linguistics Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...

, a word sense is one of the meanings of a

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

. For example, a dictionary may have over 50 different senses of the word "

play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

", each of these having a different meaning based on the

context Context may refer to: * Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary Computing * Context (computing), the virtual environment required to su ...

of the word's

usage The usage of a language is the ways in which its written and spoken variations are routinely employed by its speakers; that is, it refers to "the collective habits of a language's native speakers", as opposed to idealized models of how a language ...

in a sentence, as follows: In each sentence different collocates of "play" signal its different meanings. People and computers, as they read words, must use a process called

word-sense disambiguation Word-sense disambiguation (WSD) is the process of identifying which sense of a word is meant in a sentence or other segment of context. In human language processing and cognition, it is usually subconscious/automatic but can often come to consc ...

R. Navigli
''Word Sense Disambiguation: A Survey
', ACM Computing Surveys, 41(2), 2009, pp. 1-69. to reconstruct the likely intended meaning of a word. This process uses

to narrow the possible senses down to the probable ones. The context includes such things as the ideas conveyed by adjacent words and nearby phrases, the known or probable purpose and

register Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...

of the conversation or document, and the orientation (time and place) implied or expressed. The disambiguation is thus context-sensitive. Advanced semantic analysis has resulted in a sub-distinction. A word sense corresponds either neatly to a seme (the smallest possible unit of meaning) or a

sememe __NOTOC__ A sememe () is a semantic language unit of meaning, analogous to a morpheme. The concept is relevant in structural semiotics. A seme is a proposed unit of transmitted or intended meaning; it is atomic or indivisible. A sememe can be the ...

(larger unit of meaning), and polysemy of a word of phrase is the property of having multiple semes or sememes and thus multiple senses.

Relations between senses

Often the senses of a word are related to each other within a

semantic field In linguistics, a semantic field is a lexical set of words grouped semantically (by meaning) that refers to a specific subject.Howard Jackson, Etienne Zé Amvela, ''Words, Meaning, and Vocabulary'', Continuum, 2000, p14. The term is also used in ...

. A common pattern is that one sense is broader and another narrower. This is often the case in technical

jargon Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...

, where the

target audience A target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to said intended audience. In marketing and advertising, it is a particular group of consumer within the predetermined ...

uses a narrower sense of a word that a general audience would tend to take in its broader sense. For example, in casual use "

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

" will often be

glossed A gloss is a brief notation, especially a marginal one or an interlinear one, of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text or in the reader's language if that is different. A collection of glosses is a '' ...

for a lay audience as "

spelling Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes (writing system) to represent a language in its written form. In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is one ...

", but in linguistic

"orthography" (comprising spelling, casing,

spacing Spacing may refer to: * ''Spacing'' (magazine), a Canadian magazine * Spacing effect in psychology; the opposite of cramming * The usage of spaces in typography ** Letter-spacing, the amount of space between a group of letters ** Line spacing or ...

hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes ( figure ...

ation, and other

punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...

) is a

hypernym In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In other ...

of "spelling". Besides jargon, however, the pattern is common even in general vocabulary. Examples are the variation in senses of the term "wood wool" and in those of the word "bean". This pattern entails that natural language can often lack explicitness about

hyponymy and hypernymy In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In other ...

. Much more than

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

s do, it relies on context instead of explicitness; meaning is

implicit Implicit may refer to: Mathematics * Implicit function * Implicit function theorem * Implicit curve * Implicit surface * Implicit differential equation Other uses * Implicit assumption, in logic * Implicit-association test, in social psychology ...

within a context. Common examples are as follows: * The word "diabetes" without further specification usually refers to

diabetes mellitus Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...

. * The word "angina" without further specification usually refers to

angina pectoris Angina, also known as angina pectoris, is chest pain or pressure, usually caused by insufficient blood flow to the heart muscle (myocardium). It is most commonly a symptom of coronary artery disease. Angina is typically the result of obstru ...

. * The word "tuberculosis" without further specification usually refers to

pulmonary tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

. * The word "emphysema" without further specification usually refers to

pulmonary emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alv ...

. * The word "cervix" without further specification usually refers to the

uterine cervix The cervix or cervix uteri (Latin, 'neck of the uterus') is the lower part of the uterus (womb) in the human female reproductive system. The cervix is usually 2 to 3 cm long (~1 inch) and roughly cylindrical in shape, which changes during ...

. Usage labels of "''

sensu ''Sensu'' is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of". It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, semiotics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used in describing any particular c ...

''" plus a

qualifier In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...

, such as "''sensu stricto''" ("in the strict sense") or "''sensu lato''" ("in the broad sense") are sometimes used to clarify what is meant by a text.

Relation to etymology

Polysemy entails a common historic root to a word or phrase. Broad medical terms usually followed by

s, such as those in relation to certain conditions or types of anatomical locations are polysemic, and older conceptual words are with few exceptions highly polysemic (and usually beyond shades of similar meaning into the realms of being ambiguous).

Homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones ( equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definiti ...

y is where two separate-root words ( lexemes) happen to have the same

and

pronunciation Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation") or simply the way a particular ...

References

{{Reflist

External links

"I don’t believe in word senses"
– Adam Kilgarriff (1997) �
WordNet(R)
– a large lexical database of English words and their meanings maintained by the Princeton Cognitive Science Laboratory Lexical semantics Semantics Word-sense disambiguation Philosophical logic

Relations between senses

Relation to etymology

See also

References

External links