Historical Semantics and Pragmatics

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the methods—from structural semantic approaches, with psychological or social inspiration, to cognitive approaches—that have been used to account for semantic change. Until recently, Ullmann’s theory was most instrumental within diachronic semantics. The emergence of the field of cognitive linguistics revived psychological questions and highlighted the importance of taking associations into account in order to understand human language. Different approaches are illustrated by concrete examples, with emphasis on the motivations for linguistic innovation. As this chapter makes clear, pragmatics must be considered in the study of language change. Historical pragmatics is mainly interested in two closely related topics: first, orality, enunciation, and polyphony, and second, pragmatic markers. Reflections on the semantic-pragmatic evolution of discourse markers and the staging of reported speech will serve to illustrate the importance of considering the pragmatic dimension of language.