И. В. Арнольд лексикология современного английского языка Издание

editor — a person who prepares written material for publication; pedestrian — a person who goes on foot;

refugee — a person who has been driven from his home country by war.

The word was borrowed into Middle English from Old French, where it was persone and came from Latin persona ‘the mask used by an actor’, ‘one who plays a part’, ‘a character in a play’. The motivation of the word is of interest. The great theatre spaces in ancient Rome made it impossible for the spectators to see the actor’s face and facial changes. It was also difficult to hear his voice distinctly. That is why masks with a megaphonic effect were used. The mask was called persona from Lat per ‘through’ and sonare ‘to sound’. After the term had been transferred (metonymically) to the character represented, the generalisation to any human being came quite naturally. The process of generalisation and abstraction is continuing so that in the 70s person becomes a combining form substituting the semi-affix -man (chairperson, policeperson, salesperson, workperson). The reason for this is a tendency to abolish sex discrimination in job titles. The plural of compounds ending in -person may be -persons or -people: businesspeople or businesspersons.

In fact all the words belonging to the group of generic terms fall into this category of generalisation. By generic terms we mean non-specific terms applicable to a great number of individual members of a big class of words (see p. 39). The grammatical categoric meaning of this class of words becomes predominant in their semantic components.

It is sometimes difficult to differentiate the instances of generalisation proper from generalisation combined with a fading of lexical meaning ousted by the grammatical or emotional meaning that take its place. These phenomena are closely connected with the peculiar characteristics of grammatical structure typical of each individual language. One observes them, for instance, studying the semantic history of the English auxiliary and semi-auxiliary verbs, especially have, do, shall, will, turn, go, and that of some English prepositions and adverbs which in the course of time have come to express grammatical relations. The weakening of lexical meaning due to the influence of emotional force is revealed in such words as awfully, terribly, terrific, smashing.

“Specialisation” and “generalisation” are thus identified on the evidence of comparing logical notions expressed by the meaning of words. If, on the other hand, the linguist is guided by psychological considerations and has to

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go by the type of association at work in the transfer of the name of one object to another and different one, he will observe that the most frequent transfers are based on associations of similarity, or of contiguity. As these types of transfer are well known in rhetoric as figures of speech called metaphor (Gr metaphora < meta change’ and pherein ‘bear’) and metonymy (Gr metonymia < meta ‘change’ and onoma/onytna ‘name’), the same terms are adopted here. A metaphor is a transfer of name based on the association of similarity and thus is actually a hidden comparison. It presents a method of description which likens one thing to another by referring to it as if it were some other one. A cunning person for instance is referred to as a fox. A woman may be called a peach, a lemon, a cat, a goose, a bitch, a lioness, etc.

In a metonymy, this referring to one thing as if it were some other one is based on association of contiguity (a woman —a skirt). Sean O'Casey in his one-act play “The Hall of Healing” metonymically names his personages according to the things they are wearing: Red Muffler, Grey Shawl, etc. Metaphor and metonymy differ from the two first types of semantic change, i.e. generalisation and specialisation, inasmuch as they do not result in hyponymy and do not originate as a result of gradual almost imperceptible change in many contexts, but come of a purposeful momentary transfer of a name from one object to another belonging to a different sphere of reality.

In all discussion of linguistic metaphor and metonymy it must be borne in mind that they are different from metaphor and metonymy as literary devices. When the latter are offered and accepted both the author and the reader are to a greater or lesser degree aware that this reference is figurative, that the object has another name. The relationship of the direct denotative meaning of the word and the meaning it has in a particular literary context is based on similarity of some features in the objects compared. The poetic metaphor is the fruit of the author’s creative imagination, as for example when England is called by Shakespeare (in “King Richard II") this precious stone set in the silver sea.

The term poetic here should not be taken as ‘elevated’, because a metaphor may be used for satirical purposes and be classed as poetic. Here are two examples:

The world is a bundle of hay,

Mankind are the asses who pull (Byron).

Though women are angels, yet wedlock’s the devil (Byron).

Every metaphor is implicitly of the form ‘X is like Y in respect of Z’.¹ Thus we understand Byron’s line as ‘women are like angels, so good they are, but wedlock is as bad as the devil’. The words world, mankind, women, wedlock, i.e. what is described in the metaphor, are its tenor, while a bundle of hay, asses, angels, the devil are the vehicle, that

¹ The formula is suggested in: Leech G. A Linguistic Guide to Poetry. London: Longman, 1973.

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is they represent the image that carries a description and serves to represent the tenor. The third element Z is called the ground of the metaphor. In the second example the ground is ‘good’ (used ironically) and ‘bad’. The ground, that is the similarity between the tenor and vehicle, in a metaphor is implied, not expressed.

The ground of the metaphors in the examples that follow is the insincerity of the smiles that Gr. Greene mocks at: he excavated his smile; the woman hooked on another smile as you hook on a wreath; she whipped up a smile from a large and varied stock (Greene). (Examples are borrowed from V. K. Tarasova’s work.)

In a linguistic metaphor, especially when it is dead as a result of long usage, the comparison is completely forgotten and the thing named often has no other name: foot (of a mountain), leg (of a table), eye (of a needle), nose (of an aeroplane), back (of a book).

Transfer of names resulting from tropes (figurative use of words) has been classified in many various ways. Out of the vast collection of terms and classifications we mention only the traditional group of rhetorical categories: metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole, litotes, euphemism, because it is time-honoured and every philologist must be acquainted with it, even if he does not accept it as the best possible grouping.

The meaning of such expressions as a sun beam or a beam of light are not explained by allusions to a tree, although the word is actually derived from OE beam ‘tree’ || Germ Baum, whence the meaning beam ‘a long piece of squared timber supported at both ends’ has also developed. The metaphor is dead. There are no associations with hens in the verb brood ‘to meditate’ (often sullenly), though the direct meaning is ‘to sit on eggs’.

There may be transitory stages: a bottleneck ‘any thing obstructing an even flow of work’, for instance, is not a neck and does not belong to a bottle. The transfer is possible due to the fact that there are some common features in the narrow top part of the bottle, a narrow outlet for road traffic, and obstacles interfering with the smooth working of administrative machinery. The drawing of sharp demarcation lines between a dead metaphor and one that is alive in the speaker’s mind is here impossible.

Metaphors, H. Paul points out, may be based upon very different types of similarity, for instance, the similarity of shape: head of a cabbage, the teeth of a saw. This similarity of shape may be supported by a similarity of function. The transferred meaning is easily recognised from the context: The Head of the school, the key to a mystery. The similarity may be supported also by position: foot of a page/of a mountain, or behaviour and function: bookworm, wirepuller. The word whip ‘a lash used to urge horses on’ is metaphorically transferred to an official in the British Parliament appointed by a political party to see that members are present at debates, especially when a vote is taken, to check the voting and also to advise the members on the policy of the respective party.

In the leg of the table the metaphor is motivated by the similarity of the lower part of the table and the human limb in position and partly