Regularity in Semantic Change

Elizabeth Closs Traugott 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, Cambridge, 1993). Richard B. Dasher is Director of the US-Japan Technology Center, Executive Director of the Center for Integrated Systems and Consulting Associate Professor at the School of Engineering, Stanford University. His previous publications include historical work on Japanese honorifics in Papers in Linguistics, other research in Papers from the 7th International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL), and various scholarly journals.

• List of figures; Preface and acknowledgements; Conventions; List of abbreviations; 1. The framework; 2. Prior and current work on semantic change; 3. The development of modal verbs; 4. The development of adverbials with discourse marker function; 5. The development of performative verbs and constructions; 6. The development of social deictics; 7. Conclusion; Primary references; Secondary references; Index of languages; Index of names; Index of subjects.

'How does it come about that linguistic expressions change their meanings over time, or, to be more precise, that speakers start using established linguistic expressions with novel meanings? What is the nature of semantic change, and - more importantly - can we generalize about different instantiations of semantic change not only within individual languages but also cross-linguistically? The book under review, by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Richard B. Dasher, provides bold answers to such big questions.' Journal of Linguistics