19. Polysemy. Meaning and context. Types of context.

Polysemy - diversity of meanings; the existence within a word of several connected meanings as the result of the development and changes of the original meaning.

The word «polysemy» means «plurality of meanings» it exists only in the language, not in speech. A word which has more than one meaning is called polysemantic. Most words are polysemantic. Monosemantic words are usually found among terms and scientific words. The semantic structure of a polysemantic word may be described as a combination of its semantic variants. Each variant can be described from the point of view of their denotational and connotational meaning.

Meaning and Context It is common knowledge that context is a powerful preventative against any misunderstanding of meanings. For instance, the adjective dull, if used out of context, would mean different things to different people or nothing at all. It is only in combination with other words that it reveals its actual meaning: a dull pupil, a dull play, a dull razor-blade, dull weather, etc. Sometimes, however, such a minimum context fails to reveal the meaning of the word, and it may be correctly interpreted only through a second-degree context, as in the following example: The man was large, but his wife was even fatter. The word fatter here serves as a kind of indicator pointing that large describes a stout man and not a big one.

Оne of the more promising methods of investigating the semantic structure of a word is by studying the word's linear relationships with other words in typical contexts, i. e. its combinability or collocability (сочетаемость).

Thus, if one intends to investigate the semantic structure of an adjective, one would best consider the adjective in its most typical syntactical patterns: A + N (adjective + noun) and N + l + A (noun + link verb + adjective).

For instance, a study of typical contexts of the adjective bright in the first pattern will give us the following sets: a) bright colour (flower, dress, silk, etc.). b) bright metal (gold, jewels, armour, etc.), c) bright student (pupil, boy, fellow, etc.), d) bright face (smile, eyes, etc.) and some others. These sets will lead us to singling out the meanings of the adjective related to each set of combinations: a) intensive in colour, b) shining, c) capable, d) gay, etc.

Types of context

Polysemy is closely connected with the notion of the context (the minimum stretch of speech which is sufficient to understand the meaning of a word). The main types of context are lexical and grammatical.

Lexical context (the lexical environment of a word):

heavy, adj:

in isolation: of great weight, weighty

combined with industry, arms, artillery: the larger kind of…

Grammatical context. The grammatical structure of the context that serves to determine various individual meanings of a polysemantic word.

make, v:

the meaning of force, “to induce”

to make + pronoun + verb (to make smb laugh)

the meaning “to become”

to make + adj + noun (to make (стать) a good wife)

Extra-linguistic context (context of situation). The meaning of the word is determined not only by linguistic factor, but by the actual speech situation in which the word is used.

ring - a circlet of precious metal or a call on the telephone

glasses – spectacles or drinking vessels