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Theories of Semantic Change Three Approa PDF
Theories of Semantic Change Three Approa PDF
Peter G. Riddell
1.0 Introduction
This paper will place particular attention on three scholars whose interest was
semantic change: Antoine Meillet (1906), who wrote at the turn of the 20th
century, Gustaf Stern who produced a classical study of semantic change in
1931, and Stephen Ullmann (1951) whose career spanned the middle part of
the century. Together their research continues to live on through modern
studies of language change.
1 This article is an updated version of the first chapter of Peter G Riddell, Semantic Change in
Malay/Indonesian, MA (Qual.) thesis, Australian National University, 1979
This note of caution makes itself heard repeatedly in the work of the three
authors selected as the focus of this paper.
Meillet was primarily concerned with the ultimate causes of sense change,
and isolated several major causes. Though these were narrowed down to
three in number, he stressed that within each of these areas, there were multi-
directional forces working together and against each other resulting in sense
change. He highlights the complexity of the problem when he says:
"...il est souvent - et peut-être même le plus souvent - impossible de
déterminer les causes d'un changement de sens particulier..." (Meillet
1905-6:5)
Meillet indicates that these types of changes are relatively uncommon. His
second category covers sense variations brought about by changes in the
form of the referent during a period of years. These sense alterations can
affect a large part of the vocabulary of a language but we only notice them
when an unusual association of ideas is made (Meillet 1905-6:11). Thus
plume in French not only means "feather" but also "fountain pen", as ink pens
were originally fashioned by attaching a nib to a feather. Similarly the sense of
the word "ship", ("an ocean going vessel") changed between 1860 and 1960
due to the change in the form of the referent, although the orthographic
representation has remained constant.
The third and by far the most important cause of semantic change in the view
of Meillet is the contact between different social strata and the lexical
borrowing which results. Meillet devoted most of his article to illustrating the
effects of such contacts. He supports the assertion by Meringer that lexical
items borrowed by the broad speech community from a particular speech
(social) group widen in semantic content, while semantic narrowing is the
result when the reverse occurs (Meillet 1905-6:14). He talks at length of the
linguistic concept of borrowing (l'emprunt) by one language from its linguistic
ancestor. He cites the case of modern French, which contains many lexical
items which have evolved simply from their equivalents in Latin, the language
of Roman Gaul, such as père, chien and lait. By looking at such examples, we
find cases to demonstrate the Meringer concept of semantic widening and
narrowing, and realise the importance of Meillet's concepts of the role of
social group contact. For example, the Latin verbs ponere (to place), cubare
(to lie asleep), trahere (to draw, drag), mutare (to change) passed from the
general speech community into the rural community over the centuries during
which time a process of semantic narrowing took place. Thus in modern
French the words pondre (to lay eggs), couver (to sit on eggs), traire (to milk a
cow) and muer (to shed the coat, to moult) have developed. The process of
semantic widening can be exemplified by investigating the etymological
history of the modern French verb arracher which was designated in Latin by
the expression ex-radicare meaning tirer la racine (pull out the roots). This
was an expression used by the agricultural community, but with the passage
of time, the sense of the word expanded as it passed into the vocabulary of
the general speech community. Thus today the word is used figuratively in
contexts such as "arracher quelqu'un de son lit" and "arracher de l'argent",
where there is no suggestion of racine.
The category of name transfers through similarity between the senses can be
exemplified by the use of the lexical item "leg" for both a part of the human
body and the part which supports a table. Metaphors and figures of speech
are grouped in this category, as are semantic borrowings between different
languages.
The final category, that of composite transfer, was designed to cover the
many cases, as mentioned by Meillet, of sense changes which could nor be
neatly put into any one of the above-mentioned groupings. This category
included three further subdivisions:
a) Composite name transfers, such as occurs when a name is attached
to a new sense associated with the old sense by bonds of similarity
and of contiguity e.g. Latin;
b) Composite sense transfers, in which phonetic interference causes
two names similar in sound to assume the same meaning; e.g. "to hit
the frog and toad" = "to hit the road";
c) Name - sense transfers. Four types are possible;
(i) Name similarity and sense similarity; e.g. "hard" - "hardly";
(ii) Name similarity and sense contiguity; e.g. "belfry" (see 4.4);
(iii) Name contiguity and sense similarity; e.g. "High Church" (see 4.4);
(iv) Name contiguity and sense contiguity; e.g. "a Rembrant" = "a
painting by R"
The Functional Scheme is clearly far more comprehensive in scope than the
Meillet model, although that is not a criticism in itself of the latter as it was not
presented as being anything more than an outline of the ultimate causes of
semantic change. The functional scheme has more in common with the Stern
model for several reasons: they both aim at being comprehensive, with a
system of sub-categories which attempts to accommodate the great variety of
sense changes; they both consider psychological processes as central to
sense change; and several of their categories are almost identical in nature, if
bearing different names.
scene to the latter. Stern does not view this as a sense change, but a mere
fluctuation. He speaks of fluctuations in the apprehension of the referent, in
occasional specialisation and in the factual variations of the referent, and
stresses that these must be distinguished from actual changes of meaning.
4.2 Stern sees meaning as being a triangular notion with each corner of the
triangle being an essential factor for completion of meaning. Meaning is
dependent upon its relation to the referent, the subject (speaker or hearer)
and the word itself, these relationships being called the referential, subjective
and verbal relations respectively. If one of the relations shifts, then there is a
corresponding variation in the other two relations. Six of Stern's categories of
sense change are regarded as being results of modifications in these
relations, as shown below.
Stern isolates seven classes of sense change, and organises them into the
following scheme:
A. External causes
(Class I Substitution)
B. Linguistic causes
i. Shift of Verbal Relation
a. Class II Analogy; b. Class III Shortening
ii. Shift of Referential Relation
a. Class IV Nomination; b. Class V Transfer
iii. Shift of Subjective Relation
a. Class VI Permutation; b. Class VII Adequation
4.3 He distinguishes the first class, substitution, from the others by indicating
that it is due to non-linguistic factors. This distinction parallels the linguistic
conservatism versus linguistic innovation dichotomy of the Functional system.
Stern isolates three types of substitution (Stern 1931:192ff):
a) A factual change in the referent, causing sense change in words
such as "ship" and plume during the course of time;
4.4 The first of the six categories of sense change brought about by linguistic
factors is analogy. Stern indicates that analogy is as important in semantics
as it is in the morphological system, though he concerns himself with the
former. He distinguishes three types of analogy:
a) Combinative analogy , which he defines as "sense loans from
cognate words in the same language"(Stern 1931:218). The noun
derived from the verb "revert" was originally "reversion" while that from
the verb "reverse" was "reversal". However, it appears that the more
common usage of the noun ending "-ion" has caused "reversion" to be
considered as the noun for "reverse".
b) Correlative analogy. This can develop due to influences within one
language or due to cross-language forces. "High" in the phrase "High
Church" signifies "extreme" or " intense". Stern states that the phrase
"Low Church" probably developed as a result of analogy.
Similarly "arrive" in English and arriver in French are almost exactly
corresponding in meaning. However the signification "to attain
success" of the French verb was not originally a feature of the English
verb. Due to analogical processes occurring in the minds of bilingual
speakers this meaning attached itself to "arrive" over the course of
time.
c) Phonetic Associative interference. The word "belfry" originally meant
"a tower used in attacking fortresses". Because of the resemblance of
the first syllable to "bell", it came to denote "a church tower housing
bells".
4.5 Stern's third category of sense change, shortening, parallels the "name
contiguity" category of the Functional scheme. He makes a distinction
between the clipping of symbols and the total omission of symbols. While
citing many instances of clippings (e.g. perambulator -> pram, brigantine ->
brig) he says that he could not find a single instance where clippings led to
sense change.
processes on the part of the speaker. The regular transfer signifies "the
unintentional use of a word to denote another referent than the usual one,
owing to some similarity between the two referents"(Stern 1931:340). It is a
common feature of all languages, and can be illustrated in English by the use
of "leaves" to refer to thin objects resembling a leaf, the use of "sharp" in the
phrase "sharp sight", and "light" meaning "merry" or "cheerful", where the idea
of having a light load has been transferred to the mental sphere, and refers to
being lightly burdened in terms of problems and worries.
Stern cities as an example the shift in semantic content of the word "bead".
The word originally meant "prayer" in an expression such as "she is counting
her beads on the rosary". As people were praying, they counted off one of the
little balls on the rosary, so that now we have lost the sense of "bead"
meaning "prayer". Although the permutation has altered the sense of the word
"bead", the expression "to count one's beads" still adequately represents the
notion of counting the rosary.
Nouns
1) Object's names (concrete and abstract)
Examples are objects which take their name from the material from
which they are made, such as is the case with "brass" (= instrument +
metal). There are also instances of the designation of a receptacle
passing to its contents, as instanced by the use of "tub" to refer to the
contents of a tub, or " the water for bathing".
2) Nomina Actionis
A type found frequently in this category is that in which the name shifts
from the action to the product or result of the action. This occurred with
"batch" which originally meant "the process of baking" but came to
mean "the quantity of bread produced at one baking". Similarly the
name can move from the action to the agent of the action, for example
"aid" (action of aiding -> person aiding).
Verbs
"To soothe" was related to "sooth" (true) and assumed the sense "to declare
to be true" (= to support a person in an assertion).
All the above are examples of permutations in which the referent has several
characteristics and the speaker's focus of attention moves from one
characteristic to another over a period of time.
4.9 Stern's final category of category of sense change is adequation. This can
occur either after another sense change of the six previously mentioned types
or in isolation. Stern's preferred example of this phenomenon is seen in the
sense change of the word "horn". The original meaning of the word was the "
horn of an animal" but attention has shifted to focus upon its role as an
instrument. The adequation was represented by the shift in focus to the
purpose rather than the simple characteristic nature of "horn". The speaker's
5.0 Conclusion
Thus it is hoped that this paper will stimulate others to apply these
frameworks in a range of contexts, and perhaps even serve to generate
additional theoretical perspectives on the field of semantic change.
References
Lyons, J. Semantics, Cambridge, 1977
Meillet, A. "Comment les Mots Changent de Sens", L'Année Sociologique,
1905-6
Silva, M. Biblical Words and their Meaning, 2nd edition 1994
Stern, G. Meaning and Change of Meaning, 1931 (reprinted Indiana Univ.
1965)
Ullmann, S. The Principles of Semantics, Oxford, 1951