Seminar № 5 Semasiology. Polysemy. Change of meaning

1. Semasiology. Definition of meaning. Referential and functional approaches to meaning. Types of word meaning.

2. Polysemy in English, its role and sources.

3. Context, types of context.

4. Change of meaning:

1. semantic change in denotation (extention and narrowing of meaning);

2. semantic change in connotation (elevation and degradation of meaning);

5. Transference of name: metaphor (zoosemy); metonymy;

Literature: [3-6, 10, 12, 22, 28-30, 33, 34, 36, 37, 46, 47, 52]

Exercises

Ex.1 Comment on the polysemy of the noun “bottom” as used in the following sentences:

1. The steamer touched the bottom of the river. 2. He emptied the glass to the very bottom. 3. Let’s meet at the bottom of the stairs. 4. He has always been at the bottom of the class. 5. It is my bottom penny. 6. He examined me from top to bottom. 7. At last we got to the bottom of the problem. 8. At the bottom of her heart she was sorry for him. 9. I got to the bottom of the ladder. 10. I think a special copy should have been sent to me. What? Initialled at the bottom by “F.E.G.” 11. He was wondering how the fact that the bottom was going to drop out of local street-railways would affect Cowperwood so seriously.

Ex.2 Comment on the meanings of the following adjectives in the given phrases:

bitter taste (medicine, fighting, attack on somebody, dispute over something);

fine day (woman, future, linen, sand, rain, gold, question, mistake);

naked body (room, trees, facts, truth; with a naked eye, as naked as one’s mother bore);

new house (baby, information, fashion, soldier, milk, potatoes; to become a new man).

Ex.3 Trace the process of:

a) extension of meaning: arrive, free, Utopian;

b) narrowing the meaning: bread, girl, hospital, wife;

c) elevation of meaning: adore, marshal, nice;

d) degradation of meaning: gossip, idiot, silly, vulgar.

Ex.4 Comment on zoozemy. Say what we mean when we call a person:

an ass, a bear, a chicken, a dog, a donkey, a fox, a kitten, a lion, a mule, a parrot, a pig, a sheep, a tiger, a wolf

Ex.5 State the cause of the change in the meaning of the italicized words:

1. I have been green, too, Miss Eyre. 2. I took him for a man of other metal. 3. Silence on both sides. “Have you lost your tongue, Jack? Have you found yours, Ned?”. 4. It was the first blustering breath of winter. 5. But when his eyes fell on the picture of Anne, his face fell too, and she looked quickly at Fleur. 6. In his cousin’s face, with its unseizable family likeness to himself and its chinny, narrow, concentrated look, Jolyon saw that and he thought: “That chap could never forget anything – nor give himself away”. 7. Lady Alison fell into a train of thought. 8. I was ready for me knife and folk. 9. Whenever the House votes, the duty of the MP is to vote with his party. 10. At bottom, I thought, his tastes were simpler than mine. 11. She was trying to sound warm. 12. It will be a black day for me.