Second edition

§ 25. Summary and Conclusions

1. Not only the sound-form but also the meaning of the word is changed in the course of the historical development of language. The factors causing semantic changes may be roughly subdivided into extra-linguistic and linguistic causes.

2. 
   Change of meaning is effected through association between the existing meaning and the new. This association is generally based on the similarity of meaning (metaphor) or on the contiguity of meaning (metonymy).
   
3. 
   Semantic changes in the denotational component may bring about the extension or the restriction of meaning. The change in the connotational component may result in the pejorative or ameliorative development of meaning.
   
4. 
   Causes, nature and result of semantic changes should be regarded as three essentially different but closely connected aspects of the same linguistic phenomenon.
   

MEANING AND POLYSEMY
So far we have been discussing the concept of meaning, different types of word-meanings and the changes they undergo in the course of the historical development of the English language. When analysing the word-meaning we observe, however, that words as a rule are not units of a single meaning. Monosemantic words, i.e. words having only one meaning are comparatively few in number, these are mainly scientific terms, such -as hydrogen, molecule and the like. The bulk of English words are polysemantic, that is to say possess more than one meaning. The actual number of meanings of the commonly used words ranges from five to about a hundred. In fact, the commoner the word the more meanings it has.

§ 26. Semantic Structure of Polysemantic Words

The word table, e.g., has at least nine meanings in Modern English: 1. a piece of furniture; 2. the persons seated at a table; 3. sing. the food put on a table, meals; 4. a thin flat piece of stone, metal, wood, etc.; 5. pl. slabs of stone; 6. words cut into them or written on them (the ten tables); ² 7. an orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc.; 8. part of a machine-tool on which the work is put to be operated on; 9. a level area, a plateau. Each of the individual meanings can be described in terms of the types of meanings discussed above. We may, e.g., analyse the eighth meaning of the word table into the part-of-speech meaning — that of the noun (which presupposes the grammatical meanings of number and case) combined with the lexical meaning made up of two components The denotational semantic component which can be interpreted
¹ For details see ‘Semasiology’, §29, p. 36.
² десять заповедей (библ.)
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as the dictionary definition (part of a machine-tool on which the work is put) and the connotational component which can be identified as a specific stylistic reference of this particular meaning of the word table (technical terminology). Cf. the Russian планшайба, стол станка.
In polysemantic words, however, we are faced not with the problem of analysis of individual meanings, but primarily with the problem of the interrelation and interdependence of the various meanings in the semantic structure of one and the same word.