Introductory Notes to Language Change: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

This chapter serves as both a retrospective account and a conceptual framework for the volume. It begins by presenting the goals and achievements of the research project “Diachrony and Formal Semantics: Universal Meaning Categories in Recurrent Patterns of Semantic Change”, which brought together scholars from historical linguistics and formal semantics. This project laid the groundwork for the current volume by exploring how semantic categories change over time, what motivates these changes, and whether recurrent cross-linguistic patterns reflect underlying universals. In addition to summarizing the project, the chapter provides a broader conceptual introduction to the volume as a whole. It outlines central questions that shape the emerging field of formal diachronic semantics: What are the phenomena that require explanation in studies of language change? How is historical change identified, particularly in the realm of meaning? And how are such changes explained - from formal reanalysis and discourse-based mechanisms to sociolinguistic and cognitive pressures? The chapter offers a snapshot of the current state of the art while identifying key challenges and unresolved questions. It also highlights emerging methodologies, such as typological comparison, corpus analysis, and experimental work, and considers how these approaches can shape future research on semantic change. In doing so, it sets the stage for the contributions in this volume, which collectively advance an integrated and theoretically grounded approach to language change.