Broadening
When a word acquires a wider range of meanings.
(Dig, holiday, business)
Narrowing
When a word narrows in its range of meanings
(Girl, Deer, Starve)
Semantic shifts
When there is no trace/link between origin and new use
(Groom, stud, mouse)
Weakening
When a word weakens in severity
I.e. Blimey, Cockney rhyming slang: ‘Gor blimey, God blind me’
Metonymy
Replacing the name of something with a close relation
(The pen is stronger than the sword)
Synecdoche
Using a part of something to represent the whole
(A room full of suits; Just another head on the pillow)
Compound
The joining of two free morphemes.
Face-book, Facebook
Blend
Brunch
Initialism
When you pronounce the letters in an abbreviated word.
(The BBC)
Anachronism
When the abbreviation is pronounced as one lexeme.
(NASA, STEM)
Eponym
A neologism coined after a person. (Greys Anatomy, Achilles heel)
Affixing
A word formed through the addition of affixes
(Biology, feminism)
Back-formations
Editor - ‘or’ = Edit
Borrowing
A neologism borrowed from another language.
(Clientele)
Diachronic Variation
Examines the mutation of language over time.
(The phasing out of the long s)
Synchronic variation
Focuses on language variation as it exists in the current moment.
(The grammatical and lexical differences between American English and British English)
which prescriptivist wrote ‘A short introduction to English grammar’ and when?
Robert Lowth, 1762
When was Caxton’s printing press
1476
