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Overview
Prototype theory makes a crucial distinction between central and peripheral sense of words. Geeraerts explores the implications of this model for a theory of semantic change, in the first full-scale treatment of the impact of the most recent developments in lexicological theory on the study of meaning change. He identifies structural features of the development of word meanings which follow from a prototype-theoretical model of semantic structure, and incorporates these diachronic prototypicality effects into a theory of meaning change.
Synopsis
Prototype theory makes a crucial distinction between central and peripheral sense of words. Geeraerts explores the implications of this model for a theory of semantic change, in the first full-scale treatment of the impact of the most recent developments in lexicological theory on the study of meaning change. He identifies structural features of the development of word meanings which follow from a prototype-theoretical model of semantic structure, and incorporates these diachronic prototypicality effects into a theory of meaning change.
Booknews
Geeraerts (linguistics, U. of Leuven, Netherlands) explores the implications of prototype theory, which distinguishes between the central and peripheral senses of words, for a theory of semantic change. Acknowledging the impact of recent developments in lexicological theory on the study of meaning, he identifies structural features of the development of word meaning that follow from a prototype-theoretical model of semantic structure, and incorporates the diachronic effects into the theory of meaning change. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.