Providing an ideal introduction to historical semantics, this book offers graduate students and advanced undergraduate students in linguistics an accessible overview of the structural and cognitive approaches to English historical semantics. Focusing primarily on Lexical Semantics, the study of word meaning, the book looks at how such studies help to answer two key questions in Historical Linguistics: how and why languages change.

Considering changes both in the meanings of individual word forms and in larger areas of the lexicon, English Historical Semantics illustrates how data can be found and analysed, and explores how Lexical Semantics interacts with other areas of linguistics. In particular, the book describes in detail two of the most essential resources in this field: the Oxford English Dictionary and the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. By using corpus data to study historical semantics, this book offers a solid grounding in the basic methodology of how to analyse corpus data, providing students with the tools to explore new words entering the language, and to study language change.

With extended case studies including colour and kinship terms, suggestions for further reading, and exercises designed to stimulate reflection and test understanding, this textbook is an invaluable resource and practical guide designed to help students navigate this large and fascinating field.

Edinburgh Textbooks on The English Language - Advanced

Series Editor: Heinz Giegerich

Books in this series provide readers with a detailed description and explanation of key areas in English Language study. The authors presuppose a basic working knowledge of the topic and explore aspects of the linguistics of English for an intermediate or advanced student readership.