The Word

POLYSEMY
HOMONYMY
MULTIWORD LEXEMES

Polysemy
DEFINITION: It refers to the situation where the same
word has two or more different meanings.
ORIGIN: Greek- poly, many + semeon, sign.

EXAMPLE
table
1. a piece of furniture
2. the persons seated at a table
3. the food put on a table, meals; cooking
4. a flat slab of stone or board
5. slabs of stone (with words written on them or cut into
them)
6. Bibl. Words cut into slabs of stone (the ten tables).
7. an orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc.
8. part of a machine-tool
9. a level area, plateau ['pl1tq4]

POLYSEMY
NATURE: In most cases, only one of the meanings of
a polysemous word will fit into the given context
BUT
1. Look at that bat under the tree.
2. Susan may go to the bank today.

Problems with the concept

of polysemy
COMPLEX NATURE:
The number of

meanings

Transference of

meanings

Difficulty in recognizing

The number of meanings

o Its difficult to determine how many meanings a polysemous
word has
o There is no clear criterion for either difference or sameness of
meaning
EXAMPLE: eat
Literal sense- taking in through the mouth and swallowing
eating nuts (fingers); eating soup (spoon)
Corresponds to drink= eat or drink soup
Derived Sense- use up, damage, or destroy something,
especially by chemical action

The verb has a different meaning for every type of food

Transference of Meanings
DEFINITION:

Metaphor
refers to the cases where a word

appears to have both a literal and transferred

meaning

NATURE- it is irregular, because it applies to

individual lexical items

Transference of Meanings
Literal Sense: eye, face, foot, hand, leg, tongue- PARTS
OF THE BODY

Transferred Sense: hands and face of a clock

foot of a bed or mountain
the leg of a chair or table
the tongue of a shoe
the eye of a needled
The whole set of the words applies only to the body,
while only some of them can be transferred to certain
objects

Transference of Meanings
Comparison of the use of the same metaphor across
languages
The second type of transference is fairly productive
because it involves the transfer of meaning in a
predictable manner
EXAMPLE:
Literal sense- John is sad- He feels sadness
Transferred sense- the film is sad- it causes
someone to feel sad

Difficulty in recognizing polysemy

1. Relationship between polysemy (one word with

several meanings) and homonymy (several words
with the same shape- spelling and/or
pronunciation)
PROBLEM: to decide when we have polysemy and
when we have homonymy

Homonymy
DEFINITION: it refers to a situation, where we have
two or more words with the same shape.
NATURE: they are distinct lexemes- they have
unrelated meanings and different etymologies
Lead (metal) and lead (dogs lead)- HOMOGRAPH
(same spelling)
Right, rite and write- HOMOPHONE (same sound)

Homonymy Clashes
POSSIBILITY: two homonyms with totally different
meanings may both make sense in the utterance:
The route was very long
The root was very long
Helen did not see the bat (animal)
Helen did not see the bat (wooden
implementation)
DIFFERENCE: word class, spelling, overall content

Homonymy Clashes

DIFFICULTY: there is no clear-cut dividing line

between homonymy and polysemy

Multi-word Lexemes

DEFINITION: a lexeme or lexical item is a unit of

lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any
inflectional endings it may have or the number of
words it may contain
Lexeme is the headword in a dictionary (Crystal)
One word- break, boy, down
More than one word: away from, brother-in-law

Multi-word Verbs

DEFINITION: the main verb and one or two

particles can be analysed as constituents of a single
unit

Prepositional verbs: are followed by an object,

i.e. are all transitive; e.g. call for (John), look at
(him)
Nature: the object can not occur between the
particle and the main verb; e.g. call John for, Look

Multi-word Verbs

Phrasal verbs: may be followed by an object, i.e.

transitive (bring up, look up) or intransitive (give in,
sit down)
Phrasal-prepositional verbs: constitute a bridge
class between phrasal and prepositional verbs.
Nature: all transitive; have two particles
e.g. check up on (my friend), get away with (that),
stand up for (your rights)

Idioms
DEFINITION: a type of collocation involving two or more
words in context
NATURE: multiword lexeme- can not be predicted from
the meanings of its constituent
TYPES: partial idioms- some words have their usual
meaning
e.g. to make bed- to make is not used in the usual
sense of to manufacture
white coffee- is brown in colour
white wine is yellow in colour

Idioms
CHARACTERISTICS: 1. Ambiguity and 2. syntactic
peculiarities
Ambiguity- most idioms are constructed from
morphemes that are also used non-idiomatically

Beat a dead horse

Literal meaning- the process of striking the carcass of
an animal
Idiomatic meaning- wasting time discussing a matter
that has already been closed

Idioms
CHARACTERISTICS: 1. Ambiguity and 2. syntactic
peculiarities
syntactic peculiarity- have special syntactic
property
John kicked the bucket
Literal sense- passive variant: the bucket was kicked
by John
Idiomatic expression- kicked the bucket means
died, the expression does not allow the use of the
corresponding passive alternatives

Idioms
CHARACTERISTICS: 1. Ambiguity and 2. syntactic
peculiarities
syntactic peculiarity- have special syntactic
property
No synonym can replace a word in an idiomatic
expression
None of the words in an idiomatic expression may be