23. The nature and causes of semantic change. Types of semantic change.

Semantic change is the process of development of a new meaning or any other change of meaning.

Extra-linguistic causes of semantic changes:

-historical, e.g. a pen ‘any instrument for writing’ < Lat. penna ‘a feather of a bird’; supper ‘the last meal of the day’ < Fr. souper < PIE *sup ‘to drink in sips’;

-social, e.g. a live wire ‘one carrying electric current’ > ‘a person of intense energy’, a feed-back ‘the return of a sample of the output of a system’ > ‘response’, to spark off in chain reaction, a launching pad;

-psychological, e.g. a don ‘a university teacher, a leader, a master’ > ‘the head of Mafia family or other group involved in organised crime’, bikini.

Linguistic Causes of Semantic Change

ellipsis is the omittance of one of the components in a word-group; the meaning is transferred to the other component, e.g. a presale view > a presale; to study works by Ch. Dickens > to study Dickens;

differentiation of synonyms, i.e. a gradual change of the meanings of synonyms which develop different semantic structures, e.g. autumn – harvest, a deer – a beast – an animal;

fixed context results from synonymic differentiation when one of the synonyms becomes to be restricted in use to a number of set expressions and compound words, e.g. meat originally ‘food’ (mincemeat, nutmeat, sweetmeat, meat and drink) > ‘edible flesh’;

linguistic analogy occurs when one of the members of a synonymic set acquires a new meaning and the other members of this set change their menaings in the same way, e.g. to snack – to bite.

Types of Semantic Change (by H. Hirt)

Changes in the denotative component of meaning:

generalisation (broadening, extension) is the widening of a word’s range of meanings, e.g. a fellow ‘a partner or shareholder of any kind’ > ‘a man; a person in the same group’; ready ‘prepared for a ride’ > ‘prepared for anything’; rich ‘powerful’ > ‘wealthy’ etc.;

specialisation (narrowing, restriction) is the reduction in a word’s range of meanings, often limiting a generic word to a more specialised or technical use, e.g. lord ‘the master of the house, the head of the family’ > ‘a man of noble rank’; a disease ‘any inconvenience’ > ‘an illness’; to sell ‘to give’ > ‘to deliver for money’ etc.

Changes in the connotative component of meaning:

amelioration (elevation) of meaning occurs as a word loses negative connotations or gains positive ones, e.g. a knight ‘a boy, youth’ > ‘a noble, courageous man’; fond ‘foolish, silly’ > ‘loving, affectionate’; pretty ‘tricky, sly wily’ > ‘pleasing to look at, charming and attractive’ etc.;

pejoration (degradation) of meaning occurs as a word develops negative connotations or loses positive ones; it is frequently due to social prejudice and often involves words for women and foreigners, e.g. vulgar ‘common, ordinary’ > ‘coarse, low, ill-bred’; silly ‘happy’ > ‘foolish’. A word can have its meaning deteriorate in several directions at once, e.g. a cowboy – (in BrE) ‘an incompetent or irresponsible workman or business’ (cowboy plumbers); (in AmE) ‘a driver who does not follow the rules of the road’; ‘a factory worker who does more than the piece-work norms set by the union or fellow-workers’.

A euphemism (Gr. éu ‘well’, phēmi ‘speak, glorify’; euphēmia ‘a word or phrase used in place of a religious word or phrase that should not be spoken aloud’) is a vague or indirect reference to the taboo topics:

-death, e.g. to join the majority, to kick the bucket, pass away, to check out, to take a leave of life, to pay nature’s last debt, to be beyond the veil etc.;

-human weaknesses, e.g. to be tired and emotional, to be chemically affected (to be drunk), to have a weakness for horses (gambling) etc.;

-mental deficiency, e.g. to be intellectually challenged, to be thick in the head, funny farm etc.;

-pregnancy, e.g. to be eating for two, lady-in-waiting, in the family way, on the nest, in the interesting way, to have a bun in the oven etc;

-age, e.g. God’s waiting room, the golden age etc.;

- politics, e.g. less fortunate elements (the poor), the economic tunnel (the crisis) etc.