Elend und Gelobtes Land – Bedeutungswandel oder Lesartenprofilierung?
Elend and Gelobtes Land – Semantic Shift or Modifying Polysemy?

Summary/Abstract: The word Fräulein in Goethes Faust and many other early modern high German words of the 16th century such as Elend and Gelobtes Land bring to view, that the traditional theory of semantic shift is far too simple with the opposition of an old meaning, that is no longer used today, and a new meaning, that is usual nowadays. Instead of this theory of lexical language change the thesis of a „diachronic polysemy“ is set up and verified: the semantic features contained by lexical items often are arranged into new structures throughout history, backgrounding and foregrounding complete meanings. The frequency of use can switch: main meanings can become secondary meanings and the other way around. In the process separate features can fade or disappear and other ones can be added. If reading texts containing words the meanings of which have become rare it is helpful for the reader to have semantic sensibility and language awareness in the three variants: polysemous awareness, morphological awareness and collocative awareness. Teaching language at school the development of these abilities should be supported and energetically advanced.

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