Research Seminar 31.03.25: Ofra Magidor - Polysemy and Observations in Linguistics

link to the video: Research Seminar 31.03.25: Ofra Magidor - Polysemy and Observations in Linguistics

Handout of the Lecture: Polysemy and Observations in Linguistics - Handout

Ofra Magidor

University of Oxford

Polysemy and Observations in Linguistics

In Linguistics it is standard to distinguish between two types of ambiguity: homonymy, where (roughly) a term has two completely unrelated senses (e.g. ‘ball’ as used for a spherical play object, and ‘ball’ as used for a party); and polysemy, where (roughly) a word has two closely related senses (e.g. ‘lunch’ as used for used for a an event taking place midday and for a portion of food eaten at midday). The literature on polysemy reports a wide-range of alleged observations regarding the concept based on both straightforward intuitions of theorists, as well as experimental data on wide-scale speaker judgements and psychological processing.

In this talk (based on joint work with David Liebesman), we argue that many of these observations implicitly presuppose some theoretical assumptions about the phenomenon of copredication (sentences such as ‘Lunch was delicious, but took hours’). Indeed, they implicitly rely on false theoretical assumptions. After explaining what copredication is and our own preferred theoretical account of the phenomenon, we return to show how all this bears on the range of linguistic observations about polysemy.

Gathering for coffee and refreshments at 17:45

Chair: Ori Belkind

The public is invited