HI-LING
LINGUISTICS IN THE HIGH SCHOOL
UNIT 2: VIOLATION OF MAXIMS
Lesson 4: Semantics
Definition: Semantics studies the meaning of words, sentences, or larger parts of a discourse in a language. In doing so, meaning can relate to real-world things and the associations evoked by a word. It can also explore the way meanings of words are linked with each other, such as synonymy and antonymy, metonymy, etc.
Key Concepts
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semantics
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semantic change
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connotation
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amelioration
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pejoration
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narrowing
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broadening
UNIT 1: Semantic change I
With a partner, guess how many words the English language has. Do you think it has a richer vocabulary than German, Italian, Spanish and French?
While each speaker can build a vocabulary of about 50,000 words, the meaning of a word is not always straightforward. It is influenced by somebody’s ideas, culture and social background. However, for communication, speakers need to agree on basic features to identify and characterise objects. If they do not share this knowledge, communication can be challenging.
The short story “Ein Tisch ist ein Tisch” by Peter Bichsel illustrates this point. The protagonist decides to change everything because he feels bored in his flat and assigns new names to everyday objects:
“In the morning, the man thus left the painting, put his clothes on, sat down at the carpet and onto the alarm clock and thought about what to call what.
He called the bed painting.
He called the table carpet.
He called the chair alarm clock.
He called the newspaper bed.
He called the mirror chair.
He called the alarm clock photo album.
He called the painting table.
And he called the photo album mirror.
So: In the morning, the old man stayed lying in his painting for long, at nine his photo album rang, the man got up and stood onto the cupboard so that he would not get cold feet, then he took his clothes out of the newspaper, put them on, had a look into the chair on the wall, then sat down onto the alarm clock at the carpet and he skipped through his mirror until he found the table of his mother.
The man found this amusing and he practiced all day in order to learn the new words. Now everything got named differently: He was no longer a man, but a foot, and his foot was a morning, and the morning was a man.”
What do you think will happen? What does the short story illustrate?
The short story emphasises that meaning cannot be assigned by a single user, it must happen as a general agreement within a speaker community. Even though it is an extreme example, it also shows that word meanings can change over time, which is interesting for historical linguistics. In addition to its denotation (= literal meaning), a word evokes connotations (= secondary meanings) that can change over time.
Let us examine the word “nice” because its meaning has changed significantly. Originally, it derives from the Latin verb “nescire” (‘not know’) and adjective (“nescius”) ‘ignorant’. The semantic change is somewhat unclear and unparalleled in the Romance languages. In Middle English, it retains the negative meaning of ‘stupid, simple,” but, apart from that, it gains a second meaning, ‘fastidious’, ‘precise’ and ‘fussy’. For example, if scientists said they had carried out a nice measurement, they meant something ‘precise’ and ‘careful’ instead of something ‘pleasant’. Or you could refer to “a nice eater” as a ‘fussy eater.’ To sum up, from initially meaning ‘ignorant, stupid’ it evolved into ‘fastidious, precious’ and finally came to mean ‘pleasing, kind’. This extreme development from a negative to a positive meaning led to some confusion because people struggled to grasp the intended meaning.
Exercise 1:
As we have seen the semantic change the word “nice” went through, it is evident that words can undergo extreme transformations. Get into groups of four and look up information for one word each. You are allowed to use the internet. You have 10 minutes to gather information and take notes on what stands out to you. When you have finished, tell your colleagues about the history of your word.
guy
naughty
silly
gay
UNIT 2: Semantic change II
With the help of the examples of “nice”, “gay”, “guy”, “silly” and “naughty,” we learnt that the original word meaning can change quite a lot over time. Semantic change (= shift in meaning) is a natural phenomenon and happens for various reasons and in different ways. In this part of the lesson, we will look at four types of changes in meaning: narrowing, broadening, amelioration, and pejoration.
When a word's meaning becomes more specific or restricted, we call it “narrowing”. A nice case in point is the semantic change “deer” experienced. In Old English, it generally referred to ‘wild animal, especially with four legs.’ Later, it also started being used for ‘fish’ and ‘ants’ in Middle English. Probably via hunting, the general meaning of “deer” was restricted to its contemporary meaning, signifying ‘long-legged and large animal that lives in the forest and eats grass.’ So, the word gets a less general and more specific meaning as it refers to a certain kind of wild animal. In the past, the word "deer" could mean any animal, while now, it has a more precise meaning.
The opposite happens when a word’s meaning becomes more general, which is called “broadening”. Let us take the word “dog” as an example: in Old English, it was a relatively rare word relating to one specific dog breed that was strong and powerful. They had a hard life and were used for hunting. Nowadays, “dog” means ‘canine,’ including all breeds rather than just one specific.
Furthermore, through “amelioration,” the status of a word can increase. The adjective “meticulous” has undergone such a process: it derives from the Latin adjective “meticulosus,” meaning ‘timid, fearful’. After not being used much in the 18th century, it began to reappear in the middle of the 19th century with a slight change in meaning that was close to the French “méticuleux” (‘fussy about details’). It has retained this approving meaning and transformed it into doing something carefully, being synonymous with “thorough” and “fastidious.”
Last but not least, a word can also undergo the opposite and the more common process, which is called “pejoration”. The adjective “officious” comes from Latin ‘officiosus’ meaning ‘obliging’ and ‘dutiful’ and appeared in the late 15th century. In the 16th century, the meaning changed to ‘ready to please or help’, which then developed a negative connotation. Nowadays, it is used in a disapproving way to criticise people for telling others what they should or should not do.
Finally, it should be noted that we have not covered all categories as we wanted to focus on four common ones. What is more, several meanings for a word can overlap, or old meanings can coexist with new ones. In fact, it is normal for words to have more than one meaning (= polysemy). We also have to bear in mind that semantic change does not happen overnight; it takes time.
Exercise 2:
With a partner, try to put the following words into the categories: narrowing, broadening, amelioration, and pejoration. Search the web for information if necessary.
nice
guy
naughty
silly
sensitive
girl
thing
awful
Final thought for this lesson
Discuss the following questions with a partner:
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In what situations do you believe semantic change is most likely to occur?
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Do you think the internet and social media has increased the rate of semantic change? Why (not)?
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Do you think globalisation has had an impact on semantic change?
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Do you know more examples of words that underwent semantic change?