Basically, linguistics is the study of word. I am going to focus on the lexical change in linguistics. Lexical change is a change in meaning
or use of a word. It also causes changes in our lexicon. Changes in lexical categories may change the
function of a word.There are many types of lexical change. There are addition
of new words, borrowings or loan words, loss of words and semantic change. In
addition of words, there are seven different ways of adding the words such as,
deriving words from names known as eponyms, blends, back-formations, acronyms,
abbreviations or clippings, compounding and new bound morphemes. Next type of
lexical change is borrowings or loan words. It can be directly or indirectly.
When occurs directly, the borrowed item is native word in the language from
which it is borrowed. As an example, the word “feast”, which is directly
borrowed from French and can be traced back to Latin as “ festum”. On the other
hand, when indirectly, example is the word “algebra”. In addition, loss of
words also causes the lexical change.
A word is lost through inattention. Some
examples of words are, “two bits” which means twenty-five cents today. This
kind of words are no longer used by younger generation nowadays. Technological
change also contribute to the loss of words. For example, acutiator once meant
sharpener of weapon. Lastly is the semantic change. It can occur by three ways
that are by broadening, by narrowing and by meaning shifts. In broadening, the
meaning of word becomes more general or inclusive than its historically earlier
form. For example, “holiday” which means
any day we free from works or school. “Holiday” is originally from “holy day”
which means a day of religious significance. The meaning of “holy day” is broadened
to holiday. In narrowing, the meaning of word becomes less general or inclusive
than its historically earlier meaning. As an example, hound once means sofa and
small writing desk. But today, hound only meaning sofa. The meaning has been
narrowed to sofa only. In meaning shifts, the word loses its former meaning and
takes on new, but often related meaning. For example, silly was used to mean
happy in Old English, in Middle English it meant naïve and now in Modern
English it mean foolish.
