Abstract： Semantic prosody is a complex concept with rich meanings, which needs to be defined and examined from multiple perspectives. The present study employs a diachronic corpus approach to exploring the developmental change of semantic prosody over time and the features of concept definition, while taking the semantic preference and collocate connotation as references. Data analysis shows that these aspects of phrasal units centering the same node words tend to change over time. Among them, the change of semantic prosody is more diversified than but not necessarily synchronical with the other two aspects. Further analyses indicate that the polarity of collocate connotation changes largely due to the appearance or disappearance of positive or negative entities or events, semantic preference changes with the appearance or disappearance of certain type(s) of co-occurring entities or events, and semantic prosody changes when the speech community has a different attitude toward the relevant co-occurrence(s). The above findings illuminate from a diachronic perspective that semantic prosody is defined by the semantic preference to a certain extent, but it has no direct relationship with the collocate connotation. Finally the implications of the findings for further research are also discussed.
Key words: semantic prosody; developmental change; the features of concept definition
