Semantic Changes, Детальна інформація

There is also a third term for the same phenomenon, namely

"differentiation", but it is not so widely used as the first two terms.

H. Paul, as well as many other authors, emphasizes the fact that this type of semantic change is particularly frequent in vocabulary of professional and trade groups.

H. Paul's examples are from the German language but it is very easy to find parallel cases in English. So this type of change is fairly universal and fails to disclose any specifically English properties.

The best known examples of specialization in the general language are as follows: OE d?or 'wild beast' > ModE deer 'wild rum,inant of a particular species' (the original meaning was still alive in Shakespeare's time as is proved by the following quotation: Rats and mice and such small deer); OE mete 'food' >ModE meat 'edible flesh', i.e. only a particular species of food (the earlier meaning is still noticeable in the compound sweetmeat).

ples are: OE fuзol 'bird'

(cf. Germ Vogel) > ModE foal 'domestic birds'. The old, meaning is still preserved in poetic diction and in set expressions, like fowls of the air.

Among its derivatives, fowler means 'a person who shoots or traps wild birds for sport or food'; the shooting or trapping itself is called fowling; a fowling piece is a gun. OE hund 'dog' (cf. . Germ Hund) >hound

'a species of hunting dog'. Many words connected with literacy also show similar changes: thus, teach