POLYSEMY

Lecture 4
 POLYSEMY
1. Polysemy
2. Diachronic approach to polysemy
3. Synchronic approach to polysemy
4. Historical changeability of semantic structure
5. Semantic structure of a polysemantic word
6. Meaning & context
7. Polysemy and context. Types of context.
 1. POLYSEMY
 Polysemy – is the ability of a word to
possess several meanings or lexico-
semantic variants (LSV), e.g. bright
means “shining” and “intelligent”.
 Monosemantic word - a word having
only one meaning: hydrogen, molecule
 Polysemantic word - a word having
several meanings: table, yellow, etc.
Polysemy is not an anomaly
Most English words are polysemantic.
The wealth of expressive resources of a
language largely depends on the degree
to which polysemy has developed in the
language.
A well-developed polysemy is not a
drawback but a great advantage in a
language.
The number of sound combinations
that human speech organs can
produce is limited.
 At a certain stage of language development
the production of new words by morphological
means becomes limited, and polysemy
becomes increasingly important in providing
the means for enriching the vocabulary.
 The process of enriching the vocabulary does
not consist merely in adding new words to it,
but, also,in the constant development of
polysemy.
The system of meanings of any
polysemasntic word develops
gradually
 The complicated process of plysemy
development involves both the appearance
of new meanings and the loss of old ones.
 The general tendency with English
vocabulary is to increase the total number of
its meanings and in this way to provide for a
quantitative and qualitative growth of the
language’s expressive resources.
 The meanings of the word table in Modern English.
table стол
1. a piece of furniture 1. предмет обстановки (сидеть за
столом)
2. the persons seated at a table 2. Ср. арх. застолица
3. the food put on a table, meals; 3. пища (подаваемая на стол), еда
cooking
4. a flat slab of stone or board 4. Ср. плита
5. slabs of stone (with words written 5. Ср. скрижали
on them or cut into them)
6. Bibl. Words cut into slabs of stone 6. Ср. заповеди
(the ten tables).
7. an orderly arrangement of facts, 7. Ср. таблица
figures, etc.
8. part of a machine-tool 8. Ср. планшайба
9. a level area, plateau ['pl1tq4] 9. Ср. плато
10. Адресный стол
 Acad. V.V. Vinogradov
 Meanings are fixed and common to all
people, who know the language system.
 The usage is only possible application of
one of the meanings of a polysemantic
word, sometimes very individual, more or
less familiar.
Meaning is not identical with usage.
Polysemy exists only in
language, not in speech.

 The meaning of the word in speech is

contextual. Polysemy does not interfere
with the communicative function of a
language because in every particular
case the situation or context, i.e.
environment of the word, cancels all
unnecessary meanings and makes
speech unambiguous.
 Prof. A.I. Smirnitsky
 All the meanings of the word form identity
supported by the form of the word.
 A lexico-semantic variant (LSV) - a two-
facet unit.
 Words with one meaning are represented
in the language system by one LSV,
polysemantic words – by a number of
LSV.
 They are united together by a certain
meaning – the semantic centre of the
word.
 2. DIACHRONIC APPROACH
TO POLYSEMY

 Polysemy in diachronic term implies

that a word may retain its previous
meaning or meanings and at the same
time acquire one or several new ones.
Then the problem of the interrelation and
interdependence of individual meanings
of a polysemantic word may be roughly
formulated as follows

1. Did the word always possess all its meanings

or did some of them appear earlier than the
others?
2. Are the new meanings dependent on the
meanings already existing? and if so what is
the nature of this dependence?
3. Can we observe any changes in the
arrangement of the meanings? and so on.
According to this approach there
are two types of meaning can be
singled out:

1. the primary meaning;

2. the secondary meaning (derived)
The main source of polysemy is a
change in the semantic structure of
the word
 Of all the meanings of table it has in
Modern English, the primary meaning is
‘a flat slab of stone or wood’, which is
proper to the word in the Old English
period (OE. tabule from L. tabula);
 All other meanings are secondary as they
are derived from the primary meaning of
the word and appeared later.
Polysemy may arise from
homonymy.
The human ear (L. auris) and the ear of corn (L.
acus, aceris) are from the diachronic point of
view two homonyms.
Synchronicallythey are perceived as two
meanings of one and the same word.
The ear of corn is felt to be a metaphor of the
usual type and consequently as one of the
derived or, synchronically, minor meanings of
the polysemantic word ear.
 Semantic changes result as a rule in new
meanings being added to the ones
already existing in the semantic structure
of the word.
 Some of the old meanings may become
obsolete or even disappear, but the bulk
of English words tend to an increase in
number of meanings.
 3. SYNCHRONIC APPROACH
TO POLYSEMY
 Synchronically polysemy is understood
as the coexistence of various meanings of
the same word at a certain historical
period of the development of the English
language.
 According to the approach there are two
types of meaning can be singled out:
1. the central (basic) meaning – the most
frequent;
2. marginal (minor) meanings – all other
meanings.
 The central meaning occurs in various
and widely different contexts, marginal
meanings - only in certain contexts.
 The central meaning – the most frequent
meaning: table:
1. ‘a piece of furniture’ – 52%;
2. ‘an orderly arrangement of facts – 35%;
all other meanings – 13%.
Stylistic stratification of
meanings
Daddy – colloquial; Movie – American;
Parent – bookish Barnie – Scottish.
Yellow – colour;
Jerk – ‘a sudden movement or stopping of
movement’ .
Slang and Americanisms:
Yellow – ‘sensational’
Jerk – ‘an odd person’.
Stylistically neutral meanings
are naturally more frequent

 Worker & hand - ‘a man who does

manual work’;
 Worker – very frequent;
 Hand – 2.8% of all occurrences of the
word ‘hand’ (to hire factory hands) .
 Hand – ‘the end of the arm beyond the
wrist’ – 77%.
4. HISTORICAL CHANGEABILITY OF
SEMANTIC STRUCTURE

 The semantic structure is never static, the

relationship between the diachronic and
synchronic evaluation of individual
meanings may be different in different
periods of the historical development of
language.
revolution (ME) – ‘the revolving motion of
celestial bodies’ & ‘the return or recurrence of a
point or a period of time’ (Modern E)
‘a complete overthrow of the established
government or regime’ & ‘a complete change, a
great reversal of conditions’
 Evidence ‘significant ‘information
appearance, tending to
token’ establish fact’

Middle English
diachronically primary secondary
synchronically central marginal

Modern English
diachronically primary secondary
synchronically marginal central
 The primary meaning of the word
may become synchronically one of its
marginal meanings and
diachronically a secondary meaning
may become the central meaning of
the word.
Semantic structure of a
polysemantic word
 When analyzing the semantic structure
of a polysemantic word, it is necessary
to distinguish between two levels of
analysis.
The semantic structure of
the noun ‘fire’ (1st level)
1. Flame

2. An instance of destructive burning;

3. Burning material in a stove, fireplace;
4. The shootings of guns;
5. Strong feeling, passion, enthusiasm.
On the 1st level the semantic structure of a
word is treated as a system of meanings
Semantic structure of the
adjective ‘dull’
Transformational operation
(2nd level)
The 2nd level of analysis of the
semantic structure of a word

 The transformational operation with

the meaning definitions of dull
reveals: the semantic structure of the
word is ‘divisible, as it were, not only
at the level of different meanings, but
also at a deeper level’.
The scheme of the semantic
structure of dull
shows that the semantic structure of a word is not
a mere system of meanings, for each separate
meaning is subject to further subdivision and
possesses an inner structure of its own.
Thus, the semantic structure of a word should be
investigated at both levels:
a) of different meanings;
b) of semantic components within each separate
meaning.
Meaning and context

 Context is the minimum stretch of speech

determining each individual meaning of the
word.
 One of the most important ‘drawbacks’ of
polysemantic words is that there is
sometimes a chance of misunderstanding
when a word is used in a certain meaning but
accepted by a listener or reader in another.
 Customer: I would like a book, please.
 Bookseller: Something light?
 Customer: That doesn’t matter. I have my
car with me.
In this conversation the customer is
honestly misled by the polysemy of the
adjective light taking it in the literal sense
whereas the bookseller uses tha word in
its figurative meaning ‘not serious,
entertaining’.
 In the following joke one of the speakers
pretends to misunderstanding his
interlocutor basing his angry retort on the
polysemy of the noun kick:

 The critic started to leave in the middle of the

second act of the play.
 ‘Don’t go,’ said the manager. “I promise there’s a
terrific kick in the next act’.
 ‘Fine’ was the retort, ‘give it to the author’
 It is common knowledge, that context is a
powerful preventative against any
misunderstanding of meanings.
E.g. the adjective dull, if used out of
context, would mean different things to
different people and nothing at all. It is
only in combination with other words that
it reveals its actual meaning:
a dull pupil, a dull play, a dull razor-blade, dull
weather, etc.
 Sometimes a minimum context fails to
reveal the meaning of the word:
 The man was large, but his wife was
even fatter.
 The word fatter here serves as a kind of
indicator pointing that large describes a
stout man and not a big one.
 Current research in semantics is largely
based on the assumption that one of the
more promising methods of investigating
the semantic structure of a word is by
studying the word’s linear relationships
with other words in typical contexts, i.e.
its combinability or collocability.
 5. POLYSEMY AND CONTEXT

 Context can be linguistic (verbal) or

extra-linguistic (non-verbal). Linguistic
context can be subdivided into lexical
and grammatical.
 TYPES OF CONTEXT

Linguistic contexts:

I. In the lexical context of primary importance

are the groups of lexical items combined with
the polysemantic word under consideration,
e.g.
heave table (of great weigh);
heavy rain (abundant, falling with force);
heavy industry (the larger kind of smth).
II. In grammatical context it is the grammatical
(syntactic) structure of the context that serves
to determine various individual meanings of a
polysemantic word.
 The meaning of the verb to make – ‘to force,
to induce’ is found only in the grammatical
context possessing the syntactic structure
‘to make+pronoun+verb (to make sb laugh,
work, dance).
Another meaning of this verb – ‘to become’ is
observed in the context of a different
syntactic structure –
to make+adj+noun (to make a good wife,
good teacher).
 Extra-linguistic context

 When the meaning of a word is ultimately

determined by the actual speech situation in
which the word is used, i.e. by the extra-
linguistic context (or context of situation),
e.g. John was looking for the glasses, -
the meaning of word glasses has two readings
‘spectacles’ or to ‘drinking vessels’ .
It is possible to state the meaning of the word
glasses only through the extended context or
situation
 Summary and
conclusions:
1. The problem of polysemy is the problem of
interrelation and interdependence of the
various meanings of the same word.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. The semantic structure of polysemantic words
is not homogeneous 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.
7. 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.
References:
1. Зыкова И.В. Практический курс английской
лексикологии. М.: Академия, 2006. – С.29-
32.
2. Бабич Н.Г. Лексикология английского
языка. Екатеринбург – Москва, 2006. – С.
62-63.
3. Гинзбург Р.З. Лексикология английского
языка. М.: Высшая школа, 1979. – С. 33-38.
4. Антрушина Г.Б., Афанасьева О.В.,
Морозова Н.Н. Лексикология английского
языка. М.: Дрофа, 2006. – С. – 131-136.