This new and important study of semantic change examines the various ways in which new meanings arise through language use, especially the ways in which speakers and writers experiment with uses of words and constructions. Drawing on extensive research from over a thousand years of English and Japanese textual history, Traugott and Dasher show that most changes in meaning originate in and are motivated by the associative flow of speech and conceptual metonymy.

This book discusses the concepts, types, models, and patterns of Japan's Hometown Tax Donation Payment system, to provide a clear picture of this newly developed unique and innovative fund-raising tool used by municipalities. It also sheds light on the influences that reciprocal gifts provided by each municipality to donors have on local economies by reviewing empirical works and surveys targeting local business owners and local financial institutions. A distinguishing feature of the book is that it introduces a new social finance mechanism that is unique to the Japanese market and could provide policy implications for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as regional development. Furthermore, the book explores the efficacy of the demand-pull approach to support-strengthening SMEs, especially in rural areas. Finally, the book identifies some lessons learned from the system with a view toward advancing research on this phenomenon and making the system efficient and sustainable. As a whole, the book can provide ample benefits to novices, academics, researchers, and policymakers interested in Hometown Tax Donation Payment, an innovative social finance tool. This is an open access book.

This important study of semantic change examines how new meanings arise through language use, especially the various ways in which speakers and writers experiment with uses of words and constructions in the flow of strategic interaction with addressees. There has been growing interest in exploring systemicities in semantic change from a number of perspectives including theories of metaphor, pragmatic inferencing, and grammaticalization. Like earlier studies, these have for the most part been based on data taken out of context. This book is a detailed examination of semantic change from the perspective of historical pragmatics and discourse analysis. Drawing on extensive corpus data from over a thousand years of English and Japanese textual history, Traugott and Dasher show that most changes in meaning originate in and are motivated by the associative flow of speech and conceptual metonymy.