---
slug: referent_drift
name: Referent Drift
one_liner: "A stable identifier persists while the meaning or referent set it points to changes over time, so the same label silently comes to designate something different from what it once did."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [structural, linguistic, social]
origin_domain: historical_linguistics
alternate_origin_domains: [law, branding_and_marketing, biological_taxonomy]
aliases: [label_referent_decoupling, persisting_signifier_shifting_referent, meaning_drift, identifier_referent_slippage]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-05 generalization) — the proposed GENUS of `semantic_shift` (lift: strip the natural-language / lexical frame, keeping the bare pattern of a persistent identifier whose associated referent set migrates over time). Discovered in the op-05 framed-stratum sweep 2026-07-03. Tier A candidate: no existing slug found. STATUS: HOLD pending owner keep/cut."
- "Created 2026-07-03; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). SI/SF/similarity are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity-check vs `semantic_shift` and the named nearest primes; confirm it is a genuine genus (covers the input AND the named siblings) and not a domain instance or a restatement of the input; draw a subsumption edge input→candidate + sibling edges at incorporation; sync one_liner to a v1 draft per CLAUDE.md before merge."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 4
  domain_breadth: 4
  structural_abstraction: 4
  transfer_evidence: 3
  reasoning: 'The bare structure — an identifier and its referent are two separable things bound by convention, and the binding can migrate over time while the identifier holds constant — is a clean structural relation between a stable token and a mutable meaning. It recurs wherever a name persists but what it designates evolves: legal terms reinterpreted while the constitutional text stands, brand names whose associations drift, common names of species pointing to reclassified groups, and variable names or API identifiers whose semantics shift across versions. Structural abstraction and domain breadth are high because the pattern is about the label/referent binding itself, not about language per se. Transfer evidence is held at 3 rather than 4 because the clearest instances still cluster around symbol systems (words, legal terms, taxa, code) and the "drift" always presupposes a convention that binds token to meaning; a generalization lift should still score above its framed lexical input `semantic_shift`.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: semantic_shift
  similarity: 0.68
structural_framed:
  label: structural
  aggregate: 0.32
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.3, evaluative_weight: 0.2, institutional_origin: 0.3, human_practice_bound: 0.4, import_vs_recognize: 0.4}
  rationale: 'Once the historical-linguistics frame is stripped, the core is a structural relation — a persistent token whose conventional referent migrates — that carries little evaluative weight and travels across law, branding, taxonomy, and code. It is bound to symbol/convention systems (which keeps human_practice_bound and import_vs_recognize off the floor) but is recognized as a bare structure rather than imported as a linguistics doctrine. On balance it reads structural.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Referent Drift

## Core Idea

Referent drift is the structure in which *a stable identifier persists unchanged while the meaning or referent set it designates migrates over time.* The genus is reached from the input `semantic_shift` by stripping the one constraint that ties that prime to a frame — the natural-language / lexical setting, where the drifting thing is a word's conventional sense within a language's history. What remains once that frame is lifted is a bare structural fact about any label bound to a referent by convention: the token and what it points to are separable, and the binding can slide even as the token holds fixed, so the same identifier silently comes to designate something other than what it once did.

The load-bearing anatomy has three parts. First, a *stable identifier* — a name, term, symbol, or label that persists across time and is treated as continuous. Second, a *referent set that migrates* — the meaning or class of things the identifier points to shifts along some trajectory (broadening, narrowing, transferring, or wholesale reassignment). Third, the *persistence-masks-change dynamic*: because the identifier is unchanged, the drift is easy to miss — parties assume they are still talking about the same thing, and continuity of the token conceals discontinuity of the referent. The characteristic payoff is graceful evolution: a system can update what a name covers without the disruption of coining a new one, letting institutions and vocabularies adapt while preserving apparent continuity. The characteristic cost/failure is equivocation and false agreement — two parties (or the same institution across time) use the identical label to mean different things and never notice, so arguments talk past each other, precedents get read into meanings their authors never intended, and "we agree on X" hides a substantive disagreement about what X now denotes.

Read structurally rather than as word-history, the same drift recurs across unlike substrates. In *constitutional law* a term like "commerce" is a fixed piece of text whose operative referent has migrated across two centuries of reinterpretation, the stable words masking a large change in what they reach. In *branding* a company name or trademark persists while the associations, quality, and product it evokes drift, so the label's referent set silently changes under a constant mark. In *biological taxonomy* a stable common name continues to be used while the species or group it picks out is reclassified beneath it, decoupling the everyday label from its scientific referent. These are not the same phenomenon; they share the skeleton — a persisting identifier over a migrating referent, with the persistence of the label concealing the movement underneath.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by operator 05 (generalization / lift) as the proposed genus of `semantic_shift`, lifting away the natural-language / lexical frame to leave the bare persisting-label / shifting-referent pattern. Surfaced in the op-05 framed-stratum sweep on 2026-07-03; no existing slug was found. It claimed the siblings *legal-term reinterpretation* (e.g., "commerce" in constitutional law), *brand meaning drift*, and *species reclassification under a stable common name*. Manifest tier: A.

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut).** The case FOR: the label/referent decoupling is a genuine structural relation that reaches well past historical linguistics, and the three named siblings are unlike realizations across law, branding, and taxonomy — the signature of a real lift. The corpus has the lexical species (`semantic_shift`) but not the genus. The RISKS to weigh: (1) **collapse into `semantic_shift`** — similarity is ~0.68; Kurt must confirm the candidate genuinely covers the non-linguistic siblings (a reclassified taxon, a drifting brand) and is not just "semantic shift generalized in words." If the siblings only feel like drift because they involve names, the lift may be spurious. (2) **Alias / boundary with adjacent primes** — check against any existing prime for meaning-change, sign/signifier relations, or the general convention-binds-token pattern; referent drift is specifically the *diachronic* case (drift over time) and should be distinguished from static ambiguity or polysemy. (3) It is A-tier, not a coinage, so keep-rate expectation is moderate-to-high. Sharp keep/cut question: is *referent drift* a distinct reusable structure at the label/referent level, or is it `semantic_shift` with the linguistics frame relabeled?

**At incorporation.** Re-run similarity against `semantic_shift` first (confirm subsumption, not paraphrase) and against any sign/signifier, ambiguity, or convention primes. Draw a subsumption edge `semantic_shift` → `referent_drift` and sibling edges to the legal-reinterpretation, brand-drift, and taxonomic-reclassification instances as drafted. If a broader "token/meaning binding" or "convention" genus exists, flag the missing edge upward. Write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1 and v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge.
