English as a Changing Language 19
language. Thus, if English borrows a word which is a verb, or wants to turn a loanword into a verb, then it will be made to fit the language’s productive verb paradigms. Such a loan will therefore be prefixed with to in the infinitive (as in to exacerbate), will take –s in the third person singular (he/she/it exacerbates) and will take the productive past tense suffix –ed (they exacerbated the situation). Similarly, nouns borrowed and adapted into English will be treated like other nouns, taking (as we have seen earlier in this section) the regular plural affix –s (rubies) and the possessive affix –’s (ruby’s gleam), being modified by determiners and adjectives (the gorgeous ruby) and partaking in compounding (ruby-red).
1.4 Semantic Change
Speakers are very aware of change not only at the lexical level, but also at the level of meaning. The latter, also known as semantic change, can occur relatively quickly and easily, sometimes within a speaker’s lifetime. It is therefore one of the types of change which often generates complaint, as some speakers may feel that younger users of a language are moving a word away from its ‘true’ meaning. You have probably, for example, heard complaints about words such as gay, which is remembered by a certain generation of English speakers as being used to mean (before the 1960s) ‘bright’ or ‘cheerful’. I was recently lectured at length about change in the use of aggravate, which many speakers now use to mean ‘to irritate’, or ‘to annoy’. This annoyed (aggravated?) my complainant because the word was not being used ‘properly’ any more: in her view, the ‘real’ meaning, namely, ‘to make worse’, was being eroded.
Such changes, however, are not at all unusual and interestingly, nor is the perception that they are somehow ‘wrong’. Complaints such as those cited here are typically based on an assumption that each word has only one ‘true’, inherent meaning (embodied in the word’s etymology) and any change is therefore a ‘deviation’ or ‘corruption’. It is, however, arguable that the very nature of meaning itself, and the ways in which speakers work with it, actually create an environment conducive to change. Within this perspective, for example, many modern linguists subscribe to the Saussurean notion that the relationship between a word (or in Saussurean terms, the signifier) and the concept it stands for (the signified) is ultimately arbitrary and based solely on convention.9 In other words, there is no ‘natural’ or intrinsic reason why the word bag, for instance, should refer to the entity it does and not to a couch or a type of food. It therefore follows that the signifier and the signified are ultimately independent entities, which implies not only that words generally do not possess inherent ‘true’ meanings, but also that meaning itself is open to change.
In addition, a signifier can actually be linked to more than one signified. We have so far assumed a one-to-one relationship between a word and a meaning for explanatory convenience (and complainants seem to do the same in assuming that one proper meaning is replaced by one ‘wrong’ one). The reality, however, is a bit more complex. Words actually tend to be polysemic, which means that they individually carry different meanings or, at the very least, ‘a whole range of shades of meaning’ (McMahon, 1994: 176). This implies that meaning is a somewhat
20 The History of English
dynamic and fluid property: words not only gain and lose meanings with relative ease, they also accumulate them. Thus, the relatively new usages of aggravate and gay have not meant complete loss of their older senses (we still use aggravate to mean ‘to make worse’, as in if you scratch that rash, you’ll aggravate it; and we still understand the ‘cheerful’ meaning of phrases such as with gay abandon), and they may well go on to gain new ones. Overall, arbitrariness and polysemy appear to be pre-conditions for change in meaning: speakers can make any one or more meanings dominant in usage, and the independence of the signifier and the signified from each other does not essentially restrict such movement.
Other factors that open the way to semantic change include re-interpretation of data in the inter-generational transmission of a native language, changes in the material culture in which a language exists (since meaning appears to be inextricably intertwined with culture), changes in communities of users and the unfolding of processes of change in other components of the language with which meaning is closely linked. With regard to the first point, since carers do not actually transmit a clearly delineated and defined language to children, the latter may sometimes interpret linguistic data in different ways from adult speakers. In some instances, this may lead to semantic change. McMahon (1994: 177) cites as an example the change from Old English (ge)be¯d ‘prayer’ modern bead:
if an adult using a rosary explains to a child that she is counting her beads, we have an ambiguous context: the adult intends to convey that she is saying her prayers, but the child sees only the accompanying concrete action involving the movement of the little spheres which make up the rosary. Bead consequently alters its sense.
Changes in the material culture can also lead to semantic change in particular words. The word car (from Latin carrus ‘four-wheeled vehicle, chariot’) has had a long history in English, initially being used to denote wagons drawn by animals and now, due to technological innovation, vehicles that run on a more metaphorical type of horsepower. The fact that words are adopted into use by various (and numerous) social groups also facilitates meaning change: the use of words such as mouse, virus, infection, cookie, avatar, windows and firewall in the domain of computers (and presumably, initially by the computer-literate), for example, has given these words additional meanings, many of which have now passed back into general usage. Similarly, words once exclusively used in particular domains are now used with somewhat different meanings by the wider community. Lure, for example, which now carries the meaning ‘to attract’, originated in falconry, where it was used to describe the feathery object a falconer would use to attract a hawk. Trauma began as a medical term describing muscular damage, but in general usage now refers to a mental state of upset: we talk of emotional and mental trauma, and can be traumatized by events that do not directly and physically impact on us.
Changes in a language’s morphosyntax and lexicon can also be conducive to semantic change. Thus, a change such as grammaticalization, in which a ‘full’ word loses its autonomous status and comes to fulfil a grammatical function (see Section 1.5) typically involves change in meaning, as can be seen in the shift from Latin passus ‘step’ to the French negative adverb pas. Similarly, the
English as a Changing Language 21
introduction of loanwords into a language may also catalyze semantic change. If a loan comes to take over the principal meaning of a native word, then speakers may retain the latter and make one of its other meanings more central. The principal meanings of modern womb, stool and worm, for example, were once marginal in their OE antecedents wambe, sto¯l and wyrm, which carried the central meanings now part of the loans stomach ( Old French estomac), throne ( Old French trone) and dragon ( Old French dragon). Finally, psychological factors may be involved in semantic change (Ullmann, 1962). McMahon (1994: 181) notes that these may underlie both cases of re-interpretation (such as that proposed for bead) and instances where taboo topics come to be referred to by euphemistic expressions (see discussion below). As we will see, terms which are introduced as euphemisms often undergo change in meaning: sleep, for example, has acquired a particular meaning through its use as a euphemism for a sexual relationship (as in he’s sleeping with Ella).
We now turn to some of the more common patterns of semantic change. One such is restriction (also known as narrowing or specialization), in which a meaning becomes more specific and thus narrows the application of the word to which it is attached. Thus, Old English de¯or was once used as a general term of reference for all animals. However, this function was eventually taken over by the Latin loan animal and modern deer now applies to a specific type of beast. Other cases include OE me¯te, which was used to refer generally to food, unlike its modern descendant meat; OE hu¯ nd, once used to denote all canine types but now, in its modern form hound, typically applied to the hunting dog; and liquor (ME licour from French licur/licour), at one time a generic term for fluid but now mainly used as a label for a potent brew (examples from Pyles and Algeo, 1982: 244).
Another common change (but less frequent than restriction) is extension, also known as generalization or broadening. Here, a meaning becomes less specific, thus allowing for a broader use of the relevant word. The principal meaning of the word mill, for example, used to be contained in its reference to a place for grinding meal (the words meal and mill are in fact derived from the same source). However, the element of grinding meal appears to have been eroded, and a mill is now a place where practically anything can be made – witness steel mill, cotton mill, woollen mill and interestingly flour mill, the original product of mill grinding. Similarly, barn was once used to denote a storehouse specifically for barley but today can shelter anything from hay to animals to old biplanes; and our word arrive, which can now be used to mean ‘to come to a place’, once had the specific meaning of coming to a shore (the word derives from Vulgar Latin *arripare (ad ‘to’ rı¯pa ‘shore’) (McMahon, 1994: 179)).
Another common process of semantic change is metaphorization, through which words take on metaphorical dimensions of meaning in instances where speakers want to establish a link between two concepts. Good examples of this process can be seen in the metaphorical use of body parts in English: we talk about the foot of a mountain, the eye of a needle, the mouth of a river, the head of a company and the final leg of a race. We also use animal labels metaphorically when we apply them to humans: we call someone who we think is conniving and malicious catty, a timid person mousy and someone who whizzes from occasion to
22 The History of English
occasion a social butterfly. An apparently sexually predatory male is a wolf, while his female counterpart is a vixen or minx. A deceitful person can be a worm, an alluring female a fox, and an unlikeable one a cow. Food also provides terms which are used metaphorically: we can say that someone is a honey or that they are bananas, or a few sandwiches short of a picnic. In British colloquial usage, tart is used to describe (mainly) women thought to have multiple sexual partners, an attractive woman may be termed a bit of crumpet, and an extremely good-looking escort (male or female) is eyeor arm- candy. In general, metaphorical use tends to give words an additional abstract meaning: a quality evident not only in the examples above but also in the use of words such as grasp, which can refer to both a physical and mental hold (as in she grasped the window frame/I find it hard to grasp what she’s saying), see which refers to both a visual and mental process (he saw them coming up the drive/can you see what he means?) and come and go, both of which denote physical movement as well as more mental developments (as in he is coming here/can you see where I’m coming from? and he’s going to Newcastle tomorrow/my life is going nowhere). There is no shortage of such examples in English since, as Trask (1996: 44) notes, ‘almost any sort of resemblance, real or imagined, may cause a word to be pressed into service as a metaphor’.
Semantic change may also occur through the metonymic use of words, which is based on a ‘real rather than imagined link between concepts’ (McMahon, 1994: 183). The most common type of metonymy is that in which a term that labels part of an entity comes to represent the whole. For example, an additional (and metonymic) meaning of words such as crown and throne is ‘sovereign’ (as in James Bond is in the service of the Crown and who is the power behind the throne?). Similarly, the places where centres of power are located come to stand for an entire office: a statement from the White House, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace is ultimately, and respectively, from the President of the United States, the British Prime Minister and the British monarch.
Synecdoche is the opposite of part-for-whole metonymy. Here, a term which describes an entity comes to be used to refer to a part. Thus, when we say things like Rumania and China are finalists in the gymnastics competition, we are in fact using the names of countries to mean their respective athletes. Similar examples can be seen in Shakespeare plays such as King Lear, where titled individuals are referred to by the names of their territories. In Act I, Scene 1 of that play, for instance, the king calls his daughter Regan wife of Cornwall (meaning wife of the duke of Cornwall, line 68), rebukes the earl of Kent with Kent, on thy life, no more! (line 155) and gives his daughter Cordelia in marriage to the king of France (Thou hast her, France; let her be thine (line 262)).
Words and their meanings can also undergo amelioration and pejoration. In both cases, a meaning change involves a measure of evaluation from speakers, who come to rate the word either positively or negatively. The effects of amelioration, a process through which words gain positive, or better, connotations, can be seen in the change of meaning in knight, whose principal meaning has an aristocratic flavour quite distinct from its humble OE ancestor cniht ‘boy’, ‘servant’; praise ‘to value highly’, which descends from appraise meaning simply ‘to put a value on’; and nice, which although regarded by many speakers as a ‘tired’ and ‘overused’
English as a Changing Language 23
word, is actually derived from Latin nescius meaning ‘ignorant’ (examples from Pyles and Algeo, 1982: 248). Amelioration can sometimes lead to the weakening of a previously strong negative meaning: words such as terribly and awfully, for example, can now be used as alternatives to very, and in such contexts, carry no hint of negativity (as in he’s terribly good; she’s awfully pretty).
Conversely, pejoration involves a downward shift in evaluative attitude, and has occurred in English with words such as sæ¯ lig ‘blessed’, which is quite different from its modern counterpart silly, and vulgar, which today has negative associations not present in its earlier use as a term of reference for the commonality (the meaning implied in phrases such as Vulgar Latin). Boor, which once had the meaning ‘peasant’, has also undergone pejoration, as has lewd, which at one time described the laity (as opposed to the clergy) (examples from Pyles and Algeo, 1982: 247). A recent example of pejoration in Britain can also be seen in the word asylum. When the word was first borrowed in the fifteenth century (from French asyle), it was used principally to denote a place where religious protection was offered to those accused of crimes or bad debts. By the seventeenth century it was used in reference to any place of refuge, and later in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this particular meaning became restricted to denoting homes for people with ailments. Further restriction made asylum the term for places in which people with mental illness were treated and consequently resulted in its pejoration. In fact, as Morrish (2001: 11) points out, the word was so negatively viewed that in the 1970s and 1980s, its use in this sense had become taboo. Interestingly, in a separate development, the seventeenth-century meaning of ‘sanctuary’ continued in political contexts, as is evident in phrases such as political asylum. This was not initially evaluated negatively: during the Cold War, many dissidents, deserters and spies were offered asylum by the West, since ‘their own countries wanted them, and so did we’ (ibid.). Today, however, many Britons hear the word (in its political sense) in the phrase asylum seeker which, given the concerns and fears about immigration frequently voiced in the popular press, has come to have many negative associations. Asylum has therefore undergone pejoration in this context as well.
You will notice in other readings that pejoration is often discussed in conjunction with taboo and euphemism. Societies often develop taboos about a range of subjects which are variously seen as unpleasant, embarrassing, dangerous or extremely and uncomfortably powerful, and so avoid naming or talking about them directly. In such cases, euphemistic expressions are used instead, often effecting a semantic change in those terms themselves. Thus, English Lord, French Le Seigneur and Old English hælende ‘healer’ all allow for indirect reference to God (and in the case of the Old English term, Jesus). Animals such as weasels, wolves and bears have historically been tabooed from direct reference in many Indo-European languages, presumably because of the danger they once presented to human communities. The English word bear is thus originally a euphemistic term once used to mean ‘brown’. Similarly, many societies have long viewed death as an uncomfortable subject for direct discussion. Some English speakers therefore prefer instead euphemistic expressions such as passed away or gone to sleep, giving a new meaning to such phrases. Indeed, even the word