CHANGE OF MEANING

1. CHANGE OF MEANING

2. INTRODUCTION • Sapir states that language has a drift. Nothing is static. Each and every aspect of it is changing, “that is the life of language.” All linguistic elements are caught up in this drift and MEANING is the least resistant to change. • Change of meaning monopolized the attention of early semanticians. Breal (the founder of modern semantics) and Reisig set the task of exploring the laws which govern the development of meaning. • Until the early 1930s only two problems were the center of interest: • Classification of changes of meaning. • Discovery of semantic laws. • In the last thirty years, the interest shifted to descriptive and structural problems and change of meaning has been neglected but some of the structuralist experiments are likely to revive the study of semantic change.

3. Factors which facilitate semantic changes are: • Language is handed down in a “discontinuous” way: (“bead” from “prayer” to “small pierced ball”) • Vagueness: (meaning of words is more liable to change than their shape, structure and use) • Loss of motive: (lady / lord) • Polysemy: (accidental / permanent) • Ambiguous contexts: (beads = prayers / rosary balls) • The structure of vocabulary: (unstable, fluid and mobile)

4. The Causes of Semantic Change • Six causes for meaning change are stated below, the first three are the major ones provided by Antoine Meillet and the other three are added by Ullman (1962): • Linguistic causes: due to contagion (French “personne”) • Historical causes: language is more conservative than civilization (concepts change but names are retained to ensure a sense of tradition and continuity): a. Objects: (“car” from Celtic “carrus”) b. Institutions: (“Parliament” from Old French “parlement”) c. Ideas: (from being scientific to general idea: humour) d. Scientific concepts: (electricity / geometry) • Social causes: a. Specialization of meaning in a restricted social group.The range of words is narrowed (French ordinary verb passed into farm-yard language: to draw = to milk). b. Generalization of meaning: (in hunting and falconry “to allure”: apparatus used by falconers to recall their hawks > thing that attracts and invites)

5. The Causes of Semantic Change • Psychological causes: have their roots in the speaker’s state of mind. Forms pass from individual style into common usage by means of: • Emotive factors: are highly related to feelings. • Centres of attraction: the interest of a generation reflected in its choice of metaphor. (argument for it: religion and science/ argument against it: aviation) • Centresofexpansion: is related to literature and the theory of dominant metaphor. The dominant interests and preoccupations of a writer are mirrored in his imagery. (argument for it: Flood/ argument against it: insects) • Taboo: signifies that a thing is forbidden. • Taboooffear:(Voldemort: He who shall not be named) • Tabooofdelicacy: (idiot: laymen/ to organize: steal) • Taboo of propriety: (‘sblood: God’s blood/ darn: damn/ heck: hell)

6. The Causes of Semantic Change • Foreign influence: (lesser and Great bear: two constellations) • The need for a new name: scientific discoveries made it necessary to find new names, and the need was met by: • Forminga new word: (flying boats, fortresses, saucers) • Alteringthe meaning of an already existing word: (tank) • Borrowing a term from other languages and adding fresh meanings to them: (satellite) The speed of scientific and technological progress in our time is making increasingly heavy demands on linguistic resources, and possibilities of metaphor and other types of semantic change are being fully exploited.

7. The Nature of Semantic Change • “Nature makes no leaps”. There must always be some connection, some association between the old and the new meaning. Association is a necessary condition of semantic change. • If meaning is seen as a “reciprocal and reversible relation between name and sense” then semantic changes will fall into two categories: • Association between senses. • Association between names. • Those are further subdivided between two kinds of association: similarity and contiguity. • The two pairs yield four cardinal types of semantic change: • similarity of the senses (Metaphor ) • contiguity of the senses (metonymy) • similarity of the names (popular etymology) • contiguity of the names (Ellipsis)

8. 1.similarity of the senses (Metaphor) • Metaphor: is a condensed comparison positing an intuitive and concrete identity. • Aristotle states that “the greatest thing by far is to have command of metaphor.” • The basic structure of metaphor: • Tenor: the thing we are talking about (muscle). • Vehicle: the thing we are comparing it to (little mouse). • Ground: the features they have in common (similarity). • The similarity between tenor and vehicle is either objective (muscle) or emotive (bitter disappointment). • The angle of the image: the distance between the tenor and vehicle is an important factor in the effectiveness of the metaphor: • The closer the distance, the less the expressive quality. • Drawing unexpected parallels between disparate objects produces the surprise effect writers are fond of.

9. 1.similarity of the senses (Metaphor) • Four major groups of metaphor are recognized: • Anthropomorphic metaphors: from (hands of a clock, heart of the matter)/ towards (muscle, Adam’s apple). • Animal metaphor: • Plants: (goat’s-beard, dog’s-tail) • Insentientobjects like instruments and machines: (cat-head, crane) • Humans: (he’s a rat/ behaves fishy/ parrots my words) • From concrete to abstract: (light: throw light on, radiant, illuminating/ time: the flow of time) • Synaesthetic metaphor: (warm or cold voice, loud colors, sweet odours, smelling music)

10. 2. Contiguity of senses (Metonymy) • Metonymy: arises between words already related to each other. Metonymies are best classified according to the associations underlying them into: • Spatial relation:French “joue=cheek” is taken into English as “jaw”. • Temporal relations: Latin “missa=dismissed” at the end of the service came to stand for the service itself and is taken into English as “mass”. • Part for the whole: “four-eyes, big-mouth, stuffed-shirt, high-pockets”. • Inventions and discoveries are often named after the person responsible for them: “volt” • Foods and drinks are names after their place of origin: “sandwich” after the Earl of Sandwich. • The content after the container: “I drank the whole bottle”. • Giving abstract words a concrete meaning: she’s a beauty, he’s the pride of his family, they are the elite.

11. 3. Similarity of names(Popular etymology) • Popular etymology can change both the form and meaning of a word by wrongly connecting it with another term to which it is similar in sound. • Changes of meaning due to phonetic similarity are considered “pseudo-semantic development” and are of two groups: • The old sense and the new are close to each other: (“boon” is influenced by homonymous adj. “boon” derived from the French adj. “bon”) • The two meaning are so diverse that there seems to be no connection between them: (French “essuyer”=“to wipe, to dry” and “to suffer, to endure” the second meaning is a case of pseudo-semantic development due to confusion with “essayer”=“to try, to endure, to experience”)

12. 4. Contiguity of names (Ellipsis) • Words which often occur side by side are apt to have a semantic influence on each other. • The commonest form which this influence takes is “ellipsis”. • In a set phrase made of two words, one of these is omitted and its meaning is transferred to its partner: “the main” for “the main sea”, and “a daily” for “a daily paper”, “un goal” for “goal-keeper”.

13. General comments • The associations between senses are of great significance than those between names. • Many semantic changes seem to fit into more than one category: (Picasso: a painting by Picasso) is it metonymic or elliptical? They are regarded as “composite” changes due to the interplay of two different types of associations. • The semantic development of many words consists of a series of successive changes which may take them very far from their original sense: (French “cadeau” first used to signify “capital letter”=“strokes of calligraphy”=“superfluous words used as ornaments”=“entertainment, amusement, especially when offered to a lady”=“present, gift”) • The search for “laws” governing changes in meaning has been one of the main preoccupations of semanticians.

14. The Consequences of semantic change • Many early writers on semantics divided the consequences which may result from semantics changes into two problems: • Changes in range • Extension • Restriction • Miscellaneous • Changes in evaluation • Pejoration • Amelioration

15. 1. Changes in range a. Restriction of meaning (more common) • It reduces the “extension” of words while increases their “intension”: (“voyage” = journey = by sea/water) • It can be caused by: specialization (French “to draw”=“to milk”), ellipsis (canine for canine tooth), euphemism (idiot used to mean layman), and many others. • Names of animals have been restricted from genus to species: (“Deer” used to mean “beast”) • Some verbs developed on similar line: (“to starve” used to mean “to die”) b. Extension of meaning (less common) • It increases the “extension” of words while decreases their “intension”: (target: shield-like structure marked with concentric circles, set up to be aimed at in shooting) • Extension is due to social factors (arrive: come to shore) or the need for “omnibus” words with hazy general meaning (“machine” became omnibus in French meaning: thing, gadget, …etc.). • Several names of plants and animals have widened their meanings: plants (“rose”=“flower”)/animal (“bird”=used to mean “young bird”)

16. 2. Changes in Evaluation • Pejorative development: is a symptom of a “pessimistic streak” in the human mind. Forces behind it are: • Euphemism/ pseudo-euphemism: (disease, undertaker, silly) • Influence of certain associations: (Latin “captivus”: prisoner=weak=base=mean=villain/ wretch: exile) • Prejudice: i. Xenophobia: (“slave” from “Slav”) ii. Against certain classes or occupations: (“boor”: peasant/ “knave”: a boy employed as a servant/ “bourgeois”) • Ameliorativedevelopment:are of two categories: • Purely negative improvement: i. gradual weakening of terms (“blame” used to mean “blaspheme”/ “pest” used to mean “pestilence”) ii. Complete canceling of unpleasant meaning: (awful) • Positive improvement: i. Simple association of ideas: (“nice”: ignorant=wanton= trivial=delicate=delightful=kind) ii. Social factors: (“Chancellor”: usher stationed at the law court=secretary, notary= had judicial functions)

17. Ullman, S. (1962). Semantics: An Introduction to Science of Meaning. NY: Barnes & Nobles.Online Resourses:http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/semanticchangeterm.htmhttps://www.uni-due.de/SHE/HE_Change_Semantic.htmhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/27983392/Types-of-Semantic-Change References