Semasiology Basics
What does Semasiology study?
Answer: The meaning of words and word equivalents.
What kind of motivation do buzz and hiss show?
Answer: Phonetic motivation.
Differentiate linguistic and extra-linguistic causes with one concise phrase each.
Answer: Linguistic — internal structure or usage patterns; extra-linguistic — changes in society, culture, or technology.
What is a morpheme?
The smallest meaningful unit of a word.
What is semantic change?
Answer: The process by which word meanings evolve over time.
How do concept and meaning differ when translating “дом” and “house/home”?
Answer: The concept (“building for living”) is universal, but the meanings differ: дом combines “building” and “family life,” while house and home split those ideas.
What does "re-build" show, and what type of motivation is it?
Answer: Morphological motivation — prefix re- means “again”.
How did ellipsis change the meaning of "expecting"?
expecting from “expecting a baby.” it show dropped context shaping meaning.
What are root morphemes? Give Example
They carry the core meaning of a word (e.g. write in writer).
Define metonymy and give an example.
Based on association/connection (e.g. the White House = U.S. government).
When can the same sentence “The chicken is ready to eat” produce two different meanings? What linguistic concept does this illustrate?
Answer: Ambiguity (polysemy / contextual meaning). The subject (chicken eats) vs object (chicken is cooked).
How does the structure of underestimate show its meaning?
Answer: Morphologically motivated — prefix under- (“less than”) + estimate (“evaluate”) → “evaluate too low.”
What is the difference between lexical and grammatical meaning?
Lexical meaning is the dictionary meaning; grammatical meaning shows the word’s function (tense, number, etc.).
What is the morphological structure of the word unbelievable?
Prefix un- + root believe + suffix -able.
What’s the difference between amelioration and pejoration?
Amelioration = meaning improves (minister: servant → official); Pejoration = worsens (villain: worker → criminal).
Compare referential and functional approaches to meaning using bank as an example.
Answer: Referential links the word to the real object (river bank vs. financial bank); functional defines meaning through sentence use.
The causes of semantic changes may be grouped under two main headings, they are...
Answer: linguistic and extralinguistic ones
Give an example of ellipsis as a linguistic cause.
Answer: Starve meant “to die” → now “to die of hunger” (from “die of hunger”).
Explain the role of morphology in enriching vocabulary.
Morphology allows creating new lexical units through affixation, conversion, compounding, etc.
Give one modern word that changed meaning because of technology.
Mouse → animal → computer device.
Between slay and kill, which has a stronger stylistic and emotional connotation in modern slang, and what does this reveal about semantic change?
Answer: Slay – positive (admiration, success). Shows social re-evaluation and connotational shift through cultural influence.
Compare eyewash (“lotion for eyes”) and brainstorm (“generate ideas”). Which is semantically motivated and why?
Answer: Brainstorm — metaphorical connection between “storm” and “burst of ideas,” based on conceptual similarity.
Describe one extra-linguistic reason that changed the word space.
Answer: Scientific progress — “extent” → “outer space”.
The words recover and re-cover look identical but have different histories and motivations. Why/how?
Re-cover (“cover again”) is morphologically motivated — its structure transparently expresses its meaning (prefix re- “again” + cover).
Recover (“get better”) is etymologically related to French recouvrer and Latin recuperare; its prefix is no longer felt as meaning “again.”
What kind of semantic process is shown in mouse → “computer device”?
Metaphor — similarity in shape and function.