Chapter 5 Sense Relations ——Polysymy
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Polysemy
The same word may have two or more different meanings. This is known as
"polesemy"; such a word is "polysemic". The word
"flight", for example, may mean "passing through the air",
"power of flying", "air of journey", "unit of the Air
Force", "volley", "digression", "series of
steps", etc.
Sources of
polysemy
Polysemy can arise in a number of ways. According to
Stephen Ullmann, there are five sources. But here we will confine ourselves to
the examination of the three most important ones, since the other two (Homonyms
Reinterpreted and Foreign Influence) are rare or not quite normal in English.
A. Shifts in application
Words have a number of different aspects according to
the contexts in which they are used. Some of these aspects are purely ephemeral;
others may develop into permanent shades of meaning and, as the gap between
them widens, we may eventually come to regard them as different senses of the
same term.
Shifts in application are particularly noticeable in the use of adjectives since these are apt to change their meaning according to the noun they qualify. The adjective "handsome", for example, has been used, in the course of its history, in the following senses, grouped according to the noun to which they refer.
B. Specialization in a social milieu
Polysemy often arises through a kind of verbal
shorthand. For a lawyer, "action" will naturally mean "legal
action"; for the soldier it will mean a military operation, without any
need for a qualifying epithet. In this way the same word may acquire a number
of specialized senses, only one of which will be applicable in a given milieu.
C. Figurative language
A word can be given one or more figurative senses
without losing its original meaning: old and new will live on side by side as
long as there is no possibility of confusion between them. Polesemy that is
based on metaphor can be exemplified by the following phrases: the bed of a
river, the cock of a gun, a saddle in the mountains, a sheet of paper, iron or
water, etc.
Besides metaphor, metonymy may work in the same way.
The word "board" can mean, among other things, a table as well as the
persons sitting around the council-table. "Surgery" can refer to the
art of a surgeon, and also to the room where patients are seen and medicine is
dispensed.
Exercises
1. Explain the meaning of the italicized words.
1) Jimbo immersed his trunk in the pail of water and squirted the delighted children.
2) If you travel by train, you trunk for a nominal change.
3) Fifty miles out on the deserted highway, my rented car developed a flat tire. I opened the trunk and found there was no spare.
4) We stripped off the branches and then sawed the trunk into three –foot lengths for firewood.
5) The store had one pair of trunks left ——green and yellow with blue stripes . I simply couldn’t buy them.
6)
The trunk line of the Illinois Central Railroad runs from
7) A fond mother may spoil her child.
8) In spite of his bad results in the exam, he has a fond belief in his own cleverness.
9) She has many faults, but we’re very fond of her.
10) You’re too fond of leaving the door open when you go out.
2. Find the 10 different senses in which “get” is used in this conversation and suggest a set of different words that could be used instead:
A: Look at this present I’ve just got (1) from Dad.
B: But your birthday was last week.
A: Yes, but it only got (2) here today. You see Dad’ s been poorly, he got (3) flu.
B: What’s the present?
A: It’s a transistor. Wait till I get (4) it out of the box. Oh yes! I wonder how many stations we can get (5) on it.
B: What’s that hole for? I don’t get (6) it.
A: That’s where it plugs in. Let’s see if we can get (7) it to work. What a funny noise!
B: It’s getting (8) worse. Turn it off. You’ll have to get (9) a different plug of something.
A: I’ll try and fix it while you get (10) the supper.
