Cognitive Linguistics Croft

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Cognitive Linguistics CroftCruse

• 5 Polysemy the construal of sense boundaries,
  pt. 1

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5.1 Introduction

• Q What is polysemy?

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5.1 Introduction

• Q What is polysemy?
• A It is the presence of various meanings
  associated with a single linguistic unit. It is
  manifested as variation in the construal of a
  word on different occasions of its use the
  process of isolating a portion of meaning
  potential

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5.2.1 Homonymy and polysemy

• Q What is the difference between homonymy and
  polysemy?

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5.2.1 Homonymy and polysemy

• Q What is the difference between homonymy and
  polysemy?
• Homonymy is when two words are (etymologically)
  distinct, but sound the same due to historical
  accident
• Polysemy is when one word has multiple meanings
  (and supposedly only one etymological antecedent)

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5.2.1 Homonymy and polysemy
? vs. ?

• But is it so cut-and-dry? Consider flour vs.
  flower. They have one etymological source
  (meaning best part). Do you want to call this
  polysemy? Or Czech prepositions s off of vs. z
  from etymologically distinct, but now
  semantically identical Do you want to call that
  homonymy?

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5.2.2 Entrenchment

• Dictionaries tend to present only the most
  entrenched meanings

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5.2.3 Boundary effects

• Note that there can be some autonomy of senses
  within ambiguity.

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5.2.3.1 Antagonism attentional autonomy

• If one sense excludes the other, the senses are
  in a relationship of antagonism

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5.2.3.2 Relational autonomy

• Basically, what CC are saying here is that
  sometimes some of the submeanings are related to
  each other rather than being fully autonomous. So
  old vs. new is not fully autonomous from old vs.
  young.

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Hyperonyms and meronyms

• Q What are they?

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Hyperonyms, hyponyms, and meronyms

• Q What are they?
• Hyperonym a superordinate category that subsumes
  items in lower categories. For example, furniture
  subsumes chairs, sofas, tables, etc.
• Hyponym a subordinate category, that names more
  specific items. For example beanbag chair,
  barstool, lounger in relation to chair.
• Meronym a word that names a part of a larger
  whole leg, seat, back, upholstery, cushion, etc.
  are meronyms of chair.

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5.2.3.3 Compositional autonomy

• Here the issue is what sense is selected by the
  construction a word is in. For example, an
  adjective might select for only one of the
  meanings of a polysemous noun, as in steep bank.

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5.2.4 The nature of full sense units

• Q Why are full sense units antagonistic?

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5.2.4 The nature of full sense units

• Q Why are full sense units antagonistic?
• A They often have few components in common and
  belong to different domains. They also resist
  unification (one cannot be subsumed by the other,
  nor can they both be members of the same
  category). But they can be quite close, as in
  month, which can designate either 4 weeks or a
  calendar month.