Categorization, Memory and Linguistic Uses: What Happens in the Case of Polysemy

In Fabrizio Macagno & Alessandro Capone (eds.), Inquiries in philosophical pragmatics. Theoretical developments. Springer. pp. 95-109 (2021)
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Abstract

Polysemy is a pervasive phenomenon in historical-natural languages and thus central to any description of their functioning. An ideal language would have a unique and univocal designation for every event, fact, class or cultural category, but historical-natural languages simply cannot have a one-to-one correspondence between signs and referents because of the principle of economy and its key role in languages, and also because human experiences are extremely rich and complex. As a result, words are characterised by polysemy. In this paper we will deal with polysemy, how it is interwoven with categorization and memory and how the disambiguation of the possible senses of a polysemic word necessarily depends on the context. The aim of this paper is to show that polysemy is not merely a linguistic issue but a phenomenon of great theoretical interest from a “global” point of view that holds together semantic and pragmatic aspects. Polysemy not only allows us to make progress in consideration of how human cognition and memory function, but also – considering the major role played by the context – it is a central theme when exploring the interface between semantics and pragmatics.

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