Polysemy and Homonymy

LECTURE 5
► When analysing the word meaning we
observe, however, that words as a rule are
not units of a single meaning.
► Monosemantic words, i.e. words having only
one meaning are comparatively few in
number, these are mainly scientific terms,
such as hydrogen, molecule and the like.
► The bulk of English words are polysemantic,
that is to say possess more than one
meaning.
The commoner the word the more meanings it has.
The word table, e.g., has at least nine meanings in
Modern English:
► an article of furniture consisting of a flat, slablike top
supported on one or more legs or other supports:
a kitchen table; an operating table; a pool table.
► such a piece of furniture specifically used for serving
food to those seated at it.
► the food placed on a table to be eaten:
She sets a good table.
► a group of persons at a table, as for a meal, game, or
business transaction, i.e. a gaming table.
► a flat or plane surface; a level area.
► a concise list or guide: a table of contents
► an arrangement of words, numbers, or signs, or combinations
of them, as in parallel columns.
► (initial capital letter) Astronomy. the constellation Mensa.
► a flat and relatively thin piece of wood, stone, metal, or other
hard substance, especially one artificially shaped for a particular
purpose.
► Architecture. a course or band, especially of masonry, having a
distinctive form or position.
► a distinctively treated surface on a wall.
► a smooth, flat board or slab on which inscriptions may be put.
► the tablets on which certain collections of laws were anciently
inscribed: the tables of the Decalogue.
► Anatomy. the inner or outer hard layer or any of the flat bones
of the skull.
► Music. a sounding board.
 Each of the individual meanings can be
described in terms of the types of meanings.
► We may, e.g., analyse the eighth meaning of the word
table into the part-of-speech meaning — that of the noun
(which presupposes the grammatical meanings of number
and case) combined with the lexical meaning made up of
two components.
► The denotational semantic component which can be
interpreted as the dictionary definition (part of a machine-
tool on which the work is put) and
► the connotational component which can be identified as a
specific stylistic reference of this particular meaning of the
word table (technical terminology).
► In polysemantic words, however, we are faced not
with the problem of analysis of individual
meanings, but primarily with the problem of the
interrelation and interdependence of the various
meanings in the semantic structure of one and the
same word.
► If polysemy is viewed diachronically, it is
understood as the growth and development of or,
in general, as a change in the semantic structure
of the word.
► 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.
 Then the problem of the interrelation and
interdependence of individual meanings of a
polysemantic word may be roughly formulated as
follows:

► Did the word always possess all its meanings or

did some of them appear earlier than the others?
► Are the new meanings dependent on the
meanings already existing?
► And if so what is the nature of this dependence?
► Can we observe any changes in the arrangement
of the meanings?
► In the course of a diachronic semantic analysis
of the polysemantic word table we find that of
all the meanings 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 than the primary meaning.
► The terms secondary and derived meaning are
to a certain extent synonymous.
► 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.
► Synchronically we understand polysemy as the
coexistence of various meanings of the same
word at a certain historical period of the
development of the English language.
► In connection with the polysemantic word
table discussed above we are mainly
concerned with the following problems:
► are all the meanings equally representative
of the semantic structure of this word?
► Intuitively we feel that the meaning that
first occurs to us whenever we hear or see
the word table, is ‘an article of furniture’.
This emerges as the basic or the central
meaning of the word and all other meanings
are minor in comparison.
► It should be noted that whereas the basic meaning
occurs in various and widely different contexts,
minor meanings are observed only in certain
contexts, e.g. ‘to keep the table amused’, ‘table of
contents’ and so on.
► Thus we can assume that the meaning ‘a piece of
furniture’ occupies the central place in the semantic
structure of the word table.
► As to other meanings of this word we find it hard
to grade them in order of their comparative value.
► As synchronically there is no objective criterion
to go by, we may find it difficult in some cases
to single out even the basic meanings since
two or more meanings of the word may be felt
as equally “central” in its semantic structure.
► If we analyse the verb to get, e.g., which of
the two meanings
► ‘to obtain’ (get a letter, knowledge, some
sleep) or
► ‘to arrive’ (get to London, to get into bed) shall
we regard as the basic meaning of this word?
►A more objective criterion of the comparative value
of individual meanings seems to be the frequency of
their occurrence in speech.
► There is a tendency in modern linguistics to interpret
the concept of the central meaning in terms of the
frequency of occurrence of this meaning.
► As far as the word table is concerned the meaning ‘a
piece of furniture’ – 52% of all the uses of this word,
► the meaning ‘an orderly arrangement of facts’ (table
of contents) – 35%,
► all other meanings between them make up just 13%
of the uses of this word.
 Sources of polysemy

► The complexity of reality reflected in thought and

language makes the classification of the different
types of polysemy a very difficult task.
► Shifts in application are the main source of
polysemy. For instance, green:

Green adj. ‘Of the colour which in the spectrum is intermediate between blue and yellow...’
When applied to fruits or plants often: ‘1. Unripe — This apple is still green. 2. Young and
tender — Don’t hurt the green blade for you shall have not corn. 3. Vigorous, flourishing. 4.
Retaining the natural moisture, not dried — Green crop — a crop used for food while in an
unripe state, as opposed to a grain crop, hay crop, etc.’
 An interesting example – to wear
► Obviously here the word wear is used in two
opposite meanings.
► It is only the context that makes clear which one is
used.
► This is not the only instance when a word has two
meanings which are antonyms.
► The odd thing here is that in practice ambiguity
and misunderstanding seldom arise.
► ‘I need socks that will wear’ vs. ‘I need socks that
will not wear’
 Specialization is another source of
plurality of meaning.

►A word acquires additional meanings when used

as a technical term.
► Action n. ‘1. The process or condition of acting or doing. ‘2.
A thing done, a deed. 3. The tiling represented as done in
a drama; 4. The way in which an instrument acts, also the
mechanism by which this is effected.’
► The same word as a technical term means: ‘1. The
taking of legal process to ‘establish a claim or obtain
remedy. ‘2. A legal process or suit. 3. Active, operation
against the enemy, a fight. 4. A devotional exercise.’
 The reverse tendency is also to be observed.

►A technical term, due to one thing or another may

acquire various non-technical meanings.
► Compass n., comes from the Latin cam passas and
originally meant ‘an instrument for taking measurements
and describing circles consisting of two straight and equal
legs connected at one end by a moveable joint. Now
usually in the plural.’
► Besides there are a few other meanings of this
word: ‘1. A circumference. 2. Space, area; range of voice,
roundabout way. 3. An instrument for determining the
magnetic meridian, or one’s direction, etc.’
 Summary and Conclusions

► 1. The problem of polysemy is mainly the problem of

interrelation and interdependence of the various meanings
of the same word.
► 2. The concepts of central (basic) and marginal (minor)
meanings may be interpreted in terms of their relative
frequency in speech.
► 3. The semantic structure is never static.
► 4. 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.
 POLYSEMY and HOMONYMY

► Words identical in sound-form but different

in meaning are traditionally termed
homonyms.
► Modern English is exceptionally rich in
homonymous words and word forms.
► It is held that languages where short words
abound have more homonyms than those
where longer words are prevalent.
 Full homonymy
► When analysing different cases of homonymy we
find that some words are homonymous in all
their forms,
► i.e. we observe full homonymy of the paradigms
of two or more different words, e.g., in seal1 —
‘a sea animal’ and seal2 — ‘a design printed on
paper by means of a stamp’.
► The paradigm “seal, seal’s, seals, seals’ ” is
identical for both of them and gives no indication
of whether it is seal1 or seal2, that we are
analysing.
 In other cases,
► e.g. seal1 — ‘a sea animal’ and (to) seal, — ‘to close
tightly’, we see that although some individual word
forms are homonymous, the whole of the paradigm is
not identical.
► Compare, for instance, the paradigms:
seal1 (to) seal3
seal seal
seal’s seals
seals sealed
seals’ sealing, etc.
► In such cases we can speak of partial homonymy.
 This is true of a number of other cases,

► e.g.compare find [faind], found [faund], found

[faund], and found [faund], founded ['faundid],
founded ['faundid];
► know [nou], knows [nouz], knew [nju:], and no
[nou]; nose [nouz], noses ['nouzis]; new [nju:] in
which partial homonymy is observed.
► Consequently all cases of homonymy may be
classified into full and partial homonymy —
i.e. homonymy of words and homonymy of
individual word forms.
► The bulk of full homonyms are to be found
within the same parts of speech (e.g. seal1
n — seal2 n), partial homonymy as a rule is
observed in word forms belonging to
different parts of speech (e.g. seal1 n —
seal3 v).
► Cases of full homonymy may be found in
different parts of speech too; e.g. for [fo:]
— preposition, for [fo:] — conjunction and
four [fo:] — numeral, as these parts of
speech have no other word forms.
Homonyms may be also classified by the type
of meaning into lexical, lexico-grammatical
and grammatical homonyms.
► In seal1 n and seal2 n, e.g., the part-of-
speech meaning of the word and the
grammatical meanings of all its forms are
identical.
► The difference is confined to the lexical
meaning only.
► They are lexical homonyms because they
differ in lexical meaning.
► If we compare seal1 — ‘a sea animal’, and (to)
seal3 — ‘to close tightly, we shall observe not only
a difference in the lexical meaning of their
homonymous word-forms but a difference in their
grammatical meanings as well.
► Identical sound-forms, i.e. seals [si:lz] (Common
Case Plural of the noun) and (he) seals [si:lz]
(third person Singular of the verb) possess each of
them different grammatical meanings.
► As both grammatical and lexical meanings differ
we describe these homonymous word forms as
lexico-grammatical.
 Lexico-grammatical homonymy generally
implies that the homonyms in question belong
to different parts of speech as the part-of-
speech meaning is a blend of the lexical and
grammatical semantic components.

► However, e.g., in the verbs (to) find [faind]

and (to) found [faund], where the
homonymic word forms: found [faund] —
Past Tense of (to) find and found [faund] —
Present Tense of (to) found differ both
grammatically and lexically.
► Modern English abounds in homonymic word
forms differing in grammatical meaning only.
► In the paradigms of the majority of verbs the form
of the Past Tense is homonymous with the form of
Participle II, e.g. asked [a:skt] — asked [a:skt];
► in the paradigm of nouns we usually find
homonymous forms of the Possessive Case
Singular and the Common Case Plural, e.g.
brother’s — brothers.
► It may be easily observed that grammatical
homonymy is the homonymy of different word
forms of one and the same word.
► In the discussion of the problem of homonymy we
proceeded from the assumption that words are
two-facet units possessing both sound form and
meaning, and we deliberately disregarded their
graphic form.
► Some linguists, however, argue that the graphic
form of words in Modern English is just as
important as their sound-form and should be
taken into consideration in the analysis and
classification of homonyms.
► Consequently they proceed from definition of
homonyms as words identical in sound form or
spelling but different in meaning.
► Itfollows that in their classification of
homonyms all the three aspects:
► sound-form,
► graphic form and
► meaning are taken into account.
► Accordingly they classify homonyms into
homographs, homophones and perfect
homonyms.
 Homographs
► words identical in spelling, but different both
in their sound-form and meaning,
► e.g. bow n [bou] — ‘a piece of wood curved
by a string and used for shooting arrows’ and
bow n [bau] — ‘the bending of the head or
body’;
► tear n [tia] — ‘a drop of water that comes
from the eye’ and tear v [tea] — ‘to pull
apart by force’.
 Homophones
► words identical in sound form but different
both in spelling and in meaning, e.g. sea n
and see v; son n and sun n.

Perfect homonyms
► words identical both in spelling and in sound
form but different in meaning, e.g. case1 n
— ’something that has happened’ and case2
n — ‘a box, a container’.
► The description of various types of
homonyms in Modern English would be
incomplete if we did not give a brief outline
of the diachronic processes that account for
their appearance.
► The two main sources of homonymy are:
► 1) diverging meaning development of a
polysemantic word, and
► 2) converging sound development of two or
more different words.
 The process of
diverging meaning development
► can be observed when different meanings
of the same word move so far away from
each other that they come to be regarded
as two separate units.
► This happened, for example, in the case of
Modern English flower and flour which
originally were one word (ME. flour, cf. OFr.
flour, flor, L. flos — florem) meaning ‘the
flower’ and ‘the finest part of wheat’.
 Convergent sound development
► the most potent factor in the creation of homonyms
► The great majority of homonyms arise as a result of
converging sound development which leads to the
coincidence of two or more words which were
phonetically distinct at an earlier date.
► For example, OE. ic and OE. еаzе have become
identical in pronunciation (ME. I [ai] and eye [ai]).
► A number of lexico-grammatical homonyms appeared
as a result of convergent sound development of the
verb and the noun (cf. ME. love — (to) love and OE.
lufu — lufian).
► One of the most debatable problems in semasiology is
the demarcation line between homonymy and polysemy,
► i.e. between different meanings of one word and the
meanings of two homonymous words.
► If homonymy is viewed diachronically then all cases of
sound convergence of two or more words may be safely
regarded as cases of homonymy,
► as, e.g., race1 and race2 can be traced back to two
etymologically different words.
► The cases of semantic divergence, however, are more
doubtful.
The transition from polysemy to homonymy is
a gradual process
► It is hardly possible to point out the precise stage
at which divergent semantic development tears
asunder all ties between the meanings and results
in the appearance of two separate words.
► In the case of flower, flour, e.g., it is mainly the
resultant divergence of graphic forms that gives us
grounds to assert that the two meanings which
originally made up the semantic structure of 1
word are now apprehended as belonging to 2
different words.
 To sum up,
► 1. Homonyms are words that sound alike but have different
semantic structure.
► 2. Full and partial homonymy
► 3. Lexical homonyms, lexico-grammatical, grammatical
homonyms
► 4. Homographs (identical graphic form), homophones
(identical sound-form) and perfect homonyms (identical
sound-form and graphic form)
► 5. The two main sources of homonymy are: 1) diverging
meaning development of a polysemantic word, and 2)
convergent sound development of two or more different
words.
► 6. The most debatable problem of homonymy is the
demarcation line between homonymy and polysemy.