·· W ords in discourse -:- On the diachronic lexical · .. semantics of discours* . Judith Meinschaefer , This study presents a lexical investigation of the French noun dis: . cours, one ofthe most important cultural keywordsin the twel}tieth cen- tury, on the basis of its usage in literary. texts. 'First, this · paper sketches the semantic evolution of discours in the preceding five centuries. · it analyzes the usage of discours in the writings of two French authors, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) and Rousseau (1712-1778). Itis shown that the seinantic evolution ofdiscours is charac- terized by decreasing polysemy and increasing specialization. The results of this study are discussed in the light of Putnam's (1975) conception of the. · ,;division of linguistic labor". · . . 1. Introduction · Liriguistic. changes, that is, changes in the stfuctural and symbolic descrip- ' . tions speakers assign to linguistic expressions, arise not only from proc- esses of ''?ral comniunication and spontaneous speech, btit also come about in written language; Semantic change, one · of the most obvious aspects of language change, should be.particularly visible in literary and philosophical writings, where speakers are careful and conscious in their choice of words'. In such texts, we can expect to find characteristic, innova- tive and elaborated patterns in the· semantic ·variation of a ward. Semantic change is often considered to stand in close relation ·to and · - ·, ' ' ' ' ' * . . ' ' ' ' " ' . ' This work was supported bythe DFG through its Sonderforschungsbereich 471. I would like to thank Peter Kohlhaas for providing me with the database of occur- . rences of discours in the writings of Montaigne and Rousseau which are analyzed · ·. here. I would like to thank the editors of this volume, as well as two anonymous for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Thanks also to · Mayo for correcting my English. Needless to say,_all remaining errors are mine.