The Caus of Changes in Word Meaning
Abstract:
Key words: historical; social; psychological; linguistic; mantic
Do you know when Juliet tells Romeo, “I am too fond”, she is not claiming she likes Romeo too much? She means “I am too foolish” Do you know when Horatio says to Hamlet, “Season your admiration for a while…”, he is not telling Hamlet “to increa his respect( the current meaning of admiration) for something”? In fact, he means “ to moderate his astonishment.”
Don’t be surprid, becau, as Quirk asrts, almost every word we u today has slightly different meaning from the one is had a century ago; and a century ago it had a slight different meaning from the one it had a century before that. When a word los its old meaning and comes to refer to something altogether different, the result is a change of word meaning.
As nonnative English learners, learning the caus of changes in word meaning can help us deepen the understanding of the meaning of lexicology, vocabulary, mantic field and culture background. By learning this, we can u vocabulary in a more preci way and avoid mistake or embarrassment when communicating with native speakers.
The caus of changes in word meaning can be divided into linguistic cau and extra-linguistic cau. Extra-linguistic cau can also divide into historical cau, social cau and psychology cau. 交通安全标志图片
Linguistic cau
Change of meaning is frequently brought about by two tendencies in a linguistic system: towards ellipsis and towards analogy. 等额本息和等额本金的区别在哪Some linguists think foreign influence should subordinate linguistic cau.
E怎样申请大病救助llipsis occurs when a phra is shortened to one word which retains the meaning of the
whole, so it often occurs in habitual collocations, such as adjective + noun or attributive noun + noun. Private, daily, duplicate are all adjectives, but they are ud as nouns. Private means a soldier of the lowest rank, daily means daily newspaper, and duplicate means duplicate copy. Under such circumstances, whatever is left, whether a noun or an adjective, is all ud as a noun assuming the original meaning. Naturally, the association became so clo that the first element could alone carry the meaning of the whole phra.
Besides, there is a change of grammatical function as well, as when adjectives assume the roles of nouns. 大香蕉亚洲Unlike the above examples, who n of one word has been transferred to another simple becau the two occur together habitually, in some cas, it is the cond or “headword” of the phra that remains. For example, (stream) engine, (coal) gas and (light) bulb.
The analogical tendency means new meanings developed in one part of speech are pasd on to other parts of speech from the same lexical ba. Fortuitous formerly denot
ed ‘happening by chance’led全称, ‘accidental’, and later took on the meaning ‘fortunate’ probably by analogy becau the two words look similar in shape. 手抓饼的做法和配料A儿童免费听故事nother interesting example is fruition社会习俗, originally from a Latin word fruitio meaning enjoyment. But now, its meaning is given as “fulfillment of (plans, desired results, aims, etc.),” possibly from connection with the word fruit.
Foreign influences
A particularly important cau of change of meaning in words has been the influence of foreign words. For example, the native word stool originally meant any kind of at for one person, and could even be ud for a king’s at. It got its humble meaning becau the French word chair was adopted to denote a more comfortable piece of furniture. Other example is dream. Dream meant “joy” in OE; it gets its modern n from the related Scandinavian word draumr.
Historical cau
It often happens that though a word retains its original form, its meaning has changed becau the object which it denotes has changed. This is the historical cau of mantic change.
The well-known manticist Ullmann notes, “It often happens that language is more conrvative than civilization, material as well as moral. Objects, institutions, ideas, scientific concepts change in the cour of time; yet in many cas the name is retained and thus helps to ensure a n of tradition and continuity.” (Ullmann 1997:198)
Indeed, it often happens that a word is retained for a name though the meaning has changed becau the referent has changed. Take pen for example, it donated ‘feather’, which was ud in the West as pen in old times. Now, the time when ‘feather’ rved as pen is long gone, and people are using hall-point pens and fountain pens, yet the name is still kept. This change has also occurred to computer, which designated a ‘person who computes’ in the past. At prent, when we talk about computer, people, people would think of an ‘electronic machine’ rather than a person.
There are also many scientific concepts which have retained their original forms, although their meanings have changed as a result of new scientific discoveries and incread knowledge. For instance, before Copernicus, the sun was thought to be ‘the luminous celestial body that in the Plolemaic system is one of the ven planets revolving around the earth’ and this meaning is retained in “The sun ris and ts.” The Copernician theory tried to change the historical point of view and now everyone knows that the sun is a ‘star around which the earth and other planets revolve…’
