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In parallel passages from Old and Middle English and in noun cognates from Modern English, Old English, and Modern German, the most discernible elements of language drift are gender loss and word meaning change, respectively. They can be observed, discussed, and calculated to show a definite progression toward the development of Modern English.

Submitted by Flavia Cambi Alves (flaviacambi@hotmail.com) on 2016-09-15T02:24:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 flaviacambi_dissertação_FINAL.pdf: 1401173 bytes, checksum: 267330af142f2e04d26790f730146092 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Paula Grisoto (grisotoana@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-09-20T16:46:02Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 alves_fc_me_sjrp.pdf: 1401173 bytes, checksum: 267330af142f2e04d26790f730146092 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-20T16:46:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 alves_fc_me_sjrp.pdf: 1401173 bytes, checksum: 267330af142f2e04d26790f730146092 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-19 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O propósito deste trabalho é investigar, sob uma abordagem que une tanto a perspectiva sincrônica quanto a diacrônica, aspectos relativos à gramaticalização dos itens juntivos derivados de tanto, considerando que existe uma relação de precedência entre o item fonte e os demais itens derivados – entretanto, no entanto (que), portanto e contanto que. O corpus utilizado foi obtido a partir de um conjunto de gêneros textuais diversos – como cartas, diários, anúncios, notícias, peças teatrais, discursos etc. –, que mostraram diferentes esquemas de junção. Todos os textos são datados dos séculos XVIII e XIX, com produção predominante no estado de São Paulo e extraídos de duas grandes fontes: do corpus do PHPP (Projeto para a História do Português Paulista) e da Biblioteca Brasiliana (USP). Partindo de propostos funcionalistas que tratam de juntores, entendidos como itens que exprimem alguma relação de sentido, além de ligar sintaticamente orações ou porções textuais maiores (TRAUGOTT; DASHER, 2002; HOPPER; TRAUGOTT, 2003; BLÜHDORN, 2006; NEVES, 2011), analisamos a transição categorial e a abstratização de significado sofridas por cada um dos juntores em questão. Para avaliação de aspectos formais, utilizamos uma série de parâmetros que permitiram averiguar uma maior/menor prototipicidade dos diferentes juntores; quanto à relação de sentido expressa, nos apoiamos no mapeamento da derivação semântica (KORMTANN, 1997) para descrever os diferentes padrões funcionais de cada juntor e, sobretudo, para identificar os diferentes tipos de contextos que condicionaram a emergência de novas relações de sentido, semânticas e pragmáticas. Por meio da análise das ocorrências, pudemos constatar que entretanto, no entanto, portanto e contanto que percorreram a trajetória juntor [- prototípico] > juntor [+ prototípico], permeando mudanças semânticas condicionadas por relações polissêmicas do tipo TEMPO > CONTRASTE; CAUSA > CONCLUSÃO; CONTRASTE > CONDIÇÃO, respectivamente, corroboradas pelos diferentes tipos de contexto em que tais juntores eram empregados. / The purpose of this study is to investigate, from an approach that unites both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, aspects related to the grammaticalization of junctive items derived from tanto, considering that there is a precedence relation between the source item and the other derived items - entretanto, no entanto (que), portanto e contanto que. The used corpus was obtained from a set of several textual genres – such as letters, diaries, advertisements, news, theater plays, speeches etc. –, which showed different junction schemes. All texts are dated to the XVIII and XIX centuries, with predominant production in the state of São Paulo and extracted from two great sources: the corpus from PHPP (History of the Paulista Portuguese Project) and from the Brasiliana Library (USP). Starting from functionalist proposals that adress junctives, which are understood as items that express a certain relation of meaning, besides syntactically linking sentences or larger textual portions (TRAUGOTT; DASHER, 2002; HOPPER; TRAUGOTT, 2003; BLÜHDORN, 2006; NEVES, 2011), categorical transition and the process of making meaning abstract that were suffered by each one of the junctives in question were analyzed. For the evaluation of formal aspects, a series of parameters which allowed to ascertain a higher/lower prototypicality of the different junctives were utilized; as for the relation of meaning expressed, the study relied on the mapping of semantic derivation (KORMTANN, 1997) to describe the different functional patterns of each junctive and, specially, to identify the different types of contexts that influenced the emergence of new semantic and pragmatic relations of meaning. Through the analysis of the occurrences, it was stated that entretanto, no entanto, portanto and contanto que went through the following path: junctive [- prototypical] > junctive [+ prototypical], permeating semantic changes conditioned by polysemic relations of the following type: TIME > CONTRAST; CAUSE > CONCLUSION; CONTRAST > CONDITION, respectively, supported by the different types of context in which said junctives were employed.

In this work, we test two novel methods of using word embeddings to detect lexical semantic change, attempting to overcome limitations associated with conventional approaches to this problem. Using a diachronic corpus spanning over a hundred years, we generate word embeddings for each decade with the intention of evaluating how meaning changes are represented in embeddings for the same word across time. Our approach differs from previous works in this field in that we encode words as probabilistic Gaussian distributions and bimodal probabilistic Gaussian mixtures, rather than conventional word vectors. We provide a discussion and analysis of our results, comparing the approaches we implemented with those used in previous works. We also conducted further analysis on whether additional information regarding the nature of semantic change could be discerned from particular qualities of the embeddings we generated for our experiments. In our results, we find that encoding words as probabilistic Gaussian embeddings can provide an enhanced degree of reliability with regard to detecting lexical semantic change. Furthermore, we are able to represent additional information regarding the nature of such changes through the variance of these embeddings. Encoding words as bimodal Gaussian mixtures however is generally unsuccessful for this task, proving to be not reliable enough at distinguishing between discrete senses to effectively detect and measure such changes. We provide potential explanations for the results we observe, and propose improvements that can be made to our approach to potentially improve performance.

<p>Syftet med denna studie är att se hur ordet <em>grym</em> används i icketraditionell bemärkelse. Undersökningen har skett genom studier av ordet i elva tidningskorpusar mellan åren 1965-2004, sammanställda av Språkbanken. Genom att studera faktorer såsom betydelse, genre, användare och ordklass har jag kommit fram till att ordet har gått från att innan 1970-talet endast använts för någonting negativt till att ordet används som en förstärkning eller för något som är snyggt, häftigt och positivt. Studien visar att ordet främst används inom sport- och musikgenren i tidningarna och majoriteten av användarna är män. I denna studie om bruket av ordet <em>grym</em> i tidningsskriftspråk har ordet inte uppkommit i annan ordklass än vad dagens ordböcker tar upp.</p> / <p>The aim of this study is to see how the Swedish word <em>grym</em> is used in non-traditional sense. The research is based on eleven newspaper corpuses from Språkbanken between the years 1965-2004. By studying factors like meaning, genre, user and part of speech the conclusion is that the word has gone from something negative before the 1970s to be used as reinforcement or for something nice, cool and positive. The research shows that the word mainly is used within the sport and music genre in the newspapers and the majority of the users are men. In the result the word is never used as another part of speech other than the ones presented in the word books, which is adjective and adverb.</p>

This thesis is an investigation of Middle English insanity language. It analyses change in the Middle English lexical field of INSANITY, the semantic structure of lexemes wod and mad, and compares INSANITY conceptual metaphors in Middle English and present-day English. The INSANITY lexical field is an ideal one to study language change, due to socio-cultural changes since the Middle Ages such as advances in medical knowledge, the development of the field of psychiatry and legal changes protecting people with a mental illness from discrimination. The general theoretical aims were to examine a) change in conceptual metaphor, and b) semantic and lexical change with a particular focus on the decline in use of adjective wod. The theoretical frameworks are cognitive linguistics, prototype theory, and conceptual metaphor theory, and the data is derived from Middle English corpora and other sources. The INSANITY database I created for this study consisted of 1307 instances of mad, wod and near-synonyms in context. The main results can be divided into three groups. Firstly, the lexical field study demonstrates that various intra-linguistic and socio-cultural phenomena effect lexical change. Using case studies amongst others of the decline of wod in the Wycliffite Bible and of Caxton's translations from French, and a systematic variation across genre, I argue that the important factors are i) the arrival of new medical loanwords such as frensy, lunatic and malencolie; ii) the early re-emergence of the vernacular in medical texts starting in the twelfth century, and the development of a new medical register; iii) the so-called medieval 'inward turn'; iv) changes in the neighbouring lexical field of ANGER. Secondly, the semasiological study of wod and mad shows that the meanings of these two lexemes are structured and change in line with the central tenets of prototype theory, i.e. as described for diachronic prototype semantics by Geeraerts (1997). The path of mad's semantic development does not parallel that of wod after the thirteenth century. Mad's senses do not have the emphasis on wildness and fury that the senses of wod do. A particularly interesting finding is the semantic change from a sub-sense of adverb mad and adjective mad, 'unrestrained', leading in present-day English to a new delexicalised and grammaticalised sense of mad, where its use as an intensifier enhances scalar quantity and quality. Thirdly, the conceptual metaphor study demonstrates that predominantly the same conceptual metaphors are seen in both Middle English and present-day English, with some exceptions such as the concept of insanity being related to moral decline, as evidenced in the dearth of FALLING metaphors for insanity in present-day English. Conceptual metaphors such as INSANITY IS ANOTHER PLACE are evidenced in present-day English expressions such as out of her senses, or not in my right mind. In 1422, Thomas Hoccleve could write of a dysseveraunce between himself and his wit, or about his wyld infirmitie, which threw him owt of my selfe, illustrating the same underlying concepts. Other INSANITY conceptual metaphors which remain unchanged are GOING ASTRAY, LACK OF ORDER, LACK OF WHOLENESS, DARKNESS, FORCE, PRISON and BURDEN. Because of its unique approach in combining onomasiological and semasiological approaches with a conceptual metaphor study, this study reveals not only specific patterns of change, but differences in the rate of change on the lexical and conceptual levels. Lexical change driven by the need to be expressive, and reflecting socio-cultural changes such as changes in medical knowledge, can be seen to happen rapidly over the Middle English period. However, underlying conceptual change is barely discernible even over a much longer period of time from Middle English to present-day English. This research is significant because it provides a basis for future analysis of insanity language in other periods and contexts. It also contributes to the study of semantic change in general, highlighting the insights that can be gained by combining different types of data-driven analyses.

This thesis examines characters in Chinese and Japanese, including semantic shift. The writing system in China, Japan and a number of other nations whose script relates to characters, notably Korea, will also be discussed. By examining this "Character Cultural Sphere" in East Asia along with the historical and modern character standardizations and reformations, the role of Chinese characters proves to be essential. Furthermore, the thesis investigates semantic shifts of characters as windows on socio-cultural change in two given areas, namely "disorder" to "order" and "natural" to "artificial, manmade". One major aim is to explore shifts of meanings (semantic shifts), that can provide a commentary on the changes in societal and cultural values. The results reveal that the pattern of semantic shifts between China and Japan is considerably similar. Regarding "natural vs manmade" the overall trend shows that in both China and Japan, more characters acquired the meaning of "artificial, manmade" as time goes by, reflecting the changes in society. Regarding "disorder vs order", while the percentage of characters relating to "disorder" remained relatively stable in these two countries, the percentage of characters relating to "order" saw an undeniable increase - more than double in both Chinese and Japanese - showing that in both countries, the overall societal trend was obviously towards more "order" while "disorder" continues to exist. These results give quantitative data regarding the pattern of evolution of Chinese and Japanese societies, particularly Chinese, and provided an insight through written scripts into the evolution of human beings and civilizations. Also, because of its length, the main database of the research, the table of 2,500 common-use characters with commentary, is attached after the bibliography as an appendix.

The main topic of my dissertation is exploitation of metaphor and metonymy in current argot of Parisian suburbs. The paper defines metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche (special type of metonymy). It also describes the term argot and analyses present argot French on Parisian suburbs from social-linguistic perspective. In the end based on available sources my work analyses lexical units in argot created by means of metaphor and metonymy and describes in detail the process of relevant semantic change.

Syftet med denna studie är att se hur ordet grym används i icketraditionell bemärkelse. Undersökningen har skett genom studier av ordet i elva tidningskorpusar mellan åren 1965-2004, sammanställda av Språkbanken. Genom att studera faktorer såsom betydelse, genre, användare och ordklass har jag kommit fram till att ordet har gått från att innan 1970-talet endast använts för någonting negativt till att ordet används som en förstärkning eller för något som är snyggt, häftigt och positivt. Studien visar att ordet främst används inom sport- och musikgenren i tidningarna och majoriteten av användarna är män. I denna studie om bruket av ordet grym i tidningsskriftspråk har ordet inte uppkommit i annan ordklass än vad dagens ordböcker tar upp. / The aim of this study is to see how the Swedish word grym is used in non-traditional sense. The research is based on eleven newspaper corpuses from Språkbanken between the years 1965-2004. By studying factors like meaning, genre, user and part of speech the conclusion is that the word has gone from something negative before the 1970s to be used as reinforcement or for something nice, cool and positive. The research shows that the word mainly is used within the sport and music genre in the newspapers and the majority of the users are men. In the result the word is never used as another part of speech other than the ones presented in the word books, which is adjective and adverb.

Human rights terms can be understood and categorised in different ways, according to various standards, in different periods of history. Studying the development of these vocabularies in their historical context provides the grounds for understanding the history of ideas involving human rights. This research used a diachronic approach to examine the changes in the use of terms associated with freedoms and rights in Egyptian political writings in three periods between 1869 and 1952. Three main sources were used as an analytic corpus: (1) Al-Ṭahṭawī’s books; (2) Muḥammad cAbduh’s political articles in Al-Waqā’ic newspaper (published 1880-1882), and (3) political articles published in Al-Ahrām newspaper (1876-1952). The semantic changes identified were assessed using two criteria: First, changes in the terms and expressions that were used to convey types of freedoms and rights were evaluated, and second, changes in the contexts in which these terms were used in three chronological periods were assessed. These periods corresponded to the period of Al-Ṭahṭāwī (1869-1873); the period of the cUrābī Revolution to prior to the Revolution of 1919 (1879-1918), and the period from the Revolution of 1919 until the end of 1952, the year of the July Revolution. The first period registered a lexical contribution represented by the production of new expressions of freedoms and rights, with very little semantic contribution. In the second period, a limited lexical and semantic expansion was found, involving an increase in terms and the entitlements to which they referred; these terms and entitlements were mainly confined to the private sphere of individuals, and new entitlements were applicable to people who did not oppose the political authorities. In the third period, terms were found to refer to entitlements for individuals in the public sphere; this was considered to be, at the linguistic level, a lexical and semantic development. In all cases, the meaning of the terms was dependent on context and thus necessarily subject to cultural and political interpretations. The study concludes with recommendations for considering the evolution of Arabic political vocabularies (mainly vocabularies of freedoms and rights) in different historical periods involving different political circumstances.