Distinguishing Polysemy and Homonymy: Addressing Marginal Cases in Lexical Semantics

Abstract

The two main linguistic concepts of polysemy and homonymy function as core principles in lexical semantics yet create ongoing academic disputes because both concepts involve multiple meanings that exist within one linguistic form. The theoretical framework suggests that related meanings should be separated from unrelated meanings yet the actual implementation of this framework encounters challenges through various intermediate cases. There are various works on the concepts of polysemy and homonymy in general but few have used evidence from African languages,  especially Ghanaian languages.  This paper investigates polysemy and homonymy by examining linguistic evidence from English and selected African languages which include Akan, Ga, Hausa, Dagbani, and Ewe. The paper examines how various methods established the two phenomena through processes that included etymology assessment, semantic relation determination, lexicographic methods, and structural linguistic evaluation. The paper argues that scholars should understand the boundary between polysemy and homonymy as a spectrum which exists between two extreme points based on existing research. The study presents a theoretical framework which explains how multilingual languages in particular affect semantic research and lexicographic work and language documentation.