Transference Based on Contiguity

Another term of this type of transference is linguistic metonymy. The association is based on subtle psychological links between different objects and phenomena, sometimes traced and identified with much difficulty. Two objects may be associated together because they often appear in common situation, and so the image of one is easily accompanied by the image of the other; or they may be associated on the principle of cause and effect, of common function, of some material and object which is made of, etc.

 

E.g.: Glad was used for bright and shining materials first.

Sad was used for over-satisfied for food first.

The arms of arm chair, the feet-legs of a bed, a Matisse = a painting by Matisse.

 

Broadening of Meaning

Arrive – to come to shore, in the past, - to come to hotel, station, town, village city, country, now

Bird – the young of a bird only, in the past, for almost all kinds of flying species of animals. now

 

Narrowing of Meaning

Deer – any beast, in the past, - a certain kind of beast, now

Meat – any food, - a certain food product. Now

Degradation of Meaning

Knave – boy, in the past, - swindler, scoundrel. now

Villain – farm-servant, in the past -base, vile person. now

Gossip - god parent, in the past – the one who talks after other people. Now

Elevation of Meaning

Knight – manservant, in the past, - noble, courageous man.

Marshal – manservant attending horses, in the past, - the highest rank in the army.

Lady – mistress of the house, married woman, in the past, - wife or daughter of b

 

 

Homonyms: In linguistics, a homonym is one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings, usually as a result of the two words having different origins. The state of being a homonym is called homonymy.

The word "homonym" comes from the conjunction of the Greek prefix homo- (ὁμο-), meaning "same", and suffix -ṓnymos (-ώνυμος), meaning "name". Thus, it refers to two or more distinct concepts sharing the "same name" or signifier. The term is potentially ambiguous because there are a number of ways that two meanings can share the "same name"; thus it may be used in different ways by different speakers. In particular, some sources only require that homonyms share the same spelling or the same pronunciation (in addition to having different meanings), though these are the definitions that most other sources give for homographs and homophones respectively. There is similar disagreement about the definition of some of the related terms described below. This article explains what appear to be the "standard" meanings, and variant definitions are then summarized.

Examples of homonyms are stalk (which as a noun can mean part of a plant, and, as a verb, to follow/harass a person), bear (animal) and bear (carry), left (opposite of right) and left (past tense of leave). Some sources also consider the following trio of words to be homonyms, but others designate them as "only" homophones: to, too and two (actually, to, to, too, too and two, being "for the purpose of" as in "to make it easier", the opposite of "from", also, excessively, and "2", respectively).

Some sources state that homonym meanings must be unrelated in origin (rather than just different). Thus right (correct) and right (opposed to left) would be polysemous and not homonymous.

 

 

Synonyms: Synonyms are different words (or sometimes phrases) with identical or very similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn (σύν) ("with") and onoma (ὄνομα) ("name"). The words car and automobile are synonyms. Similarly, if we talk about a long time or an extended time, long and extended become synonyms. In the figurative sense, two words are often said to be synonymous if they have the same connotation:

"a widespread impression that … Hollywood was synonymous with immorality" (Doris Kearns Goodwin)

Synonyms can be any part of speech (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs or prepositions), as long as both members of the pair are the same part of speech. More examples of English synonyms are:

• student and pupil (noun)
• petty crime and misdemeanor (noun)
• buy and purchase (verb)
• sick and ill (adjective)
• quickly and speedily (adverb)
• on and upon (preposition)

Note that synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words; for instance, pupil as the "aperture in the iris of the eye" is not synonymous with student. Similarly, he expired means the same as he died, yet my passport has expired cannot be replaced by my passport has died.

In English, many synonyms evolved from the parallel use, in the early medieval period, of Norman French (from Latin) and Old English (Anglo-Saxon) words, often with some words being used principally by the Saxon peasantry ("folk", "freedom", "bowman") and their synonyms by the Norman nobility ("people", "liberty", "archer").

 

 

Antonyms: In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male: female, long: short, up: down, and precede: follow. The notion of incompatibility here refers to fact that one word in an opposite pair entails that it is not the other pair member. For example, something that is long entails that it is not short. It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members in a set of opposites. The relationship between opposites is known as opposition. A member of a pair of opposites can generally be determined by the question What is the opposite of X?

The term antonym (and the related antonymy) has also been commonly used as a term that is synonymous with opposite; however, the term also has other more restricted meanings. One usage has antonym referring to both gradable opposites, such as long: short, and (non-gradable) complementary opposites, such as male: female, while opposites of the types up: down and precede: follow are excluded from the definition. A third usage (particularly that of the influential Lyons 1968, 1977) defines the term antonym as referring to only gradable opposites (the long: short type) while the other types are referred to with different terms. Therefore, as Crystal (2003) warns, the terms antonymy and antonym should be regarded with care. In this article, the usage of Lyons (1963, 1977) and Cruse (1986, 2004) will be followed where antonym is restricted to gradable opposites and opposite is used as the general term referring to any of the subtypes discussed below.

Euphemism: A euphemism is a substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener,^[1] or to make it less troublesome for the speaker, as in the case of doublespeak. The deployment of euphemisms is a central aspect within the public application of political correctness.

It may also substitute a description of something or someone to avoid revealing secret, holy, or sacred names to the uninitiated, or to obscure the identity of the subject of a conversation from potential eavesdroppers. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse

Phraseology: appeared in the domain of lexicology and is undergoing the process of segregating as a separate branch of linguistics. The reason is clear – lexicology deals with words and their meanings, whereas phraseology studies such collocations of words (phraseologisms, phraseological units, idioms), where the meaning of the whole collocation is different from the simple sum of literal meanings of the words, comprising a phraseological unit. F.e. ‘Dutch auction’ is not an auction taking place in Netherlands. The meaning of this phraseological unit refers to any auction, where instead of rising, the prices fall (compare “Dutch comfort”, “Dutch courage”, “Dutch treat” reflecting complicated historical factors). Phraseological units are (according to Prof. Kunin A.V.) stable word-groups with partially or fully transferred meanings ("to kick the bucket", “Greek gift”, “drink till all's blue”, “drunk as a fiddler (drunk as a lord, as a boiled owl)”, “as mad as a hatter (as a march hare)”).

According to Rosemarie Gläser, a phraseological unit is a lexicalized, reproducible bilexemic or polylexemic word group in common use, which has relative syntactic and semantic stability, may be idiomatized, may carry connotations, and may have an emphatic or intensifying function in a text [Gläser 1998: 125].