Lecture 5 Ambiguity John Lyons - Linguistic Semantics_ An Introduction (1996, Cambridge University Press)

Words and Their Meanings

Words must be understood as meaningful units to prevent confusion associated with "plain English".
Detailed examination of word-meaning is necessary, along with different formulations for various linguistic theories.
The author adopts a traditional view of languages based on widely accepted dictionaries and grammar taught in schools.
This traditional view is seen as an established standard that accommodates other grammatical systems.
Students can engage in translating between these systems as a learning exercise.

Homonymy: Traditionally viewed as words with the same form but different meanings.
- Needs refinement: use 'lexeme' instead of 'word'.
- Fails to address that many lexemes have multiple forms and lack grammatical equivalence.
Polysemy: A property of single lexemes that have multiple meanings.

Satisfies three conditions:
1. Unrelated meanings.
2. All forms are identical.
3. Forms are grammatically equivalent.
Example: 'bank1' (financial institution) and 'bank2' (river side).

Cases with identity in forms, but may not fulfill all three absolute homonymy conditions.
Example: 'find' (to discover) and 'found' (to establish).
- They are both transitive forms but exhibit differing grammatical relations.
While partial homonyms may share form, they often do not produce ambiguity if in distinct grammatical environments.

Example sentence: "They found hospitals and charitable institutions" can be interpreted in two ways due to shared forms.
The ambiguity can vary depending on grammatical context and whether forms are treated as past tense or past participle.
Inserting 'have' or changing the subject can eliminate ambiguity.

Lexical ambiguity arises from differing lexical meanings and the grammatical ambiguity from their grammatical relations.
Grammatical equivalence can influence whether homonymy leads to ambiguity.

Recognition of partial homonymy often disregards citation-forms or underlying base-forms.
Example: The noun 'rung' (ladder) vs. the verb 'ring' (sound a bell).
Examples show that not all forms are identical or easily categorized as either homonymy or polysemy.

The difference lies in etymology and relatedness of meaning.
Historical sources of words often help inform native speakers' understanding of these distinctions (e.g., "bat" as a mammal vs. "bat" as a sporting implement).
Both homonyms and polysemous meanings can change and evolve, complicating distinctions.
Usage of metaphorical extensions also plays a role in this differentiation.

Defined as expressions with identical meaning.
This definition allows for both lexically simple and complex expressions to be synonymous.
Absolute Synonymy: Complete identity in meaning without condition.
Near-Synonyms: Similar but not identical meanings; examples include 'mist' vs. 'fog' and 'stream' vs. 'brook'.
The understanding of synonymy must consider identity of meaning as distinct from mere similarity.