3

INTRODUCTION

Among the word's various characteristics, meaning is certainly the most

important. Generally speaking, meaning can be more or less described as a
component of the word through which a concept is communicated, in this way
endowing the word with the ability of denoting real objects, qualities, actions and
abstract notions.
Linguistic meaning is the content carried by the words or signs exchanged
by people when communicating through language. Restated, the communication of
meaning is the purpose and function of language. A communicated meaning will
(more or less accurately) replicate between individuals either a direct perception or
some sentient derivation thereof. Meanings may take many forms, such as evoking
a certain idea, or denoting a certain real-world entity. Moreover meanings may
change. /4, 15/
Language changes because so many people speak it and because even today
it is impossible to control the norm. Change in pronunciation, grammar, and usage
signifies the collapse of the formerly accepted standard and puts the guardians of
the norm on the defensive. Meaning changes unpredictably, so much that every
now and then a word turns into its antonym. The fact is that words do change in
meaning, and sometimes radically so. Thus the research of semantic change seems
to be very topical. It is interesting to see how the meaning of a word can change
from something good to something bad.
In conformity with everything foregoing the theme of the term paper is
“Change of word meaning over the time”.
The aim of the research is to investigate how words can change their
meanings.
In order to attain the aim it should be done several tasks, such as:
1. to perform the process of semantic change of words;
2. to describe scholars’ points of view and their classifications suggested
for semantic change;
 4
3. to state main ways in which words change meanings.
The object of the research, thereby, is word meaning as changing concept.
Its subject comprises investigation of changes of word meaning.
The following methods were used to solve the tasks mentioned above:
studying and analysis of theoretical literature on the theme; the methods of
comparison, observation, description, and means of semantic and componential
analyses.
Change of word meaning is the process that takes place nowadays. The
process of development of a new meaning or a change of meaning is traditionally
termed transference. The result of such transference is the appearance of a new
meaning. Scientific novelty of the research is bringing out main types of semantic
change and tracing such change by some examples analyzing them.
The following hypothesis is proposed: change of meaning is the process
when the old meaning is completely replaced by the new one and it may occur in
different way.
The theoretical significance of the work lies in the fact that through analysis
of literature on the theme and examples of change of meaning semantic changes
were found out and showed; generalization of results of the research and making
up final conclusions have been performed in the enumeration of main types of
semantic change.
The practical significance of the research is potential employment results of
the research by people who study lexicology and are interested in this theme. The
results of the research can be used by students and teachers of English and English
lexicologists. As well they can be used as material for special courses on
lexicology for students of English department.
The structure of the research includes introduction, two chapters, conclusion
and bibliographical list.
 5
1. CHANGE OF WORD MEANING.

1.1. Semantic changes over the time

If you have ever wondered why words change meanings, just imagine what
language would be like if every word had only one meaning. We would have to
invent hundreds of thousands of words for all the meanings we would wish to
convey! How would we remember so many words? We would have to walk
around with backpacks stuffed with dictionaries. We would become paralyzed by
verbal gridlock. Communication would be so exhausting that many speakers would
retreat to the grunts, squeals, and yowls of cavemen. /5, 72/
Changes in meanings make language flexible and malleable. But how do
words take on new meanings? The study of meanings and the changes of meaning
that words undergo is called semantics (from Greek semantikos “having meaning,
signifying”). So semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word.
Semantic change can be viewed dispassionately as a natural process. /12, 20/ An
example of a recent semantic change is of the word mouse; with the advent of
computer technology, the word for the rodent has been used to refer to the input
device.
Many English words have changed meaning in fascinating, unusual, and
unexpected ways. Sometimes the meaning of a word can even change from
something good to something bad. /15, 42/
For example, the English word "imp" once meant "a young shoot of a
plant." Later, the word came to mean "child." Prayers made years ago for the
Prince of Wales referred to him as "that most angelic imp." However, today, the
word imp means "an evil creature." /3, 54/
Another example of an English word which has changed in meaning from
good to evil is the word "gay." Not many years ago in the thirteenth century, the
English word gay (from Old French gai, from Old Provençal, of Germanic origin)
was an adjective which meant happily excited, merry and lively. Today, the
predominant use of the word is as a noun, meaning homosexual. A few years ago,
 6
it would have been a compliment to say that Pastor Peters is a gay man and that the
church he pastors is a "gay" church. Today, to say such would be libelous and
slanderous - a complete lie. Today, it would be defamation of a Christian's
character for the media to accuse him of being "gay," or to portray him as such.
Just as the meaning of the words imp and gay have changed from something
innocuous to something evil, so also the meaning of the word tawdry has changed
from benign to evil.
And vice versa, sometimes words change their meaning from something bad
to something good.
An example would be the word nice. Nice used to be an insult and meant
foolish or stupid in the thirteenth century and it went through many changes right
through to the eighteenth century with meanings like wanton, extravagant, elegant,
strange, modest, thin, and shy or coy. Now it means a good and pleasing or
thoughtful and kind.
Silly meant blessed or happy in the eleventh century and went through pious,
innocent, harmless, pitiable and feeble minded before ending up as foolish or
stupid.
Pretty started as crafty this changed to clever or skillfully made, then to fine
and ended up as beautiful
Some other changes are:
In the thirteenth century awful meant deserving of awe and then ended up as
terrible or horrible.
Bead (Old English bed prayer; related to Old High German gibet prayer)
started as prayer and now it means rosary, paternoster.
In the fifteenth century brave meant cowardice (as in bravado) and changed
to courageous, dauntless, and fearless. /2, 25/
The word girl of uncertain origin (perhaps related to Low German Göre boy,
girl) had meaning “young person of either sex” in the thirteenth century and now it
means a female child from birth to young womanhood.
 7
Neck means the part of an organism connecting the head with the rest of the
body but the old meaning was a parcel of land (as in neck of the woods).
In the fifteenth century nuisance (via Old French from nuire to injure, from
Latin nocēre) started as injury, harm and ended up as a person or thing that causes
annoyance or bother.
Sophisticated means having refined or cultured tastes and habits and meant
corrupted.
In actual fact, all cases of development or change of meaning are based on
some association. In the history of the word carriage (from Old Northern French
cariage), in the fourteenth century the new travelling conveyance was also
naturally associated in people's minds with the old one: horse-drawn vehicle > part
of a railway train. Both these objects were related to the idea of travelling. The job
of both, the horse-drawn carriage and the railway carriage is the same: to carry
passengers on a journey. So the association was logically well-founded.
Stalls and box formed their meanings in which they denoted parts of the
theatre on the basis of a different type of association. The meaning of the word box
"a small separate enclosure forming a part of the theatre" developed on the basis of
its former meaning "a rectangular container used for packing or storing things".
The two objects became associated in the speakers' minds because boxes in the
earliest English theatres really resembled packing cases. They were enclosed on all
sides and heavily curtained even on the side facing the audience so as to conceal
the privileged spectators occupying them from curious or insolent stares.
The association on which the theatrical meaning of stalls was based is even
more curious. The original meaning was "compartments in stables or sheds for the
accommodation of animals (e. g. cows, horses, etc.)". There does not seem to be
much in common between the privileged and expensive part of a theatre and
stables intended for cows and horses, unless we take into consideration the fact that
theatres in olden times greatly differed from what they are now. What is now
known as the stalls was, at that time, standing space divided by barriers into
sections so as to prevent the enthusiastic crowd from knocking one other down and
 8
hurting themselves. So, there must have been a certain outward resemblance
between theatre stalls and cattle stalls. It is also possible that the word was first
used humorously or satirically in this new sense. /1, 148/
There are several reasons for words change meaning. One is the influence of
other languages and cultures. Throughout history, many nations through
conquering or intermixing with one another, introduced their own languages into
the mix. Another reason is the predominate use of slang words. We get so used to
using them that many times we forget that we even are.
The discussion of meaning change is often emotionally charged, with the
meanings perceived as "improving" (amelioration) or "worsening" (pejoration)
over time.
As languages develop the meaning of words can change over time. This
causes confusion and misunderstanding when communicating with other people.
So if you communicate with other people, it is not only important to have
clarity in your message, it is also important to think of your interlocutors and
understand how they understand words and messages.
On the positive side that words change meaning over time, it is a fact that
languages that stay alive, adapt and grow over time.

1.2. Scholars’ classifications of semantic change

Bloomfield’s classification
Recent overviews have been presented by Blank and Blank & Koch (1999).
Semantic change had attracted academic discussions already in ancient times. The
first major works of modern times were Reisig (1839), Darmesteter (1887), Bréal
(1899), Paul (1880), Stern (1931), Bloomfield (1933) and Stephen Ullmann.
Studies beyond the analysis of single words have been started with the word-field
analyses of Trier (1931), who claimed that every semantic change of a word would
 9
also affect all other words in a lexical field. His approach was later refined by
Coseriu (1964).
As stated above, the most currently used typologies are those by Bloomfield
(1933) and Blank (1998) and other typologies are listed below.
A number of classification schemes have been suggested for semantic
change. The most widely accepted scheme in the English-speaking academic world
is from Bloomfield (1933):
Narrowing: Change from superordinate level to subordinate level. For
example, skyline used to refer to any horizon, but now it has narrowed to a horizon
decorated by skyscrapers.
Widening: Change from subordinate level to superordinate level. There are
many examples of specific brand names being used for the general product, such as
with Kleenex.
Metaphor: Change based on similarity of thing. For example, broadcast
originally meant "to cast seeds out"; with the advent of radio and television, the
word was extended to indicate the transmission of audio and video signals. Outside
of agricultural circles, very few people use broadcast in the earlier sense.
Metonymy: Change based on nearness in space or time, e.g., jaw "cheek" →
"jaw".
Synecdoche: Change based on whole-part relation. The convention of using
capital cities to represent countries or their governments is an example of this.
Litotes: Change from stronger to weaker meaning, e.g., astound "strike with
thunder" → "surprise strongly".
Hyperbole: Change from weaker to stronger meaning, e.g., kill "torment" →
"kill".
Degeneration: e.g., knave "boy" → "servant".
Elevation: e.g., knight "boy" → "knight". /9, 121/
However, the categorization of Blank (1998) has gained increasing
acceptance:
 10
Metaphor: Change based on similarity between concepts, e.g., mouse
"rodent" → "computer device".
Metonymy: Change based on contiguity between concepts, e.g., horn "animal
horn" → "musical instrument".
Synecdoche: Same as above.
Specialization of meaning: Downward shift in taxonomy, e.g., corn "corn"
→ "wheat" (UK).
Generalization of meaning; Upward shift in a taxonomy, e.g., hoover
"Hoover vacuum cleaner" → "any type of vacuum cleaner".
Cohyponymic transfer: Horizontal shift in a taxonomy, e.g., the confusion of
mouse and rat in some dialects.
Antiphrasis: Change based on a contrastive aspect of the concepts, e.g.,
perfect lady in the sense of "prostitute".
Auto-antonymy: Change of a word's sense and concept to the complementary
opposite, e.g., bad in the slang sense of "good".
Auto-converse: Lexical expressions of a relationship by the two extremes of
the respective relationship, e.g., take in the dialectal use as "give".
Ellipsis: Semantic change based on the contiguity of names, e.g., car "cart"
→ "automobile", due the to invention of the (motor) car.
Folk-etymology: Semantic change based on the similarity of names, e.g.,
French contredanse, orig. English country dance).
Blank’s classification
Blank considers it problematic, though, to include amelioration and
pejoration of meaning as well as strengthening and weakening of meaning.
According to Blank, these are not objectively classifiable phenomena; moreover,
Blank has only shown that all of the examples listed under these headings can be
grouped into the other phenomena. /8, 56/
Reisig’s classification
Reisig's ideas for a classification were published posthumously. He resorts to
classical rhetorics and distinguishes between
 11
Synecdoche: shifts between part and whole
Metonymy: shifts between cause and effect
Metaphor

Paul’s classification

• Specialization: enlargement of single senses of a word's meaning

• Specialization on a specific part of the contents: reduction of single
senses of a word's meaning
Transfer on a notion linked to the based notion in a spatial, temporal, or
causal way

Darmesteter’s classification

• Metaphor
• Metonymy
• Widening of meaning
• Narrowing of meaning
The last two are defined as change between whole and part, which would
today be rendered as synecdoche.

Bréal’s classification

• Restriction of sense: change from a general to a special meaning

• Enlargement of sense: change from a special to a general meaning
• Metaphor
• "Thickening" of sense: change from an abstract to a concrete meaning

Stern’s classification

• Substitution: Change related to the change of an object, of the

knowledge referring to the object, of the attitude toward the object,
e.g., artillery "engines of war used to throw missiles" → "mounted
guns", atom "inseparable smallest physical-chemical element" →
 12
"physical-chemical element consisting of electrons", scholasticism
"philosophical system of the Middle Ages" → "servile adherence to
the methods and teaching of schools"
• Analogy: Change triggered by the change of an associated word, e.g.,
fast adj. "fixed and rapid" ← faste adv. "fixedly, rapidly")
• Shortening: e.g., periodical ← periodical paper
• Nomination: "the intentional naming of a referent, new or old, with a
name that has not previously been used for it" (Stern 1931: 282), e.g.,
lion "brave man" ← "lion"
• Regular transfer: a subconscious Nomination
• Permutation: non-intentional shift of one referent to another due to a
reinterpretation of a situation, e.g., bead "prayer" → "pearl in a
rosary" (Adequation: Change in the attitude of a concept, which
makes the distinction from Substitution unclear).
This classification does not neatly distinguish between processes and
forces/causes of semantic change. /15, 31/

Ullmann’s classification
Ullmann dintinguishes between nature and consequences of semantic
change:
• Nature of semantic change
 Metaphor: change based on a similarity of senses
 Metonymy: change based on a contiguity of senses
 Folk-etymology: change based on a similarity of names
 Ellipsis: change based on a contiguity of names
• Consequences of semantic change
 Widening of meaning: raise of quantity
 Narrowing of meaning: loss of quantity
 Amelioration of meaning: raise of quality
 Pejoration of meaning: loss of quality /16,42/
 13
2. THE MAIN TYPES OF MEANING GHANGE.

2.1. Common ways of semantic change

Words often change their meanings. A word's new meaning sometimes

replaces the old one entirely.
At the simplest level, words do undergo only two types of meaning change,
not amelioration and pejoration, but generalization (a word's meaning widens to
include new concepts), and specialization (a word's meaning contracts to focus on
fewer concepts).
Here are some common ways in which words change meanings:
Generalization
Also known as extension, generalization is the use of a word in a broader
realm of meaning than it originally possessed, often referring to all items in a class,
rather than one specific item. For instance, place derives via Old French from Latin
platēa “courtyard” or "broad street", but its meaning grew broader than the street,
to include "a particular city", "a business office", "an area dedicated to a specific
purpose" before broadening even wider to mean "area". In the process, the word
place displaced the Old English word stow and became used instead of the Old
English word stede (which survives in stead, steadfast, steady and of course
instead).
Generalization is a natural process, especially in situations of "language on a
shoestring", where the speaker has a limited vocabulary at her disposal, either
because she is young and just acquiring language or because she is not fluent in a
second language. A first-year Spanish student on her first vacation in Spain might
find herself using the word coche, "car", for cars, trucks, jeeps, buses, and so on.
One child when he was two, he used the word oinju (from orange juice) to refer to
any type of juice, including grape juice and apple juice; wawa (from water)
referred to water and hoses, among other things.
 14
Some examples of general English words that have undergone generalization
include:
Word Old Meaning
(it was shortened from
pantaloons) in the nineteenth century it
Pants
meant "men's wide breeches extending
from waist to ankle"
place (the thirteenth century) "broad street"

Specialization
The opposite of generalization, specialization is the narrowing of a word to
refer to what previously would have been but one example of what it referred to.
For instance, the word meat originally referred to "any type of food", but came to
mean "the flesh of animals as opposed to the flesh of fish". The original sense of
meat survives in terms like mincemeat, "chopped apples and spices used as a pie
filling"; sweetmeat, "candy"; and nutmeat, "the edible portion of a nut". When
developing your model language, it is meet to leave compounds untouched, even if
one of their morphemes has undergone specialization (or any other meaning
change).
For an example from another language, the Japanese word koto originally
referred to "any type of stringed instrument" but came to be used to refer only a
specific instrument with thirteen strings, which was played horizontally and was
popular in the Edo Period.
Other examples of specialization, from the development of English, include:
Word Old Meaning
(it was derived from Latin affectiōn-
affection disposition) in the thirteenth century it
meant "emotion"
deer "animal" (the thirteenth century)
forest "countryside" (the thirteenth century)
 15

"a young person" (the thirteenth

girl
century)
starve "to die"

2.2 A taxonomy of semantic change

All other semantic change can be discussed in either terms of generalization

or specialization. The following diagram shows different subtypes of meaning
change.
• Generalization, or extension
o Metonymy
o Metaphorical extension
o Radiation
• Specialization or narrowing
o Contextual specialization
• Shift
o Amelioration
o Pejoration
o Semantic reversal
o Contronyms
• Meaninglessness
A shift in meaning results from the subsequent action of generalization and
specialization over time: a word that has extended into a new area then undergoes
narrowing to exclude its original meaning. In the unlikely event that all the senses
of place except for "a business office" faded away, then place would be said to
have undergone a shift.
 16
Generalization

Metonymy
Metonymy is a figure of speech where one word is substituted for a related
word; the relationship might be that of cause and effect, container and contained,
part and whole. For instance, Shakespeare's comment "Is it not strange that sheep's
guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?" (from Much Ado About Nothing) uses
"sheep's guts" to refer to the music produced by harpstrings. Had guts come to
mean "music", then the meaning would have shifted due to metonymy.
The Greek word dóma originally meant "roof". In the same way English
speakers will metonymically use roof to mean "house" (as in "Now we have a roof
over our heads"), the Greeks frequently used dóma to refer to "house", so that that
is now the standard meaning of the word. A Russian word will provide a similar
example: vinograd, "vineyard", was so frequently used to refer to "grapes", as in
"Let's have a taste of the vineyard" that it has come to mean "grapes".

Metaphorical extension
Grace Murray Hopper, the late Admiral and computer pioneer, told a story
of an early computer that kept calculating incorrectly. When technicians opened up
its case to examine the wiring, which physically represented the machine's logic, a
huge dead moth was found, shorting out one of the circuits and causing the faulty
logic. That moth was the first of its kind to achieve immortality. Because of it,
software is now frequently plagued with "bugs".
The use of bug to refer to an error in computer logic was a metaphorical
extension that became so popular that it is now part of the regular meaning of bug.
The computer industry has a host of words whose meaning has been extended
through such metaphors, including mouse for that now ubiquitous computer input
device (so named because the cord connecting it to the computer made it resemble
that cutest of rodents).
 17
Metaphorical extension is the extension of meaning in a new direction
through popular adoption of an originally metaphorical meaning. The crane at a
construction site was given its name by comparison to the long-necked bird of the
same name. When the meaning of the word daughter was first extended from that
of "one's female child" to "a female descendant" (as in daughter of Eve), the
listener might not have even noticed that the meaning had been extended.
Metaphorical extension is almost a natural process undergone by every
word. We do not even think of it as meaning change. In its less obvious instances,
we do not even see it as extending the meaning of a word. For example, the word
illuminate originally meant "to light up", but has broadened to mean "to clarify",
"to edify". These meanings seem so natural as to be integral parts of the words,
where senses such as "to celebrate" and "to adorn a page with designs" seem like
more obvious additions.
A few specific metaphors are common to many different languages, and
words can be shown to have undergone similar, if independent, developments.
Thus the Welsh word haul and the Gaelic word súil, both meaning "sun", have
both come to mean "eye". Nor is this metaphor a stranger to English, where the
daisy was in Old English originally a compound meaning "day's eye", from its
yellow similarity to the sun.
More often, languages will differ in the precise correspondences between
words, so that some languages have broad words with many meanings, which must
be translated into multiple words in another language. A word like paternoster,
discussed earlier, with senses ranging from the "Lord's Prayer" to "a magic spell"
to "a large bead" to "a weighted fishing line" will have to be translated into four
different words in another language.
Word Old Meaning
illuminate "to light up" (the sixteenth century)
 18

Radiation
Radiation is metaphorical extension on a grander scale, with new meanings
radiating from a central semantic core to embrace many related ideas. The word
head originally referred to that part of the human body above the rest. Since the top
of a nail, pin or screw is, like the human head, the top of a slim outline, that sense
has become included in the meaning of head. Since the bulb of a cabbage or lettuce
is round like the human head, that sense has become included in the meaning of
head. The meaning of the word head has radiated out to include the head of a coin
(the side picturing the human head), the head of the list (the top item in the list),
the head of a table, the head of the family, a head of cattle, $50 a head. Other
words that have similarly radiated meanings outward from a central core include
the words heart, root and sun.

Specialization

The only specific subtype of specialization that was identified is contextual

specialization.

Contextual specialization
The word undertaker originally meant "one who undertakes a task,
especially one who is an entrepreneur". This illustrates contextual specialization,
where the meaning of a word is reshaped under pressure from another word that
had frequently co-occurred with it: thus undertaker acquired its meaning from
constant use of the phrase funeral undertaker; eventually, under the pressure
towards euphemism, the word funeral was dropped.
Another example of contextual specialization is doctor, which originally
meant "a teacher" and then later "an expert", where it came to be used in the phrase
medical doctor; now of course this is redundant and medical is omitted, with the
primary sense of doctor having become more specialized.
 19

Word Old Meaning

undertaker "entrepreneur"
"teacher" (the fourteenth
doctor
century; from Latin teacher)

Shift
I heard an American student at Cambridge University telling some English
friends how he climbed over a locked gate to get into his college and tore his pants,
and one of them asked, 'But, how could you tear your pants and not your trousers?'
Norman Moss, "British/American Language Dictionary"
Shifts occur when the sense of a word expands and contracts, with the final
focus of the meaning different from the original. For some reason, words
describing clothing tend to shift meanings more frequently than other words,
perhaps because fashion trends come and go, leaving words to seem as old
fashioned as the clothing they describe. Who today wants to wear bloomers,
knickers or pantaloons?
The word pants has an interesting history. It is ultimate etymon is Old Italian
Pantalone. In the 1600s, Italy developed commedia dell'arte, a style of comedy
based on improvisation using stock characters. Pantalone was a stock character
who was portrayed as a foolish old man wearing slippers and tight trousers.
Through regular metonymy, speakers of Old French borrowed his name to describe
his Italian trousers. Their word was then borrowed into English as pantaloon,
which in time was shortened to pants and came to mean trousers in general. British
speakers of English have modified the meaning again to the sense of "underpants",
resulting in the confusing situation described in Norman Moss' quote above.
The divide separating British and American English are quite a few words
for clothing, as the following table shows.
Word Meaning
jumper Etymon: English dialect
 20

jump
Original: "loose jacket"
American: "pinafore"
British: "a light pullover"
Etymon: knickerbockers
"breeches banded
Original:
below knee"
"boy's baggy
knickers American: trousers banded below
knee"
"bloomers, old-
British: fashioned female
underpants"
pantaloon, from
Etymon:
Old French pantalon
"men's wide
pants Original: breeches extending from
waist to ankle"
American: "trousers"
British: "underpants"
Etymon: suspend
(unchanged)
Original: "straps to support
suspenders
trousers"
American: (unchanged)
British: "garter"
tights Etymon: tight, adj.
(unchanged)
"snug, stretchable
Original: apparel worn from neck
to toe; typically worn by
dancers or acrobats"
American: (unchanged)
 21

British: "pantyhose"
Old French veste
Etymon:
It. Lat. vestis
vest Original: "clothing"
American: "waistcoat"
British: "undershirt"

Amelioration
Amelioration is the process by which a word's meaning improves or
becomes elevated, coming to represent something more favorable than it originally
referred to.
Suffield's poem gave many good examples of amelioration, including priest
from "old man". A complementary term, pastor, likewise underwent amelioration,
originally meaning "shepherd" (a sense surviving in the word pastoral), but coming
to mean its current sense of "minister" by the extensive Christian references to "the
Lord is my shepherd" as a call to ministry. /14, 6/
The following table shows other examples, including pluck in the sense of
He has a lot of pluck.
Word Old Meaning
enthusiasm "abuse"
guts
"entrails"
("courage")
pastor "shepherd"
pluck "act of
("spirit") tugging"
queen "woman"

Pejoration
Pejoration is the process by which a word's meaning worsens or degenerates,
coming to represent something less favorable than it originally did.
 22
King James II called the just completed St. Paul's Cathedral amusing, awful
and artificial. Call the just completed rock and roll museum in Cleveland amusing,
awful and artificial, and you may be accurate but you will mean something quite
different from King James. When he lived, those words meant that the cathedral
was "pleasing, impressive and artful" respectively. The meaning of each word has
grown more negative with time. People seem much more likely to drag words
down than to lift them up, to build museums instead of cathedrals, as the following
examples may demonstrate.
Word Old Meaning
crafty "strong"
cunning "knowing"
"distinguished,
egregious standing out from the
herd"
harlot "a boy"
notorious "famous"
obsequious "flexible"
vulgar "popular"

Semantic reversal
Occasionally a word will shift so far from its original meaning that its
meaning will nearly reverse. Fascinatingly enough, the word manufacture
originally meant "to make by hand".
Word Old Meaning
counterfeit "an original"
garble "to sort out"
manufacture "to make by hand"

Contronyms
A contronym is like a word that has undergone semantic reversal, only the
tension has not eased: the word still preserves its original meaning, along with a
contradictory -- if not exactly counterposed -- meaning.
 23

Word Meanings
"happening every other month", "happening
bimonthly
twice monthly"
"happening every other week", "happening
biweekly
twice weekly"
"to overwhelm with force, especially
ravish
rape"*, "to overwhelm with emotion, enrapture"
"authoritative measure of approval"*,
sanction "coercive measure of disapproval of nation
against nation"
Brit. "to put on the table for discussion",
table Amer. "to set aside a motion rather than discuss
it"
*The older of the two senses given

Interestingly, biannual means only "twice each year", with no recorded sense
of "every other year" in Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary.
The word cleave (meaning "to split or separate" or "to adhere or cling") is
actually two different words, both from the Old English (cle-ofan and cleofian
respectively) but by changes in pronunciation, these words have evolved the same
current form.

Meaninglessness
The nadir of semantics is meaninglessness. The final semantic change. The
death of meaning. The defeat of sigor.
The word sigor is Old English for "victory". It is now meaningless to almost
all English speakers, except for those familiar with Old English or with German
(where its cognate survives in Seig).
Few now know what sigor means. Is this a change in its meaning or a
change in the very state of the word? Is death part of life?
 24
Words frequently change their meanings over time, and pursuing such
change often illustrates cultural and historical shifts.
The extended meanings are branches that have split off from the trunk, and
this research has simply traced them back to the root. /13, 7/
 25
CONCLUSION
Having studied different points of view of different scholars and their
classification suggested for semantic change we stated main ways in which words
change meanings and illustrated the process of semantic changes of words in this
research.
And on the basis of this we came to the following conclusion that semantic
change is the natural process which has occurred over time. Language changes
because our life constantly changes, so meaning of the word also changes.
In this work it was investigated how words can change their meanings and
main types of semantic change were brought out:
• Generalization, or extension – the use of a word in a broader realm of
meaning than it originally possessed, often referring to all items in a class,
rather than one specific item. Generalization has several types and among
them are metonymy, metaphorical extension, radiation;
• Specialization or narrowing – the narrowing of a word to refer to what
previously would have been but one example of what it referred to. The only
specific subtype of specialization that was identified is contextual
specialization;
• Shift – the process when the sense of a word expands and contracts, with the
final focus of the meaning different from the original. Different types of
shift are amelioration, pejoration, semantic reversal, contronyms;
• Meaninglessness - the nadir of semantics.
It is really a fact that words do change in meaning, and sometimes radically
so. Thus change of meaning is the process when the old meaning is completely
replaced by the new one and it may occur in different way.
Meaning is certainly the most important word’s characteristic. From the
semantic point of view when word changes own meaning it exerts influence on
other words, so even language undergoes change.
Words change meaning over time, it is a fact that let us to arrive at a
conclusion that language has stay alive, adapt and grow over time.
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