Filologiya
məsələləri, № 7, 2017
122
AYTAC HƏSƏNOVA
Bakı
Biznes Universiteti
E-mail: aytac.hasanova11@gmail.com
SIMILARITIES
AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
POLYSEMY AND HOMONYMY
Açar sözlər: nitq, çoxmənalılıq, omonimlik, məzmun, işarə, əlaqə, anlayış,
mətn
Key words: speech, polysemy, homonymy, content, sign, relatedness,
notion,
context
Ключевые слова: речь, многозначность, омонимия, содержание, знак,
связанность, понятие, контекст
One of the interesting issues in lexicology is
the problem of similarities
and differences between polysemantic words and homonyms, two similar
concepts in linguistics. It should be indicated that the lexical meaning of a
word in speech is contextual, which means that the definite context
particularizes the lexical meaning of a word and makes possible the
realization of only one meaning. As mentioned by F. Veysalli in his book
named “Semiotics” the explanation of meaning, the attitude towards the
meaning and its unanimous comprehension was always the issue of concern
in philosophy. N. Tusi, E. Kant, G. Hegel, G. Frege and others tried to
elucidate this problem. The first thorough opinion about the character of sign
in linguistics of course belongs to F.de Saussure. He especially emphasized
that language is the system of signs and insisted to consider linguistics as a
component part of semiology. [1, s.10 -11] In primary stage of language
human beings tried just to differentiate one situation form another.
Afterwards came the differentiation of elements, people began to familiarize
with environment gradually, found names and expressed their thoughts when
it became necessary to differentiate the elements of objects and events, like a
child who just begins to talk. [1, s.110]The science linguistics studies
meaning in two directions, that are lexical meaning and grammatical
meaning. Semasiology, as a branch of linguistics is concerned with lexical
and grammatical meanings of words. The definition of meaning in language,
types and forms of linguistic meaning is still the subject of disagreements
and discussions. In modern linguistic literature the meaning of the word is
mostly connected with notions. Each word in the language has its own form
and content. The form of word is its sound cover and in its turn in writings it
is graphical cover, or a word’s external side. And the internal side of a word
is
its content, that means a word’s meaning. A word is a meaningful complex
Filologiya məsələləri, № 7, 2017
123
of sounds used in speech as an independent unit. The meaning of the word is
its relation to and connection with certain real phenomena. The main
function of any word in language is its nominative function. First of all, a
word serves as the name of objects, phenomena, movements, attributes,
relations, events, etc. [8, s.9]
L.S. Barkhudarov describes three main types of relations and
accordingly three main types of meaning in modern semiotics: 1) Referential
meaning – it is a relation between a sign and object designated by the same
sign. Objects, processes, qualities, phenomena designated by signs are called
the referents of signs. 2) The second type of relations is the relation between
sign and a person who uses that sign. Any person has his/her own attitude
towards the given sign and its referents. These subjective emotional,
expressive, stylistic relations are called pragmatic
relations and so the second
type of meaning is called Pragmatic meaning of signs. 3) Any linguistic sign
does not exist in isolation, but as component part of a certain sign system.
The relation between a sign and other signs of the same sign system is called
intralinguistic relations and the third type of meaning is accordingly called
Intralinguistic meaning. [7, s.65-68]Any word actually used in speech is
monosemantic but it may render a complicated notion. Monosemantic
words, that are words having only one meaning are few in number; these are
mainly scientific terms, such as molecule, hydrogen etc. The monosemantic
property of a word used in context does not exclude the complexity of each
denotative meaning as it serves to signify complex notions with many
features. The observances show that frequently used words in language are
polysemantic. So, we may give such kind of definition to the term polysemy:
a word that has more than one meaning in the language is called
polysemantic. Its meanings form its semantic structure. The word semantics
was first used by Michel Bréal, a French philologist. The term denotes the
study of meaning in communication. The semantic structure of a
polysemantic word may be defined as a structured set of interrelated
meanings. It is an organized set of variants and shades of meaning a word
can assume in different contexts, together with their emotional colouring and
stylistic peculiarities. Therefore, we say that the meaning of a polysemantic
word is determined by the context. The semantic structure of the word is a
fact of language. It is developed and fixed in the course of the language
history. We know that the semantic structure of the language has a direct
reference to translation, because the plane of content is the basis of
equivalency.Many scientists have written about polysemy, which is very
interesting, at the same time arguable issue in linguistics. I.V. Arnold wrote
in his book named “The English Word”: “Polysemy is caharecteristic of
most words in many languages. But it is more characteristic of the English