41. Speak on the causes and nature of semantic change.

The systems of meanings of polysemantic words evolve gradually. The older a word is, the better developed is its semantic structure, i.e. words acquire new meanings. The semantic change may be analysed according to the cause, nature and results.

The factors accounting for semantic changes may be roughly subdivided into two groups: extra-linguistic, linguistic causes.

By extra-linguistic causes (non-verbal) 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, changes in culture, arts as reflected in word meanings. Newly created objects, new concepts and phenomena must obtain names. We already know of two ways for providing new names for newly created concepts: making new words (word-building) and borrowing foreign ones. One more way of filling such vocabulary gaps is by applying some old word to a new object or notion. F: when the first textile factories appeared in England, the old mill was applied to these early industrial enterprises. In this way mill (a Latin borrowing of the first century) added a new meaning to its former meaning “a building in which corn is ground into flour”. The new meaning was “textile factory”. F: carriage which had the meaning “a vehicle drawn by horses”, but with the first appearance of railways in England, it received a new meaning, that of “a railway car”.

By linguistic causes we mean factors acting within the language system or through the influence of other words, mostly of synonyms. F: the word land in old English meant both “solid part of earth’s surface” and “the territory of a nation”. When in middle English period the word country was borrowed at its synonym, the meaning of the word land was somewhat altered and “the territory of a nation” came to be denoted mainly by the borrowed word country.

Nature of semantic change: linguistic metaphor and linguistic metonymy

Generally speaking, of any semantic change has some associations between the old meaning and the new. There are two kinds of association involved in various semantic changes: similarity of meaning (metaphor) and contiguity of meaning (metonymy). In other words transference based on Resemblance is metaphor. Transference based on contiguity is metonymy. The process of development of a new meaning or a change of meaning is traditionally termed transference. The transfer of the meaning on the basis of comparison or resemblance is called metaphor. For example,

1. similarity of shape, e.g. head of a cabbage, bottleneck, teeth of a comb

2. similarity of position, e.g. foot of a mountain, a page, leg of a table

3. similarity of function, behaviour, e.g. branch of a science

4. similarity of colour, e.g. orange, chestnut

5. metaphors which are based on parts of a human body, e.g. an eye of a needle, mouth of a river, head of an army

6. when proper names become common nouns, e.g. vandals-destructive people, a Don Juan-a lover of many women

The transfer of the meaning on the basis of contiguity is called metonymy. For example,

There are different types of metonymy:

1. the material of which an object is made may become the name of the object, e.g. a glass, boards, iron

2. the name of the place may become the name of the people or of an object placed there, e.g. the House –members of Parliament, Fleet Street – bourgeois press, the White House – the administration of the USA

3. names of musical instruments may become names of musicians, e.g. the violin, the saxophone

4. the name of some person may become a common noun, e.g. boycott was originally the name of an Irish family who were so much disliked by their neighbours that they did not mix with them, sandwich-was named after Lord sandwich who was a gambler. He did not want to interrupt his game and had his food brought to him while he was playing cards between two slices of bread not to soil his fingers.

5. names of inventors very often become terms to denote things they invented, e.g. watt, om, roentgen

6. some geographical names can also become common nouns through metonymy, e.g. Holland (linen fabrics), Brussels (a special kind of carpets), china (porcelain), astrakhan (a sheep fur)

Linguistic 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. This association is based upon subtle psychological links between different objects and phenomena, sometimes traced and identified with much difficulty. The two objects may be associated together because they often appear in common situations, and so the image of one is easily accompanied by the image of the other; or they may be associated on the principle of cause and effect, of common function, of some material and an object which is made of it.