2010•Unpublished venueRequires access
Word Polysemy: A Cognitive Perspective
Huifeng Li
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Abstract
Word polysemy is a pervasive phenomenon in all languages. The phenomenon of word polysemy reveals the economy of human language. What are the principles that relate the meanings of polysemous word? How can people understand word polysemy? This paper aims at the investigation of the mechanism of polysemy, so as to build up a new system for the network of meanings based on category prototype, metonymy and metaphor and try to explain how the same word acquires different senses, which in turn can provide an efficient way of English word study and English teaching.