Random associativity, rated above-average positively
Texts to »Polysemy«
Jean-Claude Choul wrote on Mar 11th 2002, 09:59:32 about
Polysemy
Rating: 1 point(s) |
Read and rate text individually
Polysemy is, according to Webster's Collegiate, the multiplicity of meanings. It is the opposite of monosemy. The word was coined by Michel Bréal, founder of historical semantics, preoccupied, as was his contemporary Antoine Darmesteter, with the evolution of meaning in words. American linguists, often working with utterances, generally speak of lexical ambiguity. But polysemy is a reality, as witnessed by subsenses (usually numbered) in a dictionary entry. Cf. cause, rebellion, rebel (n.& adj.). The vast majority of words are polysemous and, generally speaking, only technical or scientific words are monosemic, at least immediately after being coined or derived. The most abstruse the science or field, the longer monosemy will prevail. Some linguists even suggested that polysemy was paradoxically a sign of meaning depletion, due to frequent uses. Polysemy is especially exploited in poetry and puns.
Jean-Claude Choul wrote on Mar 11th 2002, 10:26:34 about
Polysemy
Rating: 3 point(s) |
Read and rate text individually
Some words have more potential than others for polysemy or polysemic development. »Etiolate« as compared to »Uxorious«, for instance. This is due in part to their combinatorial possibility with other words in creative sentences (as opposed to standard or cliché uses). But even »uxorious« is bisemic, although the dictionary fails to mark the difference between »being excessively fond of« and »being excessively submissive to« (a wife). The test, as always in semantics and linguistics, is substitution. None of the four senses or »fond« can be construed as equivalent to »submissive«. Polysemic potential can be assimilated with the contextual capacity of a word, and can be seen as the application of a given context to the word in question, in a relationship similar to that of argument and predicate.
paxer9999 wrote on Oct 7th 2002, 22:16:48 about
Polysemy
Rating: 1 point(s) |
Read and rate text individually
The Polysemy nature of words and/or signs is rooted in the ambiguous and perhaps arbitrary inherent meaning of words and/or signs.
Some random keywords |
mark
Created on Sep 6th 2002, 13:56:42 by mark1, contains 9 texts
society
Created on Jun 18th 2000, 20:25:35 by boi, contains 25 texts
message
Created on Mar 19th 2001, 16:41:25 by noise, contains 36 texts
feminist
Created on Jul 3rd 2003, 14:56:27 by Emma Example, contains 2 texts
tralalalala
Created on Nov 6th 2002, 20:20:57 by Happy Hippo, contains 3 texts
|
Some random keywords in the german Blaster |
Promenadenmischung
Created on Aug 13th 2001, 11:00:00 by der Reimer, contains 13 texts
Klabautermann
Created on Sep 20th 2000, 21:40:28 by mantana, contains 16 texts
Apokryphregister
Created on Aug 7th 2007, 13:26:07 by Rita, contains 4 texts
Picasso
Created on Apr 25th 2001, 13:30:51 by bravegirl, contains 28 texts
Walzerseligkeit
Created on Feb 18th 2007, 10:38:56 by vom Schwerte, contains 2 texts
Tanzgruppe
Created on Dec 5th 2023, 18:08:59 by Single-Tussi, contains 1 texts
|