The elements of the semantic structure. Polysemy.

The meaning of the word is not homogenious and can be considered as a structure. One and the same word may have several meanings. Traditionally a word that has more than one meaning is called polysemantic, and the phenomenon polysemy can be defined as plurality of meaning. Polysemy is connected with the phenomenon of the semantic structure of the word and those of the lexico-semantic variant and the seme.

There are 2 main approaches to the problem of the semantic structure. The 1^st (among the scholars are A.I. Smirnitsky and V.V.Vinogradov) deals with LSVs, which are defined as minimal doublefacet lexical units, the outer facet(formal) of which is the sound form and the inner side (facet) is one of the meanings of a concrete word. The semantic structure then is defined as a structured set of lexico-semantic variants. E.g. companion n. 1)a person, who goes somewhere or spends time with somebody – John is my close companion 2) a person, usually a womn, paid to live with an elderly or sick person- The old lady`s companion always drives the c ar 3)a pair or set of things – I had a companion to that vase, but I broke it. 4)a book that explains how to do smth(handbook) – the Motorist`s companion

The LSVs within the semantic structure of one word consist in various relations. Thus there are those which appeared first (if we study them diachronically), those which are used more often than others etc. As in any system there is the center and periphery. The meaning can be direct or nominative, when it just nominates the object without the help of context, e.g. in titles. figurative when the object is named and characterized through its similarity with another object., e.g. a hand –рука: стрелка часов. Other oppositions are main or primary:: secondary, central:: peripheric, The main meaning is that which possesses the highest frequency at the present stage of development.

There are 2 types of development of meanings or relations between LSVs- 1) irradiation (radial)- 2)chain. E.g. the word portion has 8 meanings 1) a part of anything, a share 2) a quantity of food for one person 3) a quantity of any kind of food served in a restaurant 4) the share of an estate given to an heir 5) marriage portion – dowry 6) a person`s fate 7) a part of any whole 8) a part of the whole stock, a limited quantity – a portion of water: 1,7,5,6,2,4 – radial; 1-2-3 –chain, 1-7-8 chain.

According to I.V. Arnold, polysemy is inherent in the very nature of words, as they always contain a generalization of several traits of the object. Polysemy is characteristic of most words in many languages. It is one of the characteristics of the Eng­lish vocabulary as compared with Russian, due to the monosyllabic character of English and the predominance of root words. The greater the relative frequency of the word, the greater the number of elements that constitute its semantic structure, i.e. the more polysemantic it is.

Po1ysemy and semantic structure exist only in language, not in speech.

The meaning in speech is contextual. If we examine one word in two different contexts we can see that a definite context particula­rizes it and makes possible only one meaning. Usage correlates each time only with one meaning of the word. E.g. 1) Most birds and some insects fly 2) A bee flew through the open window 3) I prefer flying to going by train 4) Time flies. Speaking about contextual variants scholars speak about usual (узуальный) and occasional (окказиональный) meaning e.g. to drone v. has 2 usual meanings 1) to make a low hummimg sound as made by bees 2) to talk or sing in a low monotounous voice. – An occasional meaning – to move producing a droning sound – A car droned along the street.

Polysemy does not interfere with the communicative function of the language because in every particular case the situation and context, cancel all the unnecessary meanings.

The 2^nd approach deals with semes and defines them as the minimal unit of meaning. Here special procedures of componential analysis were developed to determine the components of each meaning and represent this as a combination of elementary senses. The meaning of the word son may be described as belonging to the terms of kinship and denoting a direct male offspring of the first generation, while grandson is a direct male offspring of the second generation. If compared with such words as artist, coward, friend, lass or visitor these words will reveal a common denominator in the very general meaning ‘person’ that constitutes the lexico-grammatical meaning of personal nouns.

The change of meaning

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

All the types of change of meaning depend upon some comparison between the earlier and the new meaning of the given word. This comparison may be based on the difference between notions expressed on the type of psychological association, on evaluation etc.

The traditional classification of types of change of meaning was suggested by M. Breal and H. Paul.

The most important types are: specialization of meaning, generelization of meaning, amelioration of meaning, perjoration of meaning. Besides, sholars speak about metaphorical and metonymical change and some minor typessuch as hyperbole, litotes, irony, euphemism. There is a difference between the terms of the last group as understood in in lexicology and stylistics.

During passing from general usage into some special sphere of communication a word can undergo some sort of specialization ( the other terms are “narrowing, dif­ferentiation ”.)of its meaning: e.g, “hound ” - a dog of any breed; now- “a dog used in the chase”; “to glide” -“to move smoothly”; now- “to fly with no engine”; “ to starve” – to die, now- to die of hunger;meat – food; now-special kind of food; “girl”- a small child of any sex; now- a child of the female sex.

A word here which formerly represen­ted a notion of a broader scope has come to render a notion of a narrower scope. In this case the word can name fewer objects, i.e. have fewer referents. At the same time the content of the notion is enriched. St. Ullmann said about it: “The word is now applicable to more things but tells us less about them.”

The process opposite to specialization is called generalization or broadening of meaning. In that case the scope of the new notion is wider than that of the original one, whereas the content of the notion is poorer. Often a concrete meaning becomes more abstract. E.g. target – a small round shield; now - anything that is fired at; pipe - a musical instrument; now - hollow body of special form; to arrive - to come to shore, to land, now to come anywhere.

Changes in the connotational component of lexical meaning are also of two main types. They are also called changes depending on the social attitude to the object named: ameliora­tion (elevation) and pejoration (degradation) of meaning.

Amelioration or elevation is a semantic shift undergone by words due to their referents coming up the social scale, e.g. minister - a servant;, now-a civil servant of high rank; queen - a woman; now- the king`s wife; marshal -a servant looking after horses; now –the highest military rank; knight -a young servant; now – a noble man; tory - a highwayman; now- a member of the Conservative party.

The reverse process is pejoration or degradation. It involves a lowering in social scale connected with the appearance of a derogatory and scornful emotive tone. E.g. knave –1)‘boy, 2) servant; now a term of abuse; villain - a worker on the villa; now - a scoundrel; silly -happy; now - foolish.

The most frequent transfers of the name of one object to a different one are based on associations of similarity or of contiguity. They are called metaphor (Greek – meta – “change” and phero “bear”) and metonymy (Greek - metonymia from meta and onoma 'name').

Metaphor is a transfer of name based on the association of similarity and thus is actually a hidden comparison. The relationship of the direct denotative meaning of the word and the meaning in the literary context is based on similarity of some features in the objects compared. E.g a cunning person - a fox; a woman -a peach, a lemon, a oat, a goose; a famous person - a star, the part of a building – a wing.

Metaphors are divided into language and poetic. In lexicology we are interested mostly in linguistic metaphors as poetic ones are tropes and studied in stylistics. Poetic metaphor is the fruit of the author's imagination, it is normally unexpected and new. Language metaphors are mostly dead or trite, and the thing nominated normally has no other name. In a dead metaphor the comparison is completely forgotten, e.g, source. When the development of the meaning is more or less obvious such metaphors are called genuine. Metaphors have been studied since Ancient times, when Aristotle and Quintillian dealt with them. In modern linguistics such foreign scholars as Richards and Lacoff and many Russian ones worked on the problem.

Metaphors, H. Paul points out, may be based upon several types of similarity, the most freqent are: 1) similarity of shape: head of a cabbage, the teeth of a saw. 2) similarity of function: a hand – a hand of the clock. 3) position: foot of a page, of a mountain, or behaviour: bookworm, wirepuller (политический интриган) 4) the analogy between duration of time and space, e.g. long distance’.’, long speech; a short path - a short time; 5) space relations and psychological and mental notions (e.g. words of understanding): to catch (to grasp) an idea; to take a hints to get the hang of; to throw light upon. 6 ) the concrete to the abstract score- a number of somth- state of affairs, span- length-period of time, thrill-vibration – excitement; 7) transitions of proper names into common ones: an Adonis, a Cicero, a Don Juan, etc.

Metaphors are often antropomorphic.: head of an army, of a procession, of a household; eye of a needle, foot of a hill, tongue of a bell.

If the transfer is based upon the association of contiguity it is called metonymy. It is a shift of names between things that are known to be in some way or other connected in reality. The transfer may be condi­tioned by spatial, temporal, causal, symbolic, instrumental, functional and other relations.

1) spatial relations are present when the name of the place is used for the people occupying it. The chair may mean ‘the chair­man’, the bar ‘the lawyers’, the pulpit ‘the priests’. The word town may denote the inhabitants of a town and the word house the members of the House of Commons or of Lords; the arms of the chair, the foot of the bed.

2) causal relationship is obvious in the following example: fear from ‘danger’, ‘unexpected attack’.

3)States and properties serve as names for objects and people possessing them: youth, age, authorities, forces.

4)Emotions may be named by the movements that accompany them: to froasn, to start.

5) Symbol for thing symbol­ized: the crown for ‘monarchy’;

6) The instrument for the product: hand for’handwriting’;

7) The receptacle for content, as in the word kettle.

8)The material from which an article is made for the article itself: glass, iron, copper, nickel

9)Common names may be derived from proper names also metonymically, as in mackintosh.

10) Many physical and technical units are named after great scientists:

volt, ohm, ampere, watt, etc.

11) The place of some establishment is used not only for the establishment itself or its staff but also for its policy: the White House, the Pentagon, Wall Street, Dawning Street, Fleet Street.

Examples of geographic names turning into common nouns to name the goods exported or originating there are exceedingly numerous: china, tweed.

Hyperbole (from Greek huperballo “exceed”) is an exaggerated statement not meant to be understood literally but expressing an intensely emotional attitude of the speaker to what he is speaking about: e.g. A bsolutely! Awfully! Terribly! Lovely! The reverse figure is called litotes or understatement. It is defined as expressing the affirmative by the negation of its contrary: e.g. not bad or not half bad for ‘good’, not small for ‘great’, no coward for ‘brave’. Some understate­ments do not contain negations: rather decent; I could do with a cup of tea. Understatement is a typical feature of English speech. Moreover it is a sort of phenomenon of life, the style of life: I won` t recommend, I don` t think you are right, I`d rather not do it.

Irony, expression of one’s meaning by words of opposite meaning, especially for the purpose of ridicule. One of the meanings of the adjective nice is ‘bad’, ‘unsatisfactory’; it is marked off as ironical and illustrated by the example: You’ve got us into a nice mess!

Causes of semantic change

The causes of semantic changes may be grouped under two main head­ings, linguistic and extralinguistic ones. The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the languages. They are observed in changes of meaning resulting from the development of the notion and the denotatum or by appearance of new notions and things. To name these new objects new words can appear, words can be borrowed from other languages or old words develop new meanings. This process is reflected in the develop­ment of lexical meaning, e.g. carriage – a vehicle, drawn by horses – a railway car; a mill -a building where flour was produced, now- a textile factory.

The linguistic reasons deal with changes due to the constant interdependence of vocabulary units in language and speech, such as differentiation between synonyms, changes taking place in connection with ellipsis and with fixed contexts, changes resulting from ambiguity in certain contexts, and some other cases: e.g. time and tide. The words were synonyms. Then tide took on its more limited application to the periodically shifting waters, and time alone is used in the general sense.

There are also syntagmatic semantic changes depending on the context, e.g.

ellipsis. The qualifying words of a frequent phrase may be omitted: propose can be used for to propose marriage, to be expecting for to be expecting a baby. The kernel word of the phrase may seem redundant: minerals for mineral waters. Due to ellipsis starve which originally meant ‘die’ (Germ - sterben) came to substitute the whole phrase die of hunger, and also began ‘ to mean ‘suffer from lack of food’ and even in colloquial use ‘to feel hungry’.