Historical Linguistics

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Historical Linguistics

• Lexical Change
• Lecture 6, Week 7
• Lynne Cahill
• February 2008

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Lexical change

• Think of lexical meaning as a set of words
  expressing the entire range of meanings required
  by a speech community
• Changes in meaning
• when new meanings required
• when meanings no longer required
• when words increase the range of their
  application
• when words decrease the range of their
  application
• when words change their distribution

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Micro and macro-dynamic change

• Nerlich and Clarke (1988)
• Micro-dynamic changes (or short-term semantic
  changes) apply to individual speech event
• Macro-dynamic changes have long-term consequences
• All changes start as micro-dynamic
• Only some develop into macro-dynamic
• Later in the course we'll look more at why some
  changes stick and others don't

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New words

• Derivation, compounding
• language specific, rule-governed, variable
  productivity
• back formations (reanalysis)
• Borrowings
• may undergo changes in meaning
• may undergo assimilation to phonology and/or
  morphology of host language
• Blends, clippings, brand names, acronyms
• range of mechanisms for creating new words
• do not necessarily obey existing rules (spelling,
  phonology, morphology)

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Meanings lost

• Words may go out of use (brougham)
• Or they may take on different meanings (pen from
  Latin penna 'feather')
• Original meaning relates to physical properties
• Associated meaning from function (as quill)
• Associated meaning becomes more important
• Functional meaning remains when physical
  characteristics changed/lost

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Increase of application

• A word with a very restricted meaning begins to
  apply more widely
• clog fasten wood to gt encumber by adhesion
• Happens a lot with body parts
• foot of mountain, league table ...
• mouth of river
• May be more or less concrete
• sharp of musical note, remark
• dark of emotions

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Decrease of application

• Word with relatively broad meaning takes on
  narrower meaning
• meat flesh for eating lt food
• Can happen because of introduction of words with
  similar meanings
• Or because of creeping change in usage
• As with virtually all meaning change, usage is
  key
• if a word is frequently used in a particular way,
  that becomes its accepted usage and therefore
  dictates its meaning

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Change in distribution

• Some semantic shifts just involve change in
  distribution of words across meanings
• English become and German bekommen
• O.E. becuman "happen, come about," from P.Gmc.
  bikweman "become" (cf. Ger. bekommen, Goth.
  biquiman) it drove out O.E. weorðan
  (http//www.etymonline.com)
• German werden now means become, bekommen means
  receive
• English receive from French recevoir

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Words and senses

• Approaches to lexicology
• Semasiological words ? senses (as in a
  dictionary)
• Onomasiological senses ? words (as in a
  thesaurus)
• Structural relationships between senses,
  including synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, meronymy
• Changes in meaning can be mapped along all three
  lines

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Ullmann's classification

• (Ullmann 1957 220 ff.)
• A. Changes due to linguistic conservatism
• B. Changes due to linguistic innovation
• i. Transfer of names
• a) through similarity between senses
• b) through contiguity between senses
• ii. Transfer of senses
• a) through similarity between names
• b) through contiguity between names
• iii. Composite changes
• N.B. for similarity, cf. Anttilas iconic
  for contiguity, cf. Anttilas indexical

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Ullmann's classification A

• A words with a functional meaning,
  characteristics of the referent may change
  radically
• E.g.
• pen lt Latin penna feather
• meaning as quill becomes primary
• functional meaning extends
• car lt Latin carrum lt OCelt karrom waggon

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Ullmann's classification Bia

• Bia metaphor, e.g. body part metaphors applied
  to other objects
• foot (of mountain, league table ...)
• mouth (of river)
• tongue (of shoe)
• Other things applied to body parts
• Kopf (German lt cup)
• tête (French lt Latin testa pot)
• Emotive rather than objective
• sharp of musical note, remark
• dark of emotion

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Ullmann's classification Bib

• Bib metonymy (substitute for something
  associated), synecdoche (part for whole and vice
  versa)
• cheek lt jaw
• French joue cheek lt jaw
• French bouche mouth lt Latin bucca cheek
• bureau baize gt desk covered with baize gt
  office gt staff of an office gt institution
  employing staff (as e.g. FBI)

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Ullmann's classification Bii

• Biia sometimes from folk etymology
• obnoxious originally liable to harm, influenced
  by noxious and ob- (as in objectionable)
• belfry bell tower lt ME berfrey movable siege
  tower lt OFr berfrei lt Frankish bergfrið
  defensive place of shelter bell not
  originally part of the sense, or the form
• Biib ellipsis (clipping?)
• tabloid newspaper
• internet
• laptop computer

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Ullmann's classification Biii

• Biii anything that can't be classified
  definitively under one of the other headings
• a Rembrandt may be ellipsis (painting) or
  metonymy
• a Rioja similar (ellipsis of wine)
• belfry example also, similarity of both form and
  sense involved
• There are problems with Ullmann's classification

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Limitations of Ullmann

• Type A not really different from Bia (transfer
  through similarity of senses)
• Difficult to see why justifies a whole new
  category
• Approach is purely semasiological (like a
  dictionary)
• No place for onomasiological view (like a
  thesaurus)
• Especially lexical innovation consisting of
  development of new senses

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Limitations of Ullmann

• Notions of similarity and contiguity too
  restricting
• Specialisation of meaning
• e.g. corner has a much more restricted meaning in
  its football sense
• legal terminology accessory someone who aids
  or contributes to a crime
• Emotive factors euphemism/taboo, connotative
  meaning ...

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Taboo/Euphemism

• Words with meanings that inspire fear replaced
  with euphemisms or descriptive terms
• E.g. bears in Northern Europe large and scary
• Inherited word (from PIE) Latin ursus, Sanskrit
  rksas
• Many N. European languages replaced this with
  words meaning brown one, (bear, bruin)
• Slavic medved related to med ('honey') the
  honey-eater