4. The change of meaning

The change of the semantic structure of a word is always a source of development of the vocabulary.

All the types of change of meaning depend upon some comparison between the earlier and the new meaning of the given word. This comparison may be based on the difference between notions expressed on the type of psychological association, on evaluation etc.

The traditional classification of types of change of meaning was suggested by M. Breal and H. Paul.

The most important types are: specialization of meaning, generelization of meaning, amelioration of meaning, perjoration of meaning. Besides, sholars speak about metaphorical and metonymical change and some minor types such as hyperbole, litotes, irony, euphemism. There is a difference between the terms of the last group as understood in in lexicology and stylistics.

During passing from general usage into some special sphere of communication a word can undergo some sort of specialization (the other terms are “narrowing, dif­ferentiation”.)of its meaning: e.g, “hound” - a dog of any breed; now- “a dog used in the chase”; “to glide” -“to move smoothly”; now- “to fly with no engine”; “to starve” – to die, now- to die of hunger;meat – food; now-special kind of food; “girl”-a small child of any sex; now- a child of the female sex.

A word here which formerly represen­ted a notion of a broader scope has come to render a notion of a narrower scope. In this case the word can name fewer objects, i.e. have fewer referents. At the same time the content of the notion is enriched. St. Ullmann said about it: “The word is now applicable to more things but tells us less about them.”

The process opposite to specialization is called generalization or broadening of meaning. In that case the scope of the new notion is wider than that of the original one, whereas the content of the notion is poorer. Often a concrete meaning becomes more abstract. E.g. target – a small round shield; now - anything that is fired at; pipe- a musical instrument; now - hollow body of special form; to arrive- to come to shore, to land, now to come anywhere.

Changes in the connotational component of lexical meaning are also of two main types. They are also called changes depending on the social attitude to the object named: ameliora­tion (elevation) and pejoration (degradation) of meaning.

Amelioration or elevation is a semantic shift undergone by words due to their referents coming up the social scale, e.g. minister - a servant;, now-a civil servant of high rank; queen- a woman; now- the king`s wife; marshal-a servant looking after horses; now –the highest military rank; knight-a young servant; now – a noble man; tory- a highwayman; now- a member of the Conservative party.

The reverse process is pejoration or degradation. It involves a lowering in social scale connected with the appearance of a derogatory and scornful emotive tone. E.g. knave –1)‘boy, 2) servant; now a term of abuse; villain - a worker on the villa; now - a scoundrel; silly-happy; now - foolish.

The most frequent transfers of the name of one object to a different one are based on associations of similarity or of contiguity. They are called metaphor (Greek – meta –“change” and phero “bear”) and metonymy (Greek - metonymia from meta and onoma 'name').

Metaphor is a transfer of name based on the association of similarity and thus is actually a hidden comparison. The relationship of the direct denotative meaning of the word and the meaning in the literary context is based on similarity of some features in the objects compared. E.g a cunning person - a fox; a woman -a peach, a lemon, a oat, a goose; a famous person- a star, the part of a building – a wing.

Metaphors are divided into language and poetic. In lexicology we are interested mostly in linguistic metaphors as poetic ones are tropes and studied in stylistics. Poetic metaphor is the fruit of the author's imagination, it is normally unexpected and new. Language metaphors are mostly dead or trite, and the thing nominated normally has no other name. In a dead metaphor the comparison is completely forgotten, e.g, source. When the development of the meaning is more or less obvious such metaphors are called genuine. Metaphors have been studied since Ancient times, when Aristotle and Quintillian dealt with them. In modern linguistics such foreign scholars as Richards and Lacoff and many Russian ones worked on the problem.

Metaphors, H. Paul points out, may be based upon several types of similarity, the most freqent are: 1) similarity of shape: head of a cabbage, the teeth of a saw. 2) similarity of function: a hand – a hand of the clock. 3) position: foot of a page, of a mountain, or behaviour: bookworm, wirepuller (политический интриган) 4) the analogy between duration of time and space, e.g. long distance’.’, long speech; a short path - a short time; 5) space relations and psychological and mental notions (e.g.words of understanding): to catch (to grasp) an idea; to take a hints to get the hang of; to throw light upon. 6) the concrete to the abstract score- a number of somth- state of affairs, span- length-period of time, thrill-vibration – excitement; 7) transitions of proper names into common ones: an Adonis, a Cicero, a Don Juan, etc.

Metaphors are often antropomorphic.: head of an army, of a procession, of a household; eye of a needle, foot of a hill, tongue of a bell.

If the transfer is based upon the association of contiguity it is called metonymy. 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.

1) spatial relations are present when the name of the place is used for the people occupying it. The chair may mean ‘the chair­man’, the bar ‘the lawyers’, the pulpit ‘the priests’. The word town may denote the inhabitants of a town and the word house the members of the House of Commons or of Lords; the arms of the chair, the foot of the bed.

2) causal relationship is obvious in the following example: fear from ‘danger’, ‘unexpected attack’.

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

4)Emotions may be named by the movements that accompany them: to froasn, to start.

5) Symbol for thing symbol­ized: the crown for ‘monarchy’;

6) The instrument for the product: hand for’handwriting’;

7)The receptacle for content, as in the word kettle.

8)The material from which an article is made for the article itself: glass, iron, copper, nickel

9)Common names may be derived from proper names also metonymically, as in mackintosh.

10) Many physical and technical units are named after great scientists:

volt, ohm, ampere, watt, etc.

11) The place of some establishment is used not only for the establishment itself or its staff but also for its policy: the White House, the Pentagon, Wall Street, Dawning Street, Fleet Street.

Examples of geographic names turning into common nouns to name the goods exported or originating there are exceedingly numerous: china, tweed.

Hyperbole (from Greek huperballo “exceed”) is an exaggerated statement not meant to be understood literally but expressing an intensely emotional attitude of the speaker to what he is speaking about: e.g. Absolutely! Awfully! Terribly! Lovely! The reverse figure is called litotes or understatement. It is defined as expressing the affirmative by the negation of its contrary: e.g. not bad or not half bad for ‘good’, not small for ‘great’, no coward for ‘brave’. Some understate­ments do not contain negations: rather decent; I could do with a cup of tea. Understatement is a typical feature of English speech. Moreover it is a sort of phenomenon of life, the style of life: I won` t recommend, I don` t think you are right, I`d rather not do it.

Irony, expression of one’s meaning by words of opposite meaning, especially for the purpose of ridicule. One of the meanings of the adjective nice is ‘bad’, ‘unsatisfactory’; it is marked off as ironical and illustrated by the example: You’ve got us into a nice mess!

Causes of semantic change

The causes of semantic changes may be grouped under two main head­ings, linguistic and extralinguistic ones. The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the languages. They are observed in changes of meaning resulting from the development of the notion and the denotatum or by appearance of new notions and things. To name these new objects new words can appear, words can be borrowed from other languages or old words develop new meanings. This process is reflected in the develop­ment of lexical meaning, e.g. carriage – a vehicle, drawn by horses – a railway car; a mill-a building where flour was produced, now- a textile factory.

The linguistic reasons deal with changes due to the constant interdependence of vocabulary units in language and speech, such as differentiation between synonyms, changes taking place in connection with ellipsis and with fixed contexts, changes resulting from ambiguity in certain contexts, and some other cases: e.g. time and tide. The words were synonyms. Then tide took on its more limited application to the periodically shifting waters, and time alone is used in the general sense.

There are also syntagmatic semantic changes depending on the context, e.g.

ellipsis. The qualifying words of a frequent phrase may be omitted: propose can be used for to propose marriage, to be expecting for to be expecting a baby. The kernel word of the phrase may seem redundant: minerals for mineral waters. Due to ellipsis starve which originally meant ‘die’ ( Germ - sterben) came to substitute the whole phrase die of hunger, and also began ‘ to mean ‘suffer from lack of food’ and even in colloquial use ‘to feel hungry’.