CHANGE OF MEANING

University of Baghdad
college of arts
English department

BY HIBA DHAFER
MA STUDENT
INTRODUCTION
Sapir states that language has a drift. Nothing is static. Each and
every aspect of it is changing, that is the life of language. All
linguistic elements are caught up in this drift and MEANING is the
least resistant to change.

Change of meaning monopolized the attention of early semanticians.
Breal (the founder of modern semantics) and Reisig set the task of
exploring the laws which govern the development of meaning.

Until the early 1930s only two problems were the center of interest:
1. Classification of changes of meaning.
2. Discovery of semantic laws.

In the last thirty years, the interest shifted to descriptive and
structural problems and change of meaning has been neglected but
some of the structuralist experiments are likely to revive the study
of semantic change.
Factors which facilitate semantic changes are:

1. Language is handed down in a discontinuous way:
(bead from prayer to small pierced ball)
2. Vagueness: (meaning of words is more liable to change
than their shape, structure and use)
3. Loss of motive: (lady / lord)
4. Polysemy: (accidental / permanent)
5. Ambiguous contexts: (beads = prayers / rosary balls)
6. The structure of vocabulary: (unstable, fluid and mobile)
The Causes of Semantic Change
Six causes for meaning change are stated below, the first three are
the major ones provided by Antoine Meillet and the other three are
added by Ullman (1962):

1. Linguistic causes: due to contagion (French personne)
2. Historical causes: language is more conservative than civilization
(concepts change but names are retained to ensure a sense of
tradition and continuity):
a. Objects: (car from Celtic carrus)
b. Institutions: (Parliament from Old French parlement)
c. Ideas: (from being scientific to general idea: humour)
d. Scientific concepts: (electricity / geometry)

3. Social causes:
a. Specialization of meaning in a restricted social group. The
range of words is narrowed (French ordinary verb passed into
farm-yard language: to draw = to milk).
b. Generalization of meaning: (in hunting and falconry to
allure: apparatus used by falconers to recall their hawks > thing
that attracts and invites)
The Causes of Semantic Change
4. Psychological causes: have their roots in the speakers
state of mind. Forms pass from individual style into
common usage by means of:
a) Emotive factors: are highly related to feelings.
i. Centres of attraction: the interest of a generation reflected
in its choice of metaphor. (argument for it: religion and
science/ argument against it: aviation)
ii. Centres of expansion: is related to literature and the theory
of dominant metaphor. The dominant interests and
preoccupations of a writer are mirrored in his imagery.
(argument for it: Flood/ argument against it: insects)
b) Taboo: signifies that a thing is forbidden.
i. Taboo of fear: (Voldemort: He who shall not be named)
ii. Taboo of delicacy: (idiot: laymen/ to organize: steal)
iii. Taboo of propriety: (sblood: Gods blood/ darn: damn/ heck:
hell)
The Causes of Semantic Change
5. Foreign influence: (lesser and Great bear: two
constellations)

6. The need for a new name: scientific discoveries made it
necessary to find new names, and the need was met by:
a) Forming a new word: (flying boats, fortresses, saucers)
b) Altering the meaning of an already existing word: (tank)
c) Borrowing a term from other languages and adding
fresh meanings to them: (satellite)

The speed of scientific and technological progress in our time
is making increasingly heavy demands on linguistic
resources, and possibilities of metaphor and other types of
semantic change are being fully exploited.
Nature makes no leaps. There must always be some connection, some
association between the old and the new meaning. Association is a
necessary condition of semantic change.
If meaning is seen as a reciprocal and reversible relation between
name and sense then semantic changes will fall into two categories:
1. Association between senses.
2. Association between names.
Those are further subdivided between two kinds of association:
similarity and contiguity.
The two pairs yield four cardinal types of semantic change:
1. similarity of the senses (Metaphor )
2. contiguity of the senses (metonymy)
3. similarity of the names (popular etymology)
4. contiguity of the names (Ellipsis)
The Nature of Semantic Change
1.similarity of the senses (Metaphor)
Metaphor: is a condensed comparison positing an intuitive
and concrete identity.
Aristotle states that the greatest thing by far is to have
command of metaphor.
a) The basic structure of metaphor:
1. Tenor: the thing we are talking about (muscle).
2. Vehicle: the thing we are comparing it to (little mouse).
3. Ground: the features they have in common (similarity).

b) The similarity between tenor and vehicle is either
objective (muscle) or emotive (bitter disappointment).

c) The angle of the image: the distance between the tenor
and vehicle is an important factor in the effectiveness of the
metaphor:
1. The closer the distance, the less the expressive quality.
2. Drawing unexpected parallels between disparate objects
produces the surprise effect writers are fond of.
1.similarity of the senses (Metaphor)
d) Four major groups of metaphor are
recognized:

1. Anthropomorphic metaphors: from (hands of a
clock, heart of the matter)/ towards (muscle, Adams
apple).
2. Animal metaphor:
i. Plants: (goats-beard, dogs-tail)
ii. Insentient objects like instruments and machines:
(cat-head, crane)
iii. Humans: (hes a rat/ behaves fishy/ parrots my
words)
3. From concrete to abstract: (light: throw light on,
radiant, illuminating/ time: the flow of time)
4. Synaesthetic metaphor: (warm or cold voice, loud
colors, sweet odours, smelling music)
2. Contiguity of senses (Metonymy)
Metonymy: arises between words already related to each
other. Metonymies are best classified according to the
associations underlying them into:
1. Spatial relation: French joue=cheek is taken into
English as jaw.
2. Temporal relations: Latin missa=dismissed at the end
of the service came to stand for the service itself and is
taken into English as mass.
3. Part for the whole: four-eyes, big-mouth, stuffed-shirt,
high-pockets.
i. Inventions and discoveries are often named after the
person responsible for them: volt
ii. Foods and drinks are names after their place of origin:
sandwich after the Earl of Sandwich.
4. The content after the container: I drank the whole
bottle.
5. Giving abstract words a concrete meaning: shes a
beauty, hes the pride of his family, they are the elite.
3. Similarity of names
(Popular etymology)
Popular etymology can change both the form and
meaning of a word by wrongly connecting it with
another term to which it is similar in sound.
Changes of meaning due to phonetic similarity are
considered pseudo-semantic development and are
of two groups:
1. The old sense and the new are close to each other:
(boon is influenced by homonymous adj. boon
derived from the French adj. bon)
2. The two meaning are so diverse that there seems to be
no connection between them: (French essuyer=to
wipe, to dry and to suffer, to endure the second
meaning is a case of pseudo-semantic development due
to confusion with essayer=to try, to endure, to
experience)
Words which often occur side by side are apt to have
a semantic influence on each other.

The commonest form which this influence takes is
ellipsis.

In a set phrase made of two words, one of these is
omitted and its meaning is transferred to its partner:
the main for the main sea, and a daily for a
daily paper, un goal for goal-keeper.
4. Contiguity of names (Ellipsis)
1. The associations between senses are of great significance than
those between names.
2. Many semantic changes seem to fit into more than one
category: (Picasso: a painting by Picasso) is it metonymic or
elliptical? They are regarded as composite changes due to the
interplay of two different types of associations.

3. The semantic development of many words consists of a series of
successive changes which may take them very far from their
original sense: (French cadeau first used to signify capital
letter=strokes of calligraphy=superfluous words used as
ornaments=entertainment, amusement, especially when
offered to a lady=present, gift)
4. The search for laws governing changes in meaning has been
one of the main preoccupations of semanticians.
General comments
Many early writers on semantics divided the consequences which
may result from semantics changes into two problems:

1. Changes in range
i. Extension
ii. Restriction
iii. Miscellaneous

2. Changes in evaluation
i. Pejoration
ii. Amelioration
The Consequences of semantic
change
1. Changes in range
a. Restriction of meaning (more common)
1. It reduces the extension of words while increases their
intension: (voyage = journey = by sea/water)
2. It can be caused by: specialization (French to draw=to
milk), ellipsis (canine for canine tooth), euphemism (idiot used
to mean layman), and many others.
3. Names of animals have been restricted from genus to species:
(Deer used to mean beast)
4. Some verbs developed on similar line: (to starve used to
mean to die)
b. Extension of meaning (less common)
1. It increases the extension of words while decreases their
intension: (target: shield-like structure marked with
concentric circles, set up to be aimed at in shooting)
2. Extension is due to social factors (arrive: come to shore) or the
need for omnibus words with hazy general meaning
(machine became omnibus in French meaning: thing, gadget,
etc.).
3. Several names of plants and animals have widened their
meanings: plants (rose=flower)/animal (bird=used to
mean young bird)
2. Changes in Evaluation
a. Pejorative development: is a symptom of a pessimistic
streak in the human mind. Forces behind it are:
1. Euphemism/ pseudo-euphemism: (disease, undertaker, silly)
2. Influence of certain associations: (Latin captivus:
prisoner=weak=base=mean=villain/ wretch: exile)
3. Prejudice: i. Xenophobia: (slave from Slav)
ii. Against certain classes or occupations: (boor:
peasant/ knave: a boy employed as a servant/
bourgeois)
b. Ameliorative development: are of two categories:
1. Purely negative improvement:
i. gradual weakening of terms (blame used to mean
blaspheme/ pest used to mean pestilence)
ii. Complete canceling of unpleasant meaning: (awful)
2. Positive improvement:
i. Simple association of ideas: (nice: ignorant=wanton=
trivial=delicate=delightful=kind)
ii. Social factors: (Chancellor: usher stationed at the law
court=secretary, notary= had judicial functions)

Ullman, S. (1962). Semantics: An Introduction to
Science of Meaning. NY: Barnes & Nobles.

Online Resourses:

http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/semanticch
angeterm.htm

https://www.uni-
due.de/SHE/HE_Change_Semantic.htm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/27983392/Types-
of-Semantic-Change

References