15) The process of development of new meaning of words

As it is known the system of meanings of polysemantic words develop gradually. The older the word is, the better developed semantic structure it has. In order to understand the complicated processes by which words get new meanings we should find answers to 2 basic questions: 1) Why should new meanings appear at all? What circumstances cause and stimulate their development? 2) How does it happened? What is the nature of the process of development off new meanings?

There are 2 groups of causes of development of new meanings. 1) The 1st group of causes is historical or extralinguistic. Different kinds of changes in a nation’s social life, in its culture, knowledge, technology, arts lead to appearing of newly created objects, new concepts and phenomena, which must be named. This can be done in 2 traditional ways: making new words (word-building) or borrowing foreign ones. But there is one more way: to apply some old word to a new object or notion. For example the word carriage which had and still has the meaning of a vehicle drown by horses. With the 1st appearance of railways in England received a new meaning, that of a railway car (вагон).

The history of English nouns describing different parts of a theatre may also serve as a good illustration of how well-established words can be used to denote newly created objects and phenomena. The words ‘stalls’ , ‘box’, ‘pit’, ‘circle’ had existed for a long time before the 1st theatres appeared in England. With their appearance the gaps in the vocabulary were easily filled by these widely used words which , as a result, got new meanings The Russian language found a different way of filling the same gap: in Russian all parts of the theatre are named by borrowed words (партер, ложа, бельетон). 2) The 2nd group of causes is linguistic factors. The development of new meanings and also a complete change of meanings may be caused through the influence of other words, mostly synonyms. In old English the word deer had a general meaning denoting any beast. In that meaning it collided with the borrowed word ‘animal’ and changed the meaning to the modern one (a certain kind of beast - олень).

The noun ‘knave’ from old English ‘knafa” changed its meaning as a result of collision with its synonym ‘boy’ and the word ‘knave’ has a negative evaluative connotation and means a scoundrel, a swindler.

16) Antonymy

By antonyms we mean words of the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meanings. For example – hot – cold, light-dark, up-down, appear – disappear.

Mostly, antonyms appear in pairs but not always. For example, the adjective ‘cold’ has its second antonym ‘warm’, the noun ‘sorrow’ not only happiness, but gaiety as well. Polysemantic words may have antonyms of each of their meanings. The word ‘dull’ has the following antonyms – interesting, amusing, entertaining for its meaning ‘deficient in interest’. The same word has antonyms – ‘clever, bright, capable’ for its meaning ‘deficient in activity’. Most antonyms are adjectives, because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and contrasted. For example – pretty – ugly. Small – big, thin – thick. Verbs take second place so far as antonym is concerned. Verbal pairs of antonyms are fewer in number – to open – to close, to take – to give, to lend – to borrow, to come – to leave. Nouns are not rich in antonyms, but there are some – good – evil, love – hatred, truth-lie, failure-success. Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided into 2 groups; 1) Adverbs, derived from adjectives (merrily – sadly, coldly -warmly). 2) Adverbs proper (here – there, now - then).

Not long ago antonymy was not universally acknowledged by linguists, because the opposition within pairs of antonyms was not regarded as purely logical. Nowadays most scholars agree, that in the semantic structure of all words which regularly occur in antonymic pairs, a special antonymic connotation can be singled out. Together with synonyms antonyms represent the languages important expressive means.