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Computational approaches to semantic change

Semantic change — how the meanings of words change over time — has preoccupied scholars since well before modern linguistics emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century, ushering in a new methodological turn in the study of language change. Compared to changes in sound and grammar, semantic change is the least understood. Ever since, the study of semantic change has progressed steadily, accumulating a vast store of knowledge for over a century, encompassing many languages and language families. Historical linguists also early on realized the potential of computers as research tools, with papers at the very first international conferences in computational linguistics in the 1960s. Such computational studies still tended to be small-scale, method-oriented, and qualitative. However, recent years have witnessed a sea-change in this regard. Big-data empirical quantitative investigations are now coming to the forefront, enabled by enormous advances in storage capability and processing power. Diachronic corpora have grown beyond imagination, defying exploration by traditional manual qualitative methods, and language technology has become increasingly data-driven and semantics-oriented. These developments present a golden opportunity for the empirical study of semantic change over both long and short time spans.

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Detail Information
Series Title
Language Variation vol. 6
Call Number
400 COM
Publisher
Berlin : Language Science Press.,
Collation
-
Language
English
ISBN/ISSN
9783961103126
Classification
400
Content Type
text
Media Type
computer
Carrier Type
online resource
Edition
Vol. 6
Subject(s)
Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics
Specific Detail Info
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Statement of Responsibility
Other Information
Cataloger
Suwardi
Source
-
Validator
maya
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
-
Journal Volume
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Journal Issue
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Subtitle
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