Seminar 4

CONTEXT. TYPES OF CONTEXT.

CHANGE OF MEANING:
CAUSES, NATURE AND RESULTS

By the term "context", we understand the minimal stretch of speech determining each individual
meaning of the word. The context individualises the meanings and brings them out. The two main
types of linguistic contexts that determine particular meanings of words are the lexical context and the
grammatical context.
In lexical context of primary importance are lexical groups combined with the polysemantic
words under consideration. For instance, a study of typical contexts of the adjective bright in the first
pattern will give us the following sets: a) bright colour (flower, dress, silk, etc.), b) bright metal (gold,
jewels, armour, etc.), c) the bright student (pupil, boy, fellow, etc.), d) bright face (smile, eyes, etc.)
and some others. These sets will lead us to single out the meanings of the adjective related to each set
of combinations: a) intensive in colour, b) shining, and c) capable. This linguistic phenomenon usually
serves as the basis for creating jokes.
Policeman: Did you see the “Fine for Parking " sign?
Driver: Yes, I agree with it. It’s really a good place.
All this leads us to conclude that context is a good and reliable key to the word's meaning. Yet,
even the joke above shows how misleading this key can be sometimes. And here we are faced with two
dangers. The first is that of sheer misunderstanding when the speaker means one thing and the listener
lakes the word in its other meaning.
In grammatical context, it is the grammatical (mainly the syntactic) structure of the context that
serves to determine various individual meanings of a polysemantic word.
Consider the following examples:
1) I made Peter study; He made her laugh; They made him work (sing, dance, write...)
2) My friend made a good teacher
3) He made a good husband. In the pattern "to make + N(Pr)+ V inf' the word make has the
meaning "to force", and in the pattern "to make + A + N" it has the meaning "to turn out to be".
Here the grammatical context helps to determine the meaning of the word "to make". So,
linguistic (verbal) contexts comprise lexical and grammatical contexts. They are opposed to
extra-linguistic contexts (non-verbal). In extra-linguistic contexts, the word's meaning is determined by
linguistic factors and the actual situation in which the word is used.
In the course of historical development, word meanings undergo various changes. Lexicology
investigates the causes of semantic changes (the question is ‘Why did changes happen?), the nature of
semantic change (the question is ‘how did changes happen?) and the results of semantic change (the
question is ‘what did changes lead to?).
The causes of semantic change are traditionally divided into historical, extralinguistic, and
linguistic. Extralinguistic causes are connected with changes in the life of the nation, its industry,
culture, science which bring about changes in word meaning. Language is used for communication.
We are brought into contact with the extra-linguistic world: technological and scientific development
(computer-related: electronic mail; mouse; keyboard; memory); political, economic and social
changes; human attitudes; new meaning to the existing words result in the creation of euphemisms:
developing countries – they are not necessarily developing, but the word is less offensive than ‘poor’
or ‘underdeveloped’; He is a special child. (disabled or learning challenged); People of colour; You
aren’t poor; you are economically disadvantaged.
Linguistic causes are closely linked to the structure of a particular language and the processes
developing inside it. One of these factors is the differentiation of synonyms which is connected with
borrowing. Words interact with each other, especially native words with borrowed words. For example,
the OE word deer meant “any animal”; when beast was borrowed from French, it ousted the word deer
in thus meaning and deer began to denote a concrete species. Then the Latin animal ousted [au] beast
in the meaning “any animal” and the word beast now has the meaning “mammal”. Other linguistic
causes are ellipsis [li] (in a phrase made up of two words one of these is omitted and its meaning is
transferred to its partner: sale (general meaning selling) - ‘selling at a lower price‘; Cut-price sale -
sale; Summit meeting - summit; Propose marriage - to propose) and analogy when one of the
synonyms develops a new meaning, other synonyms acquire a new meaning too: e.g. when catch
developed the meaning “understand”, its synonyms grasp, get developed this meaning too.
The nature of semantic change. Most scholars distinguish between the terms development of
meaning (when a new meaning and the one based on which it is formed coexist in the semantic
structure of the word, as in mill, carriage, etc.) and change of meaning (when the old meaning is
completely replaced by the new one, as in the noun meat which in Old English had the general
meaning of "food" but in Modern English is no longer used in that sense and has instead developed the
meaning "flesh of animals used as a food product").
All cases of change of meaning are based on some association. The process of change of
meaning is termed transference. There are two types of transference: 1) transference based on
similarity and 2) transference based on contiguity (real connection between the two objects). The first
type of transference is called linguistic metaphor: neck (of a human being) → neck (of a bottle). The
second type is known as linguistic metonymy: hands (“limbs of a human body”) → hands (“a
worker”). Some scholars mistakenly use the term "transference of meaning" which is a serious
mistake. It is essential to note that in any case of semantic change it is not the meaning but the word
that is being transferred from one referent onto another (e. g. from a horse-drawn vehicle to a railway
car). The result of such transference is the appearance of a new meaning.
A metaphor is a similarity between items from different domains of human experience.
Metaphor is concerned with using words in abstract rather than literal ways. If we call a city a jungle,
we are using a metaphor. We suggest that a city is like a jungle in that it is wild and dangerous. The
main meaning of the noun branch is "limb or subdivision of a tree or bush". Based on this meaning it
developed several more. One of them is "a special field of science or art" (as in a branch of
linguistics). This meaning brings us into the sphere of the abstract. It shows that in transference based
on resemblance, an association may be built not only between two physical objects and between a
concrete object and an abstract concept. The word understand is of Germanic origin. It is Old English
compound word. Meaning – prefix under- = ‘among’, ‘close to’. It shifted from the physical domain
‘standing among people’ to mental domain ‘knowing or realizing the meaning of words’. The word
‘understand’ is no longer perceived as a compound.
Metaphors are built on different types of similarity: similarity of shape (tongue of a bell),
function (leg of a table), position (foot of a page), character of motion (snail (of a sluggish person)),
dimensions (dumpling (of a short, chabby creature)), value (dirt cheap). In some cases we have a
complex similarity, e.g. the leg of a table has a similarity to a human leg in its shape, position and
function. Many metaphors are based on parts of a human body, e.g. an eye of a needle, arms and
mouth of a river, head of an army.
The noun star based on the meaning "heavenly body" developed the meaning "famous actor or
actress". Nowadays, the meaning has considerably widened its range, and the word is applied not only
to screen idols (as it was at first), but also to popular sportsmen (e. g., football stars), pop-singers, etc.
Of course, the first use of the word star to denote a popular actor must have been humorous or ironical:
the mental picture created by using the word in this new meaning was a kind of semi-god surrounded
by the bright rays of his glory. Yet, very soon, the ironical coloring was lost, and the association with
the original meaning considerably weakened and is gradually erased.
The meanings formed through this type of transference are frequently found in the informal strata
of the vocabulary, especially in slang. A red-headed boy is almost certain to be nicknamed carrot or
ginger by his schoolmates, and the one given to spying gets the derogatory nickname of rat. Both these
meanings are metaphorical, though the children using them are quite unconscious of this fact.
Words denoting animals and their actions may be used metaphorically to represent human
qualities. Such cases belong to zoosemy, e. g. a fox (“a crafty person”), an ass (“a foolish, or stubborn
person”), to wolf (“to eat greedily”), a cock (“a leader, chief person”), a bear (“a gruff, clumsy,
bad-manner person”), etc.
 Through metaphoric transference, proper names may become common: philistine - a mercenary
person, vandals - destructive people, a Don Juan - a lover of many women, etc. This phenomenon is
usually recognized as antonomasia.
In Cognitive Linguistics, metaphor is viewed as a mapping between domains when one domain is
understood in terms of another domain. According to the cognitive theory of metaphor worked out by
G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, our perception of the world is metaphorically structured and this is
reflected in the language. In the frame of this conception, metaphor can be defined as understanding
the essence of one thing through the essence of another. Cognitive metaphor emerges due to the
interaction of the target domain (the concept we intend to convey) and the source domain (the word
through which we describe the target word). Thus, in the sentence “Time is money”, the word “time” is
the target word and the word “money” is the source word.
Metonymy is based on the principle of contiguity of referents and perceiving one thing in terms
of another within the same domain: politics, sport, relationships, physical, mental, etc., for example, a
glass (of water) has two meanings: a container made of glass, used for drinking out of; the contents of
a glass (He drank three whole glasses). The two meanings are metonymically related: their referents
are within the domain of physical experience.
There are various types of metonymy based on the following relations of two objects:
1) instrument → agent: pen (“writer”);
2) consequence → cause: grey hair (“old age”);
3) symbol →the thing symbolized (crown “monarchy”);
4) material → the thing made from it (silver “money”); rubber (NB condom);
5) container → the thing contained (to drink a cup);
6) name of a place → institution (Whitehall);
7) action → the object of action (my love);
8) quality →the person possessing the quality (He is a talent).
For example, the word crown: Latin origin via Anglo-Norman French. In Middle English the
meaning – ‘an object in the shape of a circle tht a king or queen wears on his or her head on official
occasions’. Now - ‘the government of a country (like Britain)’ or ‘ the position or power of a king or
queen’. In the course of time such metonymic transfers eventually change the meaning of words or add
new meanings to existing ones.
The simplest case of metonymy is synecdoche which consists in using the name of a part to
denote the whole or vice versa: Hands are wanted; to earn one‘s bread.
The use of proper names for common names is a very common type of metonymy: names of
inventors or geographical names are often used to denote the objects. Volt (the unit of electromotive
force) received its name from Alessandro Volta who made the discovery; sandwich goes back to earl of
Sandwich, who ordered the butler to serve his guest card-players with sliced veal in between two slices
of bread so that they could eat them during the game without soiling the cards. Other examples are: a
Ford, a Picasso, Macentosh, Diesel, Xerox, Wedgewood, china, etc. The words Champagne and
Burgundy (metonymical use of the place names in France).
The scope of transference in metonymy is much more limited than that of metaphor, which is
quite understandable: the scope of human imagination that identifies two objects (phenomena, actions)
on the grounds of the commonness of their innumerable characteristics is boundless. In contrast, actual
relations between objects are more limited.
Results of Semantic change. In the process of vocabulary development, some words develop
narrower or broader meanings than those they used to have. The first process is termed widening
(generalisation, broadening, extension) of meaning, that is a semantic process by which words acquire
more general meanings and as a result expand the number of their referents. For example, the word tail
used to mean ‘hairy caudal (=relating to sth that is like a tail) appendage, as of a horse’. Now we
speak about animal’s, bird’s, plane’s, coin’s, etc. tail. The word manage came into English in the 16th
c. and meant ‘to handle a horse’; now - ‘to handle anything successfully, esp. sth difficult’. The verb to
arrive (French borrowing) comes from English and had the narrow meaning “to come to shore, to
land”. In modern English, it has developed the general meaning “to come”.
 The transfer from a concrete meaning to an abstract one is most frequent, e. g. the word ready
(OE ræde) originally meant “prepared for a ride”, picture meant “something painted”, the word uncle
meant “mother’s brother”, etc. Let’s analyse the word person: It came into English in the Middle
English period from Latin via Old French. Meaning – ‘an actor’s mask, character in a play’. Now – ‘a
human, an individual’. The meaning expanded from a person playing a particular role in a play to any
person. The word bird changed from "the young of a bird" to its modern meaning through transference
based on contiguity. The second meaning is broader and more general.
All auxiliary verbs are cases of generalization of their lexical meaning because they developed a
grammatical meaning: have, be, do, shall, will when used as auxiliary verbs are devoid of their lexical
meaning which they have when used as notional verbs or modal verbs. This phenomenon is called
‘linguistic bleaching’. E. g. cf. I have a new car and I have bought a new car. In the first sentence the
verb have has the meaning “possess”, in the second sentence it has no lexical meaning, its grammatical
meaning is to form Present Perfect. The auxiliary verb will originally meant ‘to want to do smth.’. The
meaning presupposed a certain amount of futurity. Gradually, the element of ‘want’ bleached, and the
element of ‘futurity’ became more distinct. However, the element of willingness has been preserved in
polite requests (Will you tell me what actually happened?) now it is a grammatical marker of futurity.
The second process is called narrowing (specialization, restriction) of meaning that is a semantic
process in which the referential scope of a word is reduced: the reverse of generalization. In the
English language narrowing is more frequent than generalization. It is a gradual process when a word
passes from a general sphere to some special sphere of communication, e. g. the English verb starve
was specialized in its meaning after the Scandinavian verb die was borrowed into English. Die became
the general verb with this meaning because in English there were the noun death and the adjective
dead. The meaning of starve was “to die of hunger”.
Another way of specialization is also the formation of Proper names from common nouns, it is
often used in toponyms, e. g. the City – the business part of London, Oxford – university town in
England, the Tower – originally a fortress and palace, later – a prison, now – a museum.
The process when the object to which the word refers acquires negative characteristics and the
meaning develops a negative evaluative connotation is termed degradation (pejoration,
‘deterioration’) of meaning. The OE word cnafa (MnE knave) meant “a boy”, then a “boy servant” and
finally – “a swindler, a scoundrel”. The MnE word Villain originally meant farm-servant, serf – now it
is a vile person. So, the words acquired a negative connotation. The word gossip: originally meant god
parent – now: the one who talks scandal; tells slanderous stories about other people. The word vulgar:
Middle English meaning – ‘common people’; now – ‘not having or showing good taste; not polite,
elegant or well behaved’ or ‘rude and likely to offend’. The word toilet appeared in Mid 16th century
via French toilette with the meaning ‘a piece of cloth in which to wrap clothes’ → ‘a cloth cover for a
dressing table’ → ‘articles used in dressing’ → ‘the process of dressing including washing’ → ‘the
dressing room’. Now - ‘a large bowl attached to a pipe that you sit on or stand over when you get rid of
waste matter from your body’ or ‘lavatory.’ These examples show that the second meaning denotes a
person of bad character. Semantically speaking, the second meaning developed a negative connotation,
which was absent in the first meaning.
The development of a positive evaluative connotation is called elevation (amelioration,
‘improvement’) of meaning. For example, the word queen: Old English meaning – ‘a badly behaved
woman or girl’; now – ‘the female ruler of an independent state’; e. g. knight originally meant “a boy”,
then “a young servant”, then “a military servant”, then “a noble man”. Now it is a title of nobility
given to outstanding people. The word marshal originally meant “a horse man” now it is the highest
military rank etc. The word minister is of Latin origin and came via French. In Middle English it meant
‘a person acting under the authority of another’. Now – ‘a member of the government’. So the
meanings of these words have been “elevated”. These terms are open to question because they seem to
imply that meanings can become "better" or "worse" which is neither logical nor plausible. But, as a
matter-of-fact, scholars using these terms do not actually mean the degeneration or elevation of
meaning itself, but of the referent onto which a word is transferred, so that the term is inaccurate.
 Points for discussion
1. Do you agree that the context is the ultimate “sieve” for the meaning of the word?
2. Specify the relationship between context and register.
3. What are the types of context?
4. Why should new meanings appear at all? What circumstances cause and stimulate their
development and change?
5. How does a change of meaning happen? What is the nature of the very process of
development of new meanings? Elaborate on the connection between etymology and
change of meaning.
6. What are the types of metaphors?
7. Differentiate between antonomasia and synecdoche.
8. Give your understanding of metonymy and metaphor as the main mechanisms of semantic
change. Why are there in the English language more metaphors than metonymies?
9. Why is specialisation more frequent than generalisation of meaning?
10. Provide more examples of broadening and narrowing of meaning and degeneration and
elevation of meaning. Why can the last two terms be regarded as arbitrary and imprecise?

Practical tasks
1. Watch the videos and answer the following questions: what are the mechanisms of
semantic change? And how does the etymology of the word 'evolution' reflect these changes?
What is the place of ‘cognitive metaphor’ in everyday language use?

2. Find English jokes and advertising slogans based on metaphor or metonymy.

3. Look up the following words in an etymological dictionary

(e.g., http://www.etymonline.com) and any dictionary of contemporary English
(e.g., http://www.macmillandictionary.com). What type of semantic change have they
undergone? crown, wife, fashion, novice, engine, lean, knight, camp, fair, fear.

4. In the following examples underline metaphorical expressions. Decide on the underlying

conceptual metaphor.
1. He works for the bank's local branch. 2. Our company is growing. 3. They had to prune the
workforce. 4. The organisation was rooted in the old church. 5. There is now a flourishing
black market in software there. 6. His business blossomed when the railways put his
establishment within reach of the big city. 7. Employers reaped enormous benefits from cheap
foreign labour.

5. In the following examples, identify the words used metonymically. Give your reasons.
1. A democracy would cease to function if everyone were free to obey only the laws of their
choice.
2. Police say the suspects, driving a BMW, struck and killed a man on a bicycle.
3. Iraq nearly cost Tony Blair the premiership.
4. Paris and Washington are having a spat.
5. She likes eating Burger King.
6. Let’s hope Beijing will be as successful an Olympics as Athens.
7. She loves Picasso.