§ 2. Frequency, Polysemy and Structure

The interdependence of various features of the word may be easily observed through a comparative analysis of these aspects in relation to any chosen individual feature. Thus choosing, for example, the semantic structure as a starting point we observe that there is a certain interdependence between the number of meanings in a word and its structural and derivational type, its etymological character, its stylistic reference. The analysis may start with any other aspect of the word — its structure, style or origin — it will generally reveal the same type of interdependence of all the aspects. Words of highest frequency, those that come into the first 2000 of most frequently occurring words all tend to be polysemantic and structurally simple. It should be noted, however, that structure and etymology by themselves are not

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always indicative of other aspects of the word — simple words are not necessarily polysemantic, words that etymologically belong to late borrowings may be simple in structure. Frequency most clearly reflects the close interconnection between polysemy and the structure of the word. The higher the frequency, the more polysemantic is the word, the simpler it is in structure. The latest data of linguistic investigation show that the number of meanings is inversely proportional to the number of morphemes the word consists of. Derived and compound words rarely have high frequency of occurrence and are rarely polysemantic. Comparison of the words, members of the same word-cluster, for example heart — hearty — heartily — heartless — heartiness-heartsick shows that it is the simple word of the cluster heart that is marked by the highest frequency (it belongs to the first 500 most frequently occurring words). We also find that the word is highly polysemantic, heart has 6 meanings.¹ Other members of the cluster which are all polymorphic and complex have fewer meanings and many of them are practically monosemantic, e.g. hearty has 3 meanings, heartily — 2 and the rest only 1. All of these words have much lower frequences as compared with the simple member of the cluster — heartily belongs to the 6th thousand, heartless to the 13th, heartiness and heartsick to the 20th thousand.

The same is observed in the simple word man having 9 meanings and polymorphic derived words manful, manly, manliness which have only one meaning, etc. Thus the interdependence of frequency, polysemy and structure manifests itself not only in the morphemic structure of the word, but also in its derivational structure. Derived words are as a rule poorer in the number of meanings and have much lower frequencies than the corresponding simple words though they may be morphemically identical It may be very well exemplified by nouns and verbs formed by conversion, e.g. the simple noun hand has 15 meanings while the derived verb (to) hand has only one meaning and covers only 4% of the total occurrences of both.²

§ 3. Frequency and Stylistic Reference

Frequency is also indicative of the interdependence between polysemy, stylistic reference and emotive charge. It can easily be observed in any group of synonyms. Analysing synonymic groupings like make — manufacture — fabricate; heavy — ponderous — weighty — cumbrous; gather — assemble; face — countenance — mug we find that the neutral member of the synonymic group, e.g. make (the first 500 words) has 28 meanings, whereas its literary synonyms manufacture (the 2nd thousand) has 2 and fabricate (the 14th thousand) which has a narrow, specific stylistic reference has only one meaning. A similar relation is observed in other synonymic groups. The inference, consequently, is that

¹ Here and below the number of meanings is given according to A. Hornby, The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, and the frequency values according to the Thorndike Teacher’s Word Book of 30,000 Words.

² According to M. West. A General Service List of English Words. Longmans, 1959,

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stylistically neutral vocabulary units tend to be polysemantic and to have higher frequency value, whereas words of narrow or specific stylistic reference or non-literary vocabulary units are mostly monosemantic and have a low frequency value. The following examples may serve as illustration: the neutral word horse, in addition to its basic meaning, has the meanings — ‘a frame’, ‘a rope’, ‘cavalry’; its poetic synonym steed has only one meaning. The neutral word face forms a variety of word-groups in its basic meaning, in addition, it has at least 3 more meanings — ‘boldness’, ‘impudence’, e.g. to have the face to do smth; ‘an outer part’, ‘a surface’, e.g. the face of a coin, the face of a clock. The word face also enters a number of phraseological units, e.g. to put a new face on a matter, on the face of it. Its literary bookish synonym countenance has only two meanings and a much poorer collocability; its third synonym mug belongs to slang, has a heavy emotive charge, is monosemantic and its lexical valency is greatly restricted. The frequency values of these words speak for themselves — face belongs to the first 500 words, countenance to the 4th thousand and mug to the 6th thousand of the most frequently occurring words.