Task 58

Establish the linguistic cause or causes of semantic development of the words:

a) ellipsis; b) differentiation of synonyms;

c) fixed context; d) linguistic analogy.

1. The noun knave suffered a striking change of meaning as a result of collision with its synonym boy. Now it has a pronounced negative evaluative connotation and means "a swindler, scoundrel".

2. Minerals came to be used for mineral waters.

3. In early New English the verb overlook was employed in the meaning "to look with an evil eye upon, to cast a spell over" from which there developed the meaning "to deceive" first recorded in 1596. Exactly half a century later we find the verb oversee - a synonym of over­look - used in the meaning "to deceive".

4. The verb propose came to be used for propose marriage.

5. An interesting case concerns autumn and harvest. Harvest is the native Germanic word, cognate with the German Herbst "autumn". However, after the Norman Conquest, the upper classes adopted a great many French words, including autumn. This borrowing promoted a semantic shift: autumn became the nor­mal word for the season, while harvest was reserved for the agricultural labour the peasantry performed at that time.

6. Snack came from the Middle Dutch snacken, which meant "to snap, to bite (especially of a dog)". In Old English bite (OE bītan) meant "to use one's teeth to cut a piece of something, to snap". Actually both words meant the same. Later they developed the meaning "to bite something to eat". Nowadays the nouns snack and bite mean "a light, quick meal".

7. The word beast was borrowed from French into Middle English. Before it appeared, the general word for ani­mal was deer, which after the word beast was intro­duced, became narrowed to its present meaning "a hoofed animal of which the males have antlers". Somewhat later, the Latin word animal was also bor­rowed, then the word beast was restricted, and its meaning served to separate the four-footed kind from all the other members of the animal kingdom. Thus, beast displaced deer and was in its turn itself dis­placed by the generic animal.

8. The word-group a train of carriages had the meaning of "a row of carriages", later on of carriages was dropped and the noun train changed its meaning. It is used now in the function and with the meaning of the whole word-group.

9. The noun token originally had the broad meaning of "a sign". When brought into competition with the loan word sign, it became restricted in use to a number of set expressions as love token, token of respect and so became specialized in meaning.

10. The verb starve in Old English had the meaning "to die" and was used in combination with the word hun­ger (ME sterven of hunger). When the verb die was borrowed from Scandinavian, these two words, which were very close in their meanings, collided and as a result starve gradually changed into its present meaning "to die (or suffer) from hunger".

Task 59

Study these schemes representing the results of semantic change and discuss them with your teacher.

GENERALIZATION

woman

"a wife" > "a fully grown human female"

fellow

“a partner or shareholder of any kind" > "a man or boy"

bird

"a young bird (a chicken, eaglet, etc.), a nestling" > "any bird"

ready

"prepared for a ride" > "prepared for anything"

rich

"powerful" > "wealthy"

arrive

"to come to shore, to land" > "to come"

tell

"to count" > "to make something known in words; to express in words"

regret

"lament over the dead" > "a feeling of sorrow or unhappiness, often mixed with

disappointment (at the loss of something, at a sad event, etc.)"

occasion

"an accident or a grave event" > "a time when something happens"

SPECIALIZATION

lord

"the master of the house, the head of the family" > "a man of noble rank"

queen

"a woman" > "the wife or widow of a king; a woman who is a monarch"

wife

"a woman" > "the woman to whom a man is married"

fowl

"any bird" > "a domestic hen or cock"

room

"space" > "part of a building enclosed by walls and with a floor and ceiling"

stool

"a chair" > "a chair without a back"

sell

"to give" > "to deliver for money"

affection

"an emotion, a disposition or state of mind or body" > "gentle lasting love, fondness"

disease

"any inconvenience" > "an illness"

AMELIORATION

knight

"a boy, youth" > "a noble, courageous man"

Tory

"a brigand, highwayman" > "a member of the Tories"

fond

"foolish, silly" > "loving, affectionate"

pretty

tricky, sly, wily" > "pleasing to look at, charming and attractive"

PEJORATION

demon

"an angel" > "an evil spirit"

knave

“a boy, a male servant" > "a swindler, scoundrel, rogue, a tricky deceitful person"

villain

"a farm servant" > "a scoundrel, a base, vile person"

churl

"a freeborn peasant, freeholder" > "a rude, boorish person"

notorious

"famous" > "famous for something bad"

Task 60

Read the words' stories and identify the results of their mantic development. The results are:

a) generalization; b) specialization;

c) amelioration; d) pejoration.

1. The noun picture used to refer only to a representa­tion made with paint. Today it can be a photograph or a representation made with charcoal, pencil or any other means.

2. The adjective nice - from the Latin nescius for "igno­rant" - at various times before the current definition became established meant "foolish", then "foolishly precise", then "pedantically precise", then "precise in a good way" and then its current definition.

3. Worm was a term for any crawling creature, including snakes.

4. From 1550 to 1675 silly was very extensively used in the sense "deserving pity and compassion, helpless". It is a derivative of the Middle English seely, from the German selig, meaning "happy, blissful, blessed, holy" as well as "punctual, observant of season".

5. The earliest recorded meaning of the word pipe was "a musical wind instrument". Nowadays it can denote any hollow oblong cylindrical body.

6. Radiator was used for anything that radiated heat or light before it was applied specifically to steam heat or a vehicle and an aircraft.

7. Consider blackguard. In the lord's retinue of the Mid­dle Ages served among others the guard of iron pots and other kitchen utensils, black with soot. From the immoral features attributed to these servants by their masters comes the present scornful meaning of the word blackguard - "a scoundrel".

8. Revolutionary, once associated in the capitalist mind with an undesirable overthrowing of the status quo, is now widely used by advertisers as a signal of desirable novelty.

9. The word saloon originally referred to any large hall in a public place. The sense "a public bar" developed by 1841.

10. Lewd started out denoting those who were lay people as opposed to clergy. Since the clergy were educated and the lay people, by and by, were not, it then came to denote those who were ignorant, and from there -to obscene, clearly with worse connotations.

11. The verb kidnap has come into wide use in the mean­ing "to take a child away illegally and usually by force, in order to demand especially money for their safe return". Now it implies any person, not only a child.

12. Crafty, now a disparaging term, originally was a word of praise.

13. Target originally meant "a small round shield" but now it means "anything that is fired at" and figura­tively "any result aimed at".

14. The word lean no longer brings to mind emaciation but athleticism and good looks.

15. Voyage in earlier English meant "a journey", as does the French voyage, but is now restricted mostly to journeys by sea.

16. The word hussy means today "an ill-behaved woman, a jade, a flirt". Yet in Middle English, it denoted a per­fectly reputable woman (a housewife).

17. Butcher dates from the 13th century as a term denot­ing the person who prepared and cut up any kind of meat. Previously it referred to a specialist in goat's meat, often salted because it was tough - this fact in­dicates how low the consumption of beef had been in the Middle Ages.

18. The adjective shrewd formerly meant "malicious, wicked; cunning, deceitful". Then it came to mean "sharp-witted; having practical common sense".

Task 62

Compare the original and the resultant meanings of these words and say whether they can be considered as exam­ples of amelioration or not.

earl

"a brave man, a warrior, a leader" > "a British nobleman of high rank"

lady

"the mistress of the house, a married woman" > "the wife or daughter of a nobleman"

lord

"the master of the house, the head of the family" > "a man of noble rank"

marshal

"a manservant attending horses" > "the highest military rank"

Task 63

The simplified descriptions of the words in the above tasks, whose aim is to bring out the salient points in the words' development, may create a false impression that the lines of semantic development are always straight and clear. As often as not words undergo complicated semantic changes, for example the word's meaning may come to generalization through specialization or vice versa, or the processes in the connotative component of the lexical meaning may be accompanied by the alterations of the denotative component. Read the longer stories and identify the changes in each case:

a) specialization; generalization; b) generalization; specialization;

с) generalization + pejoration; d) specialization + pejoration;

e) generalization + amelioration; f) specialization + amelioration;

g) specialization + amelioration; generalization;

h) specialization; generalization + pejoration;

i) generalization + amelioration and generalization + pejo­ration.

These descriptions are based on the data of the electronic dictionaries (see: Bibliography).

1. The word flunky has come into Standard English from Scots, in which the word meant "a liveried manser­vant, a footman", coming at least by the 19th century to be a term of contempt. The word is first recorded and defined in a work about Scots published in 1782. The definition states that flunky is "literally a sides­man or attendant at your flank", which gives support to the suggestion that flunky is a derivative and al­teration of flanker "one who stands at a person's flank". The current meanings of flunky are labelled as derog ("a person of slavish or unquestioning obedience", "one who does menial or trivial work", "a male servant in ceremonial dress").

2. In Old English the word lady (OE hlæfdīge) denoted the mistress of the house, i.e. any married woman. Later, a new meaning developed - "the wife or daugh­ter of a baronet" (aristocratic title). In Modem English the word lady can be applied to any woman.

3. First recorded in English in 1784 with the sense "a lover, an admirer", amateur is found in 1786 with a meaning more familiar to us - "a person who engages in an art, for example, as a pastime rather than as a profession" - a sense that had already developed in French. Given the limitations of doing something as an amateur, it is not surprising that the word is soon af­ter recorded in the disparaging sense used to refer to someone who lacks professional skill or ease in per­formance.

4. The word ketchup exemplifies the types of modifica­tions that can take place in borrowing - both of words' and substances. The source of the word ketchup may be the Malay word kēcbap, possibly taken into Malay from the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. Kechap, like ketchup, was a sauce, but one without tomatoes; rather, it contained fish brine, herbs, and spices. Sail­ors seem to have brought the sauce to Europe, where it was made with locally available ingredients such as the juice of mushrooms or walnuts. At some unknown point, when the juice of tomatoes was first used, ketchup as we know it was born. But it is important to realize that in the 18^th and 19^th centuries ketchup was a generic term for sauces whose only common ingredi­ent was vinegar.

5. When, in the 7^th century, Etheldreda, the queen of Northumbria, decided to renounce her husband and her royal position for the veil of a nun, she was almost straightway appointed abbess of a monastery in the Isle of Ely. She was renowned for her saintliness and is traditionally said to have died of a swelling in her throat, which she took as a judgment upon her fond­ness for wearing necklaces in her youth. Her shrine became one of the principal sites of pilgrimage in Eng­land. An annual fair was held in her honour on 17 Oc­tober, and her name became simplified to St. Audrey. At these fairs various kinds of cheap knickknacks, toys, and jewelry were sold along with a type of neck­lace called St. Audrey's lace, which by the 17^th cen­tury had become altered to tawdry lace. Eventually tawdry came to be applied to the various other cheap articles sold at these fairs and so developed its present sense of "cheap showy finery", as well as the adjectival use to mean "cheap and gaudy in appearance and quality".

6. "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," said Ralph Waldo Emerson, who also said, "Every­where the history of religion betrays a tendency to en­thusiasm." These two uses of the word enthusiasm -one positive and one negative - both derive from its source in Greek. Enthusiasm first appeared in English in 1603 with the meaning "possession by a god". The source of the word is the Greek enthousiasmos, which ultimately comes from the adjective entheos "having the god within", formed from en "in, within" and theos "god". Over time the meaning of enthusiasm became expanded to "rapturous inspiration like that caused by a god" to "an overly confident or delusory belief that one is inspired by God", to "ill-regulated religious fer­vour, religious extremism" and eventually to the famil­iar sense "craze, excitement, strong liking for some­thing". Now one can have an enthusiasm for almost anything, from water skiing to fast food, without relig­ion entering into it at all. The current negative mean­ing of this word is "any of various forms of extreme re­ligious devotion, usually associated with intense emo­tionalism and a break with orthodoxy".