Filologiya
məsələləri, № 7, 2017
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vocabulary, due to the monosyllabic character of English and predominance
of root words. The greater the relative frequency of the word, the greater the
number of variants that constitute its semantic structure, i.e. the more
polysemantic it is. All the lexical and lexico-grammatical variants of a word
taken together form its semantic structure or semantic paradigm”. [2, s.50-
52] The term polysemy stems from the Greek word “polýsēmos” having
many meanings. It is defined as the ability of a word to have several
meanings simultaneously. Polysemy is the association of one word with two
or more meanings. The term homonymy stems from the Greek word
“homonumos” having the same name. A homonym is a word that is said or
spelled the same way as another word but has a different meaning. The
relationship between a set of homonyms is called homonymy. Polysemy is
usually defined as the existence of several meanings of any word.
Depending
on different circumstances each language has its own development, so it is
with semantic aspect of all languages A word that was monosemantic
primarily may acquire new meanings in time during the historical
development of language. [8, səh.10]. So what are polysemantic words? That
is, one graphical sign corresponds to several referents or meanings. A
polyseme is a word or phrase with multiple meanings. For example, the
English word “hand”. We know that the word has the meaning of the part of
human body, the end part of a person's arm. However, the word “hand” has
also the meaning “an indicator or pointer on a dial; the hands of a
clock”. A
polysemantic word, as has been indicated in the above example, is
a word having several meanings or lexical-semantic variants. These lexical-
semantic variants possess both lexical and grammatical features which are
closely interwoven. These different meanings or lexical-semantic variants
are revealed in the context. By the term “context” we understand the stretch
of speech determining each individual meaning of a word and revealing the
intended lexical-semantic variant. So it is obvious that there exists an
interrelation in the semantic structure of polysemantic words. Without such
kind of relatedness there would not be polysemy. It should be
mentioned that
polysemy is based on the figurativeness of the basic meaning of the word.
Thus figurative meanings are of great significance in the creation of
polysemy. The primary meaning constitutes the lexico-semantic core of any
polysemantic word. Only nominative meaning of the word is in the role of
the primary meaning. So the primary meaning is always the semantic centre
of the word, the others are derived form the primary one. V.V.Vinogradov
writes: “It is very important to distinguish the basic meaning of the word.
Because the other meanings are gathered around the basic one.”
Polysemy is the ability of a word to possess several meanings or
lexico-semantic variants (LSV), for example, the word bright means