| 释义 |
polysemy Linguistics.|ˈpɒlɪsiːmɪ|
Also in mod.L. form polyˈsemia.
[ad. F. polysémie (M. Bréal Essai de Sémantique (1897) xiv. 155), f. med.L. polysēmus (see polysemous a.): see -y3, -ia1.]
The fact of having several meanings; the possession of multiple meanings.
1900N. Cust tr. Bréal's Semantics xiv. 140 The new meaning of a word, whatever it may be, does not make an end of the old. They exist alongside of one another... In proportion as a new signification is given to a word, it appears to multiply and produce fresh examples, similar in form, but differing in value. We shall call this phenomenon of multiplication Polysemia. All the languages of civilised nations have their part in it. 1928O. Jespersen Monosyllabism in Eng. 26 We now see the reason why polysemy is found so often in small words to an extent which would not be tolerable in longer words. 1931G. Stern Meaning & Change of Meaning iv. 74 I wish you luck... This polysemy is quite different from the polysemy..of Hund, signifying either ‘dog’, or ‘kind of cart used in mines’. 1937J. Orr tr. Iordan's Introd. Romance Linguistics 192 In Gilliéron's view, sound-change, with all its consequences, homonymy polysemia, and the like, are causes of disease in words. 1950S. Potter Our Language 110 If we assume that the central meaning of place is still ‘square’ and that these other diverse uses radiate from that centre, we might equally well put it into our third semantic category: radiation, polysemia, or multiplication. 1951S. Ullmann Princ. Semantics ii. 115 Should one describe ‘a straight line’ and ‘shipping line, air line’ as radical shifts in application or as mild cases of polysemy? Ibid. 117 Polysemy is the pivot of semantic analysis. 1960W. F. Twaddell Eng. Verb Auxiliaries 3 We can acknowledge the existence of meaningful lexical verbs in our syntax, and gracefully recognize a linguistically reasonable polysemia of our grammatical signals within different lexical contexts. 1972M. L. Samuels Linguistic Evol. v. 75 The effect of polysemy is in principle the same as that of homonymy—the representation of two or more meanings by a single form. 1975Times Lit. Suppl. 16 May 531/1 Matters are complicated by the polysemy of the noun linguist, both ‘polyglot’ and ‘scientific student of language’. 1977Dædalus Summer 77 Thus symbol is distinguished from sign both by the multiplicity (multivocality, polysemy) of its signifieds, and by the nature of its signification.
So ˈpolyseme, a word having several or multiple meanings; polyˈsemic, a., of or pertaining to polysemy; having several meanings, exhibiting polysemy.
1930S.P.E. Tract xxxiv. 463 Even the names of concrete things are nearly always polysemic, though this may not be perceptible until we compare them with corresponding words in other languages. The word leg, for instance, may be applied to the supports of a table or chair, and the legs of an insect in English, but not in French. 1953Trans. Philol. Soc. 60 Identifications of this type are..most convincing when parallel translation-pairs are found as homonyms within a single language, which one would then wish to consider as polysemes. 1954Eng. Stud. XXXV. 170 The cropping up of new senses may lead to polysemic conflicts, causing older senses to disappear. 1969Times Lit. Suppl. 18 Dec. 1445 The earnest digging goes on, and we are..grateful for the unearthing of new polysemes [in Finnegans Wake]. 1974Amer. Speech 1971 XLVI. 125 Polysemes, or terms that exhibit more than one denotation each, even though their connotations are synonymous in their negativism. 1976G. Steiner in D. Villiers Next Year in Jerusalem 67 The elaborate investigations of the Kabbalists into the polysemic nature of the written word. |