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proposed by Pustejovsky, namely countmass alterations, containercontainee alterations, figureground reversals, productproducer alteration, plantfood
alterations, processresult alteration, and placepeople alteration. For example, in plantfood alterations, the word apple can refer to the fruit and the tree of the fruit
as shown in the sentences: James ate an apple for lunch and James watered the apples in the garden. Complementary polysemy is what nowadays referred to
polysemy. Falkum 2011 proposes two traditional approaches for polysemy in his
research. The first approach “tend to regard polysemy as a matter of different
senses being listed und er a single lexical entry,…” p. 9. The second approach
regards a polysemy as a word that has a representation of a maximally general meaning or core meaning. The first approach is the theory which is developed by
Pustejovsky 1996 named Sense Enumeration Lexicon SEL. The main idea of this theory is the multiple related meanings of a single word complementary
polysemy are listed in a single lexical entry in the dictionary or lexicon. Thus, SEL also indicates the presence of homonyms contrastive polysemy are listed in
different lexical entries.
d. Levels of Polysemy
Nerlich, Todd, and Clarke 2003, p. 341 propose the levels of polysemy in their research on the polysemous word get a verb. There are three levels of
polysemy: 1
A primary level of polysemy, based on a large extent on sense extensions including metaphor and metonymy which follow the path of the
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prototypical frame or scene in which the word is embedded, for example the word get
can mean ‘obtain’, ‘receive’, ‘fetch’, and ‘reach’. 2
A secondary level of polysemy, where certain semantic conglomerates have formed, such as phrasal verbs and idioms; for example get in
phrasal verb which means ‘arrive’ as in I got in the airport before you and get wind of
idiom which means ‘to become aware of’ as in You have to get wind of your health.
3 A tertiary level of polysemy, where phrasal verbs derived from a certain
verb have themselves become polysemous and the meanings are derived based on metaphorical and metonymical extensions. In this example,
phrasal verbs derived from the verb get have themselves become polysemous as in I get into trouble
, meaning ‘have trouble’, which is derived from get into
, meaning ‘enter’, in secondary level of polysemy as in I got into the house.
The primary level will be a simple lexeme, the secondary level will be complex lexemes phrasal verbs and idioms, and the tertiary level will be the
phrasal verbs which are derived from phrasal verbs in secondary level of polysemy. Riemer 2011 defines a phrasal verb as a single semantic unit which
“consists of one or sometimes two ‘full’ verbs followed by one or more particles” p. 54 and idioms as “non-compositional phrases” p. 56 where the overall
meaning cannot be obtained from the combination of meanings of the individual parts.
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Metaphorical and metonymical extensions are the keys to distinguishing phrasal verbs in secondary level from phrasal verbs in tertiary level of polysemy.
Metaphor and metonymy are varieties of figurative non-literal use of language. Metaphor is “figurative usage based on resemblance” Cruse, 2000, p. 112 or
analogy as in The reporter always tried to fish information in every chance. The verb fish is commonly used to describe a physical action to attempt to catch fish.
In metaphorical extension, the verb fish is used in a different context, in this case fish describes an attempt to get information.
Metonymy is “figurative use based on association” Cruse, 2000, p. 112, as in Did you meet the blue eyes yesterday?
Blue eyes in the sentence do not literally refer to the eyes part of face but a person who has blue eyes. Phrasal verbs which are included in secondary level of
polysemy have literal meanings while phrasal verbs which are included in tertiary level of polysemy have non-literal meanings based on metaphorical or
metonymical extensions.
4. Semantic Roles
