The Causes of Semantic Changes

The causes of semantic changes can be extra-linguistic and linguistic.

Linguistic causes of semantic change

The conflict of synonyms when a perfect synonym of a native word is borrowed from some other language one of them may specialize in its meaning.

Linguistic causes influencing the process of vocabulary adaptation may be of paradigmatic and syntagmatic character; in dealing with them we have to do with the constant interaction and 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 causes.

Differentiation of synonyms is a gradual change observed in the course of language history, sometimes, but not necessarily, involving the semantic assimilation of loan words.

E.g., the noun tide in Old English was polysemantic and denoted time, season, hour. When the French words time, season, hour were borrowed into English they ousted the word tide in these meanings. It was specialized and now means regular rise and fall of the sea caused by attraction of the moon.

The meaning of a word can also change due to ellipsis (the omission of one or more words that are obviously understood but that must be supplied to make a construction grammatically complete).

“When well used, ellipsis can create a bond of sorts between the writer and the reader. The writer is saying, in effect, I needn't spell everything out for you; I know you'll understand.” (Martha Kolln, Rhetorical Grammar, 5th ed. Pearson, 2007)

Examples:

• “Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.” (Virginia Woolf) ;
• “Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.” (William Hazlitt) ;
• Sale comes to be used for cut-price sale, propose for propose marriage, be expecting for be expecting a baby, media for mass media.

Extra-linguistic causes of semantic change

The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the language: they are observed in changes of meaning resulting from the development of the notion expressed and the thing named and by the appearance of new notions and things. In other words, extralinguistic causes of semantic change are connected with the development of the human mind as it moulds reality to conform with its needs.

Examples:

• Primarily pen comes back to the Latin word penna (a feather of a bird). As people wrote with goose pens the name was transferred to steel pens which were later on used for writing. Still later any instrument for writing was called a pen.
• OE eorde meant ‘the ground under people’s feet’, ‘the soil’ and ‘the world of man’ as opposed to heaven that was supposed to be inhabited first by Gods and later on, with the spread of Christianity, by God, his angels, saints and the souls of the dead. With the progress of science earth came to mean the third planet fromthe sun and the knowledge is constantly enriched. With the development of electrical engineering earth n means ‘a connection of a wire conductor with the earth’, either accidental (with the result of leakage of current) or intentional (as for the purpose of providing a return path). There is also a corresponding verb earth. E. g.: With earthed appliances the continuity of the earth wire ought to be checked.

Types of semantic change

Amelioration or elevation(a semantic shift of meaning) – the im­provement of the connotational component of meaning (in the direction towards a more positive value in the minds of the users). Contrast with pejoration.

Examples:

• pretty < OE: prættig 'crafty, sly' ;
• knight 'mounted warrior serving a king', 'lesser nobility' < OE cniht 'boy, servant' >'servant' > 'military servant';
• dude 'guy, person' < in 1883 a word of ridicule for 'man who affects an exaggerated fastidiousness in dress, speech and deportment', 'a dandy'.

Pejoration of meaning (also degradation of meaning) – the appear­ance of a derogatory and scornful emotive charge in the meaning of the word (when a word with a positive sense develops a negative one).

Examples:

• knave 'a rogue - мошенник' (a dishonest or unscrupulous man) < OE: cnafa ' a youth, a child' > 'servant' ;
• spinster 'unmarried woman – стараядева' < 'one who spins' ;
• silly 'foolish, stupid' < ME sely 'happy, innocent' < OE sælig ''blessed, blissful';
• disease 'illness' < 'discomfort' (cf. dis+ease).

Broadening (extension, generalizationor widening) of meaning– changes of meaning resulting in the application of a word to a wider variety of referents. It includes the change both from concrete to abstract and from specific to general. Contrast with semantic narrowing.

Examples:

• cupboard => 1) table upon which cups or vessels were placed, a piece of furniture to display plates => closet or cabin with shelves for the keeping cups and dishes => small storage cabinet ;
• «Journey» was borrowed from French with the meaning «one day trip», now it means «a trip of any duration».
• «Ready» (a derivative from the verb «ridan» - «ride») meant «prepared for a ride», now its meaning is «prepared for anything».

Semantic narrowing of meaning(or specialization)- the restriction of the semantic capacity of a word in the course of its historical develop­ment. The process by which a word's meaning becomes less general or inclusive than its earlier meaning.

Examples:

• hound => OE hund 'dog in general' => species of dog (long eared hunting dog) ;
• wife => OE 'woman' =>'woman of humble rank or low employment' => 'married woman, spouse' ;
• girl => ME 'child or young person of either sex' =>'female child, young woman' ;
• "Engine was formerly used in a general sense of 'mechanical contrivance' (especially of war and torture), but since the Industrial Revolution it has come to mean 'mechanical sense of power.'" (David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003) ;
• "In Old English, mete referred to food in general (a sense which is retained in sweetmeat); today, it refers to only one kind of food (meat). Art originally had some very general meanings, mostly connected to 'skill'; today, it refers just to certain kinds of skill, chiefly in relation to aesthetic skill--'the arts.'" (David Crystal, How Language Works. Overlook, 2006) ;
• "Accident means an unintended injurious or disastrous event. Its original meaning was just any event, especially one that was unforeseen. . . . Fowl in Old English referred to any bird. Subsequently, the meaning of this word was narrowed to a bird raised for food, or a wild bird hunted for 'sport.'" (Francis Katamba, English Words: Structure, History, Usage. Routledge, 2004).

Metaphor- transfer of meaning on the basis of a similarity of some sort (in shape, in size, in function, in colour, etc.) between the es­tablished referent of a word and some new referent. A metaphor expresses the unfamiliar (the tenor – the underlying idea or principal subject that is the meaning of a metaphor) in terms of the familiar (the vehicle – the figure itself that is, the image that embodies the tenor).

Different types of similarity:

a) similarity of shape, e.g. head (of a cabbage), bottleneck – узкийпроход, препятствие

b) similarity of position, e.g. head (of a procession)– главныйвпроцессии;

c) similarity of function, behavior e.g. a whip – парламентскийпартийныйорганизатор(an official in the British Parliament whose duty is to see that members were present at the voting);

d) similarity of colour, e.g. orange, hazel, chestnut etc.

Examples:

• "But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill." (William Sharp, "The Lonely Hunter") ;
• "The rain came down in long knitting needles." (Enid Bagnold, National Velvet) ;
• "Language is a road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going." (Rita Mae Brown) ;
• a stony heart, the head of cabbage, star - a leading actress.

Metonymy– transfer of meaning based on contiguity, i.e. by naming a closely related object or idea.

Examples:

• "Whitehall prepares for a hung parliament." (The Guardian, January 1, 2009) ;
• "Fear gives wings." (Romanian proverb) ;
• chair meaning the presiding offi­cer ;
• town meaning the inhabitants of the town.

Synecdoche – kind of metonymy, involves part-to-whole relationship.

"Synecdoches are ways in which we construct our understanding of the whole, although we only have access to the part. Synecdoches are part of our general cultural heritage and exist in literature as well as science. Archetypes, mythic characters, gods and goddesses have all been viewed as synecdochical, as have some literary characters, such as Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Desdemona, Romeo, Juliet, Jane Eyre, and Willy Loman." (Laurel Richardson, Writing Strategies: Reaching Diverse Audiences. Sage, 1990)

Examples:

• hand 'hired hand, employed worker';
• tongue 'language' ;
• He earns his bread by writing=He earns his living by writing ;
• The farms were short of hands during the harvest season ;
• Australia beat Canada at cricket.

Hyperbole – an exaggerated statement not meant to be understood li­terally but expressing an emotional attitude of the speaker to what he is speaking about.

Examples:

• Lovely! Awful! Splendid! For ages, heaps of time – массавремени, floods of tears – потокислёз, a world of good – огромнаяпольза ;
• "I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking(трястись, дрожать) from head to foot, and could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck out so far." (Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi").

Litotes – it is a transfer of the meaning when the speaker expresses the affirmative with the negative or vice versa.

Examples:

• Not bad (it is good) ;
• No coward for ‘brave’;
• Not half as important.

Irony – it is the expression of one’s meaning by words of opposite sense, especially a simulated adoptionof the opposite point of view for the purpose of ridicule or disparagement.

"It is sometimes said that we live in an age of irony. Irony in this sense may be found, for example, all throughout TheDaily Show with Jon Stewart. Suppose you hear a political candidate give a terribly long speech, one that rambles on and on without end. Afterward you might turn to a friend sitting next to you, roll your eyes, and say, 'Well, that was short and to the point, wasn't it?' You are being ironic. You are counting on your friend to turn the literal meaning of your expression, to read it as exactly the opposite of what your words actually mean. . . .

When irony works, it helps to cement social bonds and mutual understanding because the speaker and hearer of irony both know to turn the utterance, and they know that the other one knows they will turn the utterance. . . .

Irony is a kind of winking at each other, as we all understand the game of meaning reversal that is being played." (Barry Brummett, Techniques of Close Reading. Sage, 2010)

Examples:

• 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! ;
• The same may be said about the adjective pretty: A pretty mess you’ve made of it!

 

Euphemism - the substitution of an inoffensive term (such as "passed away") for one considered offensively explicit ("died").

"Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission, they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head. Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne." (Quentin Crisp, Manners from Heaven, 1984)

Examples:

• "city beautician" for "street cleaner" – дворник;
• "shoe rebuilder" for " cobbler" - сапожник ;
• We use "pass away" or "go to heaven" to denote the meaning of death.

 

---

Дата добавления: 2018-04-04; просмотров: 3158; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы!

Поделиться с друзьями:

---

---

Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!