We explain what monosemic words are, their characteristics and examples. Also, polysemic words and homonymous words.
Monosemic words are necessary to avoid ambiguities.What are monosemic words?
In linguistics, monosemic words are those that have a single fixed meaning, in contrast to polysemic words, which are endowed with multiple meanings. This phenomenon is called monosemia, a term that comes from the Greek voices monos ("One") and week ("Signal" or "meaning"), and that can be explained as the stable and constant semantic relationship between a single signifier and the same signified.
Monosemic words are the least abundant in the language, since in general the words always present a certain degree of polysemy. For this reason, these words are usually very specialized, academic or technical terms, belonging to the legal, scientific or any other field that, being highly specialized, requires its own lexicon In particular, where there is the least possible degree of ambiguity.
Instead, the common terms of the speaks daily life are full of nuances, twists and possible meanings, depending on the context of use and of the references that we are referring to. This does not interfere with communication, since we are there to always explain what we mean, which may not happen in other types of speeches.
Examples of monosemia
Common cases of monosemia are neologisms, cultisms, loans from others Languages or very specialized terminology. For example, the following words:
- Monosemia, precisely, a linguistic phenomenon in which a single word corresponds to a single meaning in the language.
- Necrosis or gangrene, medical term for the decomposition of organic tissue, especially in a living being, the result of accidents or infections.
- software Y Hardware, computer words taken from English (where they are also neologisms) to refer respectively to the digital (abstract) and material (concrete) elements of a computer system.
- Laser, another neologism formed from a acronym in English: Light Amplification by Simulated Emition of Radiation ("Amplification of light by simulated emission of radiation"), with which we refer today to a certain type of artificial light used in different technologies, such as optical disc (DVD) players.
- Appendicitis, medical term for inflammation of the appendix, a projection of the colon into the abdomen of the human body.
- Coprolite, slang word of the paleontology, with which the feces of prehistoric animals (dinosaurs, for example) that have fossilized and are later discovered in excavations are called.
- Radar, name for an electromagnetic wave emission technology with which we measure distances, lengths and control airplanes, submarines, etc. The word comes from the acronym in English Radio Detection and Ranging ("Radio detection and range").
- Etymology, name for the study of the historical origin of words and clarification of the roots that comprise it.
Polysemic words
Contrary to homonymy, polysemy consists of the correspondence of multiple meanings to the same signifier, that is, of different meanings to the same word. This phenomenon can have very different origins and reasons, depending on the word, and in general it is expressed, in the dictionaries of the language, assigning a different entry for each different sense of the word. For example:
Cat
- Four-legged domestic feline.
- Mechanical or hydraulic tool for lifting heavy objects.
- Typical dance of the South American Cone (Uruguay and Argentina).
Cape
- A point of land that goes into a sea or an ocean.
- NCO military rank.
- Rope or rope, in maritime or nautical jargon.
Homonymous words
On the other hand, homonymous words are those that, despite having the same form, their meanings are totally different, that is, words with different origins, different histories and meanings not related in any way.
Homonymy occurs if two words have the same pronunciation and / or the same writing. Therefore, homonymous words can be of two types:
- Homograph words, when they have the same writing, but two totally different meanings and etymological origins. For example: the words any (nothing) and any (from the verb to swim).
- Homophones words, when they have the same pronunciation, but two totally different meanings (and in some languages, two spellings). For example, the words vote (in elections) and throw (to throw away), pronounced the same because of the tendency in Spanish (especially American) to replace the sound of the v, but that they continue to be written differently and mean two different things.