The semantics and pragmatics of polysemy : a relevance-theoretic account
This thesis investigates the phenomenon of polysemy: a single lexical form with two or multiple related senses (e.g. catch the rabbit/order the rabbit; lose a wallet/lose a relative; a handsome man/a handsome gift). I develop a pragmatic account of polysemy within the framework of Sperber and Wilsonâs relevance theory, where new senses for a word are constructed during on-line comprehension by means of a single process of ad hoc concept construction, which adjusts the meanings of individual words in different directions. While polysemy is largely unproblematic from the perspective of communication, it poses a range of theoretical and descriptive problems. This is sometimes termed the polysemy paradox. A widely held view in lexical semantics is that word meanings must consist of complex representations in order to capture the sense relations involved in polysemy. Contrary to this view, I argue that a conceptual atomist approach, which treats word meanings as unstructured atoms and thereby avoids the range of problems associated with decompositional theories of word meaning, may be at least as able to account for polysemy when paired with an adequate pragmatic theory. My proposed solution to the polysemy paradox
Falkum, I. L.
The semantics and pragmatics of polysemy : a relevance-theoretic account. This thesis investigates the phenomenon of polysemy: a single lexical form with two or multiple related senses (e.g. catch the rabbit/order the rabbit; lose a wallet/lose a relative; a handsome man/a handsome gift). I develop a pragmatic account of polysemy within the framework of Sperber and Wilsonâs relevance theory, where new senses for a word are constructed during on-line comprehension by means of a single process of ad hoc concept construction, which adjusts the meanings of individual words in different directions. While polysemy is largely unproblematic from the perspective of communication, it poses a range of theoretical and descriptive problems. This is sometimes termed the polysemy paradox. A widely held view in lexical semantics is that word meanings must consist of complex representations in order to capture the sense relations involved in polysemy. Contrary to this view, I argue that a conceptual atomist approach, which treats word meanings as unstructured atoms and thereby avoids the range of problems associated with decompositional theories of word meaning, may be at least as able to account for polysemy when paired with an adequate pragmatic theory. My proposed solution to the polysemy paradox
semantics_pragmatic polysemy relevance_theoretic account investigates phenomenon polysemy single lexical form multiple related sens catch rabbit order rabbit lose lose relative man gift develop pragmatic_account polysemy within_framework sperber_wilson relevance_theory new sens word construct line comprehension mean single process hoc concept construction adjust meaning individual word different_direction polysemy largely unproblematic perspective communication pose range theoretical descriptive problem sometimes term polysemy paradox widely_hold view lexical_semantics word_meaning must consist complex representation order capture sense relation involve polysemy contrary view argue_conceptual treat word_meaning unstructured atom thereby avoids range problem_associate theory word_meaning may least able_account polysemy pair adequate pragmatic_theory propose solution polysemy paradox