1. "meaning" is a devilish thing, made so by the spread of analogies,
shifts, figurativeness, affinities, implications, imageries,
parallelisms, resemblances, etc..
2. As soon as one speaks about lexemes, one speaks about words,
possibly of kindred meaning, but sufficiently different to deserve
separate entries in the dictionary. To take an example from Hebrew:
related to the act נשך NA$AK, 'bit', we have the "lexeme"
נשיכה N$IYKAH, 'bite', (related to N$IYQAH, 'kiss', and more),
and also the NE$EK 'usury', of Lev. 25: 35-37
וכי ימוך אחיך ומטה ידו עמך והחזקת בו
גר ותושב וחי עמך אל-תקח מאתו נשך
ותרבית ויראת מאלהיך וחי אחיך עמך את
כספך לא תתן לו בנשך ובמרבית לא תתן אכלך
"And if thy brother be waxed poor, and his hand fail with thee; then
thou shalt uphold him: as a stranger and a sojourner shall he live
with thee. Take thou no interest of him or increase, but fear thy
God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy
money upon interest, nor give him thy victuals for increase."
So what is this NE$EK, referred to money, and translated as
"interest"? I think it is an initial bite subtracted from a monetary
loan. And what is this MA-RB-IYT (of the root RB, 'many, much'),
referred to food? I think it is a loan of seed, expected to be
returned, at harvest time, with a, possibly hefty, gain.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
On May 4, 2013, at 7:37 PM, Ruth Mathys wrote:
I've seen it claimed here repeatedly that a single lexeme
necessarily has a
single meaning in all the contexts it is used in. I think that is
nonsense.
I won't attempt to prove it from Hebrew, but it is easy to
demonstrate from
English.
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