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heading of a longer passage of the statutory section followed by an
outline of basic principles applicable; whilst the classifier
testamentary precisely determines the context of the whole
terminological phrase.
Example 2
If both parties to a divorce action also request the court in
writing to order disposition of marital property acquired by either
or both of the parties to the divorce prior to January 1, 1972, or
nonmarital property owned by the parties to the divorce action, the
court shall also order disposition in accordance with subsection 1.
(Maine Revised Statutes, §953. Disposition of property)
Meaning 3 applies to both occurrences of disposition in this
provision, the postmodifying qualifier of (marital) property being
the sense clue in any legal context. Although the translational
equivalents of disposition used here and that in the phrase
testamentary disposition are likely to differ, the difference subsists
in a “ritual” nature of the language used in last wills rather than in
the dissimilarity of meaning.
Example 3
They [students] found that only legal factors, including the
number of arrests and detention prior to the adjudicatory hearing,
predicted final disposition; [...]
The meaning of disposition here is the settlement of a case
by court. There are several hints leading to the proper sense
interpretation: the institutions of arrest, detention, adjudicatory
hearing suggest the context of judicial (criminal) procedure
resulting in a court decision. Moreover, the classifier final may
also help discriminate meanings as final disposition is sometimes
considered a terminological unit of its own.
Polysemy is one of the most productive ways of extending a
language's lexicon. The origin of most polysemous terms is
analogy of one concept to another, which allows the designation of
one concept to be used for designating another. A new term is thus
created from partial semantic overlap.

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