Lexical and Contextual Plurality of Meaning
As indicated above there are fewer words than concepts. The meaning of a word in speech is contextual, so it has only one meaning, i.e. it is monosemantic. But there are very few monosemantic words in English, e.g. personal pronouns I, he, she, we, they. It is natural for a word to have more than one meaning. The more common the word, the more meanings it has.
Changes of meaning is a commonplace, e.g. hand, face, etc. Thus words develop plurality of meaning, i.e. become polysemantic.
The greater the combinative power (valency) of a word, the easier it develops new meanings.
The development of each new meaning is always motivated. In most cases polysemy results from transference of meaning on the basis of similarity, contiguity (nearness of concept), exaggeration, revaluation of meaning, its extension or narrowing. Analogy, identification, comparison contribute to the development of polysemy.
The causes of semantic changes may be grouped under two main headings, linguistic and extra linguistic. The first group deals with changes due to the constant interdependence of vocabulary units in languages and speech.
The extra linguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the language the results in the progress of human consciousness, e.g. the word “space” from the meaning of “extensions” or “intervening distance” came to mean the limitless expanse in which everything exists”, and more recently came to be used in the meaning “outer space”-“cosmos”.
Homonyms are words having the same form but differing in meaning. The identity of form may be complete (both spelling and sound are identical) or partial (the words are identical only in spelling but different in sound or vice versa).
Homonyms
There are perfect homonyms, that is words having entirely different meanings but absolutely identical in spelling and sound (ball – мяч, ball – бал; seal – тюлень, seal – печать) and partial homonyms. We divide partial homonyms into homographs or words identical in spelling but different in sound and meaning (bow [bou] – лук, and bow [bau] – нос корабля; row [rou] – ряд, and row [rau] – скандал). Homonyms in English are very numerous. W. W. Skeat, a well-known English lexicolographer, gives a list of 1772 homonyms. This abundance of homophones is partially due to the phonetic changes of the 15th –17th centuries. Most homonyms are monosyllabic words. The trend towards monosyllabism, greatly increased by the loss of inflection and shortening, must have contributed much towards increasing the number of homonyms in English.
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Conversion must also be remembered as one of the ways of creating grammatical homonyms (e.g. iron – to iron, work – to work, etc.).
From the viewpoint of their origin, homonyms are sometimes divided into historical and etymological.
Historical homonyms are those which result from the breaking up in two on more separate words (to bear – терпеть, and to bear – рожать, pupil – ученик, pupil – зрачок; plant – растение; plant – завод, etc.).
Etymological homonyms are words of different etymology which come to be alike in sound or spelling (and may be both written and pronounced alike). Various causes explain their appearance. Among these, phonetic changes both in native and borrowed words played a great role.
Sail comes from the AS segel, segl – “a sail”. Sale comes from the AS sala – “a bargain”. Both developed into the same phonetic form.
Considering homonyms in their morphological aspect A.I. Smirnitsky classifies them into lexical and lexico-grammatical.
1. Lexical homonyms, i.e. a) perfect, belonging to the same part of speech with all their forms coinciding (e.g. case – case, ball – ball); b) partial homonyms belonging to one and the same part of speech but coinciding only in some of their forms (e.g. to lie – lay – lain; to lie – lied – lied).
2. Lexico-grammatical homonyms are presented by a) words belonging to the same part of speech but homonymic in their grammatical forms (excluding their initial forms, e.g. bore, verb – bore, past ind. of bear); b) words belonging to different parts of speech and homonymic only in some of their forms (e.g. I – eye, nose – knows).
Synonyms
(Gr. synonyms – “of like meanings”, syn. – with onyma name).
Synonyms are usually different in form but denoting different shades of a common meaning.
English is very rich in synonyms. An elementary dictionary of synonyms which is not at all exhaustive, contains over 8000 synonyms. Various reasons account for that. Borrowings from various languages account for great number of cases, for one thing.
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Many native synonyms were either restricted in meaning or ousted altogether by foreign terms.
The Danish call has ousted the OE heitan, cast has ousted the OE weorpan, dog had restricted hound (OE hund) to the meaning of “hunting dog”, the French army has ousted the OE here, etc.
There are different classifications of synonyms. The so-called absolute synonyms are very rare. They are mostly different names for one and the same plant, animal, disease, science, etc. (языкознание – языковедение).
We divide synonyms into three groups: ideographic, stylistic and phraseological synonyms.
Thus all the synonyms together express the concept in all its many-sided variety and completeness. This can be easily seen in such groups of synonyms as courage, bravery, fearlessness, daring; fame, glory, renown, repute; sweet, nice, lovely, fine, etc.
However, not all ideographic synonyms are of the same kind. We can distinguish:
Those which are very close in meaning (horrible – terrible, to trouble – to disturb, to answer – to replay, grateful – thankful, immediately – at once). Some of them are etymological doublets (emerald – smaragd, gaol – jail, screech – shriek, etc.).
Synonyms which differ in meaning considerably, e. g. both interpreter and translator denote the same concept of a person rendering the expressions of one language into the expressions of another but the oral side of the work is associated with interpreter whereas translator is connected with writing. Both ladder and stairs denote a set of parallel bars used for climbing up, but ladder is associated with a rope contrivance or a portable device consisting of two beams crossed by a set of parallel bars while stairs represents a permanent arrangement, mostly within a building, of blocks of wood or slabs of marble joined to form a long series of steps, stairway or staircase.
Words like journey — voyage — trip — travel, also referring to the same kind, represent each a certain type. In to travel, to journey, to make a voyage, to go on a trip, the most general word is to travel. The noun, however (often used in the plural form travels), is usually associated with travelling as profession or travelling with scientific purposes or discovering (e.g. "Gulliver's Travels"). Voyage is connected with travelling by sea or by air, journey is associated with travelling by land, trip implies travelling for a short period of time, on business or for recreation.
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Among verbs we find ideographic synonyms which differ in the manner of the action expressed by the verbs e.g. to look — to glance — to gaze — to stare — to regard — to view — to eye — to peep, where to look is the synonymic dominant.
Synonyms which differ in the degree of a given quality, in the intensity of the action performed or the intensity of emotions, e.g. to want — to desire — to long for; taciturn — tacit — silent; to ask — to beg — to pray — to implore — to supplicate — to beseech — to entreat; big — huge — tremendous — enormous; small — diminutive — tiny; to work — to toil — to slave; tired — exhausted; very — extremely — extraordinarily; to dislike — to hate — to detest — to abhor; to love — to adore — to worship, etc.
Those which denote the same thing but differ in emotional colouring (cf. Russian — старик, старичок, small - little, big - great, boy - lad, etc.).
Synonyms which differ in the volume of the concept they express: border — frontier, illness — disease, to shut — to fasten, happy — lucky, smell — scent, author -writer, work — job, etc.
Pairs of synonyms where one expresses continuity of action or state while the other expresses a momentary action of the same nature: to speak — to say, fear — fright, to beat — to strike, to remember — to memorize, etc.
Stylistic synonyms do not differ in shades of their common meaning. They differ in usage and style, e.g. doctor — official, doc — jocular, familiar (e.g. "Hello, doc!"); examination — official, exam — colloquial; to commence — mostly on an official occasion, to begin — in everyday speech, etc.). They also show the attitude of the speaker towards the event, object or process described (to die — to depart, to expire, to kick the bucket, to go off the hooks).
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Phraseological synonyms are those which do not necessarily differ materially in their meanings or stylistic value. They differ in their combinative power.
Though to get up and to rise are very close in meaning, we prefer to apply the first to people and the second to the sun rising. We apply both high and tall to a tree but we do not apply high to a man though we do say a tall man.
Sick and ill illustrate difference in usage too. Ill is used predicatively while sick is mostly used attributively to mean the same: he is ill, he is a sick man, he is on the sick list, etc.; used predicatively sick means “feeling nausea” (the child ate too much melon and was sick), or, in a transferred meaning – “to be bored” (Oh, I am sick of it), “to miss something” (he is homesick), and ill used attributively means “bad” (e.g. ill nature).
We should distinguish phraseological synonyms from idiomatic synonyms which are quite numerous in English (cf. the neutral the lesson is finished and the idiomatic the lessons is over).
Antonyms
As we have already noted, some words have meanings that are directly opposite (good — evil, short — long, beautiful — ugly, white — black, falsehood — thruthfulness, right — wrong, cheap — expensive, quiescense — movement, etc.).
Words with diametrically opposite meanings are called antonyms (Gr. anti — against). We easily find antonyms to words denoting: quality (hard—soft, rough —smooth, good — bad, patience — impatience).
Antonyms can be divided into two groups: 1) Those which are formed with the help of negative affixes (both prefixes and suffixes) and 2) those which are of different roots.
Some linguists do not consider words formed by means of adding negative affixes to be antonyms to their positive antipodes at all.
There are affixes in English which impart to the root the meaning of either the presence or the absence of a certain quality, property or state:
a) Prefixes. The most productive antonym-forming negative prefix is un- (unimportant, unhappy, unbearable, unsuccessful, uncivil, etc.); in- and its variants (ir-, it-, im-) are less productive (indelicate, impossible, irregular, illiterate, etc.). The same can be said about dis- (dishonest, disappear, disconnected) and mis- (misfortune, misunderstanding, etc.).
b) Suffixes. Antonym-forming suffixes impart to the word the meaning of the presence or absence of the quality or feature indicated by the root: -ful, -y, -less (fruitful — fruitless, hopeful — hopeless, useful — useless, faulty — faultless).
2) The second group (antonyms proper) includes words of different roots: day — night, rich — pool, hoot — cold, beginning — end, light — darkness.
Considered in meaning, antonyms can be divided into absolute, phraseological and complex.
Absolute antonyms are diametrically opposite in meaning and remain antonyms. in any word-combinations. These are mostly found among negative affix-formed antonyms, e.g. fruitful — fruitless, happy — unhappy, etc.
Antonyms of the second group, or different-root antonyms may be illustrated by such words as light — heavy, light — dark, good — bad, white — black, etc.
Complex antonyms are those polysemantic words that have different antipodes for their various meanings. Thus, for instance, soft has such meanings, as a) "not hard, yielding" (both direct and transferred), as in a soft seat, a soft nature; b) "not loud, subdued", as in a soft voice and soft colours; c) “mild, not severe”, as in soft voice and soft punishment. Now naturally all these meanings will find different words for antipodes: a) a hard seat, a hard nature, b) a loud voice, loud or harsh colours, c) a severe climate, a severe punishment.
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