5. Types of semantic change. Linguistic causes of semantic change

Change in the meanings of words, especially with the passage of time. EG: Silly – Old Eng(happy) then – (ignorant, foolish). Meat in Middle English (food in general), in Modern English (animal flesh). Types:

1. Semantic expansion – a word increase its range of meaning over time. EG ME- bridle(small bird)later term bird in general sense

2. Semantic restriction – opposite to expansion EG Meat in Middle English (food in general), in Modern English (animal flesh)

3. Semantic deterioration – disapprovement in the meaning of a word. In Old Eng word knave (male servant )replaced by boy.

4. Semantic amelioration – an improvement in the meaning. In Old French nice(silly) then(foolish), later (pleasing)

5. shift in markedness – the marked element becomes unmarked or vice versa. Originally Jet is the type of aeroplane now it’s a propeller of a machine.

6. rise of metaphorical usage- is very common semantic development is for literal expressions to acquire figurative usages. Ahead of sth(in front of), now(in better position)

7. reanalysis- The Latin morpheme min- ‘little’ is seen in minor and minus but the words minimum and miniature led to the analysis of mini- as the morpheme meaning ‘small’ which has become general in English (and German) as a borrowed morpheme, cf. minibar, minicomputer, miniskirt.

8. truncation(усечение)- An element is deleted without substitution. mini in the sense of miniskirt.

9. meaning loss through homonymy- Old English had two verbs lætan ‘allow’ and lettan ‘obstruct, hinder’. These became homophonous and only the meaning ‘allow’ survived. However, in the expression without let or hindrance the original meaning survives.

Long time the linguistic reasons of semantic changes weren't studied. Linguistic causes influencing the process of vocabulary adaptation may be of paradigmatic and syntagmatic character; in dealing with them we deal with the constant interaction and interdependence (взаимодействием и взаимозависимостью) of vocabulary units in language and speech, such as differentiation between synonyms, changes taking place in connection with ellipsis and with fixed contexts and some other causes.

Differentiation of synonyms is a gradual change observed in the course of language history, sometimes, involving the semantic assimilation of loan words. (вовлекающее семантическую ассимиляцию заимствованных слов) EG: time and tide. They used to be synonyms. Then tide took on its more limited application to the shifting waters, and time alone is used in the general sense. Beast and deer. In ME beast (animal in general sense) was borrowed from French. Before word «beast» in English was the word «deer» with the same meaning, but then deer(a certain kind of beast). Later word animal was borrowed from Latin and beast (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 animal.

Fixed context may be regarded as another linguistic factor in semantic change. The noun token originally had the broad meaning of ‘sign’. With the loan word (заимствованное слово) sign, it became restricted in use to a number of set expressions such as love token, token of respect and so became specialised in meaning. Fixed context has this influence not only in phrases but in compound words.

Ellipsis. Words of a frequent phrase may be omitted: «sale» comes to be used for «cut-price sale», «propose» for «propose marriage»