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Traditionally, two types of lexical
amibiguity are distinguished:
Homophony refers to cases in which
two words “accidentally” have the same phonological form (e.g., bank), whereas polysemy
refers to the phenomenon that one and the same word acquires different, though
obviously related, meanings, often with respect to particular contexts.
Consider the following examples of homophony(cf. Pustejovsky (1995): p. 27):
(1) a.Mary walked along the bank of
the river.
b.HarborBank
is the richest bank in the city.
(2) a.Drop me a line when you are in
Boston.
b.We
built a fence along the property line.
(3) a.First we leave the gate, then
we taxi down the runway.
b.John
saw the taxi down the street.
(4) a.The discussion turned on the
feasibility of the scheme.
b.The
bull turned on the matador.
(5) a.The judge asked the defendant
to approach the bar.
b.The
defendant was in the pub at the bar.
c.He
bought a bar of soap.
And contrast this with the following
cases of meaning variation, which illustrate polysemy:
(6) a.The bank raised its interest
rates yesterday.
b.The
store is next to the newly constructed bank.
c.The
bank appeared first in Italy in the Renaissance.
(7) a.John crawled through the
window.
b.The
window is closed.
c.The
window is made of security glass.
(8) a.The farm will fail unless the
drought ends soon.
b.It
is difficult to farm this land.
(9) a.The store is open.
b.The
thief tried to open the door.
There are two important differences:
1. First, it is immediately obvious
to speakers that the meanings of a polysemous expression are related to each
other. This is typically not the case for homophonous expressions, even though they
may be historically related as well (cf. some of the examples above).
2. Second, polysemy is regular. For
example, we find the three meanings illustrated with bank in(6) (specific
institution, building that houses the institution, and the type of the
institution) with university as well. Similarly, we find the three meanings of window illustrated in (7) (path, opening, and
concrete object that can close an opening) with door.
I will give you more example of
Polysemy for more understanding
·
Animal/meat:
a.The lamb is running in the field.
b.John ate lamb for breakfast.
·
Object/Stuff an object is made up:
a.There is an apple on the table.
b.There is apple in the salad.
·
Stuff/Kind:
a.There was cheese on the table.
b.Three cheeses were served.
·
Stuff/Portions:
a.The restaurant served beer, and so
b.we ordered three beers.
·
Plant/food alternation:
a.Mary watered the fig in the
garden.
b.Mary ate the fig.
·
We have alternations between
containers and contained:
a.Mary broke the bottle.
b.The baby finished the bottle.
·
Figure/Ground reversal:
a.The window is rotting.
b.Mary crawled through the window.
