>
>Does anyone here know of any scholars that have applied the Linguistic
>theory of Semantic Shift and Change [that words have additional meanings
>added over time and often loose their origninal meaning] to words in the
>Paali texts? I have asked the Paali Text Society and they said they
>don't know any, which I was shocked to hear.

Hi,

I think to a certain degree the idea you are talking about is taken
into consideration within philology, including Pali studies. There is
an awareness that Pali words can have different meanings in the Canon
than in post-canonical literature, for example. And within Sanskrit
the phenomenon is very widespread. It's just that perhaps no-one has
done a study explicitly using that theory as a basis.

The examples you provided were interesting, but there is one thing
I'd like to comment on. This might be totally wrong, but it looked
like you were mostly talking about technical vocabulary (concerning
meditation and techniques of mental discipline). I think technical
vocabulary isn't the best place to look for semantic shifts of the
sort you're talking about. In natural language shifts take place
through day-to-day usage, but in technical language there is often a
conscious decision to restrict or change the sense of a word. So the
mechanisms of change aren't the same. My guess would be that the
theory you brough up refers to natural changes, not deliberate ones.
It's just a thought.

best regards,

/Rett