Questions: Semantic Change

Question 1

In Middle English, 'girl' could refer to a young person of either sex. Its later restriction to young females is an example of what?

• A. Broadening
• B. Narrowing
• C. Amelioration
• D. Metonymy

Answer: (B)

The word's range of reference became smaller, from any young person to young females only. That is narrowing, also called specialization.

Question 2

'Villain' once meant a farm laborer and now means a wicked person. Which type of change is this?

• A. Amelioration
• B. Broadening
• C. Pejoration
• D. Metaphorical extension

Answer: (C)

The word acquired a negative meaning it did not have before. A change toward a worse evaluation is pejoration. Social attitudes toward rural laborers likely helped drive it.

Question 3

Because 'decimate' originally referred to killing one in every ten, using it to mean 'destroy a large part of' is an error.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

This argument commits the etymological fallacy. The 'one in ten' sense comes from a Roman military punishment, but the broader sense has been standard for a long time and is listed in major dictionaries. Earlier meanings do not decide current correct usage.

Question 4

Using the phrase 'the crown' to mean the monarchy shows which mechanism of semantic change, and how does it work?

Model answer: Metonymy. A word for something closely associated with a concept, here the monarch's crown, comes to stand for the concept itself, the monarchy or royal authority.

Metonymy works by association within a scene (object for institution, place for event, container for contents). Metaphor, by contrast, works by similarity across domains.