Michel Bréal: Word

Michel Bréal was French philologist. Explore interesting quotes on word.

Michel Bréal: 20 quotes10 likes

“We define law, using the word in the philosophic sense, as the constant relation discoverable in a series of phenomena.”

Source: Essai de semantique, 1897, p. 11

“In modern society, the meaning of words changes much more quickly than it did in antiquity or even in the recent past. This arises from the intermingling of social classes, the struggle of interests and opinions, the struggle of political parties and the variety of aspirations and tastes.”

Source: Essai de semantique, 1897, p. 104-5 ; as cited in: Schaff (1962:14).

“We must realize the extent to which it is necessary that our knowledge of language be based on history. Only history can impart to words that degree of precision which we need in order to understand them well.”

Source: Essai de semantique, 1897, p. 112 ; as cited in: Schaff (1962:16).

“The so-called pejorative tendency has yet another cause. It is in the nature of human malice to take pleasure in looking for a vice or a fault behind a quality. The French have the adjective prude, which had formerly a good and noble acceptation, since it is the feminine of preux. But the spirit of the narrators (perhaps also some feeling of rancour against the loftier virtues) turned this adjective aside towards the equivocal sense that it now bears. Words which refer to the relations of the sexes are especially exposed to changes of this kind. We remember what a noble signification amant and mattress still possessed in Corneille. But they are dethroned, as was Buhle in German. Here we see the inevitable results of a false delicacy; honourable names are dishonoured by being given to things which are dishonourable.”

Source: Essai de semantique, 1897, p. 101; parly cited in: Geoffrey Hughes (2011). Political Correctness: A History of Semantics and Culture. p. 11

“In that second part we propose to investigate how it happens that words, once created and endowed with a certain meaning, extend that meaning or contract it, transfer it from one group of notions on to another, raise its value or lower it, in a word — bring about changes. It is this second part that constitutes semantics, i. e. science of meaning.”

Source: Essai de semantique, 1897, p. 99 ; as cited in: Schaff (1962:4).