The semantic advice that is associated with item next-door neighbor for the the newest lexicon will not, to phrase it differently, include a requirements away from sex; next-door neighbor is obscure (otherwise standard, otherwise unspecified) to what aspect off sex

Polysemy is the popular name to your disease where a beneficial lexical items enjoys several definition, like when later often means ‘following common, asked, otherwise consented time’ (I’m late again), ‘state-of-the-art from inside the day or night’ (a late dining), or ‘not any longer alive’ (my late sibling Polly). Terminologically talking, polysemy has to be contrasted which have homonymy and you will, moreover, vagueness. Whenever several (or more) terms have a similar profile, such lender (‘slope, elevation for the ocean otherwise river bed’) and you can bank (‘monetary institution’), he or she is homonyms; whereas polysemy means multiplicity out of definition inside one term, the new multiplicity is sent more than individuals terms and conditions in the example of homonymy. Therefore, and come up with a change ranging from polysemy and you can homonymy comes down to deciding if or not we have been dealing with one to therefore the same term or having two different ones. The fresh new difference in vagueness and polysemy requires the matter-of whether a certain piece of semantic data is the main root semantic construction of the goods or perhaps is the result of good contextual (and therefore pragmatic) specs. For-instance, neighbor is not polysemous within indication ‘male dweller next door’ and you can ‘female dweller across the street,’ in the sense that the utterance my personal neighbors try good municipal slave will not be recognized as requiring disambiguation on the way that this woman is smart you will (Do you really imply ‘bright’ or ‘stylish’?).

To choose anywhere between polysemy and you can vagueness, a great amount podpora lumen dating of evaluating shall be invoked. The three main of them may be the following. Earliest, out-of a fact-theoretical perspective, a lexical goods is polysemous whether it normally as well getting clearly true and demonstrably untrue of the same referent. Considering the indication ‘harbor’ and you may ‘strengthened nice wines of Portugal’ out of vent, the new polysemy of that items is created by sentences particularly Sandeman is actually an interface (for the a container), however a slot (having boats). So it criterion fundamentally grabs an effective semantic instinct: are a couple of perceptions off a given expression intuitively sufficiently different so that one can feel considered use and most other not?

Especially, he could be centered on acceptability judgments throughout the phrases containing two relevant situations of goods in question (among and therefore matical relationship anywhere between one another occurrences needs their semantic term, new resulting phrase are an indicator with the polysemy out of the thing

2nd, linguistic screening cover syntactic unlike semantic intuitions. For example, the fresh thus-entitled title try concerns ‘identity-of-feel anaphora.’ For this reason, at nighttime the fresh new ship passed the brand new vent, and thus performed the latest bartender was embarrassing in the event the several lexical meanings out of vent is at share. Overlooking puns, it does just indicate that the latest motorboat while the bartender similar introduced the fresh new harbor, or alternatively you to definitely both went a particular type of wine out-of that destination to another. A combined reading, where the earliest density regarding vent refers to the harbor in addition to next so you’re able to wine, is commonly excluded. By comparison, the reality that the notions ‘vintage nice wines off Portugal’ and you may ‘mixed nice drink of Portugal’ might be mutual within the Vintage Noval is an interface, and therefore is actually mixed Sandeman suggests that vent is actually unclear instead than just polysemous regarding this new difference in mixed and vintage wine.

3rd, the brand new definitional standards determine that something provides several lexical definition if there’s zero minimally specific definition since the expansion of your own items total, and that it does not have any far more lexical definitions than discover maximally general significance had a need to define the expansion. Significance of lexical factors will likely be maximally standard in the same manner which they would be to safety because the high a beneficial subset of extension regarding an item you could. For this reason, separate meanings having ‘blended nice fortified wines away from Portugal’ and you will ‘antique sweet fortified drink out of Portugal’ could not meet the requirements significance out of lexical definitions, because they can getting lead with her within the meaning ‘sweet fortified wine out of Portugal.’ Concurrently, definitions will likely be minimally specific in the sense that they should be adequate to distinguish the object from other nonsynonymous items. A maximally standard definition level both vent ‘harbor’ and you may vent ‘style of wine’ in definition ‘situation, entity’ was excluded whilst does not get this new specificity out-of port since the distinct from other terminology.