Polysemy

The semantic structure of the word does not present an indissoluble unity, nor does it necessarily stand for one concept. Most words convey several concepts and possess several meanings, e.g. the word blanket has the following meanings: 1) a woolen covering used on beds (‘шерстяное одеяло’), 2) a covering for keeping a horse warm (‘попона’), 3) a covering of any kind (a blanket of snow, a blanket of gloom (‘покров’)).

A word having several meanings is called polysemantic. A number of meanings a word expresses are known as lexical-semantic variants. The ability of words to have several meanings is called polysemy. Polysemy is singleness of form and multiplicity of content.

Problems in dictionary making.

The main problems of dictionary compiling It divided into two problem: that of the number of the words, and that of the list of words to be included in a dictionary. As for the number of words there exist dictionaries of different volumes, EG: there are pocket dictionaries with 25 or less thousand words. Among the largest dictionaries there is Webster’s dictionary, it include about 600000 words.

The volume of the dictionary and the list of the words depend on the type of dictionary and its aim. Hornsby’s dictionary student includes about 100000 words, among which there are no words used by Shakespeare.

On the contrary the OED does include such words, used by W. Shak. for specialist. The problem of the choice of words is connected with the problem of the norm of the language it may be included into a dictionary.

Problems in lexicography

1 selection of head words - selection of the items included in the dic?tionary is done according to the typeand size (general, pocket dictionary).

2 arrangement of lexical entries — the way the items are arranged, e.g. each other, where these two words should be listed under e or o.or they should be separated, e.g. department store under d or s. whatever op?tion is implied there has to be used only one principle.

3 problem of homonymy and polysemy, e.g. pupil and pupil ' - whether they have different entries in the dictionary;

4 whether to list all the compounds of a word, all the derivatives possi?ble; whether to list the obsolete words, the archaic words or slang words.

Definition of meaning - there are two types of dictionaries:

a. linguistic type - the interpretation is given in metalinguistic way; use of language is to describe language (sense);

b. encyclopedic type - using geographical and historical data to define the words - (reference).

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