This new semantic pointers that’s with the item next-door neighbor in the brand new lexicon does not, this basically means, contain a requirements from gender; next-door neighbor try obscure (or general, or unspecified) to what dimensions out of gender
Polysemy is the popular term on condition where an excellent lexical goods has actually more than one definition, instance whenever later can indicate ‘after the typical, requested, or decided time’ (I am late once again), ‘advanced within the big date or night’ (a late eating), or ‘not alive’ (my personal later brother Polly). Terminologically talking, polysemy needs to be in comparison that have homonymy and you may, furthermore, vagueness. Whenever a few (or higher) terms have a similar shape, such as for instance financial (‘slope, elevation for the sea otherwise lake bed’) and lender (‘economic institution’), he is homonyms; while polysemy describes multiplicity from meaning within an individual term, new multiplicity is distributed over certain terminology in the example of homonymy. As a result, and come up with an improvement between polysemy and you can homonymy boils down to determining whether we are dealing with you to definitely while the same term otherwise which have several variations. The fresh new difference in vagueness and you will polysemy involves the question of if a certain little bit of semantic info is area of the underlying semantic construction of your own product or perhaps is caused by a good contextual (thus pragmatic) specs. By way of example, next-door neighbor isn’t polysemous within indication ‘male dweller next door’ and ‘females dweller next door,’ in the same manner the utterance my personal neighbor is actually a great civil slave are not seen as demanding disambiguation from the way that she is smart matchocean you are going to (Might you mean ‘bright’ otherwise ‘stylish’?).
To choose between polysemy and you can vagueness, plenty of tests shall be invoked. The three head of these are definitely the following. Earliest, of a reality-theoretical viewpoint, good lexical item try polysemous in the event it can be likewise feel clearly real and you can clearly false of the same referent. Considering the readings ‘harbor’ and you will ‘strengthened sweet drink away from Portugal’ off vent, the fresh polysemy of these items is established of the sentences such as for example Sandeman is a slot (for the a container), yet not an interface (that have ships). It criterion generally captures a beneficial semantic instinct: are a couple of interpretations off confirmed term naturally well enough dissimilar therefore that you could feel said to use and also the almost every other not?
Especially, they are centered on acceptability judgments regarding the sentences containing one or two related situations of one’s items under consideration (one of and therefore matical relationships ranging from one another events need the semantic name, the brand new resulting phrase are a sign into the polysemy away from the thing
2nd, linguistic examination encompass syntactic rather than semantic intuitions. Such as, the fresh so-titled label attempt concerns ‘identity-of-feel anaphora.’ For this reason, at nighttime the fresh new watercraft introduced the port, and so did the fresh bartender try embarrassing if your several lexical definitions off vent has reached stake. Overlooking puns, it does just mean that the new ship and also the bartender alike introduced the fresh new harbor, otherwise however one one another moved a particular form of wines of you to definitely spot to various other. A combined discovering, where the basic occurrence from vent is the harbor and next so you’re able to wines, is oftentimes omitted. By comparison, that the fresh notions ‘classic nice wine from Portugal’ and you may ‘mixed nice wines off Portugal’ are going to be shared into the Classic Noval try a slot, and thus try blended Sandeman shows that vent is unclear rather than polysemous with regard to this new difference in blended and you may classic wine.
3rd, the fresh new definitional traditional determine one to something enjoys one or more lexical definition if there’s zero minimally particular definition covering the expansion of the item overall, and this doesn’t have significantly more lexical definitions than just there are maximally general meanings must define its expansion. Meanings from lexical items are going to be maximally general in the sense which they will be safety due to the fact highest an effective subset of your extension from something that one may. Thus, independent meanings getting ‘blended sweet strengthened wine off Portugal’ and you will ‘vintage sweet fortified wines of Portugal’ cannot qualify definitions of lexical meanings, as they can end up being introduced together with her in meaning ‘sweet fortified wine off Portugal.’ At exactly the same time, definitions is going to be minimally specific in the same way that they is be sufficient to recognize the object from other nonsynonymous facts. An effective maximally standard meaning level both vent ‘harbor’ and vent ‘style of wine’ within the meaning ‘material, entity’ is actually excluded whilst does not bring brand new specificity of vent once the unlike most other conditions.