The process of development and change of meaning
The second question is how new meanings develop. To find the answer to this question we must investigate the inner mechanism of this process, or at least its essential features.
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.
The association on which the theatrical meaning of stalls was based is more curious. The original meaning was “compartments in stables or sheds for 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 another down and hurting themselves. So, there must have been a certain outward resemblance between theatre stalls and cattle stalls.
The process of development of a new meaning (or a change of meaning) is termed transference.
Two types of transference are depending on the two types of logical associations underlying the semantic process.
Dostları ilə paylaş: | 
