Diachronic approach to polysemy

If polysemy is viewed diachronically, it is understood as the growth and development or a change in the semantic structure of the word. Polysemy in diachronic terms implies that a word may retain its previous meaning or meanings and at the same time acquires one or several new ones. The word "table" has at least 9 meanings in Modem English. In the course of a diachronic semantic analysis of the polysemantic word table we find that of all the meanings it has in Modem English the primary meaning is "a flat slab of stone or wood", which is proper to the word in the OE period, all other meanings fire secondary as they are derived from the primary meaning of the word and appeared later, than the primary meaning. It follows that the main source of polysemy is a change in the semantic structure of the word. Semantic changes result as a rule in new meanings which are added to the ones already existing in the semantic structure of the word. Some of the old meanings may become obsolete or even disappear but the bulk of English words tend to increase the number of meanings.

Synchronic approach to polysemy

Synchronically, we understand polysemy as the coexistence of various meanings of the same word at a certain historical period of the development of the English language. In the course of a synchronic semantic analysis of the word "table" we are mainly concerned with the following problem: are all the nine meanings of the word ''table" equally representative of the semantic structure of this word? The meaning that first occurs to us whenever we hear or see the word "table" is "an article of furniture". This emerges as the basic or the central, major meaning of the word, and all other meanings are minor or marginal meanings. The basic meaning occurs in various and widely different contexts, minor meanings are observed only in certain context. There is a tendency in modem linguistics to interpret the concept of the central meaning in terms of the frequency of occurrence of this meaning. As far as the word "table" is concerned, the meaning "a piece of furniture" possesses the highest frequency value and makes up 52% of all the uses of this word. The meanings of a polysemantic word may differ in their stylistic reference. E.g. there is nothing colloquial or slangy or American about the word "yellow" denoting color. But when "yellow" is used in the meaning of "sensational", it is both slangy and American. As the semantic structure is never static, the primary meaning of the word may become synchronically one of its minor meanings and diachronically a secondary meaning may become the central meaning of the word. E.g., the primary and central meaning of the word "revolution" in Middle English was "the revolving motion of celestial bodies". In Modem English this meaning is diachronically described as primary but it is no longer synchronically central; the central meaning of the noun "revolution" in Modem English is "a complete overthrow of the established government or the regime".