Polysemy

hallo reader, Now i will share about one part of semantic, that is Polysemy. please enjoy!!!
 
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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.