Part of
Figurative Language – Intersubjectivity and UsageEdited by Augusto Soares da Silva
[Figurative Thought and Language 11] 2021
► pp. 287–306
Edited by Augusto Soares da Silva
[Figurative Thought and Language 11] 2021
► pp. 287–306
Metaphor, metonymy and polysemy
A historical perspective
Polysemy is a basic principle of the lexis of English, but the full range of senses of a lexeme and the ways in which these interact are not often considered in accounts of metaphor and metonymy. This paper presents a case study of the lexeme dull, which develops multiple meanings that do not appear to represent the kind of straightforward concrete > abstract metaphorical mapping that might be assumed. Rather, the complex semantic history of the word reveals gradual shifts in meaning involving metonymy, and change motivated by analogy. I argue that ignoring word histories risks synchronic ‘misreading’ of the relationship between their senses (Geeraerts, 2015), and that polysemy should be acknowledged more prominently in standard accounts.
Keywords: historical semantics, lexical semantics, metaphor, metonymy, polysemy, semantic change, analogy, lexical gaps, antonymy
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The semantic history of dull
- 3.The emergence of the sense ‘not bright’
- 4.Motivation for the meaning ‘not sharp’
- 5.Conclusion
-
Notes -
References -
Appendix
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Cited by
Cited by 2 other publications
[no author supplied]
2022. Future Directions. In Lexical Sociolinguistics, ► pp. 181 ff. 
[no author supplied]
2022. The Sociolinguistics of Polysemy. In Lexical Sociolinguistics, ► pp. 47 ff.
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