On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 7:00 PM, John Leake <[email protected]> wrote: > > Karl, why do you keep repeating that multiple meanings to a word are > uncommon. It doesn't become truer in the repetition. In fact, common verbs > (nouns are more likely to have stable meanings) regularly exhibit polysemy, > multiple meanings, in modern languages. In fact it's hard to think of common > verbs that don't. Look at your monoglot English dictionary. How many common > verbs have a single entry, a single lexical meaning in terms of their own > language? Few. Now, if you were to say 'in a given context words generally > have a single meaning' I might well agree with you. Words with contradictory > meanings - the Biblical 'let', for example, or a word I used a lot when > young, 'billion' (which could mean either 'million million' or 'milliard'), > soon settle for one meaning or other in a given context (so 'without let or > hinder' is as unambiguous as 'I let you eat' or, indeed, 'to let blood'). > Similarly 'billion' now almost exclusively means 'milliard' and the latter > word is forgotten. Incidentally the same goes for etymologically different > words that coincide through phonological change (words like 'let', indeed). > > Now, there is still ambiguity even in context - in far more than 0.1% of > the lexis - and we depend on it somewhat for irony, but once you take > context into account your statement is much closer to the truth than the > converse. <clipped> > > John Leake >
Hi John, One of the problem I face is about the meaning of 'meaning'. When there are multitudes listed under a word in a lexicon/dictionary, are they all what we call 'meaning'? Lot's of them I see as not 'meaning' as such, but a certain usage. Someone argued one time on a different list that 'evening' (also) means 'afternoon' or 'late afternoon', I don't recall clearly. Lo, there is a such in any decent English dictionary. But, looking carefully, it is a Southern dialect. It's usage; hardly a meaning of a word. Oun Kwon _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
