This volume addresses aspects of language change using the semantics-based theory of Cognitive Linguistics, and primarily focuses on the lexicon and metaphor, the semantics of syntax, and language evolution. The papers that make up the collection consider current approaches to questions of the mental organization of meaning and its expression, and point toward future research.

Providing an ideal introduction to historical semantics, this book offers graduate students and advanced undergraduate students in linguistics an accessible overview of the structural and cognitive approaches to English historical semantics. Focusing primarily on Lexical Semantics, the study of word meaning, the book looks at how such studies help to answer two key questions in Historical Linguistics: how and why languages change.
Considering changes both in the meanings of individual word forms and in larger areas of the lexicon, English Historical Semantics illustrates how data can be...

In this groundbreaking collection, twelve international scholars with backgrounds in disability studies, English and world literature, classics, and history discuss the representation of dis/ability, medical "cures," technology, and the body in science fiction."