Polysemy

Ledia Kazazi, University of Elbasan "Aleksandër Xhuvani", Albania
ledia.kazazi@uniel.edu.al

Polysemy is a phenomenon whereby a single linguistic unit, most commonly a word, exhibits multiple distinct yet related meanings. For instance, the word body can refer to the human organism, a corpse, the trunk of a person, or the main part of an object or group, such as the body of a car or a governing body. While these meanings are distinct, they are cognitively and historically related, often extending from a central or prototypical sense through processes such as metaphor or metonymy.

Traditionally, the study of polysemy has belonged to lexical semantics, focusing on how word meanings develop and relate to each other. However, cognitive linguistics broadens this view, claiming that polysemy is not confined to the lexicon but is a fundamental characteristic of human language and cognition. According to this perspective, various ‘levels’ of language (for instance lexical, morphological, syntactic) are interrelated through polysemous structures.

Cognitive lexical semantics, a subfield of cognitive linguistics, investigates polysemy as a conceptual phenomenon. From this viewpoint, the multiple meanings of a word are not arbitrary or accidental, but reflect systematic patterns in mental representation. Polysemy is therefore understood to provide insights into how language users mentally structure and categorise experience.

Importantly, polysemy is distinguished from homonymy, where a single form has unrelated meanings (e.g. bat the animal vs. bat used in sports). In contrast, polysemous meanings are historically or conceptually connected. As such, the study of polysemy contributes to our understanding of meaning extension, semantic networks, and the embodied nature of language.

Keywords: cognition, word meaning, polysemous structures

Related Entries: Cognition/Cognitive Linguistics, Ambiguity, Metaphor

References:
Cruse. A. (2004) Meaning in language: An introduction to semantics and pragmatics. Oxford University Press
Evans, V., & Green, M. (2006) Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates/Edinburgh University Press.
Nerlich, B., Todd, Z., Herman, V., & Clarke, D. D. (2003). Polysemy: Flexible patterns of meaning in mind and language, De Gruyter Mouton.