Sense and Relations (2)

Sense and Relations (2)
Muchamad Adam Basori, M.A TESOL
19 November 2011
Introduction
In the case of ambiguous words, a distinction is sometimes made between polysemy and homonymy. This distinction has basically to do with the closeness, or relatedness, of the senses of the ambiguous words.
Definition
A case of HOMONYMY is one of an ambiguous word whose different senses are far apart from each other and not obviously related to each other in any way with respect to a native speaker’s intuition. Cases of homonymy seem very definitely to be matters of mere accident or coincidence.
Example
Mug (drinking vessel vs gullible person/an easily deceived person) would be a clear case of homonymy.
Bank (financial institution vs the side of a river or stream) is another clear case of homonymy.
A word that has the same pronunciation as another is homonym. Homonyms differ from each other in:

1. Meaning
2. Origin
3. Spelling

Homonyms in English differ from their sense:
Words the same pronunciation but different in meaning: boar (babi hutan) and bore (membosankan)
Homographs (words with the same spelling but different in meaning): bisa (racun) and bisa (mampu); bow (the front part of ship), bow (to bend), bow (a decorative knot)
Homograph
Can
She can(1) can(2) a can into a bigger can than a previous one.
(1) as modal verb
(2) as verb=mengalengkan/mengemas
A homophone is a group of two or more letters representing the same speech sound, or homonym (sense 1).
E.g. Letters with the same speech sound:

1. C in City
2. S in Song
3. Homonyms: two and too; hear and here; for and four; there and their;

(Sholatnya dilanggar and Sholatnya di langgar)
Definition
A case of POLYSEMY is one where a word has several very closely related senses. In other words, a native speaker of the language has clear intuitions that the different senses are related to each other in some way.
Example
Mouth (of a river vs of an animal) is a case of polysemy.
The two senses are clearly related by the concepts of an opening from the interior of some solid mass to the outside, and of a place of issue at the end of some long narrow channel.
Example 2
Run is another more complicated case of polysemy in which the word has more than one related sense. Note that in this case we have an example of polysemy with a verb (at least in most of its senses).
So polysemy is not restricted to just one part of speech.
Comments
The multiple senses of run are related to each other in a somewhat more abstract way than in the case of the senses of mouth. Some uses of run which bring out a few of its complex interrelated senses include: run a race (on foot), run for office, this road runs from east to west, the motor is running, the water is running down the roof, run a computer program, a run in a stocking, etc.
Polysemy
Membawa
è menjinjing
è menyampaikan (pesan)
è mengemban
è menggendong
è memikul
Contoh Salah Penggunaan Polisemi
Maaf (bila ada kesalahan yang tidak direncanakan)
“Maaf Pak, hari ini saya tidak hadir dalam matakuliah karena sakit.”