1. Polysemy（识记） —polysemy is a common feature peculiar to all natural languages. When a words is first coined， it always monosemic， but tin the course of development ， the same word may have two or more different meanings.

　　e.g. The word “flight” may mean “passing through the air”， “power of flying”， “air of journey”， etc.

　　Two approaches（识记）

　　Diachronic approach – Diachronically， polysemy is assumed to be the result of growth and development of the semantic structure of one and same word. This first meaning is the primary meaning. With the advance of time and the development of language， it took on more and more meanings. These latter meanings are called derived meanings. E.g. face

　　The primary meaning gave birth to new meaning.

　　The primary meaning become either absolute or disappeared altogether

　　E.g. harvest time of cutting reaping and gathering the crops

　　a season’s yield of grain or fruit

　　Pain penalty or punishment pains and penalty

　　upon/under pain of suffering

　　Synchronic approach – synchronically， polysemy is viewed as the coexistent of various meaning of the same word in a certain historical period of time. The basic meaning of a word is the core of word meaning. The core of word meaning called the central meaning （secondary meaning）.

　　The central meaning has gradually dimished in currency with the changes and one of the derived meanings has become dominant. E.g. gay

　　Two process of development（领会）

　　Radiation – a semantic process which shows that the primary meaning stands at the center and each of the derived meanings proceed out of in every direction like rays.

　　The meanings are independent of one another， but can all be tracked back to the central meaning.

　　e.g. Neck

　　1） That part of a man or animal jointing the head to the body

　　2） That part of the garments

　　3） The neck of an animal used as food

　　4） A narrow part between the head and body or base of any object

　　5） The part of anything

　　Of the 5 meanings 1） is the primary and all the rest are derived but each of the other four is directly related to 1）. Therefore， we say neck has developed through the process of radiation.

　　Concatenation – meaning “linking together”， is the semantic process in which the meaning of a word moves gradually away from its first sense by successive shifts until， in many cases， there is not a sign of connection between the sense that is finally developed and that which the tern had at the begining.

　　e.g. candidate

　　1） White-robed

　　2） Office seeker in white gouns

　　3） A person who seeks an office

　　4） A person proposed for a place， award， etc.

　　Of the 4 meanings， 1） is the primary meaning and the other three are derived， but each of the derived meaning is only directly related to the preceding one and there is no direct connection between 1） and 4）. Therefore， we say candidate has developed through the process of concatenation.

　　Difference

　　Radiation is concatenation is closely related， being different stages of the development leading to polysemy.

　　Radiation， each of the derived meaning is directly connected to the primary meaning.

　　Concatenation， each of the later meaning is related only to the preceding one like chains. Though the latest sense can be tracked to the original， there’s no direct connection in between.

　　The two processes work together， complementing each other.

　　Radiation precedes concatenation.

　　2.Homonyms——are generally defined as words different in meaning but either identical both in sound and spelling or identical only in sound or spelling.

　　Perfect Homonyms——are words identical both in sound and spelling， but different in meaning.

　　e.g. bank/bank

　　bear/bear

　　date/date

　　Homographs——are words identical only in spelling but different in sound and meaning.

　　e.g. Bow/bow

　　Sow/sow 转贴于：自考_考试大

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