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Polysemy (/ pəˈlɪsɪmi / or / ˈpɒlɪˌsiːmi /; [1][2] from Ancient Greek πολύ- (polý-) 'many' and σῆμα (sêma) 'sign') is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. [3] Polysemy is distinct from monosemy, where a ...
However, polysemy means that the audience may create new meanings out of the text. The audience's perceived meanings may not be intended by the producers. Therefore, 'polysemy' and 'opposition' should be seen as two analytically distinct processes, although they do interconnect in the overall reading process.
Greek scholars contributed to the definition of metonymy. For example, Isocrates worked to define the difference between poetic language and non-poetic language by saying that, "Prose writers are handicapped in this regard because their discourse has to conform to the forms and terms used by the citizens and to those arguments which are precise ...
The meaning relation between hyponyms and hypernyms applies to lexical items of the same word class (that is, part of speech), and holds between senses rather than words. For instance, the word screwdriver used in the previous example refers to the screwdriver tool, and not to the screwdriver drink. Hypernymy and hyponymy are converse relations.
Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A synchronic approach (from Ancient Greek: συν- "together" and χρόνος "time") considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. Synchronic linguistics aims at describing a language at a specific point of time, often the present.
Semantic properties or meaning properties are those aspects of a linguistic unit, such as a morpheme, word, or sentence, that contribute to the meaning of that unit.Basic semantic properties include being meaningful or meaningless – for example, whether a given word is part of a language's lexicon with a generally understood meaning; polysemy, having multiple, typically related, meanings ...
Contronym. A contronym is a word with two opposite meanings. For example, the word cleave can mean "to cut apart" or "to bind together". This feature is also called enantiosemy, [1][2] enantionymy (enantio- means "opposite"), antilogy or autoantonymy. An enantiosemic term is by definition polysemic.
Joycean. A text is deemed Joycean when it is reminiscent of the writings of James Joyce, particularly Ulysses or Finnegans Wake. Joycean fiction exhibits a high degree of verbal play, usually within the framework of stream of consciousness. Works that are "Joycean" may also be technically eclectic, employing multiple technical shifts as a form ...