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374 polysyllable
large proportion of a language’s vocabulary is polysemic (or polysemous). The
theoretical problem for the linguist is how to distinguish polysemy (one form
– several meanings) from homonymy (two lexical items which happen to have
the same phonological form). Several criteria have been suggested, such as
etymology (the antecedents of homonymous items would be formally distinct)
and the closeness of the relationship between the meanings in question (the
meanings of homonymous items would be further apart, or unrelated – cf.
the related sense of plain above with the homonyms plane = ‘carpenter’s tool’
and plane = ‘aeroplane’). But all such criteria involve analytic problems, and
the distinction between polysemy and homonymy thus remains a source of
theoretical discussion in linguistics.
polysyllable (n.) A term used in phonetics and phonology to refer to a word
consisting of more than one syllable. Polysyllabic or multisyllabic words are
contrasted with monosyllables.
polysynthetic (adj.) A term which characterizes a type of language sometimes
distinguished in comparative linguistics using structural (as opposed
to diachronic) criteria, and focusing on the characteristics of the word:
‘polysynthetic’ or ‘incorporating’ languages demonstrate morphologically
complex, long word forms, as in the constructions typical of many American
Indian languages, and encountered occasionally in English, in coinages such as
anti/dis/establish/ment/arian/ism/s. The term is opposed to synthetic and analytic
type languages. Some linguists, however, prefer to see such constructions
handled as a complex of agglutinative and fusional characteristics, and do
not regard this category of language as typologically distinct. As always in such
classifications, the categories are not clear-cut: different languages will display
the characteristic of polysynthesis to a greater or lesser degree. The polysynthesis
parameter represents the analysis of polysynthetic forms as a system of predicate–
argument relationships.
polysystemicism (n.) A term used to identify an approach to linguistic analysis
proposed by J. R. Firth (see Firthian), in which different linguistic systems are
set up at different places in structure, no attempt being made to identify the
systems with each other. The approach has been developed primarily in relation
to phonology, where it is known as prosodic analysis. Polysystemic is opposed
to ‘monosystemic’, as in phonemic theories of phonology, where a single basic
phonological unit is used (the phoneme), and the set of phonemes is seen as
a single system of contrasts, applicable to the analysis and transcription
of linear sequences of speech sounds, regardless of the grammatical or
lexical structures involved. In polysystemicism, on the other hand, different
phonological systems are set up as required at different places in the structure
of syllables, words and other units, and within different areas of the
vocabulary or grammar. There is little emphasis on transcription, and a correspondingly
greater emphasis on relating phonology to other levels of linguistic
structure. In this approach, the set of sounds needed to define the contrastive
possibilities at the beginning of words in a language may be quite different from
those required in the middle or at the end of words. There is little evidence of
the need for this analysis in English (apart from occasional contrasts such as /º/