"A possible example ofameliorationduring ME [Middle English] might be, depending on one's viewpoint, the worddizzy. In OE [Old English] it meant 'foolish,' a meaning that survives marginally in such expressions asa dizzy blonde; but by ME its primary meaning was 'suffering from vertigo.'"...
"One important feature of anarratiois that of characterization of the major players. The use ofpejorative languagewas in order to dispose theaudiencein a particular direction toward one's own viewpoint and against that of others. Hence we hear [in the epistles of St. Paul] about 'false brot...
Insemanticsandhistorical linguistics, semantic change refers to any change in the meaning(s) of a word over the course of time. Also called semantic shift, lexical change, and semantic progression. Common types of semantic change includeamelioration,pejoration,broadening,semantic narrowing,bleaching, m...
"Probably the most striking difference between the form classes and the structure classes is characterized by their numbers. Of the half million or more words in our language, the structure words—with some notable exceptions—can be counted in the hundreds. The form classes, however, are large,...
"All the words in alanguagecan be broadly divided into two categories, open and closed," writes Thomas Murray in "The Structure of English," explaining that the closed category does not readily accept new words. "Its members are fixed and do not usually change." Nouns, verbs, adverbs, an...