A. Blank: Why do new meanings occur? A cognitive typology of the motivations for lexical
semantic change
Reasons for semantic language change
1.1 Three levels of motivation
 Coseriu: language as a process (energeia) rather than a product (ergon); exists virtually in the speaker’s
mind as a mere potentiality (dynamis) and finds reality only in concrete utterances
 While communicating we reify what is in our mind and thereby reinvent language every time we speak
 Speaking & Writing: only way to introduce innovations that might be adopted by other speakers and thus
become new rules
 Typology of motivation:
o
Motivation of the speaker while innovating
o
Motivations of other speakers to adopt this innovation (e.g. prestige of the innovating speaker, or
adequacy of the innovation itself)
 Adoption shows three facets:
o
Sociolinguistic level
o
Pragmatic level

When speakers decide to accept an innovation because it is convincing, this is a pragmatic
decision mainly based on the innovation’s good cognitive performance

E.g. to trash = good expression for ‘easing files from the computer’ → convincing power
of this metaphor lies in the similarity between THROWING WASTE INTO THE GARBAGE and to
ERASE DATA

o
Consequence of adoption: semantic innovation becomes lexicalized
Cognitive level

Lexicalization “confirms” that the innovating speaker has made a good choice

To explore the cognitive aspect of semantic change: concentrate of the motivations for
semantic innovation and examine lexicalized material
 Coseriu differentiates between three levels of causes or motivations:
o
General motivation for language change: the speakers’ expressive and communicative purpose
o
The general conditions for language change (→ 1.2)
o
The specific motivation for a concrete innovation
-
Example: inventor of the torpedo needed a name for: ‘self-propelled submarine explosive’ → torpedo, lat.
electric ray → called that way because it’s a pretty convincing metaphor
o
Specific motivation: the need for a new name in a concrete situation
o
General motivation for the innovator’s choice was the wish to give it a somewhat suggestive and
hence successful name
1.2 The general motivation for language change, expressivity and efficiency
 General motivation for language change:
-
Zipf: “Man talks in order get something” → main motivation for speaking is to achieve success; language
change a mere side-effect of the speakers’ pragmatic goals
 Pragmatic view of language: speakers want to communicate successfully and produce innovations any
time they judge it to be the most successful strategy
 Speaker oriented strategies aim at reducing linguistic effort by:
o
Shortening words
o
Integrating “orphaned words” into the lexicon
o
Making use of analogies
o
Using the word for the prototype instead of the category (and vice versa)
o
Creating a Metonymy or metaphor
-
→ aim to render speaking more efficient
-
→ Such strategies enable speakers to maximize the communicative relevance of their discourse
 Hearer-oriented strategies:
o
Avoid ambiguity
o
Use more explicit, complex words
o
Create expressive or euphemistic metaphors, metonymies
-
→ Aim at assuring the correct understanding of what the speaker wants to express
-
→ Influencing the hearer in favour of the speaker
 Speaker-oriented strategies → increase communicative efficiency; hearer-oriented strategies → oriented
towards the communicative principle of expressivity
 Geeraerts:
o
o
expressivity at work when:

Speakers verbalize newly introduced or differently perceived concepts

New stylistic use to an already existing word (e.g euphemism)
Expressivity & efficiency “complementary sides of the same coin” → expressivity = creating force,
efficiency = optimising what has been created (principle of leas effort)
 Blank considers Geeraerts twofold typology problematic
o
New creations can be efficient without being strictly expressive at all
o
Efficiency and expressivity ar not directly comparable ore complementary on the same level
o
Concrete efficiency (like avoiding paraphrases, complex words, creating metaphors, metonymies
or ellipses) and expressivity (to impress one’s interlocutor, treat him/her gently, manifest emotions,
show things under a different light) contribute to the general efficiency of communication and of
language change
 Efficient communication is to maximise success by either reducing or increasing linguistic effort
2. Criticism of traditional approaches to motivations for semantic change
Stephen Ullmann’s typology
 Distinction between three aspects of semantic change: causes, nature, and consequences → for decades
the most popular & important theory
 Six types of causes for semantic change
-
Critique Blank:
o
lacks cognitive and empirical background + merely an eclectic collection of motivations, necessary
conditions and accessory elements
o
Only two of the six types are “relatively unproblematic”
(1) Social causes
-
Words that are often used by a group of speakers in a restricted context → become
semantically restricted to the actual sense they have in this context:
-
Lat. cubare 'to lie' > Fr. couver 'to breed'
-
Vice versa: meaning of a word can become generalised when the word is used outside
its usual context:
-
Engl, lure 'decoy' > 'anything that attracts'
(2) Psychological causes
-
Sperber: emotionally marked concepts can serve as an onomasiological “center of
attraction” for other words to verbalize the “attractive” concepts and, vice versa, serve as
a cognitive basis, as a semaiological “center of expansion” for verbalizing other concepts1
-
MHGerm. sère 'wounded, sore' > 'very'
-
→ expressive „exaggerating“ new verbalization
-
VulgLat. male habitus 'in a bad state' > Fr. malade, It. malato'ill'
-
→ euphemistic „understatement“ new verbalization
o
The next three types (need for a new name, historical causes, foreign influence) are (according to
Blank) facets of one and the same type → need to verbalize a new concept!
o
Last cause: linguistic cause = two words are habitually collocated in speech and the sense of one
word is transferred to the other

Example: Fr. pas 'step' > 'not' (<=> ne... pas, lit. 'not (a) step')

Blank: The sense of the whole collocation is transferred to the simple word and not only
the sense of the part that is omitted

Ullmann’s interpretation flawed
 Ullmann’s typology can be reduced to from six to three
 It furthermore lacks traditional causes such as irony, homonymic clash, or conceptual relation (→
concepts in our mind are interconnected and one concept can evoke those concepts related to it; strong
conceptual relations seem to induce semantic change)
3. A new typology of the motivations for lexical semantic change
 Blank suggest a new empirical approach based on cognitive foundations to conceive a consistent theory
of the motivations for semantic change
 Six categories:
(1) New concept (need for a name)
(2) Abstract concepts, distant and usually invisible referents
(3) Sociocultural change
(4) Close conceptual or factual relation
1
Die Onomasiologie oder Bezeichnungslehre ist ein Teilgebiet der Semantik und untersucht, mit welchen sprachlichen
Ausdrücken eine bestimmte Sache bezeichnet wird. Damit geht sie von einem Gegenstand aus und fragt nach der Benennung –
im Unterschied zur Semasiologie, die von einer Bezeichnung ausgehend nach der Bedeutung fragt, z. B. welche
unterschiedlichen Gegenstände so benannt werden. (Wikipedia)
(5) Complexity and irregularity in the lexicon
(6) Emotionally marked concepts
(1) New concept (need for a new name)
 Newly developed objects or ideas, technical, scientific, political or sociocultural developments ask for new
names
 Cf. Ullman’s need for a new name, historical causes, and foreign influence
 Examples:
o
Lat. pecunia 'cattle (used as a currency)' > 'money'
o
Engl, mouse 'small rodent' > 'small, hand-guided electronic device for executing commands in
computer programs'
o
EurSp. léon 'lion' > AmerSp. 'puma'
o
Fr. lézard 'lizard' > Creole (Réunion) 'gecko'
(2) Abstract concepts, distant and usually invisible referents
 Conceptual domains whose referents are either abstract or usually distant or hard to see and thus rather
difficult to seize intellectually
 Abstraction explains the usual metaphorical verbalization of e.g. TIME, UNDERSTANDING, SENSE-PERCEPTION,
or EMOTIONS
o
Verbalizing abstract concepts by metonymy:
-
→ Lat. luna 'moon' > Rum. luna 'month'
o
With time metaphor or metonymies can lose their concrete sense and become opaque
-
→ It. capire 'to understand' (< Lat. capere 'to catch')
o
Concretely seizable but distant concepts and things that are difficult to see can be brought
“closer” into our view by metaphor
-
→ (20) Fr. gorge 'throat' > 'gorge, canyon'
-
→ (21) Lat. pupilla 'little girl or doll' > 'pupil (of the eye)'
 This type of motivation illustrates the difficulty of applying the labels of “expressivity” and “efficiency” →
verbalizing an abstract or difficult notion by metaphor is an expressive issue that makes communication
more convincing, but is also a very efficient tool of lexical enrichment
(3) Sociocultural change
 Change in our conception of the world can also lead to the transformation of an already existing complex
conceptual system by
o
the loss of one or more concepts
o
shifting concepts
o
introducing new concepts
 Example:
-
Change of the legal system made the lat. distinction between relatives on one’s mother’s side
(avunculus/matertera) and relatives on one’s father’s side (patruus/amita) obsolete → extension of
meaning
o
Lat. avunculus 'uncle on one's mother's side' > Fr. oncle, Rum. unchiu 'uncle'
o
Lat. amita 'aunt on one's father's side' > OFr. ante, ModFr. tante, Occ. tanto, Engd. amda, Rum.
mätu§ä 'aunt'
-
Changes in lifestyle and nescessity over time entailed a shift of meaning of the French denominations for
meals:
(4) Close conceptual or factual relation
 Context helps us understand when a word is used in a different sense than its usual one
 Close links between concepts make name transfers possible → when efficient, might become lexicalised →
the word has undergone semantic change & becomes polysemous

Three types of cognitive constellations:
(1) Frame relation
-
Strong and habitual relation between two concepts within a frame makes speakers express them by
using only one word
-
Lat. testimonium 'testimony, witness' > Fr. témoin 'witnessed
-
It. noleggiare 'to lend' > 'to borrow'
-
Completely different frames led lat. plicare 'to fold' to take opposite semantic directions in
Ibero-Romance and Rumanian, producing a kind of "interlinguistic antonymy":
-
o
Lat. plicare 'to fold' > Rum. a pleca 'to leave'
o
Lat. plicare 'to fold' > Sp. llegar, Pg. chegar 'to arrive'
Reason: shepherd society of Rumania folding the tents was associated with leaving, while in the
marine society of Spain folding the sails was associated with arrival
(2) Prototypical change
a. A word is constantly used to refer to the prototype of the usually designated category (e.g. in
patriarchal societies the prototypical HUMAN BEING ist the MAN)
-
→ semantic restriction
b. Opposite: word which usually designates the prototype of a category is extended to refer to
the whole category
-
→ Lat. tenere 'to hold' > Sp. tener, Sard, teniri 'to have'
-
→ semantic extension
 In both cases the fixation on the prototype triggers the semantic change
c. Sometimes we find extensions or restrictions of meaning which are difficult to be explained by
fixation on a prototype
-
→ MEngl. hound 'dog' > 'dog trained to pursue game'
-
→ VulgLat. adripare 'to get on shore' > 'to arrive'
-
→ Helps to see if the transfer could have happened in a specific frame: the typical dog in the
frame “HUNTING” is the HOUND; the typical arrival in “SEAFARING” is GETTING TO THE SHORE
(3) Blurred concepts
-
Sometimes speakers make transfers without being aware of it, because their knowledge about
the limits of these concepts and the respective categories is momentarily or permanently
blurred
-
If the confusion is a widespread matter in a speech community, this can lead to a cohyponymous2 transfer
-
→ LateLat. talpus 'mole' > It. topo, Sard, topi 'mouse'
-
→ Lat. sorex 'shrew-mouse' > It. sorcio, Fr. souris, Rum. soarece 'mouse'
-
→ ? *ratt- 'rat' > Pg. rato, Fr. rat, It. (dial.) rat, rät 'mouse'
(5) Complexity and irregularity in the lexicon
 Speakers reduce irregularities or superfluous complexity in the lexicon in order to communicate at the
“lowest possible cost”
 Four different lexical constellations:
i.
Lexical complexity
-
The more frequently a word is used, the more speakers tend to reduce its significant (Zipf’s law)
-
If the word in question is a compound or a syntagmatic construction, the reduction may
concern one part of the complex lexeme
-
Process is called “lexical ellipsis”: a simple lexeme receives the meaning of a comples word of
which it is formally a part → “absorption” or “incorporation” would be more appropriate terms
-
→ It. portatile 'portable' > 'notebook-computer' ( ← computer portatile)
-
→ Lat. separare 'to separate' > Fr. sevrer 'to wean' (← MFr. sevrer de la mámele)
ii.
“Orphaned words”
-
Lexically isolated word, which is the unique member of its derivational class and restricted in
use, is interpreted by speakers as belonging to another derivational class and becomes formally
and semantically integrated into this class
-
= ”popular etymology” or “reinterpretation”
-
→ Fr. forain 'non-resident' > 'belonging to the fair' (← Fr. foir 'fair, market') → forain (< lat.
foranus) previously “orphaned because it didn’t participate in the sound change of the its lexical
root, through lexical reinterpretation it became “adopted” by the family of foire (< lat. feria)
-
→ OGr. nekromanteia 'art of divination through communication with the dead, necromancy' >
ClassLat. necromantia > LateLat. nigromantia 'black art', 'magic' (← Lat. niger 'black') →
loanword, by definition lexically isolated
iii.
“Lexical gap”
-
Caused by asymmetrical lexical structure
-
Eques = cavalryman and metonymically ‘knight’
-
Pedes = infantryman
 lexical disproportion between polysemic eques and monosemic pede incited speakers to
create an analogous metonymy for pedes (meaning plebeian), although at least two other
words for this social class already existed (plebs, plebeius)
2
Hyponym: A word of more specific meaning than a general or superordinate term applicable to it. For example, spoon is a
hyponym of cutlery (OED)
-
“synonymic derivation”: synonyms or co-hyponyms of a word having a slang sense develop the
same or a similar slang sense
→ Fr.polir 'to polish', 'to steal' → fourbir 'to polish'> 'to steal', nettoyer 'to clean' > 'to steal'
iv.
Untypical meaning/untypical meaning structure
-
Words whose meaning is somewhat untypical for the word class they belong to
-
General tendency to give more prototypical senses to such words, e.g. nouns expressing results
or places are more prototypical than nomina actionis → latter show a tendency to develop
resultant, static or local meaning
-
→ Lat. prehensio 'act of seizing so.' > Fr. prison 'captivity' >'prison'
-
Prototypical transitive vers place the most active argument in the subject position →
explanation for auto-converse changes
-
→ Pg. aborrecer 'to hate sth./so.' > 'to vex so. (= to cause hatred)'
-
→ Lat. lucere 'to be visible' > Cat. llucar 'to see'
(6) Emotionally marked concepts
 Some conceptual domains are emotionally marked, e.g. EATING, DRINKING, SEX, DEATH, FEAR, ANGER, BEAUTY,
HOPE, GREAT QUANTITY/INTENSITY, THE FUTURE, ORIENTATION IN TIME, SPACE
and DISCOURSE
 A certain number of these domains are additionally marked with taboo → depends partially on the culture
but contains a supracultural, if not universal core
 Regarding a tabooed topic, successful communication does not totally but largely depend on the context
of the speech act
 Euphemism as a strategy to allow a different approach to a problematic topic (pass away instead of die)
o
A good semantic euphemism has to be veiling and explicit at the same time
o
Often created via metonymy, metaphor, sematic restriction, ellipsis, or ironic antiphrasis
→ Lat. infirmus 'weak' > 'ill (euphemistic)' > OFr. enferm, Sp. enfermo 'ill', Lat. languidus 'feeble'
> Rum. lînced 'ill (euph.)' > 'ill'
→ Fr. tuer 'to extinguish (fire)' > 'to kill'
→ It. casino 'little house' > 'brothel'
→ OF. oste 'guest' > 'hostage (euph.)'
→ Sard, masetu 'gentle, good-natured' > 'irascible'
-
 Another way to verbalize tabooed concepts is by dysphemism, i.e. an offensive, explicitly face-threatening
strategy (so. kicked the bucket instead of die)
o
Under specific circumstances dysphemism are used with the same intention as euphemisms:
guarantee and enhance communicative success
o
Dysphemisms usually located on diastratically or diaphasically low marked levels of speech, but
can be cited by "normal" speakers as a special expressive effect
 Expressive verbalization does also occur with emotionally marked but not tabooed conceptual domains,
like MONEY, WORK, PLANS AND GOALS, QUANTITY
o
In order to convince our interlocutor/make them share our point of view, we must exaggerate and
say things in a drastic or hyperbolic manner
o
Expressivity not a motivation for semantic change but a communicative strategy
o
Typical mechanism: metaphor, metonymy, extension of meaning, co-hyponymous transfer or
contrast-based semantic change
→ VulgLat. *tripalium 'torture' > MFr. travail 'work (expr.)' > ModFr. 'work'
→ Fr. bordel, It. bordello 'brothel' > 'disorder, brawl'
→ Lat. caballus 'bad horse, jade' > VulgLat. 'horse (expr.)' > Cat. cavali, Engd. kaval, Fr. cheval, It.
cavallo, Pg. cavallo, Sard, kaddu, Rum. cal, Sp. caballo 'horse'
→ Sp., Pg. aborrecer 'to vex so.' > 'to bore so. (expr.) > 'to bore so.'
→ Engl, bad 'not good' > Engl, (slang) 'good, excellent'
Conclusion
 Existence of a tripartite typology of motivations (Cosario)
 Individual motivation can be grouped into six types of general motivations or sufficient conditions for
semantic innovation