Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hamp, Eric P.

Titel

On Factors in Linguistic and Social Change

Ist Teil von

• Anthropological linguistics, 1995-04, Vol.37 (1), p.89-90

Ort / Verlag

Bloomington, IN: Department of Anthropology and the American Indian Studies Research Institute, Indiana University

Erscheinungsjahr

1995

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Commentary on Joseph Salmon's "The Context of Language Change" discusses Salmon's question of the "semantic degeneration" of the feminine member among English gendered noun pairs, eg, mister /mistress, sir/madam, lord/lady, & bachelor/spinster. Salmon's emphasis on social factors in language change is claimed to be inadequate. The necessity for an analysis of mechanical factors on semantic options is suggested: these include semantic broadening & narrowing, phrasal prosodic phonology, syntax, & morphophomenics. It is concluded that, given the systematic mechanical effects on these words, social values play only a minimal role in their linguistic change. M. Gordon