THE POLYSEMY OF THE ENGLISH VERB OPENCLOSE IN “GONE WITH THE WIND” WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS
THE POLYSEMY OF THE ENGLISH VERB OPEN/CLOSE
IN “GONE WITH THE WIND” WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE
(TÍNH ĐA NGHĨA CỦA ĐỘNG TỪ TIẾNG ANH MỞ/ ĐÓNG TRONG TIỂU
THUYẾT “CUỐN THEO CHIỀU GIÓ” CÓ LIÊN HỆ VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT)

NGÔ THỊ PHƯƠNG

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2017


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

THE POLYSEMY OF THE ENGLISH VERB OPEN/CLOSE
IN “GONE WITH THE WIND” WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE

(TÍNH ĐA NGHĨA CỦA ĐỘNG TỪ TIẾNG ANH MỞ/ ĐÓNG TRONG TIỂU
THUYẾT “CUỐN THEO CHIỀU GIÓ” CÓ LIÊN HỆ VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT)

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. HOANG TUYET MINH

Hanoi, 2017


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report
entitled, the polysemy of the English verbs open/close in “Gone with the wind”
with reference to Vietnamese, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master in English Language. Except where the reference is
indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in
the text of the thesis.
This thesis does not contain material which has been accepted for any other
degree in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this thesis
contains no material previously published or written by any other person, except
where due reference is given in the text.
I agree that the Library may lend or copy this thesis on request.
Hanoi, 2017

Ngô Thị Phương

Approved by
SUPERVISOR
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Tuyet Minh
Date:…………………………

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from
a number of people. I would like to thank various people who provide me with
considerable assistance during the whole journey of the thesis.
First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks and my deepest
gratitude to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Tuyet Minh, my supervisor, for her thorough
instruction, precious guidance, ideas and constant encouragement during the time
my research endeavors lasted. Without her invaluable support on research methods
and her critical comments on my writings, this thesis would have never been
completed.
A special word of thanks goes to all my classmates and many others, without
whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have
this thesis accomplished. I am greatly indebted to all my knowledge and
understanding I got at Hanoi Open University for their constant support and
encouragement.
Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my husband for the
sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work.

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ABSTRACT
This study is made to analyze the polysemy of the verbs open/close in English with
reference to Vietnamese used in the novel “Gone with the wind” by Margaret
Mitchell. It is a qualitative study that focuses on the verbs open/close of the novel.
The data used for analysis in this study was gathered by picking up the utterances
within conversation and the author started to analyze the data in conducting the
analysis from the polysemy of the verb open/close. Afterwards, the author classified
the data into different categories where they belong to and gave a little comment on
the cases. As a result, the author found to advance an understanding of polysemy in
the semantic field of the two verbs open and close in English with reference to

Vietnamese by using statistic and descriptive method, analytic and synthetic method
to help Vietnamese translators of English use these verbs effectively.
Therefore, the researcher feels the self struggle to construct this thesis to try and
represent our translation as a result of interacting with a wide diversity of texts has
been a rewarding one. Hopefully, the study may help the translators of English
develop polysemy in their mind as a reference to apply to our own translations.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Etc:

et cetera

i.e.:

id est.

ICMS: Idealized Cognitive Models
N:

noun

V:

verb

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: The English verb open in reference to Vietnamese in “Gone with the
wind”… ................................................................................................................. 46
Table 2: The English verb close in reference to Vietnamese in “Gone with the
wind”..................................................................................................................... 53

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY .........................................................................
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................... II
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... III
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ....................................................................... V
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................VI
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................... I
1.1. Rationale .......................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Aims and objectives of the study ...................................................................... 2
1.3.Research questions ............................................................................................ 2
1.4.Methods of the study ......................................................................................... 3
1.5.Scope of the study ............................................................................................. 3
1.6. Significance of the study ................................................................................... 4
1.7.Design of the study ............................................................................................ 5
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................................. 6
2.1.Previous studies ................................................................................................. 6
2.2. Cognitive linguistics ......................................................................................... 8

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2.2.1. Definition of terms ......................................................................................... 8
2.2.2. Major principles of cognitive linguistics ........................................................ 9
2.2.3 Cognitive semantics ...................................................................................... 10
2.3. Polysemy ........................................................................................................ 13
2.4. An overview of verbs...................................................................................... 17
2.4.1. Verbs in English .......................................................................................... 17
2.4.2. Verbs in Vietnamese .................................................................................... 19
2.5. An over view on contrastive analysis .............................................................. 20
2.6. Summary ........................................................................................................ 22
CHAPTER 3: THE POLYSEMY OF THE VERB OPEN/CLOSE WITH
REFERENCE IN VIETNAMSE FROM COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS……23
3.1. The polysemy of the verb open/close in English ............................................. 23
3.2. The English verbs open/close and their Vietnamese equivalents ..................... 38
3.2.1. Open/close in English corresponds to mở/đóng in Vietnamese ..................... 38
3.2.2. Some other Vietnamese equivalents of the English verbs open/close ........... 42
3.3. Comparism between the verb open/close in English and mở/đóng in
Vietnamese in terms their meanings. ..................................................................... 51
3.4.Summary ......................................................................................................... 54

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CHAPTER 4: THE TRANSLATION OF THE VERB OPEN/ CLOSE IN “GONE
WITH

THE

WIND”

WITH

REFERENCE

……………………………………………

TO

VIETNAMESE
56

4.1. The English verb open and their Vietnamese equivalents in “gone with the
wind” novel. .......................................................................................................... 56
4.2. The English verb close and their Vietnamese equivalents in “gone with the
wind” story. ......................................................................................................... 665
4.3. Suggestions for translators when translating open/ close in English into
Vietnamese ............................................................................................................ 75
4.4.Summary ......................................................................................................... 75
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 77
5.1.Concluding remarks ......................................................................................... 77
5.2. Limitation of the study .................................................................................... 80
5.3.Suggestions for further study ........................................................................... 81
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 82
APPENDICES....................................................................................................... 85

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i

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale
The researcher had some troubles with the self-referential nature of the material.
Since the subject is the "meaning of meaning" at various levels, it's easy to become
confused and fall into a "black hole" where text seems meaningless. Polysemy is the
term widely used in semantic analysis to describe the situation in which a word has
two or more related meanings. No matter how simple this definition seems to be,
polysemy is not a clear-cut concept. For decades, linguists from different
universities have been trying to give a sound account of what polysemy is and how
it can be accounted for. Although polysemy is at the moment a hot topic incognitive
and computational linguistics, unfortunately, it is still true that polysemy remains a
somehow muddy field in linguistic research.
Therefore, this study is made to analyze the polysemy of the verbs open/close in
English with reference to Vietnamese used in the novel “Gone with the Wind” by
Margaret Mitchell. It is a qualitative study that focuses on the verbs open/close of
the novel. The researcher also got the materials from many books and looked for on
the internet. The relevant data were taken from English novel and its Vietnamese
translational versions. The data were gathered by picking up the utterances within
conversations and the researcher started to analyze the data in conducting the
analysis from the English verbs open/ close with reference to Vietnamese.
Afterwards, the researcher classified the data into categories where they belong to
and gave a little comment on the cases. As a result, the researcher found to advance
an understanding of polysemy in the semantic field of the two verbs open and close
in English with reference to Vietnamese by using statistic and descriptive method,
analytic and synthetic method as the major methods and to help Vietnamese
translators of English use these verbs effectively.

1

For the reasons above, the researcher feels the self-struggle to construct this thesis
to try and represent our learning as a result of interacting with a wide diversity of
texts has been a rewarding one. The research entitled: The polysemy of the English
verbs open/close in “Gone with the wind” with reference to Vietnamese with
the hope to help translators to develop polysemy in their mind as a reference to
apply to their own translations.
1.2 Aims and objectives of the study
The aim of this research is to high light the polysemy of the English verbs
open/close in “Gone with the wind”

with reference to Vietnamese to help

translators use these verbs effectively.
Objectives of the study are:
- To examine the semantic features of the verbs open/ close in English with
reference to Vietnamese in “Gone with the wind”.
- To give some suggestions for the translators to translate these verbs effectively.
1.3. Research questions
On the basis of the above mentioned aims and objectives, the study is conducted to
answer the following questions:
1. What are the categories of prototypical and non-prototypical meanings of open/
close in English with reference to Vietnamese?
2. What are the implications for translator when translating the verbs open/ close in
English effectively?

2

1.4. Methods of the study
In this thesis, the researcher chose English as the first language and Vietnamese as
the second language. In addition, in order to achieve the goal, the study will be
carried out by the combination of the following methods:
The first method is descriptive method. It is used to analyze the data and to obtain a
more holistic picture what goes in a particular situation or setting, and then
describes the findings as to answer the research questions. Therefore, the qualitative
approach is employed to describe and analyze the data.
The second method is qualitative and quantitative method. In this study, the
researcher used qualitative research approach because of some characteristics.
Firstly, the data of this study was in the form of words or utterances that consist of
the verbs open/close by the characters in “Gone with the wind” novel. Secondly,
this study used human instrument: the researcher herself as the primary instrument
for data collection and data analysis. Thirdly, the purpose of this study was to high
light the polysemy of the verbs open/close in English with reference to Vietnamese
to help Vietnamese translators of English use these verbs effectively.
1.5 Scope of the study
The study is limited to investigate the polysemy of the two English verbs open and
close in the novel “Gone with the wind” with reference to Vietnamese within
semantic theoretical framework. The study focused on displaying some major
principles of polysemy of the two verbs open and close to explores and applied the
meanings of them
The relevant data are taken from English novel and its Vietnamese translational
versions. It is “Gone with the wind” by Margaret Mitchell. From this novels and
short stories, those examples are quoted, analyzed, and used as the chief source for
comparative and one direction contrastive analysis.

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1.6. Significance of the study
Theoretically, the study helps translators to find out the characteristics of the
polysemy of the verbs open/close in English with reference to Vietnamese.
Practically, in this thesis, the polysemy of the English verbsopen/close in the novel
"Gone with the wind" with reference to Vietnamese are studied in order to apply
and help translators in the process of translating open/close in English into
Vietnamese effectively.
1.7. Design of the study
There are five chapters in this research paper.
Chapter 1: Introduction - presents a general introduction to the rationale,
significance of the study, aims and objectives, the scope of the study, research
questions, methods of the study and design of the study
Chapter 2 - Literature Review - involves some of previous studies. This chapter also
presents all related theoretical background that precedes and necessitates the
formation of the research: an overview on contrastive analysis, a brief description of
verbs, cognitive semantics and polysemy.
Chapter 3: presents the polysemy of the verbs open/close in English and their
Vietnamese equivalents from cognitive linguistics - includes the polysemy of the
verbs open/close in English with prototypical and non-prototypical meanings of
open/close; encyclopedic knowledge and meanings of open/close and radial
category of open/close. The similarities and differences between the verbs
open/close in English and mở/đóng in Vietnamese are analyzed in this chapter.
Chapter 4: identifies the translations of the verbs open and close in the novel “Gone
with the wind”with reference to Vietnamese.

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Chapter 5 – Conclusion - is concerned with the major findings and implications
about the polysemy of the verbs open and close within cognitive semantic

theoretical framework and suggestions for further study.
References come at the end of the study.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, a range of fundamental theoretical concepts will be introduced. The
researcher will present all related theoretical background that precedes and
necessitates the formation of my research, especially the cognitive semantic
framework of the study, i.e. an overview on contrastive analysis, a brief description
of verbs; cognitive linguistics and cognitive semantics theory will be briefly
discussed in this chapter, a review of major principles of cognitive linguistics in
general and cognitive semantics in particular which have been applied in analyzing
linguistics expressions will be included in this part; the final part will deal with the
traditional treatment of polysemy and polysemy in cognitive linguistics.
2.1. Previous studies
Relevant previous studies to the current research are presented in this section. The
previous findings and discussions play as an evidence of contrastive analysis of
similarities and differences of the polysemy of the verb open and close in English
and their Vietnamese equivalents from the cognitive semantics perspective in terms
of its meaning. There have been quite a number of studies on the verb in general.
Following are some of those which are going to be introduced. Up to now, there
have been many descriptions of questions by foreign grammarians such as Barcelona
(1997), Evans, V. and Green, M. (2006), Evans et al. (2007), Geeraerts, D. (1999),
and Vietnamese researcher such as Lý Toàn Thắng (2006).
Evans et al (2007) conducted a study on the fields of semantics and pragmatics in
English. According to the study, cognitive linguistics is the most rapidly expanding
school in modern linguistics. It aims to create a scientific approach to the study of
language, incorporating the tools of philosophy, neuroscience and computer

science. Cognitive approaches to language were initially based on philosophical
thinking about the mind, but more recent work emphasizes the importance of
convergent evidence from a broad empirical and methodological base. The

6


Cognitive Linguistics Reader brings together the key writings of the last two
decades, both the classic foundational pieces and contemporary work. The essays
and articles - selected to represent the full range, scope and diversity of the
Cognitive Linguistics enterprise - are grouped by theme into sections with each
section separately introduced. The book opens with a broad overview of Cognitive
Linguistics designed for the introductory reader and closes with detailed further
reading to guide the reader through the proliferating literature. The Cognitive
Linguistics Reader is both an ideal introduction to the full breadth and depth of
Cognitive Linguistics and a single work of reference bringing together the most
significant work in the field.
Vyvyan Evans and Melanie Green (2006) provides up-to-date coverage of all areas
of the field and sets in context recent developments within cognitive semantics
(including primary metaphors, conceptual blending and Principled Polysemy), and
cognitive approaches to grammar (including Radical Construction Grammar and
Embodied Construction Grammar). While all topics are introduced in terms
accessible to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, this work is sufficiently
comprehensive and detailed to serve as a reference work for scholars from
linguistics and neighbouring disciplines who wish to gain a better understanding of
cognitive linguistics. The study carried out three matters: the cognitive linguistics
enterprise; cognitive semantics; and cognitive approaches to grammar. In particular,
cognitive linguistics is compared and contrasted with formal approaches including
Generative Grammar, formal approaches to semantics, and relevance theory.
In conclusion, it can be seen that many studies have been conducted on English and

Vietnamese cognitive linguistics. Linguists from different universities have been
trying to give a sound account of what polysemy is and how it can be accounted for.
Although polysemy is at the moment a hot topic in cognitive and computational
linguistic, unfortunately, it is still true that polysemy remains a somehow muddy
field in linguistic research. Polysemy is the term widely used in semantic analysis to

7


describe the situation in which a word has two or more related meanings. No matter
how simple this definition seems to be, polysemy is not a clear-cut concept.
Therefore, the author feels the self-struggle to construct this thesis to try and
represent translation as a result of interacting with a wide diversity of texts has been
a rewarding one. This study has helped translators develop polysemy in our mind as
a referent to apply to our own day-to-day practices and research in communication
and translation.
2.2. Cognitive linguistics
2.2.1. Definition of terms
Cognitive linguistics (CL) is the study of the relationship between language and the
human mind. In other words, it is a school of linguistics and cognitive science,
which aims to provide accounts of language that mesh well with current
understandings of the human mind. Workers in this field seek to understand
language as it relates to models of human thinking, interpreting language in light of
the social and psychological contexts in which it is generated and understood. It
emerged in the late seventies and early eighties, especially through the work of
George Lakoff, one of the founders of Generative Semantics, and Ronald
Langacker, also an ex-practitioner of Generative Linguistics. As a consequence, this
new paradigm could be seen as a reaction against the dominant generative paradigm
which pursues an autonomous view of language (Ruiz de Mendoza, 1997).
Cognitive linguistics has not developed fully-formed from a single source. It is a

concatenation of concepts proposed, tested, and tempered by a variety of
researchers. The people whose work has been most influential in the creation of this
framework include Brugman (1981), Casad, Croft, Gilles Fauconnier, Mark
Johnson (1987), George Lakoff (1987), Ronald Langacker (1987), Lindner, Eve
Sweetser, Leonard Talmy, Tuggy, and Mark Turner.

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Although Cognitive Linguistics as a general framework emerged in the late
seventies, it is important to bear in mind that it is not a totally homogeneous
framework. Ungerer and Schmid (1996) distinguish three main approaches: The
Experiental view, the Prominence view and the Attentional view of language. The
“Experiential view” focuses on what might be going on in the minds of speakers
when they produce and understand words and sentences. The “Prominence view” is
based on concepts of profiling and figure/ground segregation, a phenomenon first
introduced by the Danish gestalt psychologist Rubin. The prominence principle
explains why, when we look at an object in our environment, we single it out as a
perceptually prominent figure standing out from the background. The “Attentional
view” assumes that what we actually express reflects those parts of an event which
attract our attention. A main concept in this approach is Fillmore’s (1975) notion of
“frame”, i.e. an assemblage of the knowledge we have about a certain situation.
Despite these three different viewpoints in Cognitive Linguistics, the majority of
linguists working within this paradigm share the view that linguistic knowledge is
part of general thinking and cognition.
2.2.2. Major principles of cognitive linguistics
The most fundamental principle in cognitive linguistics is embodiment (Johnson,
1987; Lakoff, 1987). Cognitive linguistics works from the premise that meaning is
embodied. This means that meaning is grounded in the shared human experience of
bodily existence. We create mental and linguistic categories on the basis of our

concrete experiences and under the constraints imposed by our bodies. They are not
a set of universal abstract features or uninterested symbols (Barcelona, 1997:9).
They are motivated and grounded directly in experience, in our bodily, physical,
social and cultural experiences (Janda, 2000).
The second main principle of cognitive linguistics is the theory of linguistic
meaning. Cognitive linguists believe that meanings do not exist independently from

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the people that create and use them (Reddy, 1993). All linguistic forms act as clues
activating the meanings that reside in our minds and brains. This activation of
meaning is not necessarily the same in every person because meaning is based on
individual experience as well as collective experience (Barcelona, 1997:9).
2.2.3 Cognitive semantics
2.2.3.1. Definition
As the reseacher mentioned earlier, cognitive linguistics is not a uniform framework
but rather a combination of approaches that share common principles. Cognitive
linguistics practice can be roughly divided into two main areas of research:
cognitive semantics and cognitive (approaches to) grammar. Although the study of
cognitive semantics and the one of cognitive grammar are occasionally separate in
practice, their domains of inquiry are tightly linked. The area of study known as
cognitive semantics, one of the two best-developed areas of cognitive linguistics, is
concerned with investigating the relationship between experience, the conceptual
system, and the semantic structure encoded by language. It began in the 1970s as a
reaction against the “objectivist” theories of meaning. The term “objectivism” is
used by Lakoff (1987) and Johnson (1987) to refer to those theories of linguistic
meaning that understand objective reality as independent from human cognition. In
contrast to this view, cognitive semantics is concerned with modeling the human
mind as much as it is concerned with investigating linguistic semantics. It states that

linguistic meanings come from our mind or rather as in the prime slogan for
cognitive semantics: Meanings are in the head (Gardenfor, 1994). Cognitive
semantics also sees linguistic meaning as a manifestation of conceptual structure:
the nature and organization of mental representation in all its richness and diversity,
and this is what makes it a distinctive approach to linguistic meaning (Vyvyan
Evans and Melanie Green, 2006:156). Leonard Talmy, one of the original pioneers
of cognitive linguistics in the 1970s, describes cognitive semantics as follows:
“Research on cognitive semantics is research on conceptual content and its

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organization in language” (Talmy, 2004:4). Cognitive semantics, like the larger
enterprise of cognitive linguistics of which it is a part, is not a single unified
framework. Though those researchers identify themselves as cognitive semanticists,
there are still a number of principles that collectively characterize a cognitive
semantics approach. The principles that the study is based on for its argument and
discussion will be briefly presented in the following section.
2.2.3.2. Guiding principles of cognitive semantics
Vyvyan Evans and Melanie Green (2006:157) identify four guiding principles that
collectively characterize the collection of approaches that fall within cognitive
semantics in their book) Conceptual structure is embodied (the ‘embodied cognition
thesis’); ii) Semantic structure is conceptual structure; iii) Meaning representation is
encyclopedic; iv) Meaning construction is conceptualization.
“Cognitive semanticists set out to explore the nature of human interaction with and
awareness of the external world, and to build a theory of conceptual structure that is
consonant with the ways in which we experience the world” (Vyvyan Evans and
Melanie Green, 2006:157). The experience we have of the world is embodied. In
other words, it is structured in part by the nature of the bodies we have and by our
neurological organization. The nature of conceptual organization arises from bodily

experience, so part of what makes conceptual structure meaningful is the bodily
experience with which it is associated. It is clear that conceptual structure (the
nature of human concepts is a consequence of the nature of our embodiment and
thus is embodied).
The second principle is that semantic structure is conceptual structure. What are
stored in our mind are the things we can perceive and conceive from the real world
which cognitive linguists call “concepts”. And speakers often use what they have in
mind to describe an entity using language. That is why this principle asserts that
language refers to concepts in the mind of the speaker rather than to objects in the

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external world. In other words, semantic structure (the meanings conventionally
associated with words and other linguistic units) can be equated with conceptual
structure (i.e., concepts) (Evan et al., 2006). However, the claim that semantic
structure can be equated with conceptual structure does not mean that the two are
identical. Instead, cognitive semanticists claim that the meanings associated with
linguistic units such as words, for example, form only a subset of possible concepts.
After all, we have many more thoughts, ideas and feelings than we can
conventionally encode in language (Evan et al., 2006:159).
The third guiding principle holds that semantic structure is encyclopedic in nature.
This means that lexical concepts do not represent a complete package of meaning as
we may see in a dictionary. “Rather, they serve as “points of access” to vast
repositories of knowledge relating to a particular concept or conceptual domain”
(Langacker, 1987) although words have conventional meanings associated with
them. Nevertheless, in order to understand the meaning of a particular linguistic
unit, apart from the conventional meaning associated with it, hearers/readers must
have an understanding of its frame of semantics (Fillmore, 1982) or a domain
(Langacker, 1987). We then “construct” a meaning by “selecting” a meaning that is

appropriate in the context of the utterance.
The fourth guiding principle associated with cognitive semantics is that language
itself (containing words, sentences of the language) does not encode meaning.
Instead, as we have seen, words (and other linguistic units) are only ‘prompts’ for
the construction of meaning. According to this view, meaning is constructed at the
conceptual level: meaning construction is equated with conceptualization, a
dynamic process whereby linguistic units serve as prompts for an array of
conceptual operations and the recruitment of background knowledge. It follows
from this view that meaning is a process rather than a discrete ‘thing’ that can be
“packaged” by language (Evan et al., 2006:162).

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To sum up, this data plays as a theoretical basis for comparison in this chapter 3.
They are differences and similarities between the verb open and close in English
with reference to Vietnamse.
2.3. Polysemy
2.3.1. The traditional treatment of polysemy
The meaning of language is the center of human communication, and the study of it
has a long history in the philosophy of language, linguistics, psychology, and
literature. Polysemy is an ordinary linguistic phenomenon, which is the result of
word meanings extension. With the development of the society, old words die out,
new words are added, and existing words change their meanings. Actually, adding
new meanings to the already-existing words is the most economical way to satisfy
people’s needs of expression, which is simpler and more convenient than creating
new words or borrowing words from other languages. With the passage of time, the
primary meaning and extended meanings coexist in the language. To study
polysemous words, it is very necessary to know the relation between the primary
meaning and extended meanings, how the extended meanings derive from the

primary meaning and what the core meaning is.
The term polysemy is derived from the Greek poly- meaning many and semi
meaning sense or meaning. Traditionally, polysemy has been defined as the case
when “a lexical item … has a range of different meanings” (Crystal 1991, 267).
This definition could seem to be very simple and straightforward. It referred to a
lexical relation where a single linguistic form (i.e. a single phonological word from
belonging to a single lexical category, i.e. word class, say either N or V) has
different senses that are related to each other by means of regular shifts or
extensions from the basic meaning (Allen 1986, 147, De Stadler 1989, 61-62,
Taylor 1991, 99). Lyons (1977, 550) states the following features of lexical
polysemy in the form of criteria:

13


(a) There must be a clear derived sense relation between the polysomic senses of a
word
(b) The polysomic senses of a word must be shown to be etymologically related to
the same original source word.
(c) Lexical polysemy is a sense relation within a particular syntactic category, i.e.
lexical polysemy does not cut across syntactic word class boundaries.
More recently, Taylor (1991, 101-102) applied traditional semantic tests (or criteria)
which were more typically used to distinguish between vagueness and ambiguity, to
differentiate between monosomy and polysemy (cf. also Geeraerts, 1989; Gouws,
1989). According to Taylor, a word is monosomies (i.e. it has only one sense) if it is
vague, and it is polysemy (i.e. it has more than one sense) if it is ambiguous.
However, these definitions and linguistic tests are problematic in some ways such as
methodological problems, conceptual confusion, etc. It is clear that the tests that are
meant to distinguish polysemy as a lexical property of a word are unreliable and
unsatisfactory.

Polysemy is also always presented in opposition to homonymy. The basic criterion
for differentiating the two cases is to say that polysemy happens when one form has
several meanings and homonymy, when two lexical items happen to have the same
phonological form. It seems to be easy to differentiate these two definitions when
we consider the typical examples of polysemy, like the noun school, or examples of
homonymy such as bank (river bank and money bank). However, Allen (1986, 148)
and De Stadler (1989, 63) identify the problem of differentiating between polysemy
and both homonymy and vagueness (i.e. multiple significances of the same sense in
particular contexts) as the main issue in defining polysemy. They come to the
conclusion that the difference between homonymy, polysemy and vagueness are
best seen as gradations on a continuum.

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