When to lose one’s senses? Semantic loss vs polysemy sustenance in the lexicon of English KU Leuven
Semantic change is commonly recognized to follow an A > A/B (> B) trajectory. That is, semantic change always results in polysemy between old and new senses at first; only later and in only some cases does this lead to the eventual loss of an older sense. Whereas the general mechanism of semantic extension (A > A/B) has received ample attention, the possible next step, semantic loss (> B), is still ill-understood. Yet insight in ...