3.2. Ways to have multiple senses of a word

Words are constantly changing their meaning. Dictionaries are a good illustration of that. For example, the latest edition of Webster’s dictionary included some 10,000 new words along with 100,000 new meanings to words already existing and some 225,000 revised definitions.

A closer analysis of a relationship between different meanings of the same word will reveal that they can be in metaphoric relations or relations of metonymy (metaphoric relations are relations of similarity while metonymic relations are those of contiguity).

The term metaphor refers to a situation where a word appears to have both a ‘literal’ and ‘figurative’ or ‘transferred’ meaning. The words for parts of the body provide the best illustration of metaphor. For example, we speak of the hands and face of a clock, the foot of a bed or a mountain, the leg of a chair or table, the tongue of a shoe, the eye of a needle, etc.  

Some other examples of metaphoric relations between different meanings are to milk,

a mole, to digest, to play it by ear, to play footsie.

On the other hand, metonymy refers to the use of a single characteristic to identify a more complex entity and underlies a very common process of human cognition: it is common for people to take one well-understood or easy-to-perceive aspect of something and use that aspect to stand either for the thing as a whole or for some other aspect or part of it. Here is an illustration of metonymic relations within one entry, which reveal different aspects of the same frame:

• The New York Times is most interesting on Sundays.

• The New York Times employs hundreds of writers.

• I found 4 mistakes in The New York Times this week.

3.3 Results of semantic change

The basic distinction is to be made between semasiological and onomasiological mechanisms of semantic change. Semasiological mechanisms involve the creation of new readings within the range of an existing lexical item. Onomasiological mechanisms, conversely, involve changes through which a concept is expressed by a new or alternative lexical item. So, semasiological innovations provide existing words with new meanings whereas onomasiological innovations couple concepts to quite unpredictable words within the language.

Within the set of semasiological mechanisms, a further distinction involves changes in denotational and connotational meaning.

Results of semantic change within the denotational aspect of meaning could be either restriction or extension of meaning. 

Another term for ‘restriction’ and ‘narrowing’ of meaning are ‘specialization’; ‘extension’ equals ‘broadening’ or ‘generalization’.

Restriction of meaning can be illustrated by the semantic development of meaning of the lexeme hound, which used to denote ‘dog of any breed’, but now it is used to denote ‘a dog used in the chase’.

The process of restriction is sometimes called specialization of meaning, since the word with the new restricted meaning is often used in the specialized vocabulary. Another example of generalization is the word of French origin arrive, which etymologically meant ‘to reach the river’s shore, to come to the bank’, but which now is used in the meaning ‘to reach a destination’ in general.

Extension of meaning is the reverse process, when the word from the specialized vocabulary passes into the mainstream vocabulary and becomes common. For example, the word target originally meant ‘a small round shield’, and now it is usually used in the meaning ‘anything that is fired at’. Salary once had the meaning of “the money to buy salt with”. Now it means “money to buy anything”. Thing once meant anything that can be agreed on in trade. Now it has a generic meaning. Town once meant fence. Now it denotes a settlement.

A more recent example is the noun ‘gender’, which, according to Colon Yollop (Lexicology and Corpus Linguistics: 44) is a good illustration of how words’ meanings reflect social changes. Until quite recently, dictionaries gave as the main use of gender its meaning in grammar as in talking about the two genders (masculine and feminine) of nouns in French or Spanish, or the three genders (masculine, feminine of neuter) of nouns in Latin and German. By the end of the 1980s, due to some social developments, dictionaries were recording gender as having a significant and formal use for something like ‘the fact of being male or female. The word has largely replaced sex in this sense, for sex has increasingly been used as shorthand for ‘sexual intercourse’. And the word gender has increasingly appeared in various kinds of academic discourse in the words and phrases like ‘gender issues, gender differences’, etc.

Results of the semantic change can be also observed in the connotational aspect of meaning, which can be ether amelioration or pejoration (deterioration) of meaning.

Amelioration of meaning is a shift towards a more positive emotive meaning, it means the improvement of the connotational component of meaning. For example, the word minister was originally used in the meaning ‘servant’, but in the course of time it has developed another connotation: ‘a civil servant of higher rank, a person administering a department of state’. Fame meant news (good or bad). Now it means glory. Nice meant foolish. The word was gradually specialised in the sense foolishly particular about trifles. Then the idea of folly was lost and particular about small things, accurate came into existence. To adore had the meaning to speak with, to greet, to address. Now it means to love, to worship.

Pejoration (deterioration) of meaning is the opposite case; it is a shift towards a more negative emotive meaning, when the derogatory or pejorative connotational meaning develops. For example, the word boor originally denoted ‘a peasant’, but later acquired a derogatory connotational meaning ‘a clumsy or ill-bread fellow’. Idiot meant private in Greek and uneducated in Latin. Now it has a negative meaning of a fool in both languages. Greedy meant hungry. Now it means stingy. Villain meant a person living in the country. Now it means a scoundrel.

The way words change meaning through time can sometimes be amusing or perplexing. A word can change its meaning into its own opposite. For example awful, quite obviously was formed to denote something that was deserving, or full of awe. The classical example of pejoration is the word silly that began its existence meaning blessed or happy in the XI^th century, transforming into pious, innocent, harmless, feeble minded and ends up describing someone foolish or stupid. Moreover, the term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups, but not in others, for example hacker - the term used for computer criminals as well as for quick and clever computer experts.

Distinction should be made between pejorative and ameliorative shifts on the one hand and euphemisms and dysphemisms on the other. Euphemism is the use of a positively (or less negatively) connoted word instead of a negatively one. Thus, pre-owned is a euphemism for second-hand, enhanced interrogation for torture, industrial action for strike.

We use euphemisms to make softer the items which should be said bluntly, the term covers the cases of substitution of an inoffensive term (such as to pass away instead of to die or public woman or prostitute instead of whore). We use euphemism when we speak about socially tabooed things, such as age, sex, drugs, illnesses and other things. We may be motivated by kindness or at least politeness. For example, instead of saying directly “She’s very old”, which sounds unpleasant, we replace the insulting words with euphemisms: “She’s not as young as she was/she’s getting on/she’s advanced in years”. To avoid referring too directly to embarrassing matters we use the words the restroom, the ladies’ room, comfort station, public convenience, loo, WC (water closet), the powder room, the reading room, the smallest room for the bathroom, which is a euphemism itself. Another example, suggested by K. Allen and K. Burridge, is “the word ‘crazy’ originally meant ‘cracked, flawed, damaged’ and was applicable to all manner of illness; but it has now narrowed to ‘mental illnesses’. It captures the stereotypical mental patient as someone ‘flawed, deficient’ (cf. mentally deficient), and it is the basis for many euphemistic expressions for ‘madness’: crack-brained, scatter-brained, shatter-brained, head-case, nut-case, bonkers, falling to pieces, have a (nervous) breakdown, head case, having a screw loose, one brick short of a load, not a full load, not playing with a full deck, three cards short of a full deck, one sandwich short of a picnic, two bob short of a quid, not the full quid, this elevator doesn’t go to the top floor, a single short; and perhaps he’s lost his marbles.” (Keith Allen and Kate Burridge, Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language used as a Shield and Weapon. Oxford Univ. Press, 1991).

The term euphemism is closely connected with the notion of political correctness. “Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offence in occupation, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability and age related contexts, and, as purported by the term, doing so to an excessive extent” (Wikipedia). Below are the examples of politically correct words used in the lexical group “professions”:

“Cleaner” – environmental technician, “housewife” – domestic engineer, “fireman” – firefighter, “photocopying clerks” – reprographics engineers, “telephonist” – voice data executive, “typist” – digital data executive, “unemployed” – involuntarily leisured, between career changes, infinitively idled (Cristina Gray “Celebrating the Diversity of American English”, workshop materials, TESOL-Ukraine Conference, Lviv, 2000).

Though meant to sound polite and diplomatic, politically correct words can be used dishonestly to hide the mistake or blunder; they can create a lot of deception and lies. “Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind” (George Orwell “Politics and the English Language”, 1946).

Political correctness may lead to doublespeak – the language intended to distort or obscure its actual meaning. Doublespeak is often used in everyday language to make an unpleasant, tricky or negative situation sound better, especially when it comes to death. For example, instead of saying “he has died” people say “he passed away”, “he went to the Lords”, “he crossed over to the other side”, focusing on the fact that the deceased person has gone to some other place so to make the situation less tragic.

When we think of dysphemisms, we think of words that are substituted because their connotations are more distressing than the words they replace. When euphemisms try to hide, dysphemisms intend to expose the idea; they are meant to shock or offend. They are usually used in slang, where a relatively neutral word is replaced with a harsher, more offensive one. Dysphemisms in slang may also serve as in-group markers to signal closeness of people.

The examples are animal names applied to people: old coot, old bat, chicken, snake, dog, cow, ass, hog and bitch, for example. Such words have undergone such drastic changes in their

meaning, that they are no longer used in their primary meanings. The example is the word cock

in the early 17-th century developed a meaning ‘male sex organ’ alongside its primary meaning ‘male domestic bird’. Attempting to avoid the risks of evoking the negative connotations of the sense, the American users of English gradually stopped using the word cock in its primary meaning and in American English it is substituted by the lexeme rooster.