Definition.

The development and change of the semantic structure of a word is always a source of qualitative and quantitative development of the vocabulary.

All the types discussed depend upon some comparison between the earlier (whether extinct or still in use) and the new meaning of the given word. This comparison may be based on the difference between notions expressed or referents in the real world that are pointed out, on the type of psychological association at work, on evaluation of the latter by the speaker or, possibly, on some other feature.

The order in which various types are described will follow more or less closely the diachronic classifications of M. Breal and H. Paul. No attempt at a new classification is considered necessary. There seems to be no point in augmenting the number of unsatisfactory schemes already offered in literature. The treatment is therefore traditional.

M. Breal was probably the first to emphasize the fact that in passing from general usage into some special sphere of communication a word as a rule undergoes some sort of specialisation of its meaning. The word case, for instance, alongside its general meaning of 'circumstances in which a person or a thing is' possesses special meanings: in law ('a law suit'), in grammar (e.g. the Possessive case), in medicine ('a patient', 'an illness'). Compare the following:

One of Charles's cases had been a child ill with a form of diphtheria. (C. P. SNOW) (case = a patient).

The Solicitor whom I met at the Holfords’ sent me a case which any young man at my stage would have thought himself lucky to get. (Idem) (case = a question decided, in a court of law, a law suit)

The general, not specialized meaning is also very frequent in present-day English. For example: At last we tiptoed up the broad slippery stair­case, and went to our rooms. But in my case not to sleep, immediately at least. (Idem) (case = circumstances in which one is)

This difference is revealed in the difference of contexts in which these words occur, in their different valency. Words connected with illnesses and medicine in the first example, and words connected with law and court procedures in the second, form the semantic paradigm of the word case.

The word play suggests different notions to a child, a playwright, a footballer, a musician or a chess-player and has in their speech dif­ferent semantic paradigms. The same applies to the noun cell as used by a biologist, an electrician, a nun or a representative of the law; or the word gas as understood by a chemist, a housewife, a motorist or a miner.

In all the examples considered above a word which formerly represen­ted a notion of a broader scope has come to render a notion of a narrower scope. When the meaning is specialized, the word can name fewer objects, i.e. have fewer referents. At the same time the content of the notion is being enriched, as it includes -a greater number of relevant features by which the notion is characterized. Or as St. Ullmann puts it: "The word is now applicable to more things but tells us less about them." The reduction of scope accounts for the term "narrowing of the meaning" which is even more often used than the term "specialization". We shall avoid the term "narrowing", since it is somewhat misleading. Actually it is neither the meaning nor the notion, but the scope of the notion that.is narrowed.

There is also a third term for the same phenomenon, namely "differentiation", but it is not so widely used as the first two terms.

H. Paul, as well as many other authors, emphasizes the fact that this type of semantic change is particularly frequent in vocabulary of pro­fessional and trade groups.

H. Paul's examples are from the German language but it is very easy to find parallel cases in English. So this type of change is fairly universal and fails to disclose any specifically English properties.

The best known examples of specialization in the general language are as follows: OE dēor 'wild beast' > ModE deer 'wild rum,inant of a particular species' (the original meaning was still alive in Shakespeare's time as is proved by the following quotation: Rats and mice and such small deer); OE mete 'food' >;ModE meat 'edible flesh', i.e. only a partic­ular species of food (the earlier meaning is still noticeable in the com­pound sweetmeat). This last example deserves special attention because the tendency of fixed context to preserve the original meaning is very marked as is constantly proved by various examples. Other well-worn examples are: OE fuзol 'bird' (cf. Germ Vogel) > ModE foal 'domestic birds'. The old, meaning is still preserved in poetic diction and in set expressions, like fowls of the air. Among its derivatives, fowler means 'a person who shoots or traps wild birds for sport or food'; the shooting or trapping itself is called fowling; a fowling piece is a gun. OE hund 'dog' (cf.. Germ Hund) >hound 'a species of hunting dog'. Many words connected with literacy also show similar changes: thus, teach<.OE tæcan 'to show', 'to teach'; write <OE wrītan 'to write', 'to scratch', 'to score' (cf. Germ reiβen)< writing in Europe had first the form of scratching on the bark of the trees. Tracing these semantic changes the scholars can, as it were, witness the development of culture.

In the above examples the new meaning superseded the earlier one. Both meanings can also coexist in the structure of a polysemantic word or be differentiated locally. The word token < OE tāce, ║Germ Zeichen originally had the broad meaning of 'sign'. The semantic change that occurred in it illustrates systematic interdependence within the vocabulary elements. Brought into competition with the borrowed word sign it became restricted in use to a few cases of fixed context (a love token, a token of respect, a token vote, a token payment) and consequently restricted in meaning. In present-day English token means something small, unimportant or cheap which represents something big, important or valuable. Other examples of specialization are room, which alongside the new meaning keeps the old one of 'space'; corn originally meaning 'grain', 'the seed of any cereal plant': locally the word becomes special­ized and is understood to denote the leading crop of the district; hence in England corn means 'wheat', in Scotland 'oats', whereas in the USA, as an ellipsis for Indian corn, it came to mean 'maize'.

 

 

As a special group belonging to the same type one can mention the formation of proper nouns from common nouns chiefly in toponymies, i.e. place names. For instance, the City,— the business part of London; the Highlands — the mountainous part of Scotland; Oxford — Univer­sity town in England from ox+ford, i.e. a place where oxen could ford the river; the Tower (of London) — originally a fortress and palace, later a state prison, now a museum.

In the above examples the change of meaning occurred without change of sound form and without any intervention of morphological processes. In many cases, however, the two processes, semantic and morphological, go hand in hand. For instance, when considering the effect of the agent suffix -ist added to the noun stem art- we might expect the whole to mean any person occupied in art, a representative of any kind of art, but usage specializes the meaning of the word artist and restricts it to a synonym of painter.

The process reverse to specialisation is termed generalisation
and widening of meaning. In that case the scope of the new
notion is wider than that of the original one (hence widening), whereas
the content of the notion is poorer. In most cases generalisation is combined with a higher order of abstraction than in the notion expressed by
the earlier meaning. The transition from a concrete meaning to an ab­stract one is a most frequent feature in the semantic history of words. The
change may be explained as occasioned by situations in which not all
the features of the notions rendered are of equal importance for the
message.

Thus, ready <OE ræde (a derivative of the verb rīdan 'to ride') meant 'prepared for a ride'. Fly originally meant 'to move through the air with wings'; now it denotes any kind of movement in the air or outer space and also very quick movement in any medium.

The process went very far in the word thing with its original mean­ings 'cause', 'object', 'decision', 'meeting', and 'the decision of the meeting', 'that which was decided upon'. (Cf. Norwegian storting 'par­liament'.) At present, as a result of this process of generalisation, the word can substitute nearly any noun, and receives an almost pronominal force. In fact all the words belonging to the group of generic terms fall into this category of generalization. By generic terms we shall mean non-specific, non-distributive terms applicable to a great number; of individual members of a big class of words. The grammatical meaning of this class of words becomes predominant in their semantic components. Notice the very general, character of the word business in the following: "Donald hasn't a very good manner of interviews."—"All this good-manner business," Clun said, "they take far too much notice of it now in my opinion" (A. WILSON),

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the instances of generalization proper from generalization combined with a fa-ding of lexical meaning ousted by the grammatical or emotional meaning that take its place. These phenomena are closely connected with the peculiar characteristics of grammatical structure typical of each individual language. One ob­serves them, for instance, studying the semantic history of the English auxiliary and semi-auxiliary verbs, especially have, do, shall, will, turn, go, and that of some English prepositions and adverbs which in the course of time have come to express grammatical relations. The weakening of lexical meaning due to the influence of emotional force is revealed in such words as awfully, terribly, terrific, smashing.