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Semantics. Causes of Semantic Change

The document discusses the causes and nature of semantic change in language. Extra-linguistic causes include changes in society, ideas, and way of life that impact word meanings. Linguistic causes include ellipsis, discrimination of synonyms, and linguistic analogy. Semantic change occurs through similarity/metaphor or contiguity/metonymy. Results include restriction, extension, or changes to the connotational meaning of words through pejoration or amelioration.

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Marina Tanović
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899 views3 pages

Semantics. Causes of Semantic Change

The document discusses the causes and nature of semantic change in language. Extra-linguistic causes include changes in society, ideas, and way of life that impact word meanings. Linguistic causes include ellipsis, discrimination of synonyms, and linguistic analogy. Semantic change occurs through similarity/metaphor or contiguity/metonymy. Results include restriction, extension, or changes to the connotational meaning of words through pejoration or amelioration.

Uploaded by

Marina Tanović
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Semantics

Causes of Semantic Change

12 November 2020

Extra-linguistic causes.
By these we mean various changes in the life of the speech community, changes in
economic and social structure, changes in ideas, scientific concepts, way of life and other
spheres of human activities as reflected in word meanings. Although objects, institutions,
concepts, etc. change in the course of time in many cases the soundform of the words
which denote them is retained but the meaning of the words is changed.

car (>Latin carrus ‘four-wheeled wagon’) > car (‘a motor car’, ‘a railway carriage’, or
‘part of an airship or balloon intended to carry personnel, cargo or equipment’).

Linguistic causes.
By these we mean the factors acting within the language system. The commonest form
which this influence takes is the so-called ellipsis. In a phrase made up of two or
more words one of these is omitted and its meaning is transferred to its partner.

starve (>OE steorfan ‘to die’, usually in collocation with hunger (ME. sterven of
hunger).

Another linguistic cause is discrimination of synonyms.

land (>OE land both ‘solid part of earth’s surface’ and ‘the territory of a nation’)
ME> country borrowed as its synonym, the meaning of land altered, so in the end
‘territory of a nation’ came to be denoted mainly by the borrowed word country.

Another linguistic cause is known as linguistic analogy.


It was found out, e.g., that if one of the members of a synonymic set acquires a new
meaning, other members of this set change their meanings too. Fore example, verbs
synonymous with catch (grasp, get, etc.) by semantic extension acquired another
meaning - ‘to understand’.

Nature of Semantic Change

A necessary condition of any semantic change is some connection, some association


between the old meaning and the new.

Similarity of meanings or metaphor may be described as a semantic


process of associating two referents, one of which in some ways resembles the other.
hand (in 16th century acquired the meaning of ‘a pointer of a clock/watch’)
because of the similarity of one of the functions performed by the hand (‘to
point at something’)

similarly ‘the leg of the table’, ‘the foot of the hill’

warm and cold began to denote certain qualities of human voices because of
some kind of similarity between these qualities and warm and cold
temperature. It is also usual to perceive similarity between colours and
emotions (e.g. black and white).

Contiguity of meanings or metonymy may be described as the semantic


process of associating two referents one of which makes part of the other or is closely
connected with it.

tongue (‘the organ of speech’ in the meaning of ‘language’ (e.g. mother


tongue, lingua, jezik).

bench (> ‘judges’ because it was on the bench that the judges used to sit in
courts)
the House (> ‘members of the House’ = Parliament)

Results of Semantic Change

Results of semantic change can be generally observed in the changes of the denotational
meaning of the word (restriction and extension of meaning) or in the alteration of its
connotational component (amelioration and deterioration of meaning).

Changes in the denotational meaning may result in the restriction of the types or
range of referents denoted by the word.

hound (OE. hund ‘ a dog of any breed’) > ‘a dog used in the chase’

fowl (OE. fuzol ‘any bird’) > ‘a domestic hen or cock’

This is generally described as restriction of meaning. It happens that the word with
the new meaning comes to be used in the specialised vocabulary of some limited group
within the speech community. Then we speak of specialisation of meaning.

glide (OE. glidan ‘to move gently and smoothly’) > ‘to fly with no engine’

Changes in the denotational meaning may also result in the application of the word to
a wider variety of referents. This is commonly described as extension of meaning.
target (‘a small round shield’, diminutive of targe) > ‘anything that is fired
at’ or ‘any result aimed at’

If the word with the extended meaning passes from the specialised vocabulary into
common use, we describe the result of semantic change as the generalisation of
meaning.

camp (military m. ‘the place where troops are lodged in tents’) > ‘temporary
quarters’ (of travellers, nomads, etc.)

There are also cases when the changes in the connotational meaning come to the fore.
These changes are usually accompanied by a change in the denotational component
and are divided into a) pejorative and b) ameliorative development.

a) boor (‘a villager, a peasant’) > ‘a clumsy or ill-bred fellow’


b) minister (‘a servant, an attendant’) >’a civil servant of higher rank’

It is interesting that in derivational clusters (paradigms, or sets of different parts of


speech) a change in the connotational meaning of one member does not necessarily
affect the other members of the set.

accident ‘something that happens by chance’ + ‘usually sth unfortunate’


accidental ‘by chance’

fortune ‘good/bad fortune’


fortunate ‘involving good luck or fortune’

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