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In prison slang is widely spread the innovation “beast” – a person convicted of a sexual offence, that also shows narrowing or specialization of the meaning.
Expansion of meaning passes according to the model A • a → A. For example, trainspotter in the slang usage gets the generalized meaning “an obsessive follower of any minority interest or specialized hobby”. The other slang lexical unit also shows the expansion of the meaning: “babe” – an attractive young woman; similarly as well as “item” – a couple in romantic or sexual relationship, and “squeegee” – a person, who cleans the windowscreen of a car stopped in traffic and solicits payment from the driver.
The metaphorical transfers consists in the removal or replacement of the basic (genitive) seme (archiseme) at saving of differential (specific seme) which becomes the initial seme of denomination. This type of semantical transformation can be examined as a symmetric relationship of two names with replacement of archisemes. For example, green shoots – signs of growth or renewal, especially of economic recovery. Schematically this metaphorical transfer can be given as A•b (where b – new growth, A – about plants) - B•c (B – new growth, c – about economy). Similar coined neologism “jungle fever” – a burning desire to engage in an interracial sexual relationship. Schematically this transfer is described as: A•b (where A – malaria, b – severe form) - B•c (B – severe, burning desire, c – an interracial relationship).
The model of metaphorical transfer Nzool → Npers is very active in formation of substandard vocabulary, for example, neologism “mule” – a person, who acts as a courier for illegal drugs; “bird” – an attractive young woman or girl.
Some neologisms which are the names of people are formed according to the model: Nobj → Npers: “squeegee” → a person who cleans the wind screen of car stopped in a traffic and solicits payment from the driver (old meaning – a rubber-edged implement set on a handle used for cleaning windows); “anorak” → a person who pursues an interest with obsessive dedication (old meaning – kind of a jacket).
But it is necessary to distinguish to basic types of metaphorical transfer: 1) metaphorical transfer which is based on the obvious similarity of objects, for example: bubble – a woman’s hair style in which the hair is arranged in a round bubblelike shape; whisker – a thick hair-like crystal of great strength; 2) the metaphorical transfer in the basis of which the association is fixed, connected related with the name of the object: vegetable – a person who is like a vegetable; a lifeless, inert creature.
Metonymy (contiguity of meaning in the basis) is another source of formation of semantical neologisms, however it is not as active as metaphor, for example “air miles” – a consumer incentive scheme under which credits redeemable for free air travel are issued to frequent flyers, or to people taking part in designated transaction; “juice” – a favourable standing position, power of influence.The metonymical transfers consist in that the basic seme of one word is the component of the second word, thus the relations between elements have asymmetric character. For example “longhair” – a person wearing long hair; “skinhead” – a person wearing closely cropped hair. Neologisms coined by mentonymy are constituents of word combinations: “brain-drain” – the emigration of scientists, scholars; “blue-helmet” – a member of the international military peacekeeping force of the United Nations, whose uniform includes a blue helmet.
Semantical processes which are up to the changes in the denotative component of lexical meaning are expressed through the generalization (expansion of meaning) or concretization (narrowing of meaning). A tendency to narrowing of meaning is observed in the processes of formation of terminology, for example: to import/to export – to transfer (data) into/out of a computer from/into another one; adventure – a type of a computer game in which the player plays a role in a story involving simulated danger. In current words sometimes stylistically marked as a “slang” the process of expansion of meaning can be observed. For example: item – couple in a romantic or sexual relationship; trainspotter – an obsessive follower of minority interest or specialized hobby. In the last case the worsening of meaning is present. Neologism “babe” in the meaning of “an attractive young woman” also shows the expansion of meaning in connection with the appearance in the detonative element of word of new seme. The semantic changes in the connotative component of the meaning mean acquisition by lexical units of negative or positive estimation. These changes of lexical meaning are conditioned by the social factors. For example, word “dude” – old meaning: a swell, a dandy; new meaning – person, a guy, one of the “gang” or neologism “mad” – old meaning: crazy, unwell in head; new meaning – remarkable, unusual, exciting.
“Payoration” of meaning in contrast to “melioration” is more difficult to observe as the majority of stylistically marked word have the certain seme of negative meaning in its lexical meaning. But nevertheless there are instants of worsening of meaning at the formation of neologisms: trainspotter – old meaning: a person with a strange unusual hobby; new meaning – an obsessive follower of any minority interest or specialized hobby. In the gained new meaning this neologisms is used as a scornfull slang word.
Some words which were considered as negative ones now have the opposite positive estimation, are rehabilitated because such type of semantical changes as neutralization. For example neologism “black” in new combination has the positive seme: black is beautiful, black is power.
The instants of new meanings just contrary already existent are also observed. Such meanings are called enuntiosemes. For example: “head” – new meaning: 1) a drug addict (-); 2) a devotee (+).
It is worth marking that the given neologism in both meanings serves initial basis for derivatives which have positive or negative seme in its lexical meaning, for example, basehead (-), headcase (+).
Changes of lexical meaning also include euphemisms or the usage of indirect expressions omission of rough or scornful lexical units in the opinion of a linguist: “otherly abled” or “challenged” – instead of “disabled” or “handicapped”, “a client” instead of “a convict”, “socially disadvantaged” in the meaning of “mentally ill”. In general, euphemisms are rather interesting in the modern linguistics, where there is a tendency to the direct nomination, that is the result of people’s freedom from the great majority of religious prohibitions, their greater relaxation in the moral plan freedom of ethnic additions and reglamentations which are characteristical for nowadays. Therefore it is possible to estimate the tendency of direct nomination is greatly blocked by contrary ability to express one’s thoughts parafrastically.
For the last decades the formation of euphemisms has been taken place according to the typical for English language models. It is first of all the semantical displacements among which the narrowing of meaning according to its wide spread takes the first place, that is the usage of words or word combinations of wide semantic and polysemantical in much narrower meaning. For example: “amateur” in the meaning of “an unprofessional politician”, “golden age” instead of “old age”, “newsreader” in the mean of the “reader of the latest news on the TV or internet”.