A course In Modern English Lexicology

§ 25. Summary
and Conclusions meaning of the word is changed in the course of the historical development of language. The factors causing semantic changes may be roughly subdivided into extra-linguistic and linguistic causes.
2. Change of meaning is effected through association between the existing meaning and the new. This association is generally based on the similarity of meaning (metaphor) or on the contiguity of meaning (metonymy).
3. Semantic changes in the denotational component may bring about the extension or the restriction of meaning. The change in the connotational component may result in the pejorative or ameliorative development of meaning.
4. Causes, nature and result of semantic changes should be regarded as three essentially different but closely connected aspects of the same linguistic phenomenon.
MEANING AND POLYSEMY
So far we have been discussing the concept of meaning, different types of word-meanings and the changes they undergo in the course of the historical development of the English language. When analysing the word-meaning we observe, however, that words as a rule are not units of a single meaning. Monosemantic words, i.e. words having only one meaning are comparatively few in number, these are mainly scientific terms, such -as hydrogen, molecule and the like. The bulk of English words are p o l y s e m a n t i c , that is to say possess more than one meaning.
The actual number of meanings of the commonly used words ranges from five to about a hundred. In fact, the commoner the word the more meanings it has.
The word table, e.g., has at least nine mean-
§ 26. Semantic Structure
of Polysemantic Words
ings in Modern English: 1. a piece of furni-
ture; 2. the persons seated at a table; 3. sing.
the food put on a table, meals; 4. a thin flat piece of stone, metal, wood, etc.; 5. pl. slabs of stone; 6. words cut into them or written on them (the ten tables); 2 7. an orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc.; 8. part of a machine-tool on which the work is put to be operated on; 9. a level area, a plateau. Each of the individual meanings can be described in terms of the types of meanings discussed above. We may, e.g., analyse the eighth meaning of the word table into the part-of-speech meaning — that of the noun (which presupposes the grammatical meanings of number and case) combined with the lexical meaning made up of two components The denotational semantic component which can be interpreted
1 For details see ‘Semasiology’, §29, p. 36.
2 десять заповедей (библ.)
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as the dictionary definition (part of a machine-tool on which the work is put) and the connotational component which can be identified as a specific stylistic reference of this particular meaning of the word table (technical terminology). Cf. the Russian планшайба, стол станка.
In polysemantic words, however, we are faced not with the problem of analysis of individual meanings, but primarily with the problem of the interrelation and interdependence of the various meanings in the semantic structure of one and the same word.
If polysemy is viewed diachronically, it is
§ 27. Diachronic Approach understood as the growth and development of or, in general, as a change in the semantic structure of the word.
Polysemy in diachronic terms implies that a word may retain its previous meaning or meanings and at the same time acquire one or several new ones. Then the problem of the interrelation and interdependence of individual meanings of a polysemantic word may be roughly formulated as follows: did the word always possess all its meanings or did some of them appear earlier than the others? are the new meanings dependent on the meanings already existing? and if so what is the nature of this dependence?
can we observe any changes in the arrangement of the meanings? and so on.
In the course of a diachronic semantic analysis of the polysemantic word table we find that of all the meanings it has in Modern English, the primary meaning is ‘a flat slab of stone or wood’, which is proper to the word in the Old English period ( OE. tabule from L. tabula); all other meanings are secondary as they are derived from the primary meaning of the word and appeared later than the primary meaning, The terms s e c o n d a r y and d e r i v e d meaning are to a certain extent synonymous. When we describe the meaning of the word as “secondary” we imply that it could not have appeared before the primary meaning was in existence. When we refer to the meaning as “derived” we imply not only that, but also that it is dependent on the primary meaning and somehow subordinate to it. In the case of the word table, e.g., we may say that the meaning ‘the food put on the table’ is a secondary meaning as it is derived from the meaning ‘a piece of furniture (on which meals are laid out)’.
It follows that the main source of polysemy is a change in the semantic structure of the word.
Polysemy may also arise from homonymy. When two words become identical in sound-form, the meanings of the two words are felt as making up one semantic structure. Thus, the human ear and the ear of corn are from the diachronic point of view two homonyms. One is etymologically related to L. auris, the other to L. acus, aceris. Synchronically, however, they are perceived as two meanings of one and the same word. The ear of corn is felt to be a metaphor of the usual type (cf. the eye of the needle, the foot of the mountain) and consequently as one of the derived or, synchronically, minor meanings of the polysemantic word ear.1 Cases 1 In dictionaries ear (L. auris) and ear (L. acus, aceris) are usually treated as two homonymous words as dictionary compilers as a rule go by etymological criterion.
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of this type are comparatively rare and, as a rule, illustrative of the vagueness of the border-line between polysemy and homonymy.
Semantic changes result as a rule in new meanings being added to the ones already existing in the semantic structure of the word. Some of the old meanings may become obsolete or even disappear, but the bulk of English words tend to an increase in number of meanings.
Synchronically we understand polysemy as