| Abstrakt: |
Lexical polysemous words are often misidentified as homophones, i.e., words that have same pronunciation but different semantic interpretation. However, lexical polysemy words are not homophones. Lexical polysemy refers to one constituent having multiple readings or usages with closely related sense. Lexical polysemy was observed in multiple fields of studies like semantics, psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics. Sweetser's (1988) cognitive semantic view states that when a word is polysemous, the core sense of the word is shared with all its entries. Therefore, in lexical polysemic words, there is no shift from core semantic schema of the word. If the core semantic interpretation is not observed in its entries, then those entries are homophones of the word. This cross-sectional study focuses on the emergence and development of polysemous verb veyyi in Teluguspeaking children and whether the verb veyyi--to throw--is used containing the core meaning of the word or is evidence of homophones. Veyyi has multiple meanings, which can be misinterpreted as homophone in Telugu; however, it is evidence of lexical polysemy, in other words, semantic extension of the word. The study also observes how children acquire lexical polysemy in early stages of their acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
