polysemi

POLYSEMI

What is polysemi ?

Polysemy is the capacity for a sign (such as a word, phrase, or symbol) to have multiple meanings (that is, multiple semes or sememes and thus multiple senses), usually related by contiguity of meaning within a semantic field.

It is thus 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)               (ii) the links between these senses form a network, and

(iii)             (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. The analysis of polysemy, synonymy, and hyponymy and hypernymy is vital to taxonomy and ontology in the information-science senses of those terms. It has applications in pedagogy and machine learning, because they rely on word-sense disambiguation and schemas.

polysemy, language scientific term for ambiguity, see adjective green in the green gate, green thumb, green student, green policy, where the word's meaning varies, often due. metaphorical extensions.

Examples and Observations

• Polysemy as a Graded Phenomenon
  "We adopt as a working hypothesis the view that almost every word is more or less polysemous, with senses linked to a prototype by a set of relational semantic principles which incorporate a greater or lesser amount of flexibility. We follow the now common practice in polysemy research and regard polysemy as a graded phenomenon . . ., where contrastive polysemy deals with homonyms such as match (a small stick with a tip which ignites when scraped on a rough surface) and match (contest in a game or sport), whereas complementary polysemy deals with interrelated semantic aspects of a word, such as, in the case of record, for example, the physical object and the music."
  (Brigitte Nerlich and David D. Clarke, "Polysemy and Flexibility." Polysemy: Flexible Patterns of Meaning in Mind and Language. Walter de Gruyter, 2003)
   
• The Lighter Side of Polysemy
  "Leave it to Americans to think that no means yes, pissed means angry, and curse word means something other than a word that's cursed!"
  (Excalibur employee in "It Hits the Fan." South Park, 2001)