Page 42 - 6807

twofold. Hence, a well-developed polysemy is not a drawback but
a great advantage in a language.
On the other hand, it should be pointed out that the number
of sound combinations that human speech organs can produce is
limited. Therefore at a certain stage of language development the
production of new words by morphological means becomes
limited, and polysemy becomes increasingly important in
providing the means for enriching the vocabulary. From this, it
should be clear that the process of enriching the vocabulary does
not consist merely in adding new words to it, but, also, in the
constant development of polysemy.
There are two main processes of the semantic development
of a word: radiation and concatenation.
In cases of radiation the primary meaning stands in the
center and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays.
Each secondary meaning can be traced to the primary meaning
(e.g. in the word face the primary meaning denotes “the front part
of the human head”. Connected with the front position such
meanings as “the front part of a watch”, “the front part of a
building”, “the front part of a playing card” were formed).
In cases of concatenation or a semantic chain the meaning
stands at the very beginning of a chain and all the secondary
meanings develop from the previous meaning, which makes it
difficult to trace some meaning to the primary one. It can be
illustrated by the word style: 1) a pointed stick; 2) a pointed stick
for writing on wax in Rome; 3) a manner of writing; 4) a manner
of doing smth in general.
Sometimes these two ways of semantic development merge.
It is called the split of polysemy. In such cases polysemy ends and
homonymy starts (e.g. the word bar: the first bars of the
symphony, then – a narrow band/strip of color or light, then –
barrier/obstacle (poor sight can be a bar to success), then – a
counter separating the judge and the lawyers and the prisoner from
spectators and one more meaning – the counter where spirits are

42