Polysemantic Extensions of 'Dog' and Allied Terms
1961; Duke University Press; Volume: 36; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3090550
ISSN1527-2133
Autores Tópico(s)Linguistics and language evolution
ResumoERHAPS THE MAIN CAUSE of the extension of meaning lies in a speech failure-the sudden discovery of a person who employs his word-hoard more or less fluently that he has nothing at hand to express a meaning he wants to convey. To save the situation he takes what the moment offers: it may be a word with connotations fringing the area of meaning he is trying to capture; or some metaphorical suggestion may call up a word carrying a sense new to it but one which his readers may understand. These exigencies present themselves on every level of casual and sophisticated speech and are usually solved by some polysemantic novelty; for it is easier to saddle a familiar word with a new meaning than to create a new word. Because words thus forced to carry extra burdens may not be immediately identified, or may not survive long in their new functions, the early history of the semantic extensions is usually untraceable. An example like the recent use of dogs to mean 'shoes,' for which early documentation does exist, is a very rare linguistic phenomenon.1 In this article I shall examine the polysemy of dog and a few allied terms (bitch, cur, hound, pup, whelp) that have been employed outside their original canine senses to name or describe new referents. These referents fall into
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