The causes, nature and results of semantic changes.

To understand the development of word meaning it is necessary to find the causes of semantic change. The commonest linguistic causes are differentiation (discrimination) of synonyms; ellipsis; linguistic analysis. Metaphor can be described as a semantic process of associating two referents one of which in some way resembles the other. There are two kinds of metaphor: poetic metaphor and Linguistic metaphor. Metonymy may be described as the semantic process of associating two referents one of which makes part of the other. The results of semantic change can be observed in the changes in the denotational meaning of the word or in the changes of its connotational component. Semantic changes in the denotational component may bring about the extension or the restriction

Semantic structure of a word

In natural human we deal with the violation of the law of the sign. The examples of such violations are polysemy, homonymy, synonymy. The identity-of-unit problem (проблема тождества слова) touches upon the subject of variants. Graphical variants (whisky-whiskey), Phonetic variation (multiple pronunciations of the same word (direct [dai’rekt], [di’rekt]; often [ofn], [oftn], etc), Morphological variation (examination – exam, mathematics-math, etc). According to V.V. Vinogradov, one should speak about nominative, nominative-derivative, colligationally and collocationally conditioned and phraseologically bound meanings. The nominative meaning-, it is the semantic centre of a word. Colligation is a relationship observable between items when they are arranged in certain morpho-syntactic patterns [the verb to tell in the Passive voice has the meaning to order: He was told to close the door.] Collocation is a relationship observable between items when they are arranged in texts, spoken or written, in other words it is the ability of a word to enter different combinations and fulfil different stylistic functions. [ we can say she has a beige car but not she has beige hair; one can say she has blond hair but not she has blond car.) Phraseologically bound meaning which is realised only in some phrases is based on the idiom principle that implies that certain meanings belong only to a given collocation.

Polysemy and homonymy.

We may single out monosemantic (having one meaning - namely scientific terms: oxygen, molecule) and polysemantic words. Polysemy is the existence within one word of several connected meanings. The notion of context has several interpretations. According to N.N.Amosova context is a combination of an indicator (indicating minimum) and the dependent. Contexts may be grouped into lexical and grammatical. Homonyms are defined as words that have the same sound-form but different meanings and are not connected semantically. The most widely excepted classification is that recognising homonyms proper (perfect homonyms)[words identical in graphic form and sound-form - case:случай; case: кейс]; homophones [words having the same sound-form but different spelling - son, sun; see, sea); homographs [words having the same graphic form but different in pronunciation - tear: слеза, tear: тащить).