Uzbekistan state world languages university department of the theoretical aspects of the english language-i course paper in modern english lexicology

board, n - a long and thin piece of timber
board, n - daily meals, esp. as provided for pay, e.g. room and board
board, n-an official group of persons who direct or supervise some activity, e.g. a board of directors.
It is clear that the meanings of these three words are in no way associated with one another. Yet, most larger dictionaries still enter a meaning of board that once held together all these other meanings ‘a table’. It developed from the meaning ‘a piece of timber’ by transference based on contiguity (association of an object and the material from which it is made). The meanings ‘meals’ and ‘an official group of persons’ developed from the meaning ‘table’, also by transference based on contiguity: meals are easily associated with a table on which they are served; an official group of people in authority are also liked to discuss their business round a table.
Nowadays, however, the item of the furniture, on which meals are served and round which boards of directors meet, is no longer denoted by the word board but by the French Norman borrowing table, and board in this meaning, though still registered by some dictionaries, can very well be marked as archaic as it is no longer used in common speech. That is why, with the intrusion of the borrowed table, the word board actually lost its corresponding meaning. But it was just that meaning which served as a link to hold together the rest of the constituent parts of the word’s semantic structure. With its diminished role as an element of communication, its role in the semantic structure was also weakened. The speakers almost forgot that board had ever been associated with any item of furniture, nor could they associate the notions of meals or of a responsible committee with a long thin piece of timber (which is the oldest meaning of board). Consequently, the semantic structure of board was split into three units.
Historically all three nouns originate from the same verb with the meaning of ‘to jump, to leap’ (O.E. springan), so that the meaning of the first homonym is the oldest. The meanings of the second and third homonyms were originally based on metaphor. At the head of a stream the water sometimes leaps up out of the earth, so that metaphorically such a place could well be described as a leap. On the other hand, the season of the year following winter could be poetically defined as a leap from the darkness and cold into sunlight and life. Such metaphors are typical enough of Old English and Middle English semantic transferences but not so characteristic of modern mental and linguistic processes. The poetic associations that lay in the basis of the semantic shifts described above have long since been forgotten, and an attempt to reestablish the lost links may well seem far-fetched. It is just the near-impossibility of establishing such links that seems to support the claim for homonymy and not for polysemy with these three words.
It should be stated, however, that split of the polysemy as a source of homonyms is not accepted by all scholars. It is really difficult sometimes to decide whether a certain word has or has not been subject to the split of the semantic structure and whether we are dealing with different meanings of the same word or with homonyms, for the criteria are subjective and imprecise. The imprecision is recorded in the data of different dictionaries, which often contradict each other on this very issue, so that board is represented as two homonyms in Professor V.K.Muller’s dictionary, as three homonyms in Professor V.D.Arakin’s and as one and the same word in Hornby’s dictionary.
Spring also receives different treatment. V.K.Muller’s and Hornby’s dictionaries acknowledge but two homonyms:
I. a season of the year;
II. a) the act of springing, a leap,
b) a place where a stream of water comes up out of the earth; and some other meanings, whereas V.D.Arakin’s dictionary presents the three homonyms as given above.
Polysemy viewed diachronically is a historical change in the semantic structure of the word resulting in disappearance of some meanings (or) and in new meanings being added to the ones already existing and also in the rearrangement of these meanings in its semantic structure. Polysemy viewed synchronically is understood as coexistence of the various meanings of the same word at a certain historical period and the arrangement of these meanings in the semantic structure of the word.
The concepts of central (basic) and marginal (minor meanings may be interpreted in terms of their relative frequency in speech. The meaning having the highest frequency is usually the one representative of the semantic structure of the word, i.e. synchronically its central (basic) meaning.
As the semantic structure is never static the relationship between the diachronic and synchronic evaluation of the individual meanings of the same word may be different in different periods of the historical development of language.
The semantic structure of polysemantic words is not homogenous as far as the status of individual meanings is concerned. Some meaning (or meanings) is representative of the word in isolation, others are perceived only in certain contexts.
The whole of the semantic structure of correlated polysemantic words of different languages can never be identical. Words are felt as correlated if their basic (central) meanings coincide.