Тема 4 (1): change of meaning

Changes of lexical meaning may be illustrated by a diachronic semantic analysis of many commonly used English words (e.g. the word fond once meant ‘foolish’). Hence word-meaning is a changeable category. This is particularly true in respect of borrowed words in English, e.g. candidate - Latin meaning ‘white’ - is used of an aspirant for political office in MnE; dilapidated - from Latin ‘lapis’, a stone, is used of any and not only of a stone structure in English.

Most scholars distinguish between the terms development of meaning and change of meaning. In the first case, a new meaning and the one on the basis of which it is formed coexist in the semantic structure of the word, as in mill. The word mill ‘ a building in which corn is ground into flour’ was borrowed from Latin in the first century B.C.
A new meaning ‘a textile factory’ was added to the semantic structure of the word to name early industrial enterprises in England. In the second case, the old meaning is completely replaced by the new one, e.g. meat in OE had a general meaning of ‘food’, but in MnE it has developed the meaning ‘flesh of animals used as a food product’.

The systems of meanings of polysemantic words evolve gradually. The normal pattern of a word’s semantic development is from monosemy to a simple semantic structure encompassing only two or three meanings, with a further movement to an increasingly more complex semantic structure.

The traditional classification of various types of semantic change is based on the diachronic classifications of M. Bréal and H. Paul. It is necessary to discriminate between the causes of semantic change, the results and the nature of the process of change of meaning.

The causes of semantic change may be either extralinguistic or linguistic.

The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the language. Languages are powerfully affected by social, political, economic, cultural and technical change. Various changes in the life of the speech community, changes in economic and social structure, changes in ideas, scientific concepts, way of life and other spheres of human activities are reflected in creating new word meanings to fill vocabulary gaps.

The word car (ME carre) which meant ‘a four-wheeled wagon’ now is used to denote ‘a motor-car’ ® ‘a railway carriage’ ® ‘the portion of an airship, or baloon which is intended to carry personnel, cargo or equipment’.

Factors acting within the language system are described as purely linguistic causes and may be subdivided into several groups.

The commonest linguistic cause is the so-called ellipsis, omission of one word in a phrase and a transfer of its meaning to its partner because they habitually occur together in speech. The qualifying words in a frequent phrase may be omitted: sale came to be used for cut-price sale, to propose for to propose marriage, to be expecting for to be expecting a baby. The kernal word of a phrase may also be omitted, e.g. minerals for mineral waters. Due to ellipsis starve which originally meant ‘die’ (OE steorfan) came to substitute the whole phrase die of hunger (ME sterven of hunger). Cf. MnE ‘suffer from lack of food’ and in colloquial use ‘to feel hungry’.

Another linguistic cause is discrimination or differentiation of synonyms, a gradual change observed in the course of the language history, sometimes involving the semantic assimilation of loan words. The word land in OE meant ‘solid part of earth’s surface’ and ‘the territory of a nation’. In ME the meaning ‘the territory of a nation’ came to be denoted by the borrowed word country. In OE there was a noun twist meaning ‘a rope’ and a verb thrawan (MnE throw) which meant both ‘hurl’ and ‘twist’. Since the appearance in ME of the verb twisten (‘twist’) thrawan lost this meaning. The words time and tide used to be synonyms. In MnE tide denotes ‘periodically shifting waters’, time is used in the general sense.

Some semantic changes may be caused by linguistic analogy. If one of the members of a synonymic set acquires a new meaning other members of this set change their meanings too, e.g. grasp, get and other verbs synonymous with catch by semantic extention acquired another meaning - ‘to understand’.

Analysing the nature of semantic change we should describe the connection between the old meaning and the new. There are mainly two kind of association involved in various semantic changes: similarity of meanings and contiguity of meanings. Similarity of meanings or metaphor may be described as a semantic process of associating two referents, one of which in some way resembles the other.

Metaphors, H. Paul points out, may be based upon different types of similarity:

similarity of shape - head of a cabbage, the teeth of a saw, arms of a balance, wings of a plane;

similarity of function - the head of the school;

similarity of position - foot of a page, foot of a mountain;

similarity of behaviour - bookworm.

Antropomorphic metaphors are among the most frequent. The words denoting parts of the body may express a variety of meanings, e.g. head of an army, ~ a procession, ~ a household; arms of a river, mouth of a river; eye of a needle; foot of a hill; tongue of a bell and so on.

Metaphoric transfer may be based upon the analogy between duration of time and space, e.g. long distance:: long speech; a short path:: a short time.

The metaphoric change from the concrete to the abstract may be exemplified by words score and span. Score comes from OE scoru ‘twenty’ from ON skor ‘twenty’ and also ‘notch’. In OE time notches were cut on sticks to keep a reckoning. The twentieth notch was made of a larger size. OE spann ‘maximum distance between the tips of thumb and little finger used as a measure of length’, came to mean ‘full extent from end to end’ (~ of a bridge, an arch) and ‘a short distance’.

The metaphoric changes from the animate to the inanimate and vice versa are also well-known, cf. shy girls – shy stars; the wolf wailed – the wind wailed; clever boys – clever fingers; the boy runs – the newspaper runs, the verse runs, the play ran for six months, all his arrangements ran smoothly and personal metaphors the childhood of the earth, the anger of the tempest, or personal epithets a treacherous calm, a sullen sky, a learned age, a thirsty ground.

Another subgroup of metaphors comprises transition of proper names into common ones: a Cicero (about an eloquent speaker) or a Don Juan ( about an attractive profligate ).

Contiguity of meaning or metonymy may be described as a semantic process of associating two referents one of which makes part of the other or is closely connected with it. It is a shift of names between things that are known to be in some way or other connected in reality. The transfer may be conditioned by spatial, temporal, causal, symbolic, instrumental, functional and other relations. Cash is an adaptation of the French word caisse ‘box’; from naming the container it came to mean what was contained, i.e. money; the original meaning was lost in competition with the new word safe. Spatial relations are also observed when the place name is used for people occupying it. The chair may mean ‘the chairman’, the word house the members of the House of Commons or of Lords. Cello, violin, saxophone are often used to denote the musicians who play them.

States and properties serve as names for objects and people possessing them: youth, age; authorities, forces.

Emotions may be named by the movements that accompany them: to frown, to start.

There are well-known instances of symbol for thing symbolized: the crown for ‘monarchy’, gray hair for ‘old age’, the cradle for ‘childhood’ and the grave for ‘death’; the instrument for the agent: the pen is stronger than the sword meaning ‘those who use the pen have more influence than those who use the sword’; the instrument for the product: hand for ‘handwriting’; receptacle for content, as in the word kettle. Words for the material from which an article is made may be used to denote the particular article: glass, iron, copper, silver, nickel.

Common names may be derived from proper names, as in macadam and diesel, so named after their inventors.

There are numerous examples of geographical names used to denote the names of goods exported or originated there: astrakhan, bikini, cardigan, china, tweed, bordeaux, champagne, madeira.

The quoted examples prove that the new meaning is always semantically motivated.

Results of semantic change can be observed in the changes of the denotational meaning of the word or in the alteration of its connotational component.

Changes in the denotational meaning may result in the restriction of the types or range of referents denoted by the word or in the application of a word to a wider variety of referents. Restriction of meaning (or narrowing) may be illustrated by the semantic development of the word hound (OE hund) ‘a dog of any breed’ which came to denote ‘a dog used in the chase’. Wife originally mean ‘woman’ (cf. wif-man), now is restricted to ‘a married woman’. Girl once meant ‘a young person of either sex, a child, boy or girl’. Other examples include: worm which meant any kind of reptile or insect; cattle which used to refer to ‘livestock’ in general; team which meant ‘family or offspring’ in OE. Voyage which originally meant ‘a trip or journey’ came to denote ‘a journey by sea or water’.

If the word with the new meaning comes to be used in specialized vocabulary of some limited group within the speech community it is usual to speak of specialization of meaning. This type of semantic change is frequent in vocabulary of professional and trade groups. Cf. case ‘circumstances in which one is’ and case ‘a law suit’ in law, the Possessive case  ‘a grammar category’ or a medical case ‘a patient’ or ‘illness’. Compare also arm – ручка, рукоятка; face –поверхность, фаска;   foot – опора;   hand – стрелка;   shoulder – фланец; throat  –  горловина, цапфа.

Examples of French words specialized in meaning include the word hangar which meant ‘a shed’ and now applies to a shelter for aircraft; garage that once meant ‘any safe place’. Grocer formerly meant a ‘wholesale dealer’ and now means a ‘retail dealer’ in tea, coffee, sugar, spices and other commodities’.

Common nouns may be turned into proper names and their meaning is narrowed in that way, e.g. the City (London city) or The Narrow Seas (English and Irish Channels).

Extention of meaning (or broadening) is characterized by the wider scope of the new notion, but the poorer content of the notion, e.g. target ‘a small round shield’ came to denote ‘anything that is fired at’ and figuratively ‘any result aimed at’. Other examples of generalisation include: the word barn which originally meant a place for storing barley; manuscript which originally meant ‘a book or document written by hand’, it now refers to any author’s copy whether written by hand or typed. The verb to arrive (French borrowing) began its life in English in the narrow meaning ‘to come to shore, to land’. In MnE it developed the general meaning ‘to come’ (e.g. to arrive in a village, town, city, country, at a hotel, hostel, college, theatre, place, etc.).

The frequent feature of extention of meaning is the transition from a concrete meaning to an abstract one. The process went very far in the word thing with its original meanings ‘cause’, ‘object’, ‘decision’. The grammatical meaning of the word thing became predominant in its semantic components and the word can substitute nearly any noun, and received an almost pronominal force.

Many words were derived from proper names by the process known as antonomasia, the original proper name is usually forgotten, e.g. vandal (from the vandals, a Germanic tribe), lynch (probably from Charles Lynch, a planter in Virginia in the 18^th century), worsted (from Worstead, Norfolk).

If the word with the extended meaning passes from the specialized vocabulary into common use, the result of the semantic changed is described as the generalization of meaning. A military term camp ‘the place where troups are lodged in tents’ now denotes ‘temporary quarters’ (of travellers, etc.)

Changes in the connotational meaning, as a rule accompanied by a change in the denotational component, may be subdivided into a) ameliorative development or the improvement of the connotational component of meaning, and b) pejorative development or the acquisition by the word of some derogatory emotive charge. These changes depend on the social attitude to the object named, connected with social evaluation and emotional tone.

Amelioration or elevation is a semantic shift undergone by words due to their referents coming up the social scale, e.g. OE cwen ‘a woman’ ® ME queen; OE cniht ‘a young servant’ ® MnE knight.  Steward (OE stI#weard) from stigo ‘a sty’ and weard ‘a ward’ dates back from the days when the chief wealth of the Saxon landowner was his pigs. It came to denote ‘an attendant on ships or airliners’. Other examples include splendid ‘bright’; smart ‘causing pain’; nice ‘foolish’.

Pejoration or degradation or degeneration involves a lowering in social scale connected with the appearance of a derogatory and scornful emotive tone reflecting the disdain of the upper classes towards the lower ones. A knave (OE cnafa) meant ‘a boy’, then ‘servant’, and finally became the term of abuse and scorn. Another example of the same kind is blackguard, in the lord’s retinue of Middle Ages the guard of iron pots and other kitchen utensils black with soot. From the immoral features attributed to these servants by their masters comes the present scornful meaning of the word blackguard. A similar history is traced for the words churl (OE ‘man’ > ‘a serf’), boor (‘farmer’), vulgar (originally ‘common’, ‘ordinary’ from Lat. vulgaris, vulgus – the common people ), insane (‘not well’ from Lat insanus).

The kinds of change of meaning that occur (together with the earlier meaning) can be classified in the following ways:

branch	‘a special field of science’	®	‘subdivision of a tree or bush’ metaphor
cheviot	‘a coarse wool cloth’	®	the Cheviot Hills in England metonymy
girl	‘a small child of female sex’	®	ME ‘a small child of either sex’ restriction
pipe	‘a tube used for carrying liquids...’  (a hollow oblong cylindrical body)	®	‘a musical wind instrument’ (a hollow oblong cylindrical object) extension
villain	‘base, vile person’	®	‘a farm servant, serf’ pejoration
marshal	‘the highest rank in the army’	®	‘a manservant attending horses’ amelioration

 

When a word acquires a new meaning the old meaning may either drop out of use or remain as part of the semantic structure of the polysemantic word and exist alongside the new meaning. In some cases the original meaning is preserved in set expressions, e.g. the older meaning of meat ‘food’ is found now in “One man’s meat is another man's poison”, the archaic phrase “meat and drink”, and the compound “sweatmeats”. OE fugol ‘bird’ (MnE fowl) came to denote ‘domestic bird’, but it preserved the original meaning in a set expression fowls of the air, and among its derivatives fowler means ‘a person who shoots or traps wild bird for sport or food’; the shooting or trapping itself is called fowling; a fowling piece is a gun.

The development and change of the semantic structure of a word is always a source of qualitative and quantitative development of the vocabulary. A thorough knowledge of possibilities of semantic change is crucial for understanding the semantic structure of English words at the present stage of their development.