The word «state» denotes the class of all states. Generic terms are not specific and are applicable to a great number of individual members of big classes. For example, such words as thing, job, affair, business, object and others render the notion of thingness common to all nouns. The word matter is a generic term for material nouns, person – for personal nouns.
The cultural component of meaning
Semantics of the language is determined by the cultural environment of the community speaking this or that language. The culture was discussed as far back as in the 17th century, but it was only in the 70s of the 20th century that the linguists exhibited their interests to this problem and investigated the language phenomena in the extra-linguistic context.
E.g.: Grey is a symbol of nobility, the white color is the color of joy and cleanliness for the Russians, but in the east it’s the color of mourning. (India)
According to G. Leech there are seven types of meaning.
1. Conceptual meaning or sense – logical, cognitive, or denotative content.
2. Connotative meaning – what is communicated by virtue of what language refers to.
3. Stylistic meaning – what is communicated of the social circumstances of language use.
4. Affective meaning – what is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker/writer.
5. Reflecting meaning – what is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression.
6. Collocative meaning – what is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word.
7. Thematic meaning – what is communicated by the way in which the message is organized in terms of order and emphasis.
The fundamental approach to the study and description of lexical meaning was elaborated by V.V. Vinogradov. He analyzed the overall meaning of a word in terms of nominative, nominative-derivative, colligationally and collocationally conditioned and phraseologically bound meanings.
The nominative meaning denotes the objects of extralinguistic reality in direct and straightforward way, reflecting their actual relations. Thus, for example: to carry whose nominative meaning is “to support the weight of and move from place to place” normally combines with nouns like a box, a chair, a heavy stone, a baby, etc. The nominative meaning is the basic of all the other meanings of the word. It is said to be “free”. The word may have several “free” meanings but they all depend on the nominative one: that is why they are called “nominative-derivative”, for example: sweet in the nominative-derivative meaning of “pleasant, attractive” goes with face, voice, singer, little boy, temper, etc.
Side by side with the “free” meanings of the word there are linguistically conditioned (or “bound”) meanings which can be of two kinds: colligationally conditioned and collocationally conditioned.
The former can be illustrated by the uses of the verb to keep. When used with nouns like hens, bees, pigs, etc. the verb means “own or manage especially for profit”. The verb to keep has altogether different meaning, namely “continue doing something” when it is used with a gerund, for example: Keep smiling!
The colligationally conditioned meaning is determined by the morphosyntactic combinability of the word, while the collocationally conditioned meaning depends on its lexical-phraseological ties, e.g. the verb to love in the expression I’d love to meet them.
The development and change of the semantic structure of a word is always a source of qualitative and quantitative development of the vocabulary.
All the types of semantic change depend upon comparison between the earlier and the new meaning of the given word. This comparison may be based on the difference between notions expressed or referents in the real world that are pointed out, on the type of psychological association, on evaluation by the speaker or on some other feature.
The first diachronic classification of various types of semantic change was introduced by M. Breal and H. Paul. M. Breal was the first to emphasize the fact that in passing from general usage into some special sphere of communication a word as a rule undergoes some sort of specialization of its meaning. The word case, for instance, alongside its general meaning of “circumstances in which a person or thing is possesses special meanings”: in law (a lawsuit), in grammar (e.g. the Possessive case), in medicine (a patient, an illness).
The difference is revealed in contexts, in which these words occur, in their different valency. Words connected with illness and medicine and words connected with law and court procedures form the semantic paradigm of the word case. The same applies to the noun cell as used by a biologist, an electrician, a nun or a representative of the law.
The best-known examples of specialization are the following:
Deer: any beast> a certain kind of beast
Meat: any food> a certain food product
Fowl: any bird> domestic bird
Hound: a dog> a species of hunting dog
A special group belonging to the same type is the formation of proper nouns from common nouns chiefly in toponymics, i.e. place names. For instance, the City – the business part of London, the Highlands – the mountainous part of Scotland, Oxford – University town in England from ox + ford, i.e. place where oxen could ford the river, the Tower – originally a fortress and palace, later a state prison, now a museum.
In the examples the change of meaning occurred without change of sound form and without any intervention of morphological processes. In many cases, however, the two processes, semantic and morphological, go hand in hand. For instance, when suffix –ist is added to the noun stem art- we must expect the whole to mean any person occupied in art, a representative of any kind of art, but usage specializes the meaning of the word artist and restricts it to a synonym of painter.
The process reverse to specialization is termed generalization or widening of meaning. In that case the scope of the new notion is wider than that of the original one. For instance, the verb to arrive (French borrowing) began its life in English in the narrow meaning “to come to shore, to land”. In Modern English it has greatly widened its combinability and developed the general meaning “to come”.
A metaphor is a transfer of name based on the association of similarity. Metaphor is a hidden comparison. A new meaning appears as a result of associating two objects (phenomena, qualities, etc) due to their outward similarity. A cunning person, for instance is referred to as a fox. A woman may be called a peach, a lemon, a cat, a goose, etc. The noun star based on the meaning “heavenly body” developed the meaning “famous actor or actress”. Nowadays the meaning has considerably widened its range, and the word is applied not only to screen idols, but also, to popular sportsmen, pop-singers.
If the transference is based upon the association of contiguity it is called metonymy. The association is based upon subtle psychological links between different objects and phenomena, sometimes traced and identified with much difficulty.
The meaning of the noun hand realized in the context hand of a clock (watch) originates from the main meaning of this noun “part of human body”. It developed due to the association of the common function: the hand of a clock points to the figures on the face of the clock, and one of the functions of human hand is also that of pointing to things.
Hyperbole
is an exaggerated statement not meant to be understood literally but expressing an intensely emotional attitude of the speaker to what he is speaking about e.g. I’ve told you fifty times; It’s absolutely maddening; A thousand thanks; Haven’t seen you for ages.
Litotes
is the reverse figure or understatement. It might be defined as expressing the affirmative by the negation of its contrary: e.g. not bad for “good”, not small for “great”, no coward for “brave”. Some understatements do not contain negations: rather decent; I could do it with a cup of tea. The purpose of litotes is to produce a stronger impression on the hearer.
Irony
is an expression of one’s meaning by means of opposite meaning for the purpose of “ridicule”, e.g. You’ve got us into a nice mess!
Amelioration and pejoration of meaning
are changes depending on the social attitude to the object named, connected with social evaluation and emotional tone.
Amelioration or elevation is a semantic shift undergone by words due to their referents coming up the social scale,
Marshal: manservant attending horses> the highest rank in the Army
The reverse process is pejoration or degradation: it involves a lowering in social scale connected with the appearance of a deragotary and scornful emotive tone reflecting the disdain of the upper classes towards the lower ones.
Knave: boy> swindler, scoundrel Gossip: god parent> the one who talks scandal Silly: happy> foolish.
is the substitution of words of mild or vague connotations for expressions rough, unpleasant or for some other reasons unmentionable. Euphemism is dictated by social usage, moral tact and etiquette. Cf. queer “mad”, deceased “dead”, perspire “sweat”.
Within the diachronic approach this phenomenon has been repeatedly classed by many linguists as taboo. With primitive people taboo is a prohibition meant as a safeguard against supernatural forces. Names of ritual objects or animals were taboo because the name was regarded as the equivalent of what was named.
The first group of causes is traditionally termed historical or extra – linguistic. Different kinds of changes in a nation’s social life, in its culture, knowledge, technology, arts lead to gaps appearing in the vocabulary which must be filled. Newly created objects, new concepts and phenomena must be named. One of the ways of filling such vocabulary gaps is by applying some old word to a new objects or notion.
The second group of causes is linguistic factors. The development of new meanings, and a complete change of meaning, may be caused through the influence of other words, mostly of synonyms. In the Old English it meant “to perish”. When the verb to die was borrowed from the Scandinavian, these two synonyms, which were very close in their meaning, collided, and, as a result, to starve gradually changed into its present meaning: “to die (or suffer) from hunger”.
Another linguistic factor influencing the semantic change or development of meaning is ellipsis. The qualifying words of a frequent phase may be omitted: sale comes to be used for cut-price sale, propose for to propose marriage, to be expecting for to be expecting a baby. Or the kernel word of the phrase may seem redundant: minerals for mineral waters.
Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling, or, at least, in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning, e.g. bank, n-a shore, bank, n-an institution for receiving, lending, and safeguarding money, ball, n-a sphere, any spherical body, ball, n-a large dancing party.
The most widely accepted classification of homonyms is the following: homonyms proper, homophones and homographs.
Homonyms proper are words identical in pronunciation and spelling, like bark, in “the noise made by a dog”, bark, n “the skin of a tree».
Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning: air-heir, buy-bye, knight-night, peace-piece, write, right, rite.
Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling: bow [bou] – bow [bau], lead [li: d] – lead [led], row [rou] – row [rau], wind [wind] – wind [waind].
Professor A. I. Smirnitsky classified homonyms into two large classes: full homonyms and partial homonyms.
Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the same category of parts of speech and have the same paradigm. Ex. Match, n – a game, a contest ----- Match, n - a short piece of wood used for producing fire.
Partial homonyms are subdivided into three large groups:
A) Simple lexico-grammatical homonyms words which belong to the same category of parts of speech. Their paradigms have one identical form, but it is never the same form (to find – found (Past Indef., Past Part. of to find)
B) Complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words of different categories of part of speech which have one identical form in their paradigms. e.g. rose, n - rose, v (Past Indef. Of to rise)
C) Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech which are identical only in their corresponding forms. (to hang (hung, hung), v - to hang (hanged, hanged), to can (canned, canned - can (could).
One of the sources of homonyms is phonetic changes which words undergo in the course of their historical development. As a result of such changes, two or more words which were formerly pronounced differently may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms. (Night and knight).
Borrowing is another source of homonyms. A borrowed word may, in the final stage of its phonetic adaptation, duplicate in form either a native word or another borrowing. Bank, n (“shore”) – is a native word, and bank, n (“a financial institution”) is an Italian borrowing.
Word-building also contributes significantly to the growth of homonymy, and the most important type in this respect is undoubtedly conversion. Such pairs of words as comb, n. — to comb, v., pale, adj. — to pale, v., to make, v. — make, n. are numerous in the vocabulary. Homonyms of this type, which are the same in sound and spelling but refer to different categories of parts of speech, are called lexico-grammatical homonyms.
Shortening is a further type of word-building which increases the number of homonyms. E. g. fan, n. in the sense of «an enthusiastic admirer of sport or of an actor, singer, etc.» is a shortening produced from fanatic. Its homonym is a Latin borrowing fan, n. which denotes an implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current of air.
Words made by sound-imitation can also form pairs of homonyms with other words: e. g. bang, n. («a loud, sudden, explosive noise») — bang, n. («a fringe of hair combed over the forehead»). Also: mew, n. («the sound a cat makes») — mew, n. («a sea gull»).
Two or more homonyms can originate from different meanings of the same word when, for some reason, the semantic structure of the word breaks into several parts. This type of formation of homonyms is called split polysemy.
board, n. — a long and thin piece of timber board, n. — daily meals, esp. as provided for pay, e. g. room and board