A language is not, has not been and never will be a constant. Due to the language learning process and the innate human nature to manipulate and play with words to help convey what we wish in varying contexts, languages are constantly evolving and developing. If this was not the case, English as we know it would not exist and we would be speaking the same language that our great ancestors spoke thousands of years ago. The one construct that inextricably links and provokes both polysemy and semantic change is that of the metaphor. It becomes the ‘middle man’ so to speak. To better understand the co-dependent nature of the relationship between these two concepts, we must first look at them individually.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines polysemy as ‘the fact of having several meanings; the possession of multiple meanings, senses, or connotations’ (OED online: 2012). These different meanings, more often than not, are not completely unrelated which permits the diversity of terms. The ease with which new words and phrases are accepted into a language allows for the variation in their denotation. Polysemy is conditioned by society and culture. Since the technological boom, languages have had to coin new terms to provide speakers with symbols for the new items they wish to talk about. When a new word is not created, an already existing word is taken and another meaning is added. Before the internet boom, surfing only ever implied you were surfing an ocean wave and if you referred to the web, it would be assumed you were talking about a spider’s web. There are also many complex situations where the meanings of words can be interpreted in many senses though the meaning still signifies the same ‘symbol’. For example, let us look at the case of ‘see’. One can use this verb to denote

·         the physical perception of an object – Jane saw the ball

·         hallucination – Jane is seeing stars

·          realisation  - Jane suddenly saw what Peter meant - and also

·         the understanding of something – Jane sees your point of view

These are four very similar yet entirely different senses. Here, the polysemic link between ‘see’ and ‘understand’ has developed through conceptual metaphor. We seem to have established , over time, a connection between the visual clarity of seeing an object and the clarity of thought you gain when you fully understand something. According to Bréal, “polysemy arises as a consequence of semantic change” (Nehrlich 2003: 268) highlighting the co-dependent nature of the relationship.  It produces lexical ambiguities  (Lyons 1977: 569) within sentences, for example take the sentence Jane wore a light coat. Here, light could either mean ‘light in weight’ or ‘light in colour’. The only way we can avoid creating such ambiguity is defining words with many distinguishers, narrowing the possible meanings. It is also frequently claimed that semantic change is a consequence of polysemy, which I believe is most likely the more correct view given the historical development of languages.

When you start thinking about and looking into semantic change, one notices both the distinct differences and the similarities between it and polysemy. Semantic change is the gradual adjustment in word meaning over a period of time and generally, this meaning is related to the previous one and has not developed entirely out of the blue. The semantic field of a word can be altered in many ways, through:

·          broadening– aunt used to refer only to your father’s sister, whereas now it refers to both your father and mother’s sisters

·         narrowing of the semantic field – hound used to refer to all types of dogs, now it is a specific type of dog used for hunting

·         amelioration – knight, the old word for boy, now refers to a man of honourable military rank

·         pejoration – wench used to denote a girl, however it now carried the negative connotations and meaning of a ‘wanton woman’ or prostitute

·         weakening – quellwas the verb to kill but not it simply means to put down or pacify

·         semantic shift – bead was originally used to mean prayer but has changed over the years to mean a small sphere

(O’Grady 1989:340-364)

There are many triggers for semantic change. Euphemism is a big motivator for semantic change, especially within British English speakers, I believe. We have this need to make things sound politically correct and the want to avoid any form or type of offence, therefore our lexicon must adapt. For example, if we go back to the times of Chaucer, bodily functions were not a taboo topic at all for speakers of what we define as “middle English” and they were regularly the topic of jokes. Nowadays, in modern English, speakers shy away from such topics as they are deemed to be rude and so their language changes. For example, ‘water closet’ has developed into ‘toilet’ then into ‘lavatory’ then finally into ‘bathroom’. Of course, all of these words are still in use depending upon your regional dialect and social class but there is a distinct and noticeable shift in the vulgarity of the terms. The arbitrariness of the signifier is also a cause for semantic change. Most words do not have one true meaning, nor is there a single sound to represent an idea therefore words can change their meaning easily and quickly. Take for instance the words used to identify animals. A cat is that same being in every language so one would assume it to be logical to have a universal name for it, yet the English name it ‘a cat’, the French ‘un chat’ and the Spanish ‘el gato’. McMahon states that “It is often said that there is less resistance to change in the semantics than in other areas of the grammar so that meaning changes relatively quickly and easily (McMahon: 1994). The third motivation for change is the change in culture, for example the word money comes from the same Latin root monere, ‘to warn, admonish or advise’, as in Ancient Rome, money was manufactured in the area around the temple of Juno Moneta, Juno the admonisher. The third motivation for semantic change is changes in society. Often, religious terms are secularised as time goes on. Words such as cell, office and sanction started out with the religious meanings of a ‘monk’s living space’, a ‘church service’ and an ‘imposition of penance’ before they changed to the terms for ‘scientific domain’, ‘commercial domain’ and ‘political/legal domain’ respectively. The final motivation for semantic change is the aforementioned metaphor. A specific set of examples can be made of nautical metaphors, for example, the doldrums. The origin of this is ‘[a] region in which ships are especially liable to be becalmed; spec. (equatorial doldrums), the region of calms and light baffling winds near the equator, where the trade winds meet and neutralize each other’ (OED online: 2012). Over time, people have equated the troubles faces by those sailing in these waters to the low points in life, therefore changing its meaning. One can question, however, if this specific case is not semantic change but actually a case of polysemy?

There must inevitably be a point in time where words or phrases have multiple meanings that are all fully understandable by the speaker but at what point does this develop into complete semantic change? Let us look at the case of bead. The Old English word for ‘prayer’ was gebed. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, rosaries were created so people could use small spheres mounted upon a piece of string to symbolise and to physically count their bedes ‘prayers’. Overtime, due to the fact there is discontinuity in our language acquisition and that we do not receive a full, standardized grammar from our parents, children began to perceive someone counting their bedes as the concrete objects of the small spheres, not as the abstract concept of prayers.(McMahon 1994) A more modern example is that of the term gay. The old adjective for ‘fine’, ‘gleeful’ and ‘bright’ (OED online:2012) was adopted by the homosexual community as a deliberate political strategy. The first time this recognised as a possible definition in the OED is 1922. We are in a stage of polysemy at the moment, as there are those who would recognise the first definition of gay as ‘lively’ however this will soon become a case of semantic change over the course of the next few decades as the old meaning is slowly being lost. If you asked a young person to define gay, most would give you the definition of ‘homosexual’ or more specifically a ‘male homosexual’.

Polysemy and Semantic Change are evidently two concepts that cannot exist without the other. Both are socially conditioned, are dependent on the ever changing culture and are tweaked by the use of metaphor. Prescriptivist linguists may claim that language is in decline, with the proper meanings of “good old” English words being lost to modern terms but this is merely how humans work. Languages change; our society changes; people change.

Bibliography

“doldrum, n.”. OED Online. December 2011. Oxford University Press. 8 March 2012 <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/56557?redirectedFrom=doldrums>.

“gay, adj., adv., and n.”. OED Online. December 2011. Oxford University Press. 8 March 2012 <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/77207?rskey=Os9tIS&result=1&isAdvanced=false>.

Lyons, John. Semantics 2. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1977. 569. Print.

McMahon, April M. S. Understanding Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.

Nerlich, Brigitte. Polysemy: Flexible Patterns of Meaning in Mind and Language. Berlin: Mouton De   Gruyter, 2003. 268. Print.

O’Grady, William, Michael Dobrovolsky, and Mark Aronoff. “Lexical and Semantic Change.” Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. New York: St. Martin’s, 1989. 340-46. Print.

“polysemy, n.”. OED Online. December 2011. Oxford University Press. 8 March 2012 <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/147370?redirectedFrom=polysemy>.

museispwoper:

lorax-kun:

revolutionator:

etherealdefiency:

sometimes i love my country

bbc: YOLO.

I love BBC

(Source: czelstillwantyouback, via kirstymcarthur)