A Study on semantic change of clipped loanwords

Abstract

This paper aims to reveal aspects of semantic change in clipped loanwords in terms of the semantic broadening, narrowing and shift. Although loanwords in the new words participate in the word formation process as they are in the original language, it is found more often in its clipped form, when combined with other elements to form a new word. In the research on clipped words so far, there have been few studies on changes in the meaning of clipped words. A clipped word is characterized in that its meaning is not significantly different from the original word. However, among the clipped loanwords, there are not a few examples that in the process of undergoing a change in meaning. The semantic broadening and shift is more popular than narrowing in clipped borrowing words. The semantic broadening type is divided into two subtypes. The one is that generated by the scope of the object to be pointed becomes diversified such as ‘케미’. The other is that generalization of the scope of meaning such as ‘밍아웃’, ‘드립’, ‘디스’. The semantic narrowing is a type that specializes in semantic scope such as ‘팅’. And for the semantic shift, examples in which the meaning was changed by metaphor such as ‘테크’, ‘인싸’, ‘스펙’, ‘피셜’.