INTRODUCTION

Among the word's various characteristics, meaning is certainly the most

important. Generally speaking, meaning can be more or less described as a

component of the word through which a concept is communicated, in this way

endowing the word with the ability of denoting real objects, qualities, actions and

abstract notions.

Linguistic meaning is the content carried by the words or signs exchanged

by people when communicating through language. Restated, the communication of

meaning is the purpose and function of language. A communicated meaning will

(more or less accurately) replicate between individuals either a direct perception or

some sentient derivation thereof. Meanings may take many forms, such as evoking

a certain idea, or denoting a certain real-world entity. Moreover meanings may

change. /4, 15/

Language changes because so many people speak it and because even today

it is impossible to control the norm. Change in pronunciation, grammar, and usage

signifies the collapse of the formerly accepted standard and puts the guardians of

the norm on the defensive. Meaning changes unpredictably, so much that every

now and then a word turns into its antonym. The fact is that words do change in

meaning, and sometimes radically so. Thus the research of semantic change seems

to be very topical.  It is interesting to see how the meaning of a word can change

from something good to something bad.

In conformity with everything foregoing the theme of the term paper is

“Change of word meaning over the time”.

The aim of the research is to investigate how words can change their

meanings.

In order to attain the aim it should be done several tasks, such as:

1. to perform the process of semantic change of words;

2. to describe scholars’ points of view and their classifications suggested

for semantic change;

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3. to state main ways in which words change meanings.

The object of the research, thereby, is word meaning as changing concept.

Its subject comprises investigation of changes of word meaning.

The following methods were used to solve the tasks mentioned above:

studying and analysis of theoretical literature on the theme; the methods of

comparison, observation, description, and means of semantic and componential

analyses.

Change of word meaning is the process that takes place nowadays. The

process of development of a new meaning or a change of meaning is traditionally

termed transference. The result of such transference is the appearance of a new

meaning. Scientific novelty of the research is bringing out main types of semantic

change and tracing such change by some examples analyzing them.

The following hypothesis is proposed: change of meaning is the process

when the old meaning is completely replaced by the new one and it may occur in

different way.

The theoretical significance of the work lies in the fact that through analysis

of literature on the theme and examples of change of meaning semantic changes

were found out and showed; generalization of results of the research and making

up final conclusions have been performed in the enumeration of main types of

semantic change.

The practical significance of the research is potential employment results of

the research by people who study lexicology and are interested in this theme. The

results of the research can be used by students and teachers of English and English

lexicologists. As well they can be used as material for special courses on

lexicology for students of English department.

The structure of the research includes introduction, two chapters, conclusion

and bibliographical list.

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1. CHANGE OF WORD MEANING.

1.1. Semantic changes over the time

If you have ever wondered why words change meanings, just imagine what

language would be like if every word had only one meaning. We would have to

invent hundreds of thousands of words for all the meanings we would wish to

convey! How would we remember so many words? We would have to walk around

with backpacks stuffed with dictionaries. We would become paralyzed by verbal

gridlock. Communication would be so exhausting that many speakers would

retreat to the grunts, squeals, and yowls of cavemen. /5, 72/

Changes in meanings make language flexible and malleable. But how do

words take on new meanings? The study of meanings and the changes of meaning

that words undergo is called semantics (from Greek semantikos “having meaning,

signifying”). So semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word.

Semantic change can be viewed dispassionately as a natural process. /12, 20/ An

example of a recent semantic change is of the word mouse; with the advent of

computer technology, the word for the rodent has been used to refer to the input

device.

Many English words have changed meaning in fascinating, unusual, and

unexpected ways.  Sometimes the meaning of a word can even change from

something good to something bad. /15, 42/ 

For example, the English word "imp" once meant "a young shoot of a

plant."  Later, the word came to mean "child."  Prayers made years ago for the

Prince of Wales referred to him as "that most angelic imp."  However, today, the

word imp means "an evil creature."  /3, 54/

Another example of an English word which has changed in meaning from

good to evil is the word "gay."  Not many years ago in the thirteenth century, the

English word gay (from Old French gai, from Old Provençal, of Germanic origin)

was an adjective which meant happily excited, merry and lively. Today, the

predominant use of the word is as a noun, meaning homosexual.  A few years ago,

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it would have been a compliment to say that Pastor Peters is a gay man and that the

church he pastors is a "gay" church.  Today, to say such would be libelous and

slanderous - a complete lie.  Today, it would be defamation of a Christian's

character for the media to accuse him of being "gay," or to portray him as such. 

Just as the meaning of the words imp and gay have changed from something

innocuous to something evil, so also the meaning of the word tawdry has changed

from benign to evil.

And vice versa, sometimes words change their meaning from something bad

to something good.

An example would be the word nice. Nice used to be an insult and meant

foolish or stupid in the thirteenth century and it went through many changes right

through to the eighteenth century with meanings like wanton, extravagant, elegant,

strange, modest, thin, and shy or coy. Now it means a good and pleasing or

thoughtful and kind.

Silly meant blessed or happy in the eleventh century and went through pious,

innocent, harmless, pitiable and feeble minded before ending up as foolish or

stupid.

Pretty started as crafty this changed to clever or skillfully made, then to fine

and ended up as beautiful

Some other changes are:

In the thirteenth century awful meant deserving of awe and then ended up as

terrible or horrible.

Bead (Old English bed prayer; related to Old High German gibet prayer)

started as prayer and now it means rosary, paternoster.

In the fifteenth century brave meant cowardice (as in bravado) and changed

to courageous, dauntless, and fearless. /2, 25/

The word girl of uncertain origin (perhaps related to Low German Göre boy,

girl) had meaning “young person of either sex” in the thirteenth century and now it

means a female child from birth to young womanhood.

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Neck means the part of an organism connecting the head with the rest of the

body but the old meaning was a parcel of land (as in neck of the woods).

In the fifteenth century nuisance (via Old French from nuire to injure, from

Latin nocēre) started as injury, harm and ended up as a person or thing that causes

annoyance or bother.

Sophisticated means having refined or cultured tastes and habits and meant

corrupted.

In actual fact, all cases of development or change of meaning are based on

some association. In the history of the word carriage (from Old Northern French

cariage), in the fourteenth century the new travelling conveyance was also

naturally associated in people's minds with the old one: horse-drawn vehicle > part

of a railway train. Both these objects were related to the idea of travelling. The job

of both, the horse-drawn carriage and the railway carriage is the same: to carry

passengers on a journey. So the association was logically well-founded.

Stalls and box formed their meanings in which they denoted parts of the

theatre on the basis of a different type of association. The meaning of the word box

"a small separate enclosure forming a part of the theatre" developed on the basis of

its former meaning "a rectangular container used for packing or storing things".

The two objects became associated in the speakers' minds because boxes in the

earliest English theatres really resembled packing cases. They were enclosed on all

sides and heavily curtained even on the side facing the audience so as to conceal

the privileged spectators occupying them from curious or insolent stares.

The association on which the theatrical meaning of stalls was based is even

more curious. The original meaning was "compartments in stables or sheds for the

accommodation of animals (e. g. cows, horses, etc.)". There does not seem to be

much in common between the privileged and expensive part of a theatre and

stables intended for cows and horses, unless we take into consideration the fact that

theatres in olden times greatly differed from what they are now. What is now

known as the stalls was, at that time, standing space divided by barriers into

sections so as to prevent the enthusiastic crowd from knocking one other down and

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hurting themselves. So, there must have been a certain outward resemblance

between theatre stalls and cattle stalls. It is also possible that the word was first

used humorously or satirically in this new sense. /1, 148/

There are several reasons for words change meaning. One is the influence of

other languages and cultures. Throughout history, many nations through

conquering or intermixing with one another, introduced their own languages into

the mix. Another reason is the predominate use of slang words. We get so used to

using them that many times we forget that we even are.

The discussion of meaning change is often emotionally charged, with the

meanings perceived as "improving" (amelioration) or "worsening" (pejoration)

over time.

As languages develop the meaning of words can change over time. This

causes confusion and misunderstanding when communicating with other people.

So if you communicate with other people, it is not only important to have

clarity in your message, it is also important to think of your interlocutors and

understand how they understand words and messages.

On the positive side that words change meaning over time, it is a fact that

languages that stay alive, adapt and grow over time.

1.2. Scholars’ classifications of semantic change

Bloomfield’s classification

Recent overviews have been presented by Blank and Blank & Koch (1999).

Semantic change had attracted academic discussions already in ancient times. The

first major works of modern times were Reisig (1839), Darmesteter (1887), Bréal

(1899), Paul (1880), Stern (1931), Bloomfield (1933) and Stephen Ullmann.

Studies beyond the analysis of single words have been started with the word-field

analyses of Trier (1931), who claimed that every semantic change of a word would

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also affect all other words in a lexical field. His approach was later refined by

Coseriu (1964).

As stated above, the most currently used typologies are those by Bloomfield

(1933) and Blank (1998) and other typologies are listed below.

A number of classification schemes have been suggested for semantic

change. The most widely accepted scheme in the English-speaking academic world

is from Bloomfield (1933):

Narrowing: Change from superordinate level to subordinate level. For

example, skyline used to refer to any horizon, but now it has narrowed to a horizon

decorated by skyscrapers.

Widening: Change from subordinate level to superordinate level. There are

many examples of specific brand names being used for the general product, such as

with Kleenex.

Metaphor: Change based on similarity of thing. For example, broadcast

originally meant "to cast seeds out"; with the advent of radio and television, the

word was extended to indicate the transmission of audio and video signals. Outside

of agricultural circles, very few people use broadcast in the earlier sense.

Metonymy: Change based on nearness in space or time, e.g., jaw "cheek" →

"jaw".

Synecdoche: Change based on whole-part relation. The convention of using

capital cities to represent countries or their governments is an example of this.

Litotes: Change from stronger to weaker meaning, e.g., astound "strike with

thunder" → "surprise strongly".

Hyperbole: Change from weaker to stronger meaning, e.g., kill "torment" →

"kill".

Degeneration: e.g., knave "boy" → "servant".

Elevation: e.g., knight "boy" → "knight". /9, 121/

However, the categorization of Blank (1998) has gained increasing

acceptance:

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Metaphor: Change based on similarity between concepts, e.g., mouse

"rodent" → "computer device".

Metonymy: Change based on contiguity between concepts, e.g., horn "animal

horn" → "musical instrument".

Synecdoche: Same as above.

Specialization of meaning: Downward shift in taxonomy, e.g., corn "corn"

→ "wheat" (UK).

Generalization of meaning; Upward shift in a taxonomy, e.g., hoover

"Hoover vacuum cleaner" → "any type of vacuum cleaner".

Cohyponymic transfer: Horizontal shift in a taxonomy, e.g., the confusion of

mouse and rat in some dialects.

Antiphrasis: Change based on a contrastive aspect of the concepts, e.g.,

perfect lady in the sense of "prostitute".

Auto-antonymy: Change of a word's sense and concept to the complementary

opposite, e.g., bad in the slang sense of "good".

Auto-converse: Lexical expressions of a relationship by the two extremes of

the respective relationship, e.g., take in the dialectal use as "give".

Ellipsis: Semantic change based on the contiguity of names, e.g., car "cart"

→ "automobile", due the to invention of the (motor) car.

Folk-etymology: Semantic change based on the similarity of names, e.g.,

French contredanse, orig. English country dance).

Blank’s classification

Blank considers it problematic, though, to include amelioration and

pejoration of meaning as well as strengthening and weakening of meaning.

According to Blank, these are not objectively classifiable phenomena; moreover,

Blank has only shown that all of the examples listed under these headings can be

grouped into the other phenomena. /8, 56/

Reisig’s classification

Reisig's ideas for a classification were published posthumously. He resorts to

classical rhetorics and distinguishes between

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Synecdoche: shifts between part and whole

Metonymy: shifts between cause and effect

Metaphor

Paul’s classification

Specialization: enlargement of single senses of a word's meaning

Specialization on a specific part of the contents: reduction of single

senses of a word's meaning

Transfer on a notion linked to the based notion in a spatial, temporal, or

causal way

Darmesteter’s classification

Metaphor

Metonymy

Widening of meaning

Narrowing of meaning

The last two are defined as change between whole and part, which would

today be rendered as synecdoche.

Bréal’s classification

Restriction of sense: change from a general to a special meaning

Enlargement of sense: change from a special to a general meaning

Metaphor

"Thickening" of sense: change from an abstract to a concrete meaning

Stern’s classification

Substitution: Change related to the change of an object, of the

knowledge referring to the object, of the attitude toward the object,

e.g., artillery "engines of war used to throw missiles" → "mounted

guns", atom "inseparable smallest physical-chemical element" →

"physical-chemical element consisting of electrons", scholasticism

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"philosophical system of the Middle Ages" → "servile adherence to

the methods and teaching of schools"

Analogy: Change triggered by the change of an associated word, e.g.,

fast adj. "fixed and rapid" ← faste adv. "fixedly, rapidly")

Shortening: e.g., periodical ← periodical paper

Nomination: "the intentional naming of a referent, new or old, with a

name that has not previously been used for it" (Stern 1931: 282), e.g.,

lion "brave man" ← "lion"

Regular transfer: a subconscious Nomination

Permutation: non-intentional shift of one referent to another due to a

reinterpretation of a situation, e.g., bead "prayer" → "pearl in a

rosary" (Adequation: Change in the attitude of a concept, which

makes the distinction from Substitution unclear).

This classification does not neatly distinguish between processes and

forces/causes of semantic change. /15, 31/

Ullmann’s classificationUllmann dintinguishes between nature and consequences of semantic

change:

Nature of semantic change

Metaphor: change based on a similarity of senses

Metonymy: change based on a contiguity of senses

Folk-etymology: change based on a similarity of names

Ellipsis: change based on a contiguity of names

Consequences of semantic change

Widening of meaning: raise of quantity

Narrowing of meaning: loss of quantity

Amelioration of meaning: raise of quality

Pejoration of meaning: loss of quality /16,42/

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2. THE MAIN TYPES OF MEANING GHANGE.

2.1. Common ways of semantic change

Words often change their meanings. A word's new meaning sometimes

replaces the old one entirely.

At the simplest level, words do undergo only two types of meaning change,

not amelioration and pejoration, but generalization (a word's meaning widens to

include new concepts), and specialization (a word's meaning contracts to focus on

fewer concepts).

Here are some common ways in which words change meanings:

Generalization

Also known as extension, generalization is the use of a word in a broader

realm of meaning than it originally possessed, often referring to all items in a class,

rather than one specific item. For instance, place derives via Old French from Latin

platēa “courtyard” or "broad street", but its meaning grew broader than the street,

to include "a particular city", "a business office", "an area dedicated to a specific

purpose" before broadening even wider to mean "area". In the process, the word

place displaced the Old English word stow and became used instead of the Old

English word stede (which survives in stead, steadfast, steady and of course

instead).

Generalization is a natural process, especially in situations of "language on a

shoestring", where the speaker has a limited vocabulary at her disposal, either

because she is young and just acquiring language or because she is not fluent in a

second language. A first-year Spanish student on her first vacation in Spain might

find herself using the word coche, "car", for cars, trucks, jeeps, buses, and so on.

One child when he was two, he used the word oinju (from orange juice) to refer to

any type of juice, including grape juice and apple juice; wawa (from water)

referred to water and hoses, among other things.

Some examples of general English words that have undergone generalization include:

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Word Old Meaning

Pants

(it was shortened from

pantaloons) in the nineteenth century it

meant "men's wide breeches extending

from waist to ankle"

place (the thirteenth century) "broad street"

Specialization

The opposite of generalization, specialization is the narrowing of a word to

refer to what previously would have been but one example of what it referred to.

For instance, the word meat originally referred to "any type of food", but came to

mean "the flesh of animals as opposed to the flesh of fish". The original sense of

meat survives in terms like mincemeat, "chopped apples and spices used as a pie

filling"; sweetmeat, "candy"; and nutmeat, "the edible portion of a nut". When

developing your model language, it is meet to leave compounds untouched, even if

one of their morphemes has undergone specialization (or any other meaning

change).

For an example from another language, the Japanese word koto originally

referred to "any type of stringed instrument" but came to be used to refer only a

specific instrument with thirteen strings, which was played horizontally and was

popular in the Edo Period.

Other examples of specialization, from the development of English, include:

Word Old Meaning

affection

(it was derived from Latin affectiōn-

disposition) in the thirteenth century it

meant "emotion"

deer "animal" (the thirteenth century)

forest "countryside" (the thirteenth

14

century)

girl"a young person" (the thirteenth

century)

starve "to die"

2.2 A taxonomy of semantic change

All other semantic change can be discussed in either terms of generalization

or specialization. The following diagram shows different subtypes of meaning

change.

Generalization, or extension

o Metonymy

o Metaphorical extension

o Radiation

Specialization or narrowing

o Contextual specialization

Shift

o Amelioration

o Pejoration

o Semantic reversal

o Contronyms

Meaninglessness

A shift in meaning results from the subsequent action of generalization and

specialization over time: a word that has extended into a new area then undergoes

narrowing to exclude its original meaning. In the unlikely event that all the senses

of place except for "a business office" faded away, then place would be said to

have undergone a shift.

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Generalization

Metonymy

Metonymy is a figure of speech where one word is substituted for a related

word; the relationship might be that of cause and effect, container and contained,

part and whole. For instance, Shakespeare's comment "Is it not strange that sheep's

guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?" (from Much Ado About Nothing) uses

"sheep's guts" to refer to the music produced by harpstrings. Had guts come to

mean "music", then the meaning would have shifted due to metonymy.

The Greek word dóma originally meant "roof". In the same way English

speakers will metonymically use roof to mean "house" (as in "Now we have a roof

over our heads"), the Greeks frequently used dóma to refer to "house", so that that

is now the standard meaning of the word. A Russian word will provide a similar

example: vinograd, "vineyard", was so frequently used to refer to "grapes", as in

"Let's have a taste of the vineyard" that it has come to mean "grapes".

Metaphorical extension

Grace Murray Hopper, the late Admiral and computer pioneer, told a story

of an early computer that kept calculating incorrectly. When technicians opened up

its case to examine the wiring, which physically represented the machine's logic, a

huge dead moth was found, shorting out one of the circuits and causing the faulty

logic. That moth was the first of its kind to achieve immortality. Because of it,

software is now frequently plagued with "bugs".

The use of bug to refer to an error in computer logic was a metaphorical

extension that became so popular that it is now part of the regular meaning of bug.

The computer industry has a host of words whose meaning has been extended

through such metaphors, including mouse for that now ubiquitous computer input

device (so named because the cord connecting it to the computer made it resemble

that cutest of rodents).

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Metaphorical extension is the extension of meaning in a new direction

through popular adoption of an originally metaphorical meaning. The crane at a

construction site was given its name by comparison to the long-necked bird of the

same name. When the meaning of the word daughter was first extended from that

of "one's female child" to "a female descendant" (as in daughter of Eve), the

listener might not have even noticed that the meaning had been extended.

Metaphorical extension is almost a natural process undergone by every

word. We do not even think of it as meaning change. In its less obvious instances,

we do not even see it as extending the meaning of a word. For example, the word

illuminate originally meant "to light up", but has broadened to mean "to clarify",

"to edify". These meanings seem so natural as to be integral parts of the words,

where senses such as "to celebrate" and "to adorn a page with designs" seem like

more obvious additions.

A few specific metaphors are common to many different languages, and

words can be shown to have undergone similar, if independent, developments.

Thus the Welsh word haul and the Gaelic word súil, both meaning "sun", have

both come to mean "eye". Nor is this metaphor a stranger to English, where the

daisy was in Old English originally a compound meaning "day's eye", from its

yellow similarity to the sun.

More often, languages will differ in the precise correspondences between

words, so that some languages have broad words with many meanings, which must

be translated into multiple words in another language. A word like paternoster,

discussed earlier, with senses ranging from the "Lord's Prayer" to "a magic spell"

to "a large bead" to "a weighted fishing line" will have to be translated into four

different words in another language.

Word Old Meaning

illuminate "to light up" (the sixteenth century)

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Radiation

Radiation is metaphorical extension on a grander scale, with new meanings

radiating from a central semantic core to embrace many related ideas. The word

head originally referred to that part of the human body above the rest. Since the top

of a nail, pin or screw is, like the human head, the top of a slim outline, that sense

has become included in the meaning of head. Since the bulb of a cabbage or lettuce

is round like the human head, that sense has become included in the meaning of

head. The meaning of the word head has radiated out to include the head of a coin

(the side picturing the human head), the head of the list (the top item in the list),

the head of a table, the head of the family, a head of cattle, $50 a head. Other

words that have similarly radiated meanings outward from a central core include

the words heart, root and sun.

Specialization

The only specific subtype of specialization that was identified is contextual

specialization.

Contextual specialization

The word undertaker originally meant "one who undertakes a task,

especially one who is an entrepreneur". This illustrates contextual specialization,

where the meaning of a word is reshaped under pressure from another word that

had frequently co-occurred with it: thus undertaker acquired its meaning from

constant use of the phrase funeral undertaker; eventually, under the pressure

towards euphemism, the word funeral was dropped.

Another example of contextual specialization is doctor, which originally

meant "a teacher" and then later "an expert", where it came to be used in the phrase

medical doctor; now of course this is redundant and medical is omitted, with the

primary sense of doctor having become more specialized.

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Word Old Meaning

undertaker "entrepreneur"

doctor

"teacher" (the fourteenth

century; from Latin

teacher)

Shift

I heard an American student at Cambridge University telling some English

friends how he climbed over a locked gate to get into his college and tore his pants,

and one of them asked, 'But, how could you tear your pants and not your trousers?'

Norman Moss, "British/American Language Dictionary"

Shifts occur when the sense of a word expands and contracts, with the final

focus of the meaning different from the original. For some reason, words

describing clothing tend to shift meanings more frequently than other words,

perhaps because fashion trends come and go, leaving words to seem as old

fashioned as the clothing they describe. Who today wants to wear bloomers,

knickers or pantaloons?

The word pants has an interesting history. It is ultimate etymon is Old Italian

Pantalone. In the 1600s, Italy developed commedia dell'arte, a style of comedy

based on improvisation using stock characters. Pantalone was a stock character

who was portrayed as a foolish old man wearing slippers and tight trousers.

Through regular metonymy, speakers of Old French borrowed his name to describe

his Italian trousers. Their word was then borrowed into English as pantaloon,

which in time was shortened to pants and came to mean trousers in general. British

speakers of English have modified the meaning again to the sense of "underpants",

resulting in the confusing situation described in Norman Moss' quote above.

The divide separating British and American English are quite a few words for clothing, as

the following table shows.

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Word Meaning

jumper

Etymon: English dialect

jump

Original: "loose jacket"

American: "pinafore"

British: "a light pullover"

knickers

Etymon: knickerbockers

Original: "breeches banded

below knee"

American:

"boy's baggy

trousers banded below

knee"

British:

"bloomers, old-

fashioned female

underpants"

pants

Etymon: pantaloon, from

Old French pantalon

Original:

"men's wide

breeches extending from

waist to ankle"

American: "trousers"

British: "underpants"

suspenders Etymon: suspend

Original:

(unchanged)

"straps to support

trousers"

American: (unchanged)

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British: "garter"

tights

Etymon: tight, adj.

Original:

(unchanged)

"snug, stretchable

apparel worn from neck

to toe; typically worn by

dancers or acrobats"

American: (unchanged)

British: "pantyhose"

vest

Etymon: Old French veste

It. Lat. vestis

Original: "clothing"

American: "waistcoat"

British: "undershirt"

Amelioration

Amelioration is the process by which a word's meaning improves or

becomes elevated, coming to represent something more favorable than it originally

referred to.

Suffield's poem gave many good examples of amelioration, including priest

from "old man". A complementary term, pastor, likewise underwent amelioration,

originally meaning "shepherd" (a sense surviving in the word pastoral), but coming

to mean its current sense of "minister" by the extensive Christian references to "the

Lord is my shepherd" as a call to ministry. /14, 6/

The following table shows other examples, including pluck in the sense of

He has a lot of pluck.

Word Old Meaning

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enthusiasm "abuse"

guts

("courage")"entrails"

pastor "shepherd"

pluck

("spirit")

"act of

tugging"

queen "woman"

Pejoration

Pejoration is the process by which a word's meaning worsens or degenerates,

coming to represent something less favorable than it originally did.

King James II called the just completed St. Paul's Cathedral amusing, awful

and artificial. Call the just completed rock and roll museum in Cleveland amusing,

awful and artificial, and you may be accurate but you will mean something quite

different from King James. When he lived, those words meant that the cathedral

was "pleasing, impressive and artful" respectively. The meaning of each word has

grown more negative with time. People seem much more likely to drag words

down than to lift them up, to build museums instead of cathedrals, as the following

examples may demonstrate.

Word Old Meaning

crafty "strong"

cunning "knowing"

egregious

"distinguished,

standing out from the

herd"

harlot "a boy"

notorious "famous"

obsequious "flexible"

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vulgar "popular"

Semantic reversal

Occasionally a word will shift so far from its original meaning that its

meaning will nearly reverse. Fascinatingly enough, the word manufacture

originally meant "to make by hand".

Word Old Meaning

counterfeit "an original"

garble "to sort out"

manufacture "to make by hand"

Contronyms

A contronym is like a word that has undergone semantic reversal, only the

tension has not eased: the word still preserves its original meaning, along with a

contradictory -- if not exactly counterposed -- meaning.

Word Meanings

bimonthly"happening every other month",

"happening twice monthly"

biweekly"happening every other week", "happening

twice weekly"

ravish"to overwhelm with force, especially

rape"*, "to overwhelm with emotion, enrapture"

sanction

"authoritative measure of approval"*,

"coercive measure of disapproval of nation

against nation"

table Brit. "to put on the table for discussion",

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Amer. "to set aside a motion rather than discuss

it"

*The older of the two senses given

Interestingly, biannual means only "twice each year", with no recorded sense

of "every other year" in Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary.

The word cleave (meaning "to split or separate" or "to adhere or cling") is

actually two different words, both from the Old English (cle-ofan and cleofian

respectively) but by changes in pronunciation, these words have evolved the same

current form.

Meaninglessness

The nadir of semantics is meaninglessness. The final semantic change. The

death of meaning. The defeat of sigor.

The word sigor is Old English for "victory". It is now meaningless to almost

all English speakers, except for those familiar with Old English or with German

(where its cognate survives in Seig).

Few now know what sigor means. Is this a change in its meaning or a

change in the very state of the word? Is death part of life?

Words frequently change their meanings over time, and pursuing such

change often illustrates cultural and historical shifts.

The extended meanings are branches that have split off from the trunk, and

this research has simply traced them back to the root. /13, 7/

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CONCLUSION

Having studied different points of view of different scholars and their

classification suggested for semantic change we stated main ways in which words

change meanings and illustrated the process of semantic changes of words in this

research.

And on the basis of this we came to the following conclusion that semantic

change is the natural process which has occurred over time. Language changes

because our life constantly changes, so meaning of the word also changes.

In this work it was investigated how words can change their meanings and

main types of semantic change were brought out:

Generalization, or extension – the use of a word in a broader realm of

meaning than it originally possessed, often referring to all items in a class,

rather than one specific item. Generalization has several types and among

them are metonymy, metaphorical extension, radiation;

Specialization or narrowing – the narrowing of a word to refer to what

previously would have been but one example of what it referred to. The only

specific subtype of specialization that was identified is contextual

specialization;

Shift – the process when the sense of a word expands and contracts, with the

final focus of the meaning different from the original. Different types of

shift are amelioration, pejoration, semantic reversal, contronyms;

Meaninglessness - the nadir of semantics.

It is really a fact that words do change in meaning, and sometimes radically

so. Thus change of meaning is the process when the old meaning is completely

replaced by the new one and it may occur in different way.

Meaning is certainly the most important word’s characteristic. From the

semantic point of view when word changes own meaning it exerts influence on

other words, so even language undergoes change.

Words change meaning over time, it is a fact that let us to arrive at a

conclusion that language has stay alive, adapt and grow over time.

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