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polisemy and homonimy

English translation: Polysemy and Homonymy

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GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)

English term or phrase:	polisemy and homonimy
English translation:	Polysemy and Homonymy
Entered by:	Patricia Baldwin

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18:23 Nov 3, 2003

English to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Linguistics / Linguistics / Language

English term or phrase: polisemy and homonimy

Please explain these technical terms with examples if possible...

Mariano

Polysemy and Homonymy

Explanation:
as your context seems literary...methinks this is what you are looking for ...
may I don my grammarian and linguist hat to help you ?

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Note added at 2003-11-03 18:30:15 (GMT)
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Polysemy
where a word as a related number of meanings
i.e.:
mouth
1. pat of a river
2. entrance of a cave
3. part of the body

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Note added at 2003-11-03 18:31:53 (GMT)
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Homonymy

Where similarity of pronunciation or spelling is accidental
(etimology supports this idea)
i.e.:
bank
1. he ground beside a iver
2. a financial instituion

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Note added at 2003-11-03 18:32:25 (GMT)
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2. a financial instiution

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Note added at 2003-11-03 18:34:51 (GMT)
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NOTE:

While in principle the difference between Homonymy and Polysemy is clear, in practice it can be very difficult to draw the distinction.

Lots of luck in your linguistic ventures,
Patricia.

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Note added at 2003-11-03 18:38:21 (GMT)
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Polysemy
Where a word has a related number of meanings

i.e.
love : (tennis term)
love¨: in life (that of man for woman, woman for man, for children, animals, and so on so forth)

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Note added at 2003-11-04 01:09:31 (GMT)
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I apologize asker for my horrible typos, I meant:
homonymy e.g.: \"bank\", the ground beside a river
polysemy: e.g.: \"mouth\", part of a river.

Greetings from Buenos Aires, Argentina,
Patricia.

Selected response from:

Patricia Baldwin
United States
Local time: 12:08

Grading comment

Graded automatically based on peer agreement.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

5 +4

Polysemy and Homonymy

Patricia Baldwin

see explanation

Francesca Siotto

4 +1

homonymy and polysemy

ntext

a word with closely-related meanings; words which look and sound the same with different meanings

chica nueva

Answers

5 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +4

Polysemy and Homonymy

Patricia Baldwin
United States
Local time: 12:08
Native speaker of:

English,

Spanish
PRO pts in category: 8

Grading comment

Graded automatically based on peer agreement.

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)

agree

Elenacb: It's like being back to my lessons in lexicology.

14 mins

-> Pleased to meet you Elena...wouldn`t it be great fun to go back to school?!Many thanks and greetings to royal U.K.

agree

xxxElena Sgarbo: Yes! In the August issue of the ATA chronicle I present examples of polysemy and homonymy in medical language & their impact on translation :-)

50 mins

-> Hi Elena your mastery of medical terms... wow! You must be a wonderful MD too! Saluditos de tu paìs natal, Argentina che!

agree

Paula Vaz-Carreiro: very good explanation, methinks! :)

2 hrs

-> Hello Paula thank you for your agree ...methinks you are very generous!

agree

Anglo-German

5 hrs

-> Nice to meet you Xlit and greetings to lovely Germany from Argentina!

5 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

homonymy and polysemy

Explanation:
"Homonymy and polysemy are two well-known semantic problems. Bank in river bank and Bank of England are homonymous: they share no meaning whatsoever; they function as two totally unrelated words. River bed and hospital bed seem to be somehow semantically linked: it is a case of polysemy."

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Note added at 8 mins (2003-11-03 18:31:19 GMT)
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Polysemy refers to cases where a lexeme (word) has more than one meaning. For example a chip can refer to a piece of wood, food, or electronic circuit: we say that the word \"chip\" has several different meanings in English, which are all related (\"action\" or \"paper\" are other examples of polysemous words).

Homonymy refers to cases where two (or more) different words have the same sounds. For example the word \"bank\" can mean a financial institution or an area of ground: these are two different words in English). Homonymous words can be either homophones = same sounds, but different spellings (ex.: I/eye; bear/bare) or homographs = same sounds and same spelling (ex bank/bank; file/file)

http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~rmorel/semant2.htm

Reference: http://u2.u-strasbg.fr/spiral/Equipe/Pierre/AMB-ART.htm

ntext
United States
Local time: 14:08
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English,

German
PRO pts in category: 20

20 mins confidence:

see explanation

Explanation:
Ciao Mariano, scusa se ti rispondo in Italiano ma sicuramente riuscirei a esprimermi meglio

polisemia e omonimia sono due fenomeni semantici strettamente connessi, che riguardano in generale il rapporto tra i significati al di là di ogni parola.

Si definisce polisemico un lessema (la comune parola) che ha UN SOLO SIGNIFICANTE, OSSIA UNA SOLA FORMA GRAFICA, MA PIù di un significato, esempi:
riso = manifestazione di ilarità; alimento comune in oriente;
pesca = frutto; atto di pescare

Si definisce omonimia la relazione tra due parole con LO STESSO SIGNIFICANTE GRAFICO, MA SIGNIFICATO DIVERSO
tasse= femmine del tasso; imposte
lira: tipo di moneta; strumento

ci sono anche altre relazioni tra parole, quali l'antonimia, la sinonimia, ecc.

spero ti aiuti a capire

Francesca Siotto
Local time: 21:08
Native speaker of:

Italian

10 hrs confidence:

a word with closely-related meanings; words which look and sound the same with different meanings

Explanation:
Definitions and examples from Richards, Platt&Platt, Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics:

"polysemy
(of a word) having two or more closely related meanings, eg foot in:
He hurt his foot
She stood at the foot of the stairs
The foot is the lowest part of the stairs just as the foot is the lowest part of the human body.
A well-known problem in semantics is to decide whether we are dealing with a single polysemous word (like foot) or with two or more homonyms."

"homonyms, homonymy
words which are written in the same way and sound alike but which have different meanings.
For example, the English verbs lie in You have to lie down, and lie in Don't lie, tell the truth!
It is a well-known problem in semantics to tell the difference between homonymy (several words with the same form and different meanings) and polysemy (a single word with more than one meaning)"

(Apart from this, I have heard of 'polysemy' in relation to literary criticism and the thought of Bakhtin...)

Richards, Platt&Platt, Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, 1996

chica nueva
Local time: 17:08
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 4

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English translation: Polysemy and Homonymy

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English translation: Polysemy and Homonymy

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