Chapter XIV · ON THE DIFFERENTIATION OF MEANING.

Language develops by the development of the vocabulary of individual speakers in the same linguistic community: their tendency is to produce synonymous forms and constructions in addition to those already at their disposal. Each individual is, in fact, constantly engaged in increasing the number of synonymous words, forms, and constructions in the language which he speaks. One source of this superfluous development depends on analogical formation: as when in English the imperfect is assimilated to the participle, or the participle to the imperfect; as where forms like spoke and broke appear beside spake and brake or held, beside holden.

A second source of the same superfluity depending on synonyms arises from the fact that of two words, each may develop its meaning on its own lines, and the meanings may come to converge so as to become one and the same. Thus, for instance, the two words relation and relative, the former originally the abstract verbal noun, the latter an adjective, have converged in the meaning ‘a related person;’ and it has thus happened that owing to this process there arise two terms for one and the same idea. To the above a third source may be added; viz., the acceptance of a foreign word into a language where a native word already exists to express the same idea. Of course English is especially rich in words of this kind, owing to the large number of Norman-French words imported at the Conquest and maintained as an integral part of the language; though the process of borrowing from French has been also active since the epoch of the Conquest: such are the pairs nude, naked; pedagogue, schoolmaster; poignant, sharp; peccant, sinning; sign, token: other familiar instances are tether, derived from the Celtic at an old date; and loot, adopted from the Hindi, by the side of plunder. The case is, of course, similar where a synonym is adopted from another dialect, as vetch by the side of fitch, vat beside fat (a vessel), etc.

But though such superfluities in language are continually appearing, they have a constant tendency to disappear on the earliest possible occasion. Language is a careful housewife, who is constantly endeavouring to keep nothing on hand but what she can use, and carefully to retrench the superfluous. We must, of course, never suppose that any body of speakers combine to admit a word into the common language which they employ, and that then, finding that the word or form has its meaning already expressed in their language and is therefore unnecessary, they proceed to discard it. These new words and forms proceed in each instance from individuals, who overlook the existence in their own language of a term already in use for some meaning which they need to express, and so introduce a new form: this is then employed by others, who, hearing the new form and the old, employ both alike indiscriminately. Superfluity in language, then, must be regarded as spontaneously arising, and without the aid of any voluntary impulse on the part of any individual or individuals. The language of common life is, as might be expected, most ready in freeing the vehicle of ordinary communication from superfluities, and in the differentiation of synonyms. The language of poetry and, in a less degree, of written prose, demands a store of synonyms, on which an author may draw at will, thereby forming an individual style and avoiding monotony. It is as useful, nay, as indispensable to the poet that he should have a store of words with similar meanings which he may employ for the purposes of his artificial style, as it is for the ordinary speaker or writer to have a distinct shade of meaning attached to each of the synonyms which he employs. And as poetry makes greater demands upon the taste and powers of an author than prose, we find that the language of poetry preserves archaic forms and words which in prose have been practically obsolete. In fact such words become the stock in trade of all writers of poetry, appearing, of course, most frequently in those who seek to invest their work with a peculiarly archaic caste. Thus, the diction of Spenser must have appeared almost as archaic to his contemporaries as to ourselves.135 Poetry will also maintain constructions which have a tendency in prose to become obsolete: as, meseems; Time prove the rest. The metaphors employed in old Norse poetry are very instructive on this head. They have been treated at great length in the ‘Corpus Poeticum Boreale’ by Vigfusson and York Powell, from whose work136 we cite the following instances. The breast is spoken of as the mind’s house, memory’s sanctuary, the lurking-place of thought, the shore of the mind, the bark of laughter, the hall of the heart. The eye is the moon or star of the brows, the light or levin of the forehead, the cauldron of tears, the pledge of Woden. Herrings are the arrows of the sea, the darts, the tail-barbed arrows of the deep. Ships are characterised by a host of metaphors; as, the tree or beam, the sled, the car, the beam or timber of the sea or waves; the steeds of the helm, oars, mast, sail, yard: and numerous other specimens of ‘pars pro toto.’

The most simple and obvious case of retrenchment in language is where, out of several similar forms and phrases, all disappear and are disused except a single one; as where to grow is used instead of to wax; to go, instead of to fare, etc. We must look upon these retrenchments in language as mainly due to individuals; each speaker expresses himself more or less unconsciously with a certain consistency, and uses, generally speaking, what we may properly call his own dialect. It is owing to such individual influence that the distinctions in language which we call dialects arise, and thus the different opportunities for choice form a main source of the distinctions of dialect.

In addition to this negative process of simply dropping what is useless, there is the positive process of utilising what is superfluous in language by differentiation of meaning in the case of synonymous words and phrases. This process is no more the result of conscious purpose than the other. Since each individual has gradually to learn the different senses of words, inflections, particles, etc., it is clear that when there are several synonyms in use—each of which has several shades of signification—he will almost certainly hear one of them used in one, and another in another of these meanings. If, for instance, we represent the full meaning of a word in its different shades by the letters A + B + C + D, and, similarly, that of its synonym by a + b + c + d, the probability almost amounts to certainty that when a learner first hears the former word, the shade of meaning (say B) in which it happens to be employed will differ from that (say d) in which he first learns the use of the latter. He will then inevitably, though perhaps unconsciously, attach by preference these particular shades of meaning to the two words; and will continue to do so, unless stronger impulses, such as frequent use in other meanings by surrounding speakers, force him to discard the differentiation which he has established. But from the moment when he begins to use, and as long as he uses the word consistently in one sense, he will influence others in the same linguistic community, and lay the basis for definite acceptance of the word in a particular or special sense.

Nor, again, must we assume that a differentiation in sound was purposely and consciously made by speakers with a view to differentiate meanings. Cases taken from modern languages may serve to show the unreasonableness of such assumptions. Especial attention has been paid by writers on Romance Philology to the ‘doublets’ occurring in their own languages. By ‘doublets’ we mean the double derivative forms of one and the same word (such as raison, ‘reason,’ and ration, ‘allowance,’ both coming from rationem): forms commonly appearing in a language at two different periods in the history of the language, and invested, in spite of their common origin, with distinct and special senses. The name of ‘doublets’ was first applied to them by Nicolas Catherinot, who, as early as 1683, published a list of those which he had observed in French, but without giving the reasons for the phenomenon. How imperfect the philological knowledge of his day was may be seen from the following specimens of ‘doublets’ which he gives: from BATTUERE, Low Latin for ‘to fight,’ he derived both battre (to fight) and tuer (to kill): from GRAVIS (heavy), grave, serious; brave, brave: from MARMOR (marble), marble, marble; marmot, guinea-pig.137 A. Brachet has collected many other specimens in the work cited below: Coelho has made a collection from the Portuguese in the Romania, II. 281, sqq.138

It must, however, be noticed that many of the doublets cited in these works stand outside of the class of those with which we have to deal, and such cannot be taken as real cases of differentiation. For instance, a loan word may immediately upon its introduction have been accepted in a sense different from that borne by the word of the same origin which already existed in the language: as in the case of chantée (sung, fem. past part.) and cantata (cantata, a piece which is sung, as distinguished from a sonata, a piece which is sounded or played), borrowed from the Italian by the French; of sexte (term in music and ‘the sixth book’) with its doublet sieste (the hour of rest) borrowed from the Spanish siesta, both derived from the Latin sextam; of façon (manner) with its doublet fashion, borrowed from the English, both from Latin factionem, ‘a making.’ Thus, again, the French chose (a thing) and cause (a cause) alike owe their origin to the Latin causam, but the meanings were not differentiated in France: cause was borrowed as a law-term long after chose had developed into the general meaning of thing. It is the same, moreover, with such English doublets as ticket, etiquette: army, armada: orison, oration: penance, penitence. Such doublets as these, and guitar, zither, cithara may be called pseudo-doublets, producing as they do the effect of differentiation, but serving really as labels to designate a foreign idea or object. Nor, again, must we include cases in which a word became grammatically isolated and then received a special meaning; such as where ‘bescheiden,’ in German, is now employed with the signification of ‘modest,’ while ‘beschieden’ is used as the true participial form, and never means, or has meant, ‘modest.’ Similarly, in French, we have savant (a scholar) originally used as synonymous with present participle sachant (knowing) but in modern French as an adjective or noun only, whilst sachant has always remained present participle and no more: amant, the present participle of amare (to love) is used as a substantive only.139

There are, however, other cases in which words are really differentiated; that is to say, cases in which two words, whose meaning we know to have been identical, have come to be accepted in different meanings. This is a genuine process of economy in language. In French s’attaquer à and s’attacher à at one time were used with identically the same meaning and employed indifferently. Attaquer is used in the sense of ‘attacher’ in this line of the fourteenth century—Une riche escarboucle le mantel ataqua (‘a rich carbuncle attached (= held) the mantel’) (Bauduin de Sebourc, i. 370). On the other hand, attacher is used in the sense of ‘to attack:’ as in the following passage, quoted by M. Brachet140 from a letter of Calvin to the regent of England,—Tous ensemble méritent bien d’estre réprimés par le glayve qui vous est commis, veu qu’ils s’attaschent non seulement au roy, mais à Dieu qui l’a assis au siège royal, = ‘All together deserve to be put down by the sword which has been entrusted to you, seeing that they attack not merely the King, but God who has set him on the royal seat.’ (Lettres de Calvin recueillies par M. Bonnet, ii. 201). In modern French attacher is used exclusively in the sense of ‘to attach’ ‘to fasten;’ attaquer = ‘to attack.’ Another instance is found in chaire and chaise, both of which words came into French from cathedram, and both of which once signified the same thing (Theodore Beza, in 1530, complains of the faulty pronunciation of the Parisians who say chaise instead of chaire). At the present day, of course, chaise means ‘chair,’ and chaire is confined to the signification of ‘pulpit’ or ‘professor’s chair.’ In English, shoal and shallow seem to have been used synonymously, and to have become differentiated.141 Other instances are of, off; naught, not; assay, essay; upset, set up; Master, Mister (Mr.); Miss, Mistress, Mrs. (pronounced Missus). In these cases, the differentiation took place within the given language; and such cases should be carefully distinguished from those cases in which the differentiation was made outside of the language. For instance, in squandered and scatter, both of which seem to have signified the same thing, simply ‘to disperse’; cf., squandered abroad (Merchant of Venice, I. iii. 22). Indict and indite seem to have borne the same meaning, but are now differentiated.

To these may be added the German doublets reiter (a rider) and ritter (a knight), which may be paralleled by the use of the English squire and esquire; of which the latter word has lately come into use simply as a title of society, whereas both forms were once used as in Scott’s nine and twenty squires of fame. Other instances are scheuen, ‘to fear,’ and scheuchen, ‘to scare:’ jungfrau, ‘maiden,’ and jungfer, ‘virgin.’

Double forms arising from the confusion of different methods of declension are often used in different senses, as in the case of the Latin locus, whose plurals loca and loci mean ‘places,’ and ‘passages in books’ respectively: the German Franke, the Franconian franken, ‘a franc’ (9½d.): this difference is utilised, together with a difference of gender, in the German der lump, ‘the worthless fellow;’ die lumpe, ‘the rag;’ etc. The difference of gender cannot be utilised in English, but is thus utilised—in German—in such cases as DER band, ‘volume;’ DAS band, ‘ribbon:’ DER see, ‘the lake;’ DIE see, ‘the sea:’ DIE erkenntniss, ‘the act of judging;’ DAS erkenntniss ‘the judgment:’—in French, UN foudre de guerre, ‘a thunderbolt of war’ (personified); UNE foudre, ‘a thunderbolt:’ UN critique, ‘a critic;’ UNE critique, ‘a criticism:’ UN office, ‘a duty;’ UNE office, ‘a pantry:’ LE mémoire, ‘memorandum;’ LA mémoire, ‘memory:’ LE politique, ‘politician;’ LA politique, ‘politics:’ LE Bourgogne, ‘Burgundy wine;’ LA Bourgogne, ‘Burgundy:’ LE paille, ‘straw colour;’ LA paille, ‘the straw.’ To these must be added the cases in which double plural formations are differentiated, as in English clothes, cloths; brothers, brethren; cows, kine (poetical); pence, pennies:—in German, Band, ‘bond’ and ‘ribbon;’ Bande, ‘bonds:’ Bänder, ‘ribbons:’ Bank, ‘bench’ and ‘bank;’ Bänke, ‘benches;’ Banken, ‘banks:’ Gesicht, ‘face’ and ‘vision;’ Gesichte, ‘vision;’ Gesichter, ‘faces:’ Laden, ‘shop’ and ‘shutter;’ Läden, ‘shops;’ Laden, ‘shutters:’ etc.142 In French, we have l’aïeul, ‘the grandfather;’ les aïeux, ‘ancestors;’ and aïeuls, ‘grandfathers:’ les travaux, ‘works;’ and les travails, ‘a minister’s reports:’ l’œil, ‘eye;’ les yeux, ‘eyes;’ and les œils (small oval windows commonly called œils de bœuf). The singular appât means ‘bait;’ les appas signifies ‘charms,’ and has a doublet, les appâts, meaning ‘baits.’ In Russian, the accusative plural is the same as the nominative in the case of inanimate objects: it is in the case of animate beings identical with the genitive form. In Dutch, the plurals in -en and -s are used in the case of some words indifferently, as vogelen and vogels, ‘birds:’ in the case of some others, one alone is commonly used, as engelen, ‘angels,’ but pachters, ‘farmers:’ again, in the case of others, both forms are used, but with different meanings; thus hemelen, ‘the heavens;’ but hemels, ‘canopies of a bed:’ letteren, ‘letters,’ or ‘literature;’ letters, ‘letters of the alphabet;’ etc. From the Danish, we may cite skatte, ‘treasures;’ skatter, ‘taxes;’ vaaben, ‘weapons;’ vaabener, ‘armorial bearings.’ From Italian, we may instance braccia, ‘the two arms of the body;’ bracci, ‘arms of the sea;’ membra, ‘the members of the body;’ membri, ‘the members of an association.’ Similarly, in Spanish the neuter of the second declension takes in many cases a feminine form in the plural; and in Portuguese this manner of differentiation is more common than in any other European language: cf. serra, ‘saw,’ ‘mountain ridge;’ serro, ‘a high mountain;’ etc. In Russian, synovya means ‘descendants’; synui, ‘sons;’ etc. The words (to) purvey and (to) provide have arisen from the same original form, as have respect and respite; deploy and display; separate and sever.

The word as, like also, took its rise from the A.S. ealswâ; it is simply a short form of also; and an intermediate form exists in O.E. alse and als. In Maundeville, p. 153, we find the two forms used convertibly: As foule as thei ben, als evele thei ben = so evil they are; and again, als longe as here vitaylles lasten, thei may abide there, p. 130.

Than and thanne were used in Chaucer’s time where we should use then: Now thanne, put thyn hond down at my bak (Chaucer, Cant. Tales, 7721); and in comparisons then was used where we should employ than, as: ‘I am greater then (i.e. than) you.’

In German, the word verdorben means ‘spoiled’ in a material sense: verderbt is employed in a moral sense only. It is the same with bewegt, ‘moved,’ and bewogen, ‘induced.’ In English we employ aged mostly as a participle proper, but agèd as an adjective; cf. also molten and melted.

The words formed with the suffixes -hood, -ness, -dom generally cover the same ground in English as in Anglo-Saxon. There are, however, here also, a few cases in which differentiation seems to have set in. Such are hardihood and hardiness; humble-hede, humble-ness, humility: young-hede, youth. In German, kleinheit and neuheit were used convertibly with kleinigkeit and neuigkeit: now the former = smallness, newness, the latter = trifle, novelty.

In the case of adjectives, we may see the same process in mobile, movable: and in German, in ernstlich and ernsthaft which were once used convertibly, but are now differentiated.

Sometimes a word originally of a different meaning encroaches on the domain of another word, and gradually arrogates the latter’s meaning to itself. Thus, in French, the meaning of en, the form taken in French for the Latin in, has been encroached upon by the preposition à, and by the adverb dans (O.Fr. denz = de intus), and dans has completely ousted the prepositional meaning of dedans. Molière could still write dedans ma poche = ‘in my pocket.’ Böse, in German, is now almost restricted to the sense of ‘morally bad’ by the encroachments of schlecht (originally ‘smooth,’ ‘straight’) English slight. The English word sick, once the general word for ill, has been restricted in meaning by the encroachments of the latter word.

Sometimes a newly formed word encroaches on the domain of meaning covered by a word in existence, as to utilise on to use; serviceable upon useful; gentlemanly upon genteel and gentle; magnificence on munificence:143 mainly is encroached upon by chiefly, pursuer by persecutor and prosecutor: and sometimes it practically ousts it from its previous meaning, as in the case of methodist, naturalist, purist, etc.

The above examples may serve to show us some of the main factors in the differentiation of meaning, and with how little conscious design on the part of the speakers they were carried out.