Seminar 4

POLYSEMY

Questions

1. What does polysemy denote?

2. What words do we call monosemantic? Are there many such words in English?

3. What words are called polysemantic?

4. What contribution did prof. V.V.Vinigradov make to the development to the problem of polysemy?

5. What is the difference between meanings and usage?

6. Where does polysemy exist?

7. What makes speech unambiguous?

8. What did prof. A.I. Smirnitsky claim? What term did he create?

9. How are all LSVs of a word united?

10. What does polysemy in diachronic term imply?

11. What do the primary and the secondary meaning of the word denote?

12. What is the main source of polysemy?

13. What can semantic changes result?

14. How is polysemy understood synchronically?

15. What do the central (basic) and marginal (minor) meanings of a word imply?

16. Why semantic structure of the word is never static?

17. What is historical changeability of semantic structure of the word evidence?

18. What is context?

19. What is the lexical context of the word? Give examples.

20. What is the grammatical context of the word? Give examples.

21. How may the extra-linguistic context be presented?

TASKS

1. Read the sentences in which the polysemantic word simple is used. Give all the lexico-semantic variants constituting the semantic structure of this word. Check yourself by a dictionary.

1) The book tries to give simple explanations of some very complex scientific ideas. 2) Sally likes clothes that are simple but elegant. 3) The simple fact is that he wants a divorce. 4) Archaeologists found several simple tools at the site. A knife is a simple tool. 5) Her grandparents were simple people who never had much money. I’m just a simple farmer. 6) You may be joking but she’s simple enough to believe you. 7). I’m afraid old Jack is a bit simple.

2. Give the lexico-semantic variants constituting the semantic structure of the word school in the following sentences. Check yourself by a dictionary.

1. The kids will be at school until 3.00 today. 2) I didn’t like school very much. 3) The School of Management in Cornwall is considered the best one in the country. 4) Harvard, which I graduated from 5 years ago, is a very good school. 5) What you think about this probably depends on which school of economics you belong to. 6) In the distance we could see a school of whales.

3. Define all lexico-semantic variants of the verb to think in the following sentences. Look up in a dictionary.

1) I don’t think there’s a bank in the village. 2) Nobody seriously thought of him as a candidate for the job. 3) Let’s stop and think before we do anything else. 4) He could never think of the woman’s name. 5) It was kind of you to think of our daughter. 6) I expect we were all thinking the same thing. 7) I never thought that I’d end up working here.

4. State which of these words possesses wider polysemy: man, fellow, change (n), federation, order.

5. Compare the semantic structure of the following words: a) slender & skinny; b) to stop & to cease.

6. Analyze the meanings of the given polysemantic words taken from the Dictionary of English Etymology. These meaning are considered primary and central in Middle English. What are their basic (or central) meanings from the point of view of the present-day language? What can you say about the historical development of their semantic structure?

Model: pension – ‘fixed or regular payment, spec. out of the revenues of a benefice’ (XIV c.).

In modern English the central meaning of the word is ‘a regular payment made by the state to someone who can no longer earn money by working’. Thus, in the present-day language the primary meaning of the word pension remains central.

1) likely – ‘probable’ (XIII c.); 2) revolution – ‘movement of a celestial body in an orbit’ (XIVc); 3) to perish – ‘come to a violent or untimely end, cease to exist’ (XIIIc.); 4) challenge – ‘accusation’ (XIII c); 5) single – ‘unaccompanied, unmarried; individual; not double (XIV c.); 6) to betray – ‘to give up treacherously’ (XIII c).