Divergence of meaning. Meaning and polysemy. Lecture 7. Semantic change

Lecture 7. Semantic change. Meaning and polysemy

Outline

1. Meaning – stable and changing. Causes of semantic change

2. Narrowing and extension of meaning. Transfer of meaning

Divergence of meaning. Meaning and polysemy

1. Meaning – stable and changing. Causes of semantic change

In discussing the semantic structure of English words, we regarded their meaning as stable and unchanging. In reality, however, this is not so. Firstly, words display different meanings, or different shades of meaning, in different contexts. Secondly, a diachronic study of the language reveals gradual changes in the meaning of words. Studying these two phenomena helps one understand the semantic structure of English words at the present stage of their development.

Studies of the changing lexical meaning of words are made possible by a comparison of an earlier meaning of a word with a later one. Such comparative studies were mostly carried out by the " comparative philologists" of the 19th and the early 20th century, whose chief concern was description and classification of various changes of meaning, as well as tiding to reconstruct the earliest possible meanings of words.These meanings, that usually did not survive up to the present, could be found either in old texts (e.g. of Old English and Middle English period), or partially preserved in regional, dialectal, professional or idiomatic use, which tend to be more conservative and sometimes retain older meanings, or traces of them.

For example, glad now means happy, but in Old English it had the meaning of bright or shining. Husband originally was a compound word meaning " master of a house", probably also implying thrift and a farming occupation (both meanings partially preserved in husbandry and husbandman). Lady was originally hlˉ æ f-dˉ ige, which means " one cutting bread". Beam, now a synonym to a ray of light or the action of shining or smiling, goes back to Old English bˉ eˉ am – " tree" (related to German Baum), –although the older meaning is also preserved in the language.

To avoid confusion, we must differentiate between the causes of semantic change, the results and the process of the change of meaning. In other words, we must understand why a given word has changed its meaning, how various changes were brought about and what parts of the meaning have changed. This is mostly achieved by comparing the resultant and the original meanings of the word, although the process of comparison might also involve other words with related meanings. We must also note whether the changes occurred in the denotational or connotational component of meaning.

Changes in the meaning of words could be caused by extra-linguistic or linguistic reasons. Extra-linguistic causes are various changes in the life of the English-speaking community, such as changes in the economic life or social structure, new ideas and concepts, scientific progress, new inventions - in fact, any changes in human activities. The vocabulary, which is an adaptive system and the most flexible part of the language, responds readily to new developments: either " new" words are coined, or " old", existing words are adapted to express " new" meanings. On the other hand, changes in the vocabulary could be caused by changes in the language system itself. New borrowings, ellipsis, assimilation, resolution of ambiguity and rise of context-sensitive meanings are among the causes influencing the meanings of individual words.

Newly borrowed words rarely force existing words out of the language. More typically, the " old" word acquires a restricted meaning or use. This could be illustrated by the fate of the word deer. In OE it was the general word for any animal, like the German Tier; even in Shakespeare, we find rats and mice and such small deer. But by the ME period, the word beast was borrowed from French, and the word deer was narrowed to its present meaning – probably as the animal most attractive for hunters. Later on, the Latin animal was borrowed, and the word beast, too, was restricted in meaning.

The process of ellipsis and assimilation readily affects the most frequently used words and phrases, often changing them beyond recognition. In an attributive phrase, either the modifying or modified word may be dropped, and its meaning transferred to the other word: thus, cut-price sale is reduced to sale and summit meeting to summit. Due to ellipsis the word starve, originally meaning " to die" (cf. German sterben), came to mean " dying from lack of food", – through the ME phrase sterven of hunger – and later acquired a wider meaning (including the colloquial " to feel hungry"). Many names of alcoholic beverages are victims of this process: whiskey was originally uisce beatha (water of life) in Gaelic, grog was grogman, hock was Hochheimer (German), port was Oporto wine, etc. The name of the place where these are offered, starting as public house, is now down to pub.

Older meanings may survive in restricted contexts – as in idioms or compound words. The word cast, originally meaning " throw", mostly preserved its old meaning in number of set expressions, as to cast a glance and to cast lots (note also The die is cast, traditionally ascribed to Julius Caesar). It and the corresponding noun have, however, acquired a number of new meanings, all indirectly connected with the idea of throwing.

Apart from changes in the structure of the language, changes in meaning may also result from the development of the object named, or from appearance of new objects. In other words, thoseare the changes in meaning caused by changes in the referent or the concept, while the sound-form remains unaltered, or changes much more slowly than the underlying concept. Thus the word car, originally a Romanic borrowing with the meaning " a vehicle on wheels pulled by a horse", is now typically used – especially in American English – for such progressive forms of transport as the automobile, the railway vehicle (including streetcar and cable car), and even the cage of an elevator or lift, or the gondola of an airship or balloon. The Greek atomos originally meant something so small it couldn't be further divided; we now know an atom is a complex structure – but we still use the original word.

Changes in the denotational meaning may be caused by changed connotations which, in their turn, go hand in hand with social relationships. This is especially evident in the саsе of elevation or degradation of meaning (the latter often reflecting the attitude of the upper classes to their social inferiors). Thus OE cwˉ en (woman) was elevated to queen, while a French borrowing villain, originally meaning a farm labourer, came to denote a scoundrel. Women, too, were treated as socially inferior: it was probably unthinkable that one could deliver letters (hence postman) or patrol the streets (policeman) or chair a meeting. Now that this is possible, we have to stretch the meaning of postman, or use clumsy but sexually neutral police officer or chairperson (the self-contradictory Madam Chairman is preferable in a strictly official context).

Another social phenomenon reflected in the language is the social taboo (a word, curiously enough, of Polynesian origin), whereby certain topics – such as death or disease – and therefore certain words were to be avoided, or even banned from use. To make the unavoidable discussion of such topics possible, taboo words were replaced by euphemisms, expressing the same unpleasant meaning in a roundabout way – as describing the toilet as comfort station (American use) or a person’s legs as lower extremities (in Victorian England, when a strict taboo on anything related to sex was observed). In modern use, euphemisms are abundant in fields like advertising, diplomacy and propaganda, – and new euphemisms keep appearing because the existing ones, formerly neutral, gradually acquire strong negative connotations because of their repeated use in describing something unmentionable (look at the sad fate of the French verb sortir, meaning simply " to go out" in Russian).