UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
Unit 11:
THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY,
SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. “FALSE FRIENDS”. LEXICAL
CREATIVITY
Outline
The word as a linguistic sign. ............................................................................................. 3
1.
a)
Definition for “word”. ....................................................................................................... 3
b)
The word as a linguistic sign. ............................................................................................ 3
c)
Word analysis .................................................................................................................... 4
Homonymy, synonymy and antonymy .............................................................................. 6
2.
3.
a)
Homonymy ........................................................................................................................ 6
b)
Synonymy ......................................................................................................................... 7
c)
Antonymy ........................................................................................................................ 11
Lexical creativity ............................................................................................................... 12
Word formation or neologism ................................................................................................. 12
COMPOUNDING ............................................................................................................... 12
AFFIXATION ..................................................................................................................... 14
CLIPPING ........................................................................................................................... 15
CONVERSION ................................................................................................................... 16
BACK-FORMATION ......................................................................................................... 17
BLENDING ........................................................................................................................ 17
ACRONYMS ...................................................................................................................... 18
EPONYMY ......................................................................................................................... 18
OTHER TYPES OF ABBREVIATIONS: .......................................................................... 18
FACETIOUS FORMS: ....................................................................................................... 19
BAGONIZING .................................................................................................................... 20
BROADENING .................................................................................................................. 21
1.
Socio-cultural factors .................................................................................................. 21
2.
Psychological Factors .................................................................................................. 22
Examples of broadening .......................................................................................................... 22
1.
Business....................................................................................................................... 22
2.
Cool ............................................................................................................................. 22
3.
Demagogue ................................................................................................................. 22
Broadening - key takeaways ................................................................................................... 22
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
NARROWING .................................................................................................................... 23
What causes narrowing?.......................................................................................................... 23
Sociocultural causes ............................................................................................................ 23
Psychological Causes .......................................................................................................... 24
Narrowing - key takeaways ..................................................................................................... 24
4.
False Friends ...................................................................................................................... 25
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
1. The word as a linguistic sign.
a) Definition for “word”.
Several definitions have been given to the linguistic term “word” and not all of
them have been satisfactory. One of the most accepted, and, at the same time, clearest
definitions is the one given by Bloomfield: “the word is the minimum free form of a
language”. Nevertheless, many linguists say that in a communicative act, the sentence
is the minimum free linguistic form in communication, and the word is its minimal
version. In this case, we would have a sentence consisting of one single word.
b) The word as a linguistic sign.
What do we mean when we say that the word is a linguistic sign? First of all, we
have to regard the language as a communication system where we associate the
“message”, that is, the meaning or ideas we have in our minds, with a set of symbols,
that is to say, the representation of these ideas in the form of words, either written or
spoken.
If we take this into account, we can consider the word as an entity made up of:
a. Signifier, that is, the external form
b. Signified, that is, the meaning of that word
Saussure used the term “sign” in this sense to refer to a linguistic entity, consisting
of signifier and signified. Nevertheless, linguists nowadays prefer to use the term
“sign” to refer only to the signifier. For Saussure, the relationship between both is
symbolic, since words are labels for concepts. The relationship is arbitrary, as there is
no logical, intrinsic or natural relation between a particular acoustic sound and a
concept. For this reason we refer to the same concept with different acoustic sounds in
different languages. Hence, the meaning of any word or sign is derived from its
existence within a network of related signs called SEMANTIC FIELD. For Saussure,
everything in the system of language is based on the relations that can occur between
the units in the system and on relations of different signs.
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
Each language has a word order structure. Apart from the syntagmatic relations,
there are other relationships that exist outside the discourse: PARADIGMATIC or
ASSOCIATIVE relationships. For instance, there is a paradigmatic relationship
between “he” and the rest of the pronouns.
This view of the word expressed by Saussure has been criticised, and the word is
seen by some linguists not as an entity, made up of signifier and signified, but as a
triangle made up of three elements:
THOUGHT or REFERENCE
Symbol - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - referent
Signifier
(sound, word, image)
signified
(mental concept)
c) Word analysis
A word can analysed from different points of view, as it can be regarded as the
following:
An orthographic entity:
A word can be regarded as being made up of different graphic signs with space
around them, that is to say, letters. In some cases the word as an orthographic entity
has different versions. For example, the word colour in British English is spelt color
in American English.
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
A phonological entity
The word is regarded in terms of sounds, subject to stress, rhythm, etc. This
phonological entity has nothing to do with the orthographic one, and words or groups
of words that are spelt in a completely different manner can be pronounced in the
same way. If I say /ə ˈnəʊʃən /, we do not know whether I have said “a notion” or “an
ocean”, and only the context can clarify this.
A morphological entity
In this case, the word is regarded as being made up of morphemes, that is to say,
the minimal unit having meaning in language. For example, the word “unbearable”
can be divided into three morphemes: un-bear-able.
A grammatical entity
A word can also be analysed regarding the function it has. In this case, words are
divided into two groups:
lexical words: they are those words which have a full meaning and refer to
actions, things or states. The classes of words which belong to this group are nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
Grammatical words: they are those words which only have a linking function,
for example, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, determiners, etc.
A lexicographical entity
This is the way in which a word is presented in dictionaries. For example,
if we look up the word “did” in the dictionary, it will be made a reference to “do”. For
this reason, the forms “do, does, did, done, doing” form a lexicographical entity,
meaning that they belong to the same entry in the dictionary.
A Semantic entity
The word, irrespective of its external form or component parts, is primarily a
carrier of meaning.
At word level, semantics explores the relationship which words have with each
other within the language as a whole. The meaning which a word has due to its place
in the linguistic system constitutes its sense.
The Common Core
The diagram used by the first editor of the OED, James Murray, in the section
called “General Explanations”, which preceded volume 1 (1888): “the English
vocabulary contains a nucleus or central mass of many thousand words whose “anglicity”
is unquestioned; some of them only literary, some of them only colloquial; the great
majority at once literary and colloquial. They are the common words of the language).”
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
2. Homonymy, synonymy and antonymy
The word, apart from the different points of view we have mentioned, can also be
analysed from a semantic point of view. In this point, we are going to deal with this aspect,
analysing the semantic relations of homonymy, synonymy and antonymy.
a) Homonymy
A definition of homonymy could be that of “a single word form which has different
meanings not closely related. In other words, when we have the same spelling but
different meanings.
File: a box/case for keeping papers in order
A tool for smoothing surfaces
A line of people or things, one behind the other.
The term “homonymy” must not be confused with “polysemy”; the latter refers to a
word with different but closely related meanings. Polysemy differentiates from
homonymy, so it is useful to know about the closeness in meaning and the origin of a
word. Foot (lower limb in humans, a unit of measure, the bottom part of a printed page,
etc) ,for instance, is polysemic, because these forms have the same origin.
For example: Branch of a tree/a family/a railway line/a bank
So, in order to make it clearer, we can say that polysemy is the same word with
different meanings, whereas homonymy refers to different words with the same spelling.
We can classify homonymy into two different categories:
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
HOMOPHONES: when two different words are pronounced the same, as in
scene/seen.
HOMOGRAPHS: when two different words share the same spelling.
Homonyms can also be classified into:
ABSOLUTE: under three conditions: unrelated in meaning; all forms must be
identical and grammatically equivalent. For instance, sole: the bottom of foot or shoe and
the fish.
PARTIAL: when there is identity of minimally one or two conditions in the word
(from pronunciation, spelling and meaning), but not all. Found /to found.
b) Synonymy
The term synonymy derives from the Greek syn (=same) + nym (=name).
Therefore, synonymy deals with words that have the same meaning or the same meaning
that can be expressed by more than one word.
Strictly speaking, two words are synonyms if they can be used interchangeably in
all sentence contexts. English is quite rich in synonyms due to the influence of other
languages, in its history, like French, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, etc.
OE king French monarch
Latin sovereign
French is nowadays associated to a formal register, Latin ones are obsolete
somehow and the Anglo-Saxon are the most colloquial ones.
Now we will analyse the following pairs or words:
Discover / find
Keep / retain
Busy / occupied
Discover and find are synonyms in a sentence like:
We found / discovered the boys smoking in the bathroom
However, find cannot substitute discover in the sentence:
Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.
Keep and retain are synonyms in the sentence:
You should keep / retain your ticket for inspection.
But retain cannot replace keep in:
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
We kept the door locked all night.
Busy and occupied are synonyms in the sentence:
I’m afraid Mr Murphy is busy / occupied at the moment
But busy cannot substitute occupied in
I’m afraid this seat is occupied
Therefore, are these words we have been dealing with synonyms or not? At this
point, we have to make an important distinction between STRICT or ABSOLUTE
synonymy and LOOSE synonymy.
STRICT/TOTAL/ABSOLUTE synonymy would be that when two words are
interchangeable in all sentence contexts, so the words we have seen above would not be
strict synonyms. The problem is that many linguists deny the existence of strict synonyms
in a language, and they do this for a very clear reason: economy. It is useless having two
words in the language with exactly the same meaning, and the language will not tolerate
it except perhaps for a very short time. After this period we have two possibilities:
One of the words specialises from the semantic point of view. This has
happened many times in the history of the English language, usually with borrowings
coming from other languages. In some cases English has had an Anglo-Saxon term, a
French term and a Latin term for the same meaning, with one of the words eventually
being preferred.
For example, the word mouton was borrowed from French in the medieval period
and was an absolute synonym for sheep, but it had to specialise and nowadays the word
mutton refers to the meat of the animal.
The second possibility is that one of the words becomes obsolete and in many
cases disappears. This happens, for instance, with foe / enemy. The former only appears
in some literary contexts and is no longer used in conversation.
For all these reasons, we have to deal with LOOSE synonyms that probably cannot
be interchangeable in all contexts.
After much research, there is only one word that can be named for total synonymy:
mercury / quicksilver.
TYPES OF SYNONYMS:
In many cases, speakers of the same language use different words to refer to
the same entity because they belong to different dialects, although the speakers
themselves do not regard them as synonyms as they only use one of the forms. The best
known case is that of British and American English
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
British English
American English
Lift
elevator
Pavement
sidewalk
Flat
apartment
These types of synonyms also exist within the same country. For example, in
Devonshire a drumbledrane is a bumblebee.
Synonymy and formality
A second way in which synonyms can be differentiated is by style or the level of
formality. In most cases, words of Anglo-Saxon origin are more colloquial, while those
derived from French or Latin are more formal. Exx:
Begin commence (French)
Climb ascend (Latin)
Go in enter (French)
Synonymy and Technicality
Synonyms can also be differentiated by technicality. Many professions, trades,
sports, hobbies, etc, have developed vocabularies which contain words appropriate to that
activity, but which are not used in everyday language. This is called TECHNICAL
VOCABULARY or JARGON and it is especially frequent in medicine, as the following
examples will show:
Everyday language technical vocabulary
Heart attack
cardiac arrest
Skull
cranium
Eye
ocular / optic
Anxiety
neurosis
Synonymy and connotation
It is also possible to differentiate synonyms by connotation, that is to say, one
member of a pair of synonyms may have connotations not shared by the other. For
example:
Love and adore may be considered to be synonyms, but adore has the connotation
of worship and passion.
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
Modern and up-to-date are very similar, but the latter has the connotation of
fashionable as well as the idea of modernity.
Within this group we can include PARTIAL (or LOOSE) synonymy, where there
is an overlap in their meanings but not a complete identity. Partial synonymy is the most
frequent. Thus, if we take the three words mature, ripe and adult, we could say that they
all refer to “growth having been achieved to a certain point.” However, they refer to
something more than that:
Ripe: means “ready to eat.”
Mature: can mean “ready to eat”, but also “wise” when referring to people
Adult: means “responsible, no longer a child” as well as “physically mature.”
Synonymy and Euphemism
A fifth way to differentiate synonyms is by euphemism. The reason for the
existence of these euphemisms is that there are some taboo words, usually related to
subjects like death, sex and lavatory functions. Therefore, these euphemistic synonyms
are used in order not to refer so directly to them. Some examples are:
Taboo
Die
euphemism
pass away (formal)
Kick the bucket (colloquial)
Kill
do in (colloquial)
Liquidate (formal)
Drunk
intoxicated (formal)
Pissed (slang)
Urinate
pass water (formal)
Piss (colloquial)
In addition, many linguists regard HYPONYMY as a special kind of synonymy.
It happens when a hierarchical sense relation exists between two terms in which the sense
of one is included in the other. For instance, syrup, tablet, pill =medicine. They are
HYPONYMS of medicine, which would be labelled as a HYPERNYM TERM.
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
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c) Antonymy
The term also derives from the Greek word “ant” (meaning opposite) and “nym”
(meaning name). Therefore, antonymy deals with words which have the opposite
meanings. We can find different kinds of antonymy:
gradable
This refers to adjectives which have qualities that are gradable:
Cold
hot
Narrow
wide
Tall
short
Weak
strong
Complementary or binary
They imply that if we deny one member of the pair, we assert the other member:
Alive
dead (not alive means dead)
Male
female
Open
shut
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
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Converses
One member of the pair refers to the converse of the other member:
Over
under
Sell
buy
Wife
husband
(if you are my wife, I am your husband)
Multiple incompatible
It describes words which are at the same level in a taxonomy and oppose to each
other with the same intensity.
Monday (not Tuesday, not Thursday …)
3.
Lexical creativity
It is clear that language is not static and new words are introduced every day; by
means of the mass media they then become familiar to many people in a short period of
time. This lexical creativity is achieved by means of three mechanisms: word formation,
conversion and semantic transfer.
Word formation or neologism
According to Bauer (1983), there are different ways of word formation in English:
compounding, affixation (prefixation and suffixation), clipping, conversion,
backformation, blending, acronyms and eponymy.
COMPOUNDING
A compound is a unit of vocabulary which consists of more than one lexical stem.
On the surface, there appear to be two (or more) lexemes present, but in fact the parts are
functioning as a single item, which has its own meaning and grammar. So, flower-pot
does not refer to a flower and a pot, but to a single object. It is pronounced as a unit, with
a single main stress, and it is used grammatically as a unit- its plural, for example, is
flower-pots.
The unity of flower-pot is also signalled by the orthography but this is not a
foolproof criterion. If the two parts are linked by a hyphen as here, or are printed without
a space (“solid”), as in flowerpot, then there is no difficulty. But the form flower pot will
also be found, and in such cases, to be sure we have a compound (and not just a sequence
of two independent words), we need to look carefully at the meaning of the sequence and
the way it is grammatically used. This question turns up especially in American English,
which uses fewer hyphens than does British English.
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
Compounds are most readily classified into types based on the kind of
grammatical meaning they represent. Earthquake, for example, can be paraphrased as
“the earth quakes”, and the relation of earth to quake is that of subject to verb. Similarly,
a crybaby is also subject + verb (“the baby cries”), despite its back-to-front appearance.
Scarecrow is verb + object (“scares crow”). Some involve slightly trickier grammatical
relations, such as playgoer, windmill, goldfish and homesick.
There is an interesting formation in which one of the elements does not occur as
a separate word. These forms are usually classical in origin, and are linked to the other
element of the compound by a linking vowel, usually –o- , but sometimes –a- and –i-.
They are traditionally found in the domains of science and scholarship, but in recent years
some have become productive in everyday contexts too, especially in advertising and
commerce.
First element:
Agri- - culture, -business
Bio- -data, -technology
Micro- -chip, -electronics
Euro- -money, -feebleness
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Psycho- -logy, -analysis
Techno- -phobia, -stress
Second element
-aholic work-, shop-, comput-athon mar-, swim-, read-matic coffee-, wash-o.rama sports-a-, plant-o-
Such forms might well be analysed as affixes, but for the fact that their meaning
is much more like that of an element in a compound. Euromoney, for example, means
“European money”; biodata means “biological data”; swimathon means “swimming
marathon”.
AFFIXATION
Not all affixes have a strong creative potential. OE <-th> warmth, depth, length,
width, sixth is hardly every used to create new words- though zeroth and coolth are
interesting exceptions.
<-ness> is one of the most prolific ones.
Newly-coined ones include –friendly. Sexism brought a host of other –isms, such
as weightism, heightism, ageism. Political correctness introduced –challenged in several
areas. Rambo-based coinages included Ramboesque and Ramboistic. Band-aid gave rise
to Sport-aid and nurse-aid.
Infixes
English has no system of infixes, but people do from time to time coin words into
which other forms have been inserted. This happens quite commonly while swearing or
being emphatic, as in absobloominglutely and kangabloodyroo.
Prefixes
There are 57 varieties of prefixes
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
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Several affixes seemed to find new life in the 1980s: mega- (-trendy, -sulk, -worry,
-terror, -brand, -city).
CLIPPING
A part of a word which serves for the whole (ad, phone, bra). There are two chief
types:
- The first part of the word is kept (the most common): demo, exam, pub.
- The last part of the word is kept: bus, plane.
Sometimes, a middle part is kept, as in fridge and flu.
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
There are also several words which retain material from more than one part of the
word, such as maths (UK), gents and specs. Turps is a curiosity, in the way it adds an
<s>.
Several clipped forms also show adaptation, such as fries (from French fried
potatoes), Betty (from Elizabeth) and Bill (from William).
CONVERSION
Lexemes can be made to change their word class without the addition of an affix
– a process known as CONVERSION. The items chiefly produced in this way are nouns,
adjectives, and verbs – especially the verbs which come from nouns (e.g. a doubt). Not
all the senses of a lexeme are usually carried through into the derived form, however. The
noun paper has several meanings, such as “newspaper” “wallpaper”, and “academic
article”. The verb to paper relates only to the second of these. Lecturers and editors may
paper their rooms, but not their audiences or readers.
verb to noun
A swim/hit/cheat/bore/show-off/drive-in
adjective to noun
A bitter/natural/final/monthly/regular/wet
noun to verb
To bottle/catalogue/oil/brake/referee/bicycle
adjective to verb
To dirty/empty/dry/calm down/sober up
noun to adjective
It’s cotton/brick/reproduction
grammatical word to noun
Too many ifs and buts
But me with no buts (William Shakespeare)
That’s a must
The how and the why
Affix to noun
Ologies and isms
phrase to noun
A has-been/free-for-all/also-ran/down-and-out
grammatical word to verb
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
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To down tools/ to up and do it
BACK-FORMATION
It is common in English to form a new lexeme by adding a prefix or a suffix to an
old one. From happy we get unhappy; from inspect we get inspector. Every so often,
however, the process works the other way round, and a shorter word is derived from a
longer one by deleting an imagined affix. Editor, for example, looks as if it comes from
edit, whereas in fact the noun was in the language first. Similarly, television gave rise to
to televise, double-glazing preceded double-glaze, and baby-sitter preceded baby-sit.
Such forms are known as BACK-FORMATIONS.
Each year sees a new crop of back-formations. Some are coined because they meet
a real need as when a group of speech therapists in Reading in the 1970s felt they needed
a new verb to describe what they did – to therap. Some are playful formations, as when
a tidy person is described as couth, kempt, or shevelled. Back-formations often attract
criticism when they first appear, as happened in the late 1980s to explete (to use an
expletive) and accreditate (from accreditation).
BLENDING
A lexical blend, as its name suggests, takes two lexemes which overlap in form,
and welds them together to make one. Enough of each lexeme is usually retained so that
the elements are recognizable. Here are some long-standing examples, and a few novelties
from recent publication,
Breakfast + lunch = Brunch.
Motor + hotel = motel
Helicopter + airport = heliport
Smoke + fog = smog
Advertisement + editorial = advertorial
Channel + tunnel= chunnel
Oxford + Cambridge =Oxbridge
Yale + Harvard = Yarvard
Slang + language=slanguage
Guess+ estimate=guesstimate
Square + aerial=squaerial
Toys+cartoons= toytoons
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Breath + analyser=breathalyser
Affluence + influenza = affluenza
Information + commercials= infomercials
Dock + condominium = dockominium
In most cases, the second element is the one which controls the meaning
of the whole.
Blending increased in popularity in the latter half of the 20th century, being
increasingly used in commercial and advertising contexts. Products were sportsational,
swimsational and sexsational. TV provided dramacons, docufantasies, and
rockumentaries. The forms are felt to be eye-catching and exciting; but how many of
them will persist remains an open question.
Scientific terms frequently make use of blending, as in bionic, as do brand names
(teledent) and fashionable neologisms.
ACRONYMS
They are pronounced as single words (laser, NATO, jomo). They never have
periods separating the letters – a contrast with initialisms, where punctuation is always
present, especially in older styles of English).
EPONYMY
A new word is created from somebody’s name.
Leotard, from the acrobat Jules Leotard.
Most do not last and are labelled as NONCES (temporary words that never
properly enter the language).
OTHER TYPES OF ABBREVIATIONS:
INITIALISMS: items which are spoken as individual letters, such as DJ, BBC,
USA. They are also called ALPHABETISMS. Not all of them use the first letter of the
constituent words: PhD uses the first two letters, and GHO and TV take a letter from the
middle of the word.
AWKWARD CASES: some forms can be used either as initialisms or
acronyms (U.F.O., UFO or you-foe).
Some mix these types in the one word (CDRom).
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
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Some can form part of a larger word using affixes (ex-JP, pro-BBC, JCBMs).
Some are only used in writing, but pronounced in full: Mr, St.
FACETIOUS FORMS:
TGIF Thanks God it’s Friday (properly “Companion of St Michael and St
George)
CMG Call me God (“Companion of St Michael and St George”)
KCMG kindly call me God (“Knight Commander of St Michael and St George”)
GCMG God calls me God (“Grand Cross of St Michael and St George”)
AAAAAA Association for the Alleviation of Asinine Abbreviations and Absurd
Acronyms.
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BAGONIZING
However, native speakers seem to have a mania for trying to fill lexical gaps. If a
word does not exist to express a concept, there is no shortage of people very ready to
invent one. Following a ten-minute programme about neologisms on BBC Radio 4 in
1990, over 1,000 proposals were sent in for new English lexemes. Here are some
examples:
Aginda: a pre-conference drink
Circumtreeaviation: the tendency of a dog on a leash to want to walk past poles
and trees on the opposite side to its owner
Blinksync: the guarantee that, in any group photo, there will always be at least one
person whose eyes are closed
Fagony: a smoker’s cough
Litterate: said of people who care about litter
Polygrouch: sb who complains about everything
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
Leximania: a compulsive desire to invent to words
Bagonize: to wait anxiously for your suitcase to appear on the baggage carousel.
BROADENING
Broadening is the process by which the meaning of a word changes to become
more generalised over time. Broadening is a type of semantic change. It is important that
we first understand what semantics and semantic change are.
Semantics refers to the study of the meaning of words or phrases. There
are two types
of
semantics: logical and lexical. Logical semantics
has to
do
with reference (the symbolic relationship between language and real-world
objects) and implication (the
relationship
between
two
sentences).
Lexical semantics has to do with word meaning.
Semantic change refers to how the meanings of words change over time.
Broadening is a key example of semantic change and is a common process that
tends to occur slowly over many years. A synonym of broadening is a semantic
generalisation.
Semantic broadening is caused by extra-linguistic factors. These are factors that occur
outside the language itself. This type of semantic change occurs naturally and gradually
over time.
Broadening typically occurs when a word is used more frequently. This will lead to
its meaning becoming more encompassing of related definitions. This can be caused by
factors such as socio-cultural and psychological reasons. Let's take a look at some
examples.
1. Socio-cultural factors
Sociocultural factors can cause broadening. This happens when there is a major shift
in a country's politics or social landscape. Revolutions, wars, and civil rights movements
can all lead to broadening. A good example of this is how some words change their
meaning following political coups.
Guy
The word 'guy' gained popularity in England following the failed Gunpowder Plot
led by Guido 'Guy' Fawkes. Because of Fawkes' role in the plot, the word 'guy' came to
mean a grotesque person. This developed over time until the word meant a man or boy.
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
2.
Psychological Factors
Broadening can also happen when an item gains popularity. This is especially
common in the twentieth century. When a brand becomes the leader in its field,
sometimes its meaning will broaden to include the entire field itself. This will lead to the
word meaning becoming broader in the minds of its consumers.
Tissues
Kleenex
The tissue brand, 'Kleenex' is often used interchangeably with the word
'tissue'. This is because, as the product became more popular, people began to link the
two in their minds, leading to the broadening of the meaning of the word.
Examples of broadening
1. Business
A business
The word 'business' was originally only used to mean someone was
busy. However, over the years, the meaning of this word has changed. Now, the word's
meaning has been broadened to refer to any type of work or job.
2.
Cool
The modern use of the term 'cool' was originally used in jazz to refer to a specific
style ('cool jazz')! As jazz grew in popularity, the word started to be applied more widely.
3.
Demagogue
'Demagogue' derives from the Greek word 'demos', meaning 'people'. Historically
it was used to describe a popular leader. However, this meaning broadened through the
years to indicate a political leader who panders to the prejudices of the masses.
Broadening - key takeaways
Semantics refers to the study of meaning.
Semantic change refers to how the meaning of a word can change over time.
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
Broadening is when the meaning of a word becomes broader and more generalised
over time.
Broadening is typically caused by extralinguistic factors.
NARROWING
Narrowing is a process that takes place in semantics. It is important that we first
understand what semantics is and what semantic change is.
Semantics refers to the study of the meaning of words or phrases. There
are two types of semantics: logical and lexical. Logical semantics has to do
with reference (the symbolic relationship between language and real-world
objects) and implication (the
relationship
between
two
sentences).
Lexical semantics is about the analysis of word meaning.
Semantic change refers to how the meaning of words changes over time.
Narrowing is a type of semantic change in which the meaning of a word becomes
less generalised over time. Narrowing may also be called 'semantic
specialisation' and is a common process that can occur slowly over many years.
The opposite of semantic narrowing is called semantic broadening. This is when
a word's meaning becomes more generalised over time.
What causes narrowing?
Semantic narrowing is typically caused by extra-linguistic factors. These are
defined as factors that occur outside the system of the language spoken. This type of
semantic change occurs naturally and gradually over time.
Narrowing is typically caused when a definition of a word is used more commonly
than other definitions so the word's meaning changes to be more specific. This can be
caused by factors such as socio-cultural and psychological reasons.
Let's take a look at some examples of this.
Sociocultural causes
Sociocultural factors can also cause narrowing. This happens when there is
a major shift in a country's politics or social landscape. Factors such as revolutions,
wars and civil rights movements can lead to narrowing. One major example of this is
how the meaning of some words changed following the Industrial Revolution.
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
Engine
The word engine (known as 'egin' in Old French and 'egyn' in Middle English)
was traditionally used to describe machines used in war. Before industrialisation the word
was used to describe devices used in war, such as catapults. Following the Industrial
Revolution, the word came to mean a mechanical device used to achieve a purpose. This
shows that the word's meaning became narrower over time.
Psychological Causes
Narrowing can also happen when a language undergoes widespread
change. Major changes like this can affect how people view a word and its meaning. This
is especially common when the meaning of word becomes taboo or is used as a
euphemism, like the way that 'passed away' can be used to describe someone dying.
Hound
The word 'hound', comes from the German word, 'hund', meaning 'dog'. It was then
traditionally used to refer to any type of dog in English also. However, over the centuries,
as the English language developed, the meaning narrowed, until it was only used for dogs
and related to the action of hunting (using breeds like beagles and bloodhounds).
Examples of narrowing
Now that we have established what semantic narrowing is and how it occurs, let's
look at some examples.
Meat
The word 'meat' has undergone semantic narrowing over the years. The word
originally just meant 'food'. In time, this meaning grew to become more specific, until the
word 'meat' was only used for one type of food (the flesh of an animal).
Deer
Originally, 'deer' came from the Old English word 'dēor'. Records from before 900
AD show that this word meant 'beast', and was used to refer to any four-legged
animal. However, by 1400 AD, the meaning of the word had significantly narrowed to
only refer to one type of creature.
Girl
A similar process occurred for the word 'girl'. The word was used in Middle
English to refer to any young child, regardless of gender. Over time this changed, and
now the word is only used to refer to young and adolescent women.
Narrowing - key takeaways
Semantics is a term that refers to the study of the meaning of words.
UNIT 11: THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN. HOMONYMY. SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY. FALSE
FRIENDS. LEXICAL CREATIVITY
Semantic change refers to how the meaning of a word can change over time.
Narrowing is a specific process of semantic change where a word's meaning becomes
more specific over time.
This is a common process that often takes place over many years.
Narrowing can be caused by socio-cultural and psychological factors.
4. False Friends
When a student is learning a second language a phenomenon which often appears is
LEXICAL TRANSFER, by which the learner attributes to a word of the foreign language
all the characteristics that a very similar word of his own language has (semantically and
morphologically). For example, Spanish learners of English would associate frequent to
“frecuente”, or dictionary to “diccionario”. These words are known as COGNATES or
POSITIVE TRANSFERS.
But lexical transfers can also be negative and produce FALSE FRIENDS. They are
words which have a similar or identical form in spelling in both languages, often the same
syntactic function, but whose meanings are completely different. Naturally, these FALSE
FRIENDS are responsible for important misunderstanding. Some typical examples are:
WORD
USUAL WRONG TRANSLATION
RIGHT TRANSLATION
Carpet
carpeta
alfombra
Large
largo
grande
Success
suceso
éxito
Actual
actual
real
Library
librería
biblioteca
