week 4 - homonymy, polysemy and meaning shift

Question 1

polysemy

Answer 1

• One word has a variety of related senses / meanings that get listed under the same headword in a dictionary
e.g. 25 polysemes for the noun ROUND in the OED

Question 2

homonymy

Answer 2

• Unrelated senses that have the same lexical form so get listed under separate headwords in a dictionary
e.g. BANK and BANK

Question 3

homographs

Answer 3

have the same physical / orthographic form

• a lead /lɛd/ pipe ~ a dog’s lead /li:d/

Question 4

homophones

Answer 4

have the same phonetic form

• I’m feeling a little … /ho:s/

Question 5

homonyms

Answer 5

have the same phonetic AND the same orthographic form

Question 6

polysemy

Answer 6

associating one lexeme with a set of associated senses

Question 7

lexeme

Answer 7

single entry in the lexicon (mental dictionary)

Question 8

Etymology

Answer 8

the historical origin of the word

Question 9

how does meaning/semantic shift happen?

Answer 9

• A semantic evolution of a word (or form) where the form of the item remains the same but the meaning changes
• Typically this includes: • Narrowing
• Broadening
• Pejoration & amelioration (change in connotation)
• Metonymy
• Metaphor
• Ellipsis
• Folk etymology
• Grammaticalization / delexicalisation

Question 10

what is narrowing/ specialisation?

Answer 10

• a restriction in meaning
• meaning is less general/ inclusive than the original
• e.g. ‘meat’ used to mean any type of food. Now it means the flesh of an animal (meaning has narrowed)

Question 11

what is broadening?

Answer 11

• An expansion or generalisation of meaning
• Meaning is more general/inclusive than original
• e.g. ‘aunt’ used to mean just the fathers sister
• ‘barn’ used to be a place to store just barley

Question 12

what is amelioration

Answer 12

• Tendency to semanticise more positive connotations
• meaning is more positive/favourable than original
• nice used to mean “foolish/silly”
• pretty used to mean “sly/cunning”
• knight used to mean “boy”

Question 13

pejoration

Answer 13

• Tendency to semanticise less positive connotations
• meaning is less positive/favourable than original

e. g. ‘mistress’ used to mean head of the household
- ‘silly’ used to mean happy

Question 14

metaphor

Answer 14

• The mapping of one concept onto another • LEG “part of the body” ® LEG “part of a table”

Question 15

metonymy

Answer 15

• An association: Referring to some entity by a part or attribute of it, or something close to it.

Question 16

what is a structural metaphor

Answer 16

• Organises one concept in terms of another, which can be perceived across a range of expressions

Question 17

orientational metaphor

Answer 17

• Organises a whole system of concepts with respect to one another. • Most of these have to do with spatial orientation: up-down, inout, front-back
- Happy is up; sad is down
• Conscious is up; unconscious is down

Question 18

ontological metaphor

Answer 18

• Ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc., As entities and substances
• Viewing an abstract concept as an entity • INFLATION IS AN ENTITY
• Container metaphors
• ACTIVITIES ARE SUBSTANCES/ CONTAINERS
• Personification
• NONHUMAN ENTITIES ARE HUMAN ENTITIES

Question 19

metonymy

Answer 19

• Metaphor links two distinct domains through resemblance
• Metonymy is based on association 
• CONTAINER FOR CONTAINED 
- Room 44 wants a bottle of champagne 
• POSSESSOR FOR ATTRIBUTE/POSSESSED 
- Where are you parked? 
- The ham sandwich by the window would like to pay. 
• PART FOR WHOLE 
- There are some new faces here today 
- All hands on deck! 
• PLACE FOR INSTITUTION 
- 10 downing street is in turmoil

Question 20

Euphemism

Answer 20

change meaning of existing words to talk about death, sex, toilet
• fallen asleep
• sleep with someone
• I’ll go powder my nose

Question 21

Cliché

Answer 21

words which have lost their meaning through over-use
• over the moon
• every Tom, Dick and Harry

Question 22

what is language planning

Answer 22

deliberate (planned) effort to influence the function, structure, or acquisition of a language within a speech community, usually by a government, e.g. Language policy, translation policy
- language policing makes sure that other languages don’t influence their language, some countries don’t want loan words.

Question 23

Lexical Reclamation

Answer 23

the appropriation of a pejorative epithet by its target(s). e.g. queer
- reclaiming a word to make it positive

Question 24

Grammaticalization

Answer 24

• Loss of semantic content
• Do (semantic bleaching) – originally meant ‘cause’, now has no real semantic content
- ‘did you finish the homework?’ - ‘did’ has lost semantic meaning and becomes grammatical.

Question 25

when does meaning shift happen?

Answer 25

Meaning shifts sometimes happen when two synonymous words exist in a language: they jockey for position and each eventually occupy their own semantic space This is often due to borrowings

Question 26

phraseology

Answer 26

* The study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units, but also of grammatical patterns and their meanings. * The co-occurrence of a lexeme and at least one other kind of linguistic element

Question 27

colligation

Answer 27

a grouping of words based on the way they function in a syntactic structure

Question 28

collocation

Answer 28

the habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or words with a frequency greater than chance

Question 29

what is the need for a syntactic framework?

Answer 29

* The main grammatical unit = the clause * The dog bit the postman, * And it hurt, * So the postman never went back there. * Clauses are made up of phrases (noun phrases, verb phrases etc.) * The dog (noun phrase) bit (verb phrase) the postman (noun phrase) * Phrases are made up of words (more or less)

Question 30

what is the basic clause structure?

Answer 30

* Slots — Fillers * Subject — typically Noun Phrase * Predicator — Main Verb + Auxiliaries / always a Verb Phrase * (Object) — typically Noun Phrase, usually the affected * (Complement) — typically Adjective Phrase (but could be A NP or PP), tells you where the subject is * (Adjunct) — typically Adverb Phrase (or PP), when, where, how, why. extra information that is not required by the process

Question 31

transitive verbs

Answer 31

A transitive verb is a verb that can take a direct object. In other words, the action of a transitive verb is done to someone or something. Most verbs are transitive.

Question 32

ditransitive verbs

Answer 32

a verb which takes a subject and two objects which refer to a theme and a recipient.

Question 33

intransitive verbs

Answer 33

a verb that indicates a complete action without being accompanied by a direct object

Question 34

valency

Answer 34

* The number of distinct element types occurring in association with a verb * The constraints or limitations on those elements