Polysemy and Homonymy

POLYSEMY AND HOMONYMY AS LINGUISTIC PHENOMENA lecture 5

Plan:

• 1. Meaning and polysemy
• 2. The semantic structure of the word and the notion of the lexico-semantic variant
• 3. Homonymy of words and word-forms
• 4. Sources of homonymy.
• 5. Classification of homonyms

Monosemantic words

• - words having only one meaning are comparatively few in number in English. Terms (synonym, molecule, bronchites), some pronouns (this, my, both), numerals.
• Most of the words in English are polysemantic, they possess more than one meaning. The more common the word is, the more meanings it has.

Polysemantic words should be studied synchronically and diachronically.

• Polysemantic words should be studied synchronically and diachronically.
• Polysemy in diachronic terms implies that a word may retain its previous meaning or meanings and at the same time acquire one or several new ones.
• Synchronically we understand polysemy as coexistence of various meanings of the same word at the certain historical period of the development of English language.

Types of meaning

• Polysemantic words have:
• 1) primary meaning;
• 2) derived or secondary meaning.
• Some of the old meanings can become obsolete or even disappear, but the bulk of English words tend to an increase in number of meanings.
• The concept 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 synchronically its central (basic) meaning.

The word in one of its meanings is termed as lexico-semantic variant of this word. For example the word table has at least 7 lexico-semantic variants:

• The word in one of its meanings is termed as lexico-semantic variant of this word. For example the word table has at least 7 lexico-semantic variants:
• 1) a flat horizontal slab or board, usually supported by one or more legs, on which objects may be placed Related adj: mensal
• 2) a tablecloth
• 3) food as served in a particular household or restaurant a good table
• 4) such a piece of furniture specially designed for any of various purposes a backgammon table bird table
• 5) a) a company of persons assembled for a meal, game,
• 6) any flat or level area, such as a plateau
• 7) a rectangular panel set below or above the face of a wall