{"id":1297,"date":"2024-12-03T14:41:50","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T12:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/lei\/?page_id=1297"},"modified":"2025-06-26T14:45:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T12:45:03","slug":"6-7-word-senses","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/leiwp\/toc\/6-lexical-semantics\/6-7-word-senses\/","title":{"rendered":"6.7 Word senses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Loosely speaking, the following sentences are all ambiguous<\/strong> because they contain words that can be interpreted in different ways:<\/p>\n

\n
(1)<\/div>\n
Zoe lost her papers on the train.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
(2)<\/div>\n
Aylin took her savings to the bank.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
(3)<\/div>\n
Aylin’s cousin lives in Glasgow.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
(4)<\/div>\n
Zoe wanted to celebrate with an expensive drink.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When you read (1), you will presumably think of identification papers like a passport or visa, but if the speaker then said \u2026so she had to read the news on her phone instead<\/em>, you would realize that papers<\/em> refers to newspapers. When you read (2), you may think of a financial institution and expect that Aylin intends to deposit her savings, but if the speaker then continued \u2026 where she buried them under a tree near the water<\/em>, you would realize that bank<\/em> refers to the bank of a river. When you read (3), you may not notice an ambiguity, but if the speaker continued \u2026Aylin will visit him there next summer<\/em>, you will realize that the cousin is male, and if the speaker continued Aylin will visit her there next summer<\/em>, you will realize that the cousin is female. In (4), you may also not notice any ambiguity at first, but depending on whether the speaker continued \u2026she ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon<\/em> or \u2026a glass of craft beer<\/em>, you would interpret the word expensive<\/em> in two very different ways (a very expensive glass of craft beer might cost you 20 Euros, a very cheap bottle of Dom Perignon will cost you at least 250 Euros).<\/p>\n

If we interpret the notion of ambiguity a little more strictly, we might see a general difference between the first two sentences (which each have two completely different interpretations) on the one hand, and the last two sentences (which have different, but closely related interpretations) on the other: The words papers<\/em> and bank<\/em> each have two distinct senses, while cousin<\/em> and expensive<\/em> each only have one sense that can be interpreted in different ways depending on context. The word cousin<\/em> always means \u2018child of one\u2019s uncle and\/or aunt\u2019 \u2014 like the word child<\/em>, it can be applied to people of any sex (unlike other kinship terms like mother\/father<\/em>, brother\/sister<\/em> or aunt\/uncle<\/em>): it is indeterminate<\/strong> with respect to this semantic component. The word expensive<\/em> always means \u2018costing a lot of money\u2019 \u2014 what we consider \u2018a lot\u2019 depends on what the average amount is \u2014 20 Euros is a lot for a glass of beer, because the average price of a glass of beer is somewhere between 5 and 10 Euros. It is not a lot for a bottle of Champagne, whose average price is closer to 100 Euros, so we would call a 20 euro bottle of Champagne cheap<\/em>. In other words, the meaning of expensive<\/em> is vague<\/strong> until we apply it to a particular domain.<\/p>\n

Let us first look at the broad difference between ambiguity, indeterminacy and vagueness, and then return to look more closely at ambiguity.<\/p>\n

Distinguishing ambiguity from vagueness and indeterminacy<\/h2>\n

As we saw above, the English word papers<\/em> can refer to different things, which might be referred to by different words in other languages (e.g. Papiere<\/em> and Zeitungen<\/em> in German, papiers<\/em> and journeaux<\/em> in French, evraklar<\/em> and gazeteler<\/em> in Turkish, etc.). How do we figure out whether papers<\/em> has multiple senses (i.e. is ambiguous), or whether it has a single sense that is vague or indeterminate?<\/p>\n

There are some linguistic tests which can help us to make this decision.<\/p>\n

The most common test is based on the principle that distinct senses of an ambiguous word are antagonistic<\/strong>, which means that they cannot both apply simultaneously. It seems that Aylin lost her papers<\/em> can mean either<\/em> that she lost her passport and visa or<\/em> that she lost her newspapers. If we were to use it in both senses in a single sentence, the result would feel like a pun:<\/p>\n

\n
(5)<\/div>\n
??Zoe lost her papers (her passport and visa) and so did Aylin (H\u00fcrriyet and El Pa\u00eds).<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The odd nature of sentences like this provides evidence that two distinct senses are involved: If we construct parallel sentences with words like cousin<\/em> and expensive<\/em>, we do not get this effect \u2014 the sentences are perfectly normal:<\/p>\n

\n
(6)<\/div>\n
Mateo is Aylins cousin (her male cousin), and so is Lucia (her female cousin).<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
(7)<\/div>\n
The beer was expensive (for a beer), and so was the champagne (for champagne).<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This is true even though the different interpretations may require distinct words in other languages (e.g. Cousin<\/em> and Cousine<\/em> in German).<\/p>\n

A second test which is sometimes useful is the sense relations test: distinct senses will have different sets of synonyms, antonyms, etc. (see discussion of sense relations in the next section). For example, the word papers<\/em> in the first sense has the synonyms documentation<\/em>, passport<\/em>, ID<\/em>, etc., in the second sense, it has the synonyms newspaper<\/em>, daily<\/em>, gazette<\/em> etc. The word expensive<\/em>, in contrast, has the synonyms costly<\/em> and pricey<\/em> and the antonym cheap<\/em> whatever the context. This test does not always work, of course, as there are words that have no synonyms or antonyms (like cousin<\/em>).<\/p>\n

A third test for distinct senses is provided by the test of contradiction. If a sentence of the form X but not X<\/em> can be true, then expression X must be ambiguous. For example, we could say (with stress on both occurrences of the word papers<\/em>):<\/p>\n

\n
(8)<\/div>\n
Aylin lost her papers, so she has to read the news on her phone, but she did not lose her papers, so she will be able to cross the border.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In contrast, we cannot say:<\/p>\n

\n
(9)<\/div>\n
??The beer is expensive, but it is not expensive.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
(10)<\/div>\n
??Lucia is Aylin\u2019s cousin, but she is not her cousin.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This is an excellent test in principle, but in many cases, it will be difficult to find contexts in which such sentences sound truly natural, so it depends on the imagination of the researcher to a certain extent.<\/p>\n

Polysemy and homonymy<\/h2>\n

We distinguish two types of lexical ambiguity: polysemy<\/strong> (one word with multiple senses) vs. homonymy<\/strong> (different words that happen to sound the same). Both cases involve a word form with two different senses; the difference lies in the relationship between the senses.<\/p>\n

The basic criterion for making this distinction is that in cases of polysemy, the two senses are felt to be \u201crelated\u201d in some way \u2014 that fluent speakers can see why the two senses might be connected to the same form \u2014, while in cases of homonymy, the two senses are felt to be unrelated; that is, the semantic relationship between the two senses just as different as that between any two words selected at random.<\/p>\n

For the two senses of papers<\/em>, one can see a relation: both of them have referents that are (or used to be) printed on paper. Note that the fact that this is (or may soon be) no longer the case \u2014 newspapers are increasingly moving online and abandoning their printed editions, and the same is true for ID documents \u2014, means that such relations can get lost over time, so a polysemous word can change into a pair of homonymous words. For example, when the word sentence<\/em> was borrowed into English from Norman French in the 13th century, it had two related (sets of) meanings: first, \u2018opinion, view, interpretation\u2019, and second, \u2018authoritative pronouncement (by God, the church, a court etc,)\u2019. The two are related, because a pronouncement by an authority is based on the opinion of that authority. In fact, the word opinion<\/em> itself still has this polysemy, when we talk about judges at an US appellate court or the US supreme court presenting a dissenting opinion<\/em> on some judgment. Over time, the first meaning shifted from the content to the form in which the opinion was expressed, and finally to the modern sense \u20181. a sequence of words forming a grammatically complete expression\u2019 as in Use whole sentences, please<\/em>. The second meaning shifted from the pronouncement of a court\u2019s decision to the content of that decision \u2014 \u20182. the punishment assigned to a person found guilty\u2019, as in life sentence<\/em>, prison sentence<\/em>, death sentence<\/em>, etc. These two senses are no longer felt to be related, so we would treat the words sentence<\/em>1 and sentence<\/em>2 as homonyms.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to draw a clear boundary between these two types of ambiguity, and some authors reject the distinction entirely. However, many ambiguous words clearly belong to one type or the other, and the distinction is a useful one.<\/p>\n

Consider the following differences between clear cases of polysemy and clear cases of homonymy:<\/p>\n