A LINGUISTIC STUDY ON THE SEMANTIC CHANGE IN SINHALA NOUN (WITH REFERENCE TO SIKHAWALANDA AND SIKHAWALANDA WINISA AND SIYABASLAKARA)

Abstract

As other structural units of a language, sense is also subject to change. Sinhala language is an old language with a number of written documents from 3 rd century B.C. Hence, there are plenty of Structural changes in Sinhala language. This is based on Semantic changes in Sinhala Nouns. The problem of this research is to study ‘what are the types of Semantic change in Sinhala nouns’. To study the types of Semantic change in Sinhala nouns, ‘Sikhavaḷa˜da ha Sikhavaḷa˜da vinisa’ and ‘Siyabaslakara’ are used as primary resources. In this research, Morphological, Syntactic and Semantic criteria are used to identify Nouns as abstract units. First, alphabetized all the identified nouns and then studied the types of Semantic changes of Sinhala Nouns. Historical Semantic methods are applied to analyze the identified set of data. In this research, there are few limitations too. Types of Semantic change in Sinhala nouns are investigated on the purpose of studying how sense changed from Sanskrit and Pali languages’ stage to primary sources’ language stage. As a result of this research, the following eight semantic change types are identified. Those methods are Semantic widening, Semantic narrowing, Semantic transformation, Semantic amelioration, Sematic pejoration, Sematic opposition, Semantic diminution and Synecdoche. In conclusion, it can be stated that the Sense of Sinhala nouns is changed throughout the eight types of Semantic change.