Bedeutungsänderung

Bedeutungsänderung, in linguistics, denotes the change in the meaning of a word or grammatical form over time. It is usually described as semantic change or semantic shift and can affect sense, reference, or connotation. Such changes are a normal part of language evolution and can occur gradually across generations or more rapidly under social, cultural, or technological influence.

Common patterns include broadening (generalization), where a word acquires new senses; narrowing (specialization), where it loses some senses; amelioration, where a meaning becomes more positive; pejoration, where a meaning becomes more negative; metaphorical extension, where senses develop through metaphor; metonymic shift, where a related concept stands for the thing; and functional shift (conversion), where a word changes grammatical category, for example from noun to verb. Other processes involve reassessment of evaluation or domain through idioms and fixed expressions.

Causes and mechanisms are diverse. Language contact, such as borrowing and bilingual speech, can introduce new senses; social and cultural change can alter how a term is used or perceived; technological innovation frequently creates new meanings or reuses old words in novel domains. Cognitively, speakers reinterpret existing polysemy, and intermediate senses may be adopted before a full shift is established. Diachronic studies trace how a sense emerges, broadens, or narrows, often through a chain of incremental steps.

Examples illustrate the range of change. The English bus originated from omnibus and broadened to refer to a single vehicle; meat shifted from general food to animal flesh; awful once meant inspired awe and later came to mean terrible; the term mouse extended from the animal to the computer input device; and metonymic use of the White House to denote the U.S. presidency reflects a shift in reference.

Bedeutungsänderung is a central topic in historical linguistics, lexicology, and cultural linguistics.