Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education

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UNDERSTANDING POLYSEMY PHENOMENON:

THE MEANINGS OF THE WORD TAKE

IN C.

S. LEWIS’

THE LAST BATTLE

A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

By

Bonaventura Dedy Wiliartha Student Number: 091214146

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ART EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

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i

UNDERSTANDING POLYSEMY PHENOMENON:

THE MEANINGS OF THE WORD TAKE

IN C.

S. LEWIS’

THE LAST BATTLE

A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

By

Bonaventura Dedy Wiliartha Student Number: 091214146

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ART EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

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vi

ABSTRACT

Wiliartha, Bonaventura Dedy. (2013). Understanding Polysemy Phenomenon: The Meanings of the Word Take in C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University.

People need to know the correct words to use when they want to convey messages in their communication with others. In selecting the correct words to use, people have to know the meaning of each word. However, it can be difficult to determine the meanings of words that have multiple meanings. Polysemy is one phenomenon of meaning multiplicity. Polysemy is one word that has several meanings in which the meanings are considered to be related to one another

(O’Grady & Archibald, 2010). Many words in English are polysemous. Accordingly, this research was conducted to investigate polysemous words in order to give an example of extending the meanings of polysemous words.

There were three objectives in this research. The first was dealing with figuring out the meanings of the word take based on the contexts in the novel. The second concerned with the categorization of the meanings of the word take to draw the relations between the meanings. The third was related to the comparison of the meanings from the finding with the meanings in the dictionary.

The research method employed in this research was content analysis. This research focused on the word take in the context of a novel by C. S. Lewis entitled The Last Battle. The word take was selected since it was a productive polysemy. The novel was chosen because it was a quiet famous literary work and frequently used in research. The researcher used the theory of semantic roles in the analysis of the relations between the meanings of the word take.

The findings showed that word take occurred 70 times in 69 sentences or contexts in the novel. It was possible that there would be 70 meanings of the word take. However, some meanings were similar. This first finding led to the categorization of the meanings. There were twelve groups resulted in the categorization process. Semantic roles were applied to those twelve groups of category to draw the relations between the meanings. The meaning of the word take as ‘to grab and hold’ determined as the central meaning in the meaning relations. From the central meaning, three major relations were drawn. The first was to grab and hold with an additional feature of possession. The second involved movements and the third denoted the process of obtaining. The comparison of the meanings from the finding with the meanings in the dictionary resulted that all the meanings could be found in the dictionary. It indicated that dictionaries, especially the unabridged version, could help language learners in dealing with polysemous words.

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vii ABSTRAK

Wiliartha, Bonaventura Dedy. (2013). Understanding Polysemy Phenomenon: The Meanings of the Word Take in C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle. Yogyakarta: Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Seseorang perlu mengetahui kata yang tepat untuk digunakan ketika menyampaikan pesan dalam berkomunikasi. Pemilihan kata yang tepat dapat dilakukan apabila arti setiap kata yang digunakan sudah diketahui. Akan tetapi, pengartian kata yang memiliki arti jamak dapat menimbulkan kesulitan tersendiri. Polysemy adalah salah satu fenomena kata yang memiliki arti jamak di mana arti-arti tersebut saling berkaitan satu sama lain (O’Grady & Archibald,2010).. Banyak kata dalam Bahasa Inggris adalah polysemy. Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk mengobservasi kata polysemy sebagai contoh penentuan arti dari kata yang merupakan polysemy.

Ada tiga tujuan dalam penelitian ini. Tujuan pertama berkaitan dengan arti dari kata take berdasarkan konteks dalam novel. Tujuan kedua berkaitan dengan pengelompokan arti kata take untuk melihat hubungan di antara arti-arti tersebut. Tujuan yang terakhir berkaitan dengan perbandingan antara arti kata dari hasil analisis dengan arti dalam kamus.

Metode penelitian yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah analisis dokumen. Penelitian ini berfokus pada kata take dalam konteks novel karya C. S. Lewis yang berjudul The Last Battle. Kata take dipilih karena kata tersebut merupakan kata polysemy yang produktif. Novel karya C. S. Lewis dipilih karena novel ini cukup terkenal sebagai karya sastra dan sering digunakan dalam penelitian. Peneliti menggunakan teori semantic roles untuk menemukan relasi antara arti kata take dengan satu sama lain.

Hasil dari penelitian menunjukkan adanya 70 kata take dalam 69 kalimat atau konteks di dalam novel. Sangat dimungkinkan bahwa akan terdapat 70 arti kata take. Akan tetapi, beberapa kata take memiliki arti yang sama. Hal ini memungkinkan untuk dilakukannya proses pengelompokan arti kata take ke dalam kategori-kategori. Ada dua belas kategori yang dihasilkan dari proses pengelompokan arti. Dari kedua belas kategori tersebut, peneliti menerapkan semantic roles untuk mengetahui relasi antar arti kata take. Arti kata take sebagai ‘mengambil’ dijadikan sebagai arti utama. Dari arti utama tersebut dapat ditarik tiga relasi arti utama. Arti yang pertama adalah mengambil dengan tambahan ciri kepemilikan. Arti kedua adalah tindakan yang melibatkan pergerakan. Arti yang ketiga adalah mendapatkan. Perbandingan arti dari hasil analisis dengan arti dari kamus menunjukkan bahwa semua kata dari hasil analisis dapat ditemukan di dalam kamus. Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa kamus, terutama yang komprehensif, dapat membantu mereka yang belajar bahasa dalam menemukan arti kata yang merupakan polysemy.

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AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank God, my Lord Jesus Christ, for His blessing and

guidance, especially during my process in writing this thesis. I thank Him for

giving me a tough heart and perseverance so that I could accomplish my work on

this thesis.

I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Retno Muljani, M.Pd., for spending her precious time to guide me in writing this thesis. I thank her, especially for her guidance, support, insight, suggestions, and

patience in the process of writing this thesis.

I would like to thank Drs. Barli Bram, M.Ed., Ph.D., and Laurentia Sumarni, S.Pd., M. Trans. St., for their help and support, especially in finding sources for my thesis and spending some evenings listening to my sharing. I

would also like to thank all lecturers of the English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University, especially my academic advisor, Christina Kristiyani, S.Pd., M.Pd., for the countless knowledge and guidance they gave me during the teaching and learning process until the end of my study. I would like to

thank PBI secretariat staff, LB secretariat staff, and library staff for their help and support during my study, and especially during the process of finishing this

thesis.

I would like to thank my father, mother, brother, and sister for all their prayers, support, understanding, and encouragement to me all this time. I would

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data, and give suggestions. My sincere thanks are also expressed to all my friends

in ELSP batch 2009, SPACE comrades (SUMMIMASEN!!!), and especially some good friends who always accompany me during my good and hard time.

Finally, I thank everyone, whose names cannot be mentioned one by one, for their

help, support, and encouragement.

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Appendix A The List of Data with Coding Name “Context” ... 87 Appendix B The List of the Word Take based on the Levels of Polysemy ... 92 Appendix C The Meanings of the Word Take in C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle .... 98 Appendix D The List of Categories of the Word Take ... 101 Appendix E The Comparison of the Meanings of the Word Take

with Dictionary Definitions ... 104 Appendix F The Occurrences of the Word Take in the Novel ... 107 Appendix G The Occurrences of the Word Take based on the Meaning

Categories ... 108 Appendix H Peer Debriefing for the Meanings of the Word Take

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1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides the background information and rationale of the

research. Therefore, it is subdivided into six parts, namely the research

background, research problems, problem limitation, research objectives, research

benefits, and definition of terms.

A. Research Background

When people learn a language, they have to deal with vocabulary in the

first place. Mastering grammar of a language or having good pronunciation will

be insufficient for good daily communication without mastering vocabulary items

used in the language. People will not be able to convey a message to others

properly if they do not know the appropriate words to use. It is more than likely

that people can still survive in communication if they have mastered vocabulary

because they can use the correct words to deliver their messages.

Knowing the appropriate words to use in communication can be attained if

people know the meanings of those words. Unfortunately, there are various rules

or ways to derive the meanings of certain words that put possibilities for those

words to have several meanings. A word can have many different meanings

depending on the relations among the words and the contexts in the sentences. It

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word or a sentence. Kempson (1989) calls it as a non-clear-cut phenomenon

“when both words and sentences can have more than one meanings; and what set

of rules that states which words or sentences have more than one meanings” (p.

123). People can think about a different meaning of a word when they face a word

used in a certain sentence. They can have a different interpretation based on what

is captured in the mind (contexts, knowledge, and backgrounds) when reading or

hearing a sentence. This can be a problem for language learners if they do not

know the rules and do not have the tool (dictionaries or thesaurus) to help them to

interpret the intended meanings.

The association between words and the meanings they address can be

complex. Lyon (1995) notes the fact that as meaningful units, not only words but

also phrases have the relations where one form can extend several meanings and

the same meaning can be extended by several word-forms. The meaning that can

be defined by several words is commonly called as synonymy and the word that

can define several meanings termed as polysemy. There is also a case where two

or more different words share the same form but their meanings are unrelated;

those words known as homonymy.

Synonymy might not trigger many difficulties for language learners

because it deals with several different words that have the same meaning. There

will be no much confusion because there is only one meaning to deal with. On the

other hand, polysemy and homonymy can raise problems for language learners

because there are several meanings to define from the same word (polysemy) or

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complicated because there should be relations between the multiple meanings of

polysemous words. The meanings of polysemous words are not only related but

distinguishable (Davis & Elder, 2004), that implies although the meanings are

related, yet they are different from each other. For example, the word bright can

have meanings as ‘full of light’ and ‘intelligent’. Both meanings are related to

each other because they have the same property as to shine strongly. However,

they are distinguishable because they have different contexts of usage. The former

refers to light, as in sun or lamps, and the latter refers to a brain ability. Therefore,

interpreting the meanings of polysemous words can be a problem because the

meanings can be widely varied and it will be hard to memorize the exact

meanings. Possibly, people can look the meaning up in the dictionaries or other

sources. However, in certain cases, language learners, especially second language

learners may not be able to match the dictionary definition with the intended

meaning in the context they face.

Naturally, a polysemous word has one central meaning among several

other derived meanings. The other meanings or interpretations usually are still in

the range of sense of the central meaning. The other meanings are related to the

central meaning. The difficulty to interpret polysemous words depends on the

range width of the senses or relations with the central meaning. However,

determining one central meaning of a polysemous word can be unmanageable

because it can happen that it is slightly possible to find a central meaning since the

meanings are excessively varied. This is the case in which finding the relatedness

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words becomes more challenging because many, in fact most words, are

polysemous (Radford, Atkinson, Britain, Clahsen, & Spencer, 1999; Nerlich &

Clarke, 2003; Goddard, 2011). Therefore, the problem of polysemy is interesting

to be observed in order to understand how to minimize the confusion in the

interpretation of polysemous words.

This thesis will figure out the meanings of polysemous word take. The word take is chosen because it is a productive and polysemous word (Davies &

Elder, 2004), which means it has a great number of meanings. The focus is on the

word take that occurs in C.S. Lewis’ book, The Last Battle. The book is a novel

in the series called The Chronicles of Narnia which is quiet famous as a literary work. Besides, the series were also frequently used for research by other

researchers.

Based on the findings of this research, it is expected that language learners

can interpret the meanings of polysemous words properly by categorizing the

meanings based on the relatedness of the meanings. Furthermore, this research

tries to figure out the relations among the meanings of a polysemous word by

applying semantic roles in the sentences. This research also makes a comparison

of the meanings from the finding with the meanings in the Oxford English Dictionary. This research can help language learners to have better understanding

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B. Research Problems

The researcher formulated the research problems of this study as follows:

1. What are the meanings of the word take in C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle?

2. How are the various meanings of the word take related to one another?

3. How are the meanings of the word take compared with the meanings

in the dictionary?

C. Problem Limitation

Almost any words, as mentioned previously in the research background

part, are polysemous. When looking words up in the dictionaries, people will find

a list of meanings below the intended words. In this research, the writer focuses

on the word take which belongs to part of speech verb. The data of the word take are taken from a novel by C.S. Lewis entitled The Last Battle. The research will

figure out the multiple meanings of the word take in the context of the novel. The word take is selected because it is polysemous and considered as a productive polysemy by some researchers (Norvig & Lakoff, 1987; Nerlich, Todd,

& Clarke, 2003; Davies & Elder, 2004). The word take is a basic, core word with a great number of meanings (Carter, 1998). Other interesting things about the

word take are mentioned by Norvig and Lakoff (1987) in their research, “it can express a basic action, because it is so common…, because it is both a verb of

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and because it occurs in a great many idioms” (p. 198). Accordingly, the word

take will be a good example of polysemous words to be observed.

In the next phase, the meanings of the word take will be compared with the meanings in the dictionary. The dictionary used for the comparison is the English

Oxford Dictionary (OED). According to Lipka (1992), the OED is “the most comprehensive and impressive work of English lexicography” (p. 27). The special

feature of the OED is it records every word in English language and gives

historical information of each sense of the words. The recording includes the

spellings, uses, and meanings. In this research, the unabridged dictionary, such as

the OED, is used to preserve the validity of the content. The OED employed in this research is the online version because of the limitation of the researcher to get

the printed version. However, the online version is a fully paid-up online

dictionary. It means the contents of the dictionary are arranged by an official

organization, that is Oxford, and cannot be changed or updated by random people.

D. Research Objectives

Based on the questions in the research problems, the writer set the

objectives of the research as follows:

1. To figure out the meanings of the word take in C.S. Lewis’ The Last

Battle as the example of polysemous word interpretations.

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multiple related meanings and to facilitate the interpretation of the

meanings.

3. To know how the meanings of the word take from the finding are listed in the dictionary.

E. Research Benefits

Language learners need to master vocabulary in order to succeed in

learning a language. Some words can be memorized easily; some words can be

problematic to memorize because the words have multiple meanings. Interpreting

polysemous words can be difficult for language learners. The meanings can be

found in the dictionaries but some might not be found in the dictionaries and need

to be interpreted merely based on the context.

This research can be the example of how to interpret polysemous words in

a certain context. It can help the readers to have better understanding of

polysemous words. The meanings from the finding will be compared with the

meanings in the dictionary to help the learners to perceive the interpretation.

Another benefit can be proposed for language teaching. In teaching a

language, in this case is English, one of important subjects to comprehend is

vocabulary. Polysemy is one phenomenon that obviously will be encountered by

the learners and teachers in the process of teaching and learning English.

Moreover, this research employs the word take as the data. The word take is included in the most frequently or commonly words and verbs used in English.

According to Norvig and Lakoff (1987) during their time of research, the word

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Corpus, the word take is included in the list of the 100 commonest English words used. In the content word categories, take is in the ninth position of the 25

commonest verbs in English. Those facts indicate that the word take will be encountered often in language teaching and learning. The findings of this research

can be an example of how to define the meanings of polysemous words that can

be used in teaching and learning process.

F. Definition of Terms

This part provides the definition of terms related to the research. The

definition of terms are words or phrases used in the research in order to clarify the

research concepts and avoid misinterpretation.

1. Polysemy

Napoli (1996); Akmaijan, Demers, Farmer, and Harnish (2001); and

O’Grady and Archibald, (2010) define polysemy as a word which has the property

of having more than one related meanings. The multiple meanings or senses from

polysemous words are related to the central meaning of the words. In this study,

polysemy is the phenomenon where a word has multiple meanings.

A word like mouth is polysemous because there are several meanings that

can be derived from it, for example as ‘a part of face’ (Jenna opens her mouth widely) and ‘an entrance to a place’ (You can wait in the mouth of the cave). Both

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2. Homonymy

Homonymy is another case of meanings multiplicity that traditionally

occurs as the contrast to polysemy. While polysemy is a word with several related

meanings, homonymy is two or more words sharing the same form but having

different meanings. The same form of the words means having the same sound

and spelling but the meanings of homonyms are unrelated (Jeffries, 1998).

The word port is homonym that can have meanings as ‘a place where

ships load and unload things’(The ship just left the port for the next sailing) and ‘a kind of wine’ (He drank too much port last night). The word port in both

sentences is pronounced and spelled the same, yet their meanings are unrelated.

3. Lexical Semantics

Knowing the relations between words and meanings is necessary to

understand polysemy. Those relations are studied in lexical semantics. Baldwin

(2003) defines lexical semantics as “the study of what individual lexical items

mean, why they mean, what they do, how we can represent all of this, and where

the combined interpretation for an utterance comes from” (p. 2). Thus, each

lexical item has its own meaning. The relation between lexical item and its

meaning is lexical semantics.

Cruse (2006) defines lexical semantics as the study of the meaning of

content words. Content words are the words that have already had their own

meanings for example dog, rose, and run. In other words, content words can stand alone and convey their meanings without any additional items. The opposite of

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constructions for example the, of, and by. Form or grammatical words must be combined with content words in order to have a meaning.

4. Dictionary-Style Definition

A dictionary provides lists of a large number of words and their meanings.

In defining the words, there are many ways can be used. Dictionary-style

definition is a way to define a word by giving a paraphrase to explain the meaning

of the words. If there are several meanings of a word, the dictionary will give the

definitions by listing the meanings one after another. The arrangement of the

meanings is different in every dictionary. One key in using the dictionary-style

definition is the user should know the other words used to define the chosen word

(Bergmann, Hall, & Ross, 2010).

Nida (1975) adds that dictionaries provide a quick access to find the

meanings of words or terms related to the words being looked up. Dictionaries

record many meanings of a lot of words listed. However, sometimes people

cannot find certain meanings of words because the context is different from the

situation referred in the dictionary. It is the reason that dictionaries cannot always

give the relevant definitions. The list of meanings of polysemous words (and also

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11 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents the review of theoretical writings and research

related to the study matter. The purpose of this chapter is to give basic principles

for the study. This chapter consists of two major points, namely the theoretical

description and theoretical framework. The theoretical description presents the

discussions of theories relevant to the study. The theoretical framework presents

the summary of the theories related to the study.

A. Theoretical Description

This part gives detailed discussions on the theories related to the study.

The theories elaborated in this part are semantics, homonymy, polysemy, semantic

roles, and dictionary definition.

1. Semantics: The Study of Meaning

Semantics is one of the studies in Linguistics field. Semantics is generally

defined as the study of meaning (Lyons, 1995). Semantics studies the meaning of

a language. People build communication with one another using a language as a

means to convey what they want other people to know and vice versa. In using a

language to communicate, people have words as the object to speak to others. In

order to make people know and understand what information is intended to

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something that serves that function. This something is called as a meaning.

Semantics focuses on the meaning of a single word as well as the meaning of

phrases and sentences (Bergmann, Hall, & Ross, 2010).

Riemer (2010) states that semantics is a wide subject. It can answer some

questions related to the meanings or definitions of a word, the relations between

meanings, the difference between literal and non-literal meanings, the

combinations of words to create the meaning of a sentence, the relations between

concept of language in the mind and the things in the world it refers to, the

connection between the meaning and the contexts in which it is used, the

interaction between the meaning and linguistics principles, the meaning

expression, and the change of the meanings.

Meanings can be varied. It is the reason why interpreting meanings can be

complicated. Through the study of semantics, the facts that an individual word can

have many meanings and one meaning is possible to be defined by many words

are discussed. The study of meaning can be complicated “that even a single

meaning of a term may include an enormous range of referents…” (Nida, 1975, p.

13). When words are put in phrases and sentences, they will create new meanings.

When the phrases and sentences are combined to other phrases and sentences, the

meanings become more complex. Nida (1975) views this phenomenon that,

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Polysemy is one of those complex phenomena in the study of meanings.

Polysemous words can have several meanings and it is rather complicated to

know each meaning only by holding onto one possible meaning.

An individual word has a meaning and words in phrases and sentences

have meanings as well. Therefore, the major division of semantics is between the

study of the meanings of words, namely lexical semantics, and the study of word

meanings to determine the meaning of phrases and sentences, namely

compositional semantics.

a. Lexical Semantics

Lexical semantics is the study of meaning in a word level. Lexical

semantics describes the meaning representation of every word in the language and

the relations among the meanings of the words in the language (Saeed, 2003).

Cruse (2006) defines lexical semantic as the study of “the meaning of words; the

focus here is on ‘content’ words like tiger, daffodil, inconsiderate, and woo, rather

than ‘form’/’grammatical’ words like the, of, than, and so on” (p. 15). Content

words are words that can stand alone and have already had their own meaning

while form or grammatical words are words that have a function in grammatical

constructions of phrases or sentences. Pustejovsky (1995) gives more specific

definition of lexical semantics as “the study of how and what the words of a

language denote” (p. 1).

In short, lexical semantics studies the meaning of an individual word.

Thus, lexical semantics deals with the collection of words or lexicon. The

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Another way to find meanings of a word is by analyzing the semantic features of

words that is “conditions that must be met in order for a word to be appropriate to

use” (Bergmann, Hall, & Ross, 2010, p. 246). For example, the word stallion

which refers to a male horse has the semantic features as [+animal] [+mammal]

[+horse] [+male]. Those features show that the stallion is not a mare which is a

female horse, or it is not a dog which is not a horse.

The relation among words also determines the meaning of the word. Some

examples of word relations are hyponymy (the meaning of words that is included

in other word meanings), synonymy (words that have the same meanings), and

antonymy (words that have the opposite meanings).

This study will investigate the polysemy phenomenon where a single word

has several meanings. Geeraerts (2010) claims that polysemy is the result of the

fact that meaning is changed when language is used in new situations and

contexts. Multiple meanings, such as polysemy, happen under this circumstance.

Thus, lexical semantics is also used to study polysemy as it also deals with a word

that has multiple meanings.

b. Compositional Semantics

Compositional semantics studies the meaning of words which combined to

each other to create a larger unit of meaning (Bergmann, Hall & Ross, 2010).

Compositional semantics, or phrasal semantics (Riemer, 2010), is the study of

meaning of phrases and sentences. The meanings of some words can create

another meaning when combined together. This can happen when the words are

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not mean merely putting the word meaning together to get the whole new

meaning. The order of the words must be precise to determine the whole meaning

in a phrase or sentence. In this case, the application of syntactic structure is

needed.

There must therefore be some grammatical principles governing how meanings of words combine in phrases and sentences; and the principle of compositionality is the meaning of a sentence is determined by the meaning of its words in conjunction with the way they are put together syntactically (Bergmann, Hall & Ross, p. 252).

Meaning is compositional (Riemer, 2010). The combination of words in a

sentence will create a meaning for the sentence. If people know the meaning of

every word in the sentence, they can understand the meaning of the sentence as

well. Furthermore, Riemer adds that compositional or phrasal semantics governs

the principles in constructing a phrase or a sentence meaning by the combinations

of individual words. Thus, if people know the lexical and grammatical meanings

conveyed in a sentence, they will know the meaning of the sentence and vice

versa (Kreidler, 1998).

Polysemous words are also used to compose sentences. Some sentences

that have the same word (which is polysemous) as one of the constituents words

in them will have several meanings as in polysemous words. The words that are

combined with a polysemous word in the sentence can also determine the distinct

meanings of the polysemous word by building up certain circumstances that make

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According to Nida (1975), analyzing polysemous words in sentences with

different types of context can be done by grouping them into general assemblies

of apparently related meanings. More specific distinctions of meaning categories

can be made from the groups of loosely defined categories in the next phase. In

order to interpret the meaning of a complete sentence, the meanings of each word

which constructs the sentence should be defined. Generally, the functions of the

words in a sentence are recognized as subject, predicate, object, complement, and

adverbial (Kreidler, 1998). However, in semantics study, different terms are used.

The terms are predication, predicate, and argument. A predication is the major

unit that expresses the content of a sentence. A predicate, which is usually a verb,

links the arguments in the sentence. An argument is the referring expression

(Leech, 1981). Leech proposes a structure for the analysis of sentence meanings

as shown in Figure 2.1.

consist of consist of

Figure 2.1 Three-tier Structure for Sentence Meaning Analysis

c. Meaning

The definition or the meaning of the word meaning or the verb to mean can be widely varied depends on the contexts (Lyon, 1995). The wide range of

contexts leads to several meanings of the word meaning. Leech (1981) states that the word meaning and the verb to mean are the most discussable terms and

causing confusion and a long time spending for semanticists to define its meaning.

PREDICATIONS ARGUMENTS, FEATURES

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Leech cites several definitions of the word meaning from Odgen and Richard (1923) who state twenty-two definitions. Some of the definitions are

an intrinsic property

the other words annexed to a word in the dictionary the connotation of a word

the place of anything in a system

the practical consequences of a thing in our future experience that to which the user of a symbol actually refers

that to which the user of a symbol ought to be referring

that to which the user of a symbol believes himself to be referring that to which the interpreter of a symbol

(a) refers

(b) believes himself to be referring (c) believes the user to be referring (p. 1)

Leech concludes that the list of the definitions of the word meaning shows the

meaning, social meaning, and expressive meaning. The first type is related to the

statement or description of affairs. The second type is related to the establishment

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of one’s attitudes and feeling. However, Lyon gives more concerns to the

descriptive meaning because “it can be objectively verified” (p. 50).

Leech (1981) categorizes meaning into seven types.

a) Conceptual meaning

Conceptual meaning is also called as denotative or cognitive meaning

since it is presumed to be a fundamental element in linguistic communication and

the primary functioning of language. Leech puts conceptual meaning as a priority

because “it has a complex and sophisticated organization, … and cross related to,

similar organization on the syntactic and phonological levels of language” (p.9).

Conceptual meaning includes two principles of the basis of all linguistic

patterning, namely contrastive and structure. In the principle of contrastive, a

meaning can possess features positively and negatively. For example, the meaning

of the word woman has features as + HUMAN, – MALE, + ADULT, which is distinguishable with the word boy that has features as + HUMAN, + MALE, –

ADULT. In the principle of structure, larger meaning units are fragmented into

smaller units. For example, a sentence can be analyzed syntactically into its

component parts, starting from its immediate syntactic component through a

hierarchy of sub-division to its smallest syntactic components. The two principles

represent what are called by linguists as paradigmatic and syntagmatic of

linguistic structure. Conceptual meaning provides a semantic representation to

match the meaning of a sentence with the correct phonological and syntactic

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b) Connotative meaning

Connotative meaning is “the communicative value an expression has by

virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content” (p.12).

Connotative meaning can cover all possible features of referent of a meaning

including physical characteristics, psychological, and social properties which are

found in real world. Compared to conceptual meaning, connotative meaning is not

specific in language but it is understood in communicative systems. Connotative

meaning is relatively unstable because it depends on the culture, history, and what

the individual goes through. Connotative meaning is open-ended because any

properties of the referent can contribute to connotative meaning subjectively or

objectively which is in contrast with conceptual meaning that has a certain

number of rules to limit the symbols and the semantic representation of a

sentence.

c) Social meaning

Social meaning deals with the aspect of communication which is related to

the situation where the sentence occurs. Social meaning expresses the social

circumstances of its use. Social meaning is depicted in the way such as dialectical

pronunciation resulted from the geographical or social origin of the speaker, the

social relationship among the speakers, formal or literary language usage and even

slang. Those are the variations of socio-stylistic according to dialect, time,

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d) Affective meaning

Affective meaning is the expression of language that conveys personal

feeling of the speaker to the listener or to something being talked about. Affective

meaning deals with the aspect of communication as well. In affective meaning,

intonation and voice tone are important because they can give impressions that

serve the meaning to convey, for example polite, friendly, sarcastic or displeasure.

Through affective meaning, the speaker can communicate the feelings or attitudes

without any other semantic function. For example, the expression like “Aha!” and

“Yippee!” can express emotions without a full grammatical sentence.

e) Reflected meaning

Reflected meaning comes up in the case of multiple conceptual meanings

where one sense of a word constitutes our understanding to another sense.

Reflected meaning is mostly found in poetry. The case where reflective meaning

implies unpleasant expressions is when it illustrates a taboo meaning. For

example, the words that have connection with physiology of sex are difficult to

use without bringing up the sexual association. People may rather choose not to

use those words frequently.

f) Collocative meaning

Collocative meaning associates a word with other words that tend to occur

in its environment. For example, the adjectives pretty and handsome define the meaning of ‘good looking’. However, both words may be distinct because of the

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nouns that have female features (a pretty girl) while handsome will collocate with nouns that have male features (a handsome boy).

g) Thematic meaning

Thematic meaning is the way when people want to focus on, stress or

govern the messages. For example, an active sentence may have a different

meaning from its passive form in certain context though both active and passive

sentences are equivalent. “Thematic meaning is mainly a matter of choice

between alternative grammatical constructions” (p.19). In short, thematic meaning

arises to highlight messages or information in the communication whether by

using the grammatical construction or stress and intonation to build particular

communicative values.

Furthermore, Leech makes a consideration to put the seven types of

meaning into three larger categories: conceptual meaning, associative meaning

(which includes connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning,

reflected meaning, and collocative meaning), and thematic meaning. He uses

“sense” as the term for conceptual meaning (or meaning in the narrower sense)

and in wider sense of meaning that includes all seven types of meaning, he gives

the term as “communicative values”.

2). Meaning and Sense

Mihalicek and Wilson (2011) denote two aspects of meaning, namely

sense and reference. Sense is the mental representation of the meaning or the

concept while reference is the relationship between the sense and the real word.

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world. Lyon (1968) adds that a number of philosophers use the term meaning to

describe sense. Thus, he proposes that meaning and sense are the same. Sense can

refer to cognitive or descriptive meaning.

As mentioned previously, Leech (1981) uses the term “sense” for

conceptual meaning (or meaning in the narrower sense). Saeed (2001) also treats

meaning and sense as the same term especially in distinguishing sense and

reference. Following those previous researchers consideration, the term

“meaning” and “sense” in this study will be referred as the same term.

d. Word and Lexeme

Word is the smallest unit of language. Words are symbols in language that

express meanings whether they are as an individual word or when they are

combined with other words to compose a phrase or a sentence. Generally, words

are recognized by their orthographic symbols (in writing) and the levels of

phonological (in speaking) (Saeed, 2001). Lipka (1992) defines three senses of the

term “word” as phonological/orthographic (word-form), abstract unit (lexeme),

and grammatical (word).

However, there are difficulties when the term “word” is used in the study

of meaning (Lyon, 1977a; Carter, 1988). The forms talk, talks, talking, and talked can be considered as some different words although from the semantics view they

merely define the same word talk. Another difficulty is in defining the multi-words forms such as phrasal verbs and idioms that consist of several multi-words but

belong to a single unit of meaning (Crystal, 1987). Thus, some linguists such as

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propose a term “lexeme” when referring to the term “word” in the study of

meaning to solve the ambiguity of the term “word”.

A lexeme is the abstract unit (Lipka, 1992; Carter, 1998; Riemer, 2010) or

the basic unit (Kreidler, 1998; Crystal, 1987) that underlies the variants of the

word-form. Thus, the forms talk, talks, talking, and talked are the variant forms of a single lexeme talk. The words listed in the dictionary are lexemes (Lyon, 1977a; 1995). Lipka (1992) covers the definition of lexeme in three senses:

1) A complete sign on a particular linguistic level, namely the lexicon;

2) A class of variants, namely word-forms;

3) An abstract unit of the language system

Furthermore, Lipka states that a lexeme may be simple or complex. A

simple lexeme is a single lexeme with its variant forms. A complex lexeme can be

a phrase (a phrasal lexeme) or idioms. Consequently, phrasal verbs and idioms are

considered as a single lexeme as well (Carter, 1998; Keidler, 1998; Saeed, 2001;

Crystal, 1987; Riemer, 2010). The notion of lexeme will help to deal with the

phenomena of multiple meanings such as polysemy and homonymy (Lyon,

1977a; Carter, 1998; Saeed, 2001). In this study, the term “lexeme” will also refer

to the term “word”.

e. Lexical Entry

In studying words, the term “lexical entry” will be encountered. Lexical

entry represents linguistic information of a lexeme in the lexicon or list of words

used in language (Murphy, 2003; Riemer 2011). Linguistic information includes

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categories. Furthermore, Lyon (1977b) and Goddard (2011) call the list of words

in the dictionaries as lexical entries. There is a head-word in every lexical entry.

The alphabetization in dictionaries is based on the head-word. Lyon adds that the

head-word in the lexical entry “is typically both the citation-form and of the

lexeme and also the stem-form, to which various suffixes may be added in order

to produce other inflexional forms of the same lexeme” (p. 513).

Thus, a lexical entry will consist of a lexeme with its morphological rules,

syntactic properties, phonemic information, and senses and sub-senses. Lyon

proposes a schematic representation to help to understand the lexical entry.

(i) Stem(s)

(ii) Inflexional class

(iii) Syntactic properties

(iv) Semantic specification(s)

Figure 2.2 Schematic Representation of a Lexical Entry

2. Homonymy

Homonymy is the case of multiple meanings where two or more words

have the same form but distinct meanings. This definition is proposed by several

linguists (Lyon, 1977a; Lyon 1977b; Jeffries, 1998; Akmaijan, Richard, Demers,

Farmer & Harnish, 2001; Saeed, 2001; Cruse, 2006; Davies & Elder, 2006;

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identical in spelling and pronunciation; and distinct meanings mean unrelated

meanings. The frequently used example of homonym is the word bank which has

meanings as ‘financial institution’ and ‘the edge of a river’. Another example of

homonym is the word tattoo that has meanings as ‘a drawing in the skin’ and ‘a

military signal drum’.

Lyon (1995) states two kinds of homonymy, namely absolute and partial

homonymy. The absolute homonymy is the word that satisfies the criteria to be

absolute homonymy: unrelated in meanings, identical in the forms, and the

identical forms will be grammatically equivalent. The partial homonymy occurs

because the words do not fulfill the criteria to be absolute homonymy. The

example of partial homonymy is the word found which can be identified as the form of the word find and found. The words find and found share the form found,

but not finds, finding, or founds, founding; “and found as a form of find is not grammatically equivalent to found as a form of found” (p. 55).

Lipka (1992) divides homonymy into homophony and homography. This

division is also mentioned by Saeed (2001), Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (2003),

Cruse (2006), Koskela and Murphy (2006), and Crystal (1987). Homophony or

homophone has the same pronunciation, for example tale and tail or bear and bare. Homography or homograph has the same spelling, for example lead (the

metal) and lead (to guide).

In this study, homonymy refers to the prototypical definition of

homonymy as two or more words that have the same spelling and pronunciation

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Homonymy

Homophony Homography

tale : tail lead : lead

[eI] [eI] [e] [i:]

Figure 2.3 Homonymy Division into Homophony and Homography

3. Polysemy

The term polysemy was popularized by Bréal (which later called as the

father of polysemy) in 1887 (Nerlich, 2003). In her research on polysemy related

to period of time, Nerlich remarks some important development of polysemy from

the past until present. The root of the idea of polysemy is from Greek philosophy

from Plato and Democritus that offered polysemy as an argument which has the meaning as ‘many meanings’. However, the starting point of the new studies of

polysemy are the term “polysémie” which proposed by Bréal and also his research

on polysemy.

a. Definition of Polysemy

This study will focus on polysemy phenomenon in which one word may

have several meanings. A word is polysemous, or manifest polysemy (Cruse,

1986; Napoli, 1996), if that single word has several related meanings (Akmaijan,

Richard, Demer, Farmer & Harnish, 2001; Saeed, 2001; Klepousniotou, 2002;

Fasold, 2006; O’Grady & Archibald, 2010; Riemer, 2010; Goddard, 2011). Some

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Koskela & Murphy, 2006) add the feature of distinguishable meanings into the

definition. Lyons (1995), and Leacock and Ravin (2000) define polysemy in a

shorter phrase as the multiplicity of the word meanings. Polysemy can have close

or distant meanings (Carter, 2000).

An example of a polysemous word is the word chip which can mean ‘a piece of wood’, ‘a chip of potato’, or ‘a chip of computer circuit’. The meanings

share relatedness as a small piece thing. Other examples by O’Grady and

Archibald (2010) are shown in the Table 2.1.

Table 2.1 Some Polysemy in English

O’Grady and Archibald also give examples of polysemous word in

sentences.

1. A visible trace or impression on something (The tires left a mark on the road)

2. A written or printed symbol (You need a punctuation mark here) 3. A grade, as in school (He got a good mark on the math test)

4. A target (She hit the mark every time)

5. An indication of some quality or property (The mark of a good diplomat is the

ability to negotiate) (p. 206).

Goddard (2011) shows the example of a couple words that do not qualify

as polysemy because “they belong to different part-of-speech categories” (p.20).

Word Meaning a Meaning b

bright shining intelligent

to glare to shine intensely to stare angrily

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The examples are the word table1 as a noun (as in, on the table) and table2 as a verb (as in, Don’t table that document). Therefore, a polysemous word has a

property as having single syntactic function (part-of-speech).

b. Polysemy and Homonymy

Traditionally, the distinction between polysemy and homonymy is drawn

(Lyon, 1995). Both are the cases of multiple meanings where the former refers to

a single word having several meanings, whereas the latter is a relation between

two or more different words with the same form. Lyons adds that the distinction

between polysemy and homonymy “is not always clear-cut in particular

instances” (p.58).

Lyons (1995) draws two criteria to differentiate polysemy from

homonymy. The first one is etymology or the historical source of the words. The

origin of a word can support its meaning. One word may have two meanings at

present which is possible when the word for each meaning derived in its

etymology has two different words. For example the word bat1 (mammal with membranous wings) and bat2 (tool for striking a ball in certain games) considered as one word but different lexemes (having two meanings). In respect of their

etymology, the word bat has a different historical source as bat1 derived from Middle English bakke, and bat2 derived from Old English batt meaning ‘club’, or

‘cudgel’. However, this etymological criterion is not always clear-cut or exact.

The reason is, many words have uncertain historical derivation (Klepousniotou,

2001). Another reason according to Lyons (1977b) is there is no a clear point of

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reason that “speaker may differ in their intuitions, and worse, historical fact and

speaker intuitions may contradict to each other” (p. 65). The example of this case

is the two words sole (bottom of the foot) and sole (flatfish) which are considered as homonym although they are “historically derived via French from the same

Latin word solea which means ‘sandal” (Saeed, 2001, p. 65).

The second criterion is the relatedness of meaning, that a certain meaning

is connected to other meanings. For example, the word foot can have meanings as

‘terminal part of a leg’ and ‘lowest part of a mountain’. The relatedness of those

two meanings is they are located in the bottom of something and have a function

to support the whole body. Lyon (1977b) and Klepousniotou (2001) claim that the

relatedness of meaning here does not merely mean that there is a relation or there

is no relation at all, but it is a matter of degree. Thus, it is difficult to decide

universal criteria of degree to determine the relatedness and unrelatedness of

meaning. Lipka (1992), referring to the previous work of Lyon (1997b), argues

that this second criterion is difficult to apply because of the existence of

“subjective association, for determining semantic relatedness” (p. 138). A single

person may merely decide whether two words are related or unrelated which does

not fulfill an objective procedure; and another single person may have a different

decision.

The general distinction of polysemy and homonymy are their entries in the

dictionary or lexicon. In the dictionaries, polysemy belongs to a single lexical

entry (one head-word with all senses) and homonymy belongs to separate entries

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This study will use the same distinction. Thus, a polysemous word has a single

lexical entry in the dictionaries (Apresjan, 2000; Murphy, 2003).

c. Types of Polysemy

Geeraerts (2010) cites a type of polysemy from Apresjan (1973). The type

is called regular polysemy. In this type of polysemy, the relation between the

meanings is predictable or the meanings are part of a larger pattern (Cruse, 2000).

Furthermore, Geeraerts (2010, p. 148)) gives some examples that show the

patterns of predictable meanings. The examples include the relationships between

product and producer (the journal lies on the table/the journal was taken over by

Rupert Murdoch), between process and result (my purchases took me just under an hour/the purchases are still in the trunk of the car), and between contents and container (the whole lecture hall laughed/the lecture hall is at the end of the

corridor).

Pustejovsky (1996) adapts the types of polysemy from Weinrich (1964) as

contrastive polysemy and complementary polysemy. Contrastive polysemy

happens when a single lexical item has two distinct and unrelated meanings. The

example of contrastive polysemy is the word bank which occurs in the sentences:

Mary walked along the bank of the river and Harborbank is the richest bank in the city. This contrastive polysemy is what nowadays termed as homonymy.

Complementary polysemy is the phenomenon where the senses of a lexical item

manifest the same basic meanings when used in different contexts. Pustejovsky

calls complementary polysemy as logical polysemy because there is a sense

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proposed by Pustejovsky, namely count/mass alterations, container/containee

alterations, figure/ground reversals, product/producer alteration, plant/food

alterations, process/result alteration, and place/people alteration. For example, in

plant/food 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 under 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

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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

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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

The meanings of a polysemous word are also determined by the words

combined with it in the sentence. Previously, it is mentioned that in analyzing a

sentence in semantics study, the terms predication, predicate, and argument are

used. In this case, the word take is the predicate. The meaning which is expressed

by the predication is determined by the arguments which are linked by the

predicate. In order to analyze the functions of the arguments, the theory of

semantic roles can be applied. Kreidler (1998) gives the definitions and

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Table 2.2 Semantic Roles (Kreidler)

actor The role of an argument that performs some action without affecting any other entity. Sylvia left.

affected The role of an argument that undergoes a change due to some event or is affected by some other entity. A window broke. Tom broke a window. Betty likes opera. Opera delights Betty.

affecting The role of an argument that, without any action, affects another entity. Betty likes opera. Opera delights Betty.

agent The role of an argument that by its action affects some other entity. Tom broke a window.

associate The role of an argument that tells the status or identity of another argument, the theme: Roger is a student.

effect The role of an argument that comes into existence through the action of the predicate. Tillie baked a pie.

place The role of an argument that names the location in which the action of the predicate occurs. The fireman climbed a ladder. theme The role of an argument that is the topic of a predicate that does

not express action – a stative predicate. Audrey is a computer expert.

Semantic roles can be varied according to the different researchers. Some

semantic roles may occur based on the result of research. Norvig and Lakoff

(1987), who conducted research on the word take, list semantic roles which were occurred in their research. The definitions of semantic roles by Norvig and Lakoff

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Figure 2.4 Semantic Roles (Norvig & Lakoff)

5. Dictionary Definitions

The most common way when people want to find out the meaning of a

word is by looking up in the dictionary. Dictionaries present the meanings or

definitions of a word using other words or terms. Dictionaries are the easiest way

to look up the meaning of a word. The meanings from dictionaries are accepted as

the authoritative sources because of the widespread usage of the dictionaries

(Mihalicek & Wilson, 2011). However, it is a fact that the meanings in the

dictionaries are not always fixed and can change over the time. One meaning in

one edition of dictionary can be different in previous or later several editions of

the same dictionary. It happens because in fact, dictionaries are “open-ended, and

are continually being adapted to new requirements by the addition of new lexical

entries” (Leech, 1981, p. 204). The new lexical entries develop through the

human spoken and written communication which is continuous from time to time.

Nida (1975) describes that most dictionaries provide the word meaning

clues and terms to help the readers find the definition of a word. Thus, dictionaries Participants:

A agent: active actor or causer of an action S source: initially has the patient

R recipient: receives the patient

P patient: object acted upon or affected by the agent I instrument: used to transport the patient

Settings:

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education

UNDERSTANDING POLYSEMY PHENOMENON:

THE MEANINGS OF THE WORD TAKE

IN C.

S. LEWIS’

THE LAST BATTLE

UNDERSTANDING POLYSEMY PHENOMENON:

THE MEANINGS OF THE WORD TAKE

IN C.

S. LEWIS’

THE LAST BATTLE

TABLE OF CONTENTS