Полісемія / Polycemy. Polysemantic words and meanings.
Полісемія / Polycemy
Most words convey several concepts and thus possess the corresponding number of meanings. A word having several meanings is called polysemantic, and the ability of words to have more than one meaning is described by the term polysemy.
Most English words are polysemantic.
Polysemy is the capacity for a sign (e.g., a word, phrase, etc.) or signs to have multiple related meanings, 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.
The system of meanings of any polysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over the centuries, as more and more new meanings are either added to old ones, or oust some of them. So the complicated processes of polysemy development involve both the appearance of new meanings and the loss of old ones. Yet, the general tendency with English vocabulary at the modern stage of its history is to increase the total number of its meanings and in this way to provide for a quantitative and qualitative growth of language’s expressive resources.
The word in one of its meanings is termed a lexico-semantic variant of this word. The problem in polysemy is that of interrelation of different lexico-semantic variants. There may be no single semantic components common to all lexico-semantic variants but every variant has something in common with at least one of the others.
Examples
Man
- The human species (i.e., man vs. animal)
- Males of the human species (i.e., man vs. woman)
- 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.
- a bound collection of pages
- 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)
- 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.")
A word like walk is polysemous:
- I went walking this morning
- We went for a walk last Sunday
- Do you walk the dog every day?
- I live near Meadow Walk Drive
- The wardrobe is too heavy to lift; we’ll have to walk it into the bedroom (move a large object by rocking).
- She walks the tower (to haunt a place as a ghost).
- The workers threatened to walk(to go on strike).
- Walk with God! (to live your life in a particular way
As a rule, words are polysemantic in ordinary speech. They express a number of meanings, which can be differ greatly.
e.g. | table | Стіл |
|
| Дошка |
|
| Плита |
|
| Дощечка |
|
| Таблиця |
|
| Табель |
|
| Компанія за столом |
|
| Їжа (те, що подається на стіл) |
Polysemy makes our speech flexible and allows us to express the slightest shades of thought.
It is different with the scientific language. The main requirement is accuracy in expressing a thought. Actually not all the terms meet this requirement.
e.g. | engine | Машина |
|
| Двигун |
|
| Паровоз |
| oil | Мастило |
|
| Нафта |
All the terms can be divided into two groups:
- Special terminology clear only to specialists;
- Commonly-used words with special meaning.
e.g. | jacket | Куртка | Кожух |
| jar | Глечик | Конденсатор |
| Кишеня | Повітряна яма (авіація) | |
|
|
| Оточення (військова справа) |
|
|
| Мертва зона (радіо) |
|
|
| Кабельний канал (електротехніка) |
|
|
| Луза (гольф) |
| switch | Вимикач | Перемикач |
|
|
| Комутатор |