratives: patterns in diversity, in Demonstratives in Cross-Linguistic Perspective, eds S. C. Levinson, S. Cutfield, M. Dunn, N. Enfield, and S. Meira (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 142. Am. From this, the term began to be used colloquially which led it to be associated with acting rude or unkind. For instance, terms that express ACROSS can be topographic and refer to locations across a valley at the same altitude of the opposite mountain as in Yakkha (12), or across the river as in Tanacross (13). Typol. Note that another adjective - 'terribly' - that derives from the same source as 'terrific', has also been ameliorated with time. (2015). Linguist. These changes occur for either extralinguistic or linguistic reasons. 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: 10.1075/sl.27.1.04dix. 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. There are many other open questions left for future studies of elevational demonstratives. The Maale Language. 1 - 'Dizzy' is an example of amelioration. Semantic Narrowing (Specialization). The elevational morphemes that obligatorily or optionally co-occur with demonstrative morphemes are bound roots, affixes or clitics. Test your knowledge with gamified quizzes. An example in point comes from Yakkha, which has two types of topographic elevational adverbials of which elevational demonstratives are formed (see Table 11 for the first type). 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). Daga (Papuan), for instance, has a particularly rich system with 14 demonstratives, of which two are merely person-based, eight co-express three distance-based meanings (CLOSE, DISTAL, and FAR DISTAL) with the elevational values UP, DOWN, and LEVEL, and four more encode only elevational meanings (Table 9). For example, sometimes when discussing horse racing, the tracks are referred to as 'turf'. Whitby, C. (1990). Pennington, R. (2016). To sum up, temporal uses of elevational demonstratives show once more how the mapping from space to time differs across languages and cultures. If languages have elevationals and person-based deictics, these meanings are more commonly separately expressed as, for instance, in Muna, Daga (Table 9) or Sanzhi Dargwa. What did the word `` knight '' mean in Old English? Figure 1. Learning about which words have been elevated and taken on a positive meaning shows us how societal perceptions of language have changed over time. 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. For unknown locations, the LEVEL items can be used as default demonstratives. This is because when used as slang, they gain a new, positive, meaning and are associated with the word, 'cool'. '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'. According to the survey in Diessel (2013), which included 234 languages, demonstratives are distance-neutral or express up to five distance contrasts (i.e., five positions that differ in terms of distance from the deictic center). Amelioration is a type of semantic change that elevates a word's meaning over time, so that a word that previously had a negative meaning develops a positive one. Its 100% free. In the above sentence, the word 'attitude', which used to simply refer to a person's position and state of mind, is now associated with negative behaviour. Soc. Literally means "using formal methods for the study of meaning." 2.Semantic change, also known as semantic shift or semantic progression) that describes the . Verhees, S. (2019). These contexts are (i) pronominal use, (ii) adnominal use (i.e., as determiner), (iii) spatial and manner adverbial use, and (iv) identificational use in copula and non-verbal clauses. I also want to thank two reviewers, my colleagues Gary Holton and Diana Schackow who answered my questions on their languages of expertise and the audience at the LingConLab (Linguistic Convergence Laboratory) seminar of the HSE Moscow on May 12, 2020, in particular Michael Daniel, for many questions and suggestions. There are two types of landmarks outside and generally further away from the speaker that naturally expand along the vertical dimension, namely topographical contour (i.e., mountains including hills or large rocks) and hydrological contour (i.e., rivers and creeks).10 The vertical dimension of rivers might not be obvious at first glance. Linguist. Hyslop, C. (1993). A Grammar of Tauya. The word, 'engine', was originally used to mean any war machine. Except for East Caucasian none of the other language families spoken in the Caucasus has elevational demonstratives. The demonstrative system of Tanacross (Holton, 2019). Second, in two of the major mountain areas with elevationals, the elevationals are restricted to only one or two families. Friederici, A. D., and Levelt, W. J. M. (1990). Towards a Typology of Spatial Deixis. It is caused by extralinguistic factors typically. Similarly, by means of the second topographic system of Yakkha the uphill and downhill elevationals can be mapped onto the human body and teeth are then referred to as uphill, i.e., upper teeth and downhill lower teeth irrespectively of their actual position (even when a person is not in the canonical upright position). The three body planes and axes. Tulil (Taulil-Butam) has three morphologically complex demonstrative stems with elevational meaning that can be used for temporal expression (Meng, 2018, pp. What is an example of semantic reclamation? Natural language changes tend to take longer than extralinguistic causes. Terms such as 'sick' or 'wicked' now also have positive connotations. There are also some traditional examples of "elevation" in which even this readjustment cannot be traced: Marshal: manservant attending horses the highest rank in the army Lord: master of the house, head of the family baronet (aristocratic title) Lady: mistress of the house, married woman wife or daughter of baronet We will cover five types of semantic change: narrowing, broadening, amelioration, pejoration, and semantic reclamation. I then discuss metaphorical extensions of elevational demonstratives to non-spatial uses such as temporal and social deixis. (ii) The local larger, but delimited environment, e.g., a village, a valley, or an island; locations within this area can be visible or not. Gravelle, G. (2010). "Such specialization is slow and need not be complete," notes linguist Tom McArthur. Earn points, unlock badges and level up while studying. In the future, this line of research should be extended to languages with rich demonstrative systems such as the languages discussed in this paper. Elevation in the spatial deictic systems of Alor-Pantar languages, in The Alor- Pantar Languages: History and Typology, ed. See also: From the Latin . Some examples of amelioration are words such as 'nice', 'pretty' and 'lady'. We have to distinguish at least three domains (which obviously form a continuum and therefore lack clear borders): (i) The local domain: the minimal local scale is the peripersonal sphere, but it extends to the area inside a house or its immediate surrounding; locations within this area are often visible. Hafniensia 50, 129160. In Old English, the word dizzy meant what? A Grammar of Abui: A Papuan Language of Alor. If a word's original meaning is unclear, it is given new meaning. There are a few languages in my sample that have specialized motion verbs referring to upward or downward movement, but the elevational markers that those verbs contain are historically unrelated to the elevational demonstratives (Galo, Sanzhi Dargwa, Yupno, and Bantawa). This proves Holton (2019) remark that elevation does not require mountains. The definitions of the general elevational demonstratives given in (6) do not refer to salient landmarks. ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/amelioration-word-meanings-1689082. The word knight is a good example of this semantic phenomenon. Which word has a double meaning in our language today? It was originally used to mean any dog, however, over time this word came to mean a hunting dog specifically. In the following, I will provide examples from the four languages and discuss this type of spatial metaphor. However, research on the spatial category of elevation is just at the beginning and typological studies are lacking so far. Leiden: Brill. In Daga, there seems to exist a correlation such that FUTURE/PAST = UP because yampoa utu-pa (third up.there-out.of.sight) means next Wednesday and wataget utu-p (before up.there-out.of.sight) means long ago (Murane, 1974, pp. How many types of semantic changes are there? The two systems (general and topographic) as portrayed so far are idealized prototypes. . Eipo (Mek, Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea) has two subsets of demonstratives (Table 2). True or False: Amelioration is more common than pejoration.
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