Polysemy

Polysemy (/pəˈlɪsɨmi/ or /ˈpɒlɨsiːmi/;^[1][2] from Greek: πολυ-, poly-, "many" and σῆμα, sêma, "sign") is the capacity for a sign (e.g., a word, phrase, etc.) or signs to have multiple related meanings (sememes), i.e., a large semantic field. It is usually regarded as distinct from homonymy, in which the multiple meanings of a word may be unconnected or unrelated.

Charles Fillmore and Beryl Atkins’ definition stipulates three elements: (i) the various senses of a polysemous word have a central origin, (ii) the links between these senses form a network, and (iii) understanding the ‘inner’ one contributes to understanding of the ‘outer’ one.^[3]

Polysemy is a pivotal concept within disciplines such as media studies and linguistics.

Look up polysemy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Polysemes

Look up polyseme in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A polyseme is a word or phrase with different, but related senses. Since the test for polysemy is the vague concept of relatedness, judgments of polysemy can be difficult to make. Because applying pre-existing words to new situations is a natural process of language change, looking at words' etymology is helpful in determining polysemy but not the only solution; as words become lost in etymology, what once was a useful distinction of meaning may no longer be so. Some apparently unrelated words share a common historical origin, however, so etymology is not an infallible test for polysemy, and dictionary writers also often defer to speakers' intuitions to judge polysemy in cases where it contradicts etymology. English has many words which are polysemous. For example the verb "to get" can mean "procure" (I'll get the drinks), "become" (she got scared), "have" (I've got three dollars), "understand" (I get it) etc.

In vertical polysemy a word refers to a member of a subcategory (e.g., 'dog' for 'male dog').^[4] A closely related idea is metonym, in which a word with one original meaning is used to refer to something else connected to it.

There are several tests for polysemy, but one of them is zeugma: if one word seems to exhibit zeugma when applied in different contexts, it is likely that the contexts bring out different polysemes of the same word. If the two senses of the same word do not seem to fit, yet seem related, then it is likely that they are polysemous. The fact that this test again depends on speakers' judgments about relatedness, however, means that this test for polysemy is not infallible, but is rather merely a helpful conceptual aid.

The difference between homonyms and polysemes is subtle. Lexicographers define polysemes within a single dictionary lemma, numbering different meanings, while homonyms are treated in separate lemmata. Semantic shift can separate a polysemous word into separate homonyms. For example, check as in "bank check" (or Cheque), check in chess, and check meaning "verification" are considered homonyms, while they originated as a single word derived from chess in the 14th century. Psycholinguistic experiments have shown that homonyms and polysemes are represented differently within people's mental lexicon: while the different meanings of homonyms (which are semantically unrelated) tend to interfere or compete with each other during comprehension, this does not usually occur for the polysemes that have semantically related meanings.^[5][6][7][8] Results for this contention, however, have been mixed.^{[9][10][11][12]}

For Dick Hebdige^[13] polysemy means that, "each text is seen to generate a potentially infinite range of meanings," making, according to Richard Middleton,^[14] "any homology, out of the most heterogeneous materials, possible. The idea of signifying practice — texts not as communicating or expressing a pre-existing meaning but as 'positioning subjects' within a process of semiosis — changes the whole basis of creating social meaning".

One group of polysemes are those in which a word meaning an activity, perhaps derived from a verb, acquires the meanings of those engaged in the activity, or perhaps the results of the activity, or the time or place in which the activity occurs or has occurred. Sometimes only one of those meanings is intended, depending on context, and sometimes multiple meanings are intended at the same time. Other types are derivations from one of the other meanings that leads to a verb or activity.

Examples

Man

1. The human species (i.e., man vs. animal)
2. Males of the human species (i.e., man vs. woman)
3. Adult males of the human species (i.e., man vs. boy)

This example shows the specific polysemy where the same word is used at different levels of a taxonomy. Example 1 contains 2, and 2 contains 3.

Mole

1. a small burrowing mammal
2. consequently, there are several different entities called moles (see the Mole disambiguation page). Although these refer to different things, their names derive from 1. :e.g. A Mole burrows for information hoping to go undetected.

Bank

1. a financial institution
2. the building where a financial institution offers services
3. a synonym for 'rely upon' (e.g. "I'm your friend, you can bank on me"). It is different, but related, as it derives from the theme of security initiated by 1

However: a river bank is a homonym to 1 and 2, as they do not share etymologies. It is a completely different meaning. River bed, though, is polysemous with the beds on which people sleep.

Book

1. a bound collection of pages
2. a text reproduced and distributed (thus, someone who has read the same text on a computer has read the same book as someone who had the actual paper volume)
3. to make an action or event a matter of record (e.g. "Unable to book a hotel room, a man sneaked into a nearby private residence where police arrested him and later booked him for unlawful entry.")

Newspaper

1. The newspaper fired its editor. (The company that publishes the newspaper)
2. John spilled coffee on the newspaper. (The physical newspaper)
3. The newspaper has decided to change its format. (The newspaper as an edited work)
4. John used to work for the newspaper that you are reading. (The newspaper as an institution, a tangible object, and a piece of information)
5. (Pointing to a newspaper:) That newspaper over there fired one of its journalists (The newspaper as a tangible object standing in for the company that publishes it).

Milk

The verb milk (e.g. "he's milking it for all he can get") derives from the process of obtaining milk.

Wood

1. a piece of a tree
2. a geographical area with many trees

Crane

1. a bird
2. a type of construction equipment
3. to strain out one's neck

Related ideas

A lexical conception of polysemy was developed by B. T. S. Atkins, in the form of lexical implication rules.^[15] These are rules that describe how words, in one lexical context, can then be used, in a different form, in a related context. A crude example of such a rule is the pastoral idea of "verbizing one's nouns": that certain nouns, used in certain contexts, can be converted into a verb, conveying a related meaning.

Another clarification of polysemy is the idea of predicate transfer^[16] — the reassignment of a property to an object which would not otherwise inherently have that property. Thus, the expression "I am parked out back" conveys the meaning of "parked" from "car" to the property of "I possess a car". This avoids incorrect polysemous interpretations of "parked": that "people can be parked", or that "I am pretending to be a car", or that "I am something which can be parked". This is supported by the morphology: "We are parked out back" does not mean that there are multiple cars; rather, that there are multiple passengers (having the property of being in possession of a car).

See also

• Ambiguous grammar
• Heterosemy
• Homograph
• Idiom
• Metonymy
• Polytely
• Pun
• Semantic change
• Troponymy
• Aberrant decoding

References

Further reading

• Joordens S, Besner D (1994). "When banking on meaning is not (yet) money in the bank: Explorations in connectionist modeling.". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 20: 1051–1062. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.20.5.1051. 
• Kawamoto AH, Farrar WT, Kello CT (1994). "When two meanings are better than one: Modeling the ambiguity advantage using a recurrent distributed network.". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20: 1233–1247. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.20.6.1233. 
• Borowsky R, Masson MEJ (1996). "Semantic ambiguity effects in word identification.". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 22: 63–85. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.22.1.63. 
• Jastrzembski JE (1981). "Multiple meanings, number of related meanings, frequency of occurrence, and the lexicon". Cognitive Psychology 13: 278–305. 
• Rubenstein H, Garfield L, Millikan (1970). "Homographic entries in the internal lexicon". Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 9: 487–494. 
• O'Sullivan, et al. (1994). Key Concepts in Communication and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-06173-3. 
• Jamet, Denis (Ed.) (2008) "Polysemy", 1st issue of Lexis, E-Journal in English Lexicology.