A unified account of polysemy within LCCM Theory

•Broadens the study of polysemy within the cognitive linguistics tradition.•Considers three types of distinct polysemy phenomena.•Provides a joined-up account of these phenomena using LCCM Theory. Within the cognitive linguistics tradition, polysemy has often been viewed as a function of underlying entries in semantic memory: word forms have distinct, albeit related, lexical entries, which thereby give rise to polysemous word senses in language use (e.g., Evans, 2004; Tyler and Evans, 2001, 2003). In this paper, I seek to broaden out the study of polysemy within this tradition by tackling it from three slightly different angles. I argue that polysemy can also arise from the non-linguistic knowledge to which words facilitate access. This phenomenon I refer to as conceptual polysemy. I illustrate this with an analysis of the lexical item book. Moreover, polysemy also arises from distinct, albeit related, conventionalised sense-units associated with the same linguistic form: the phenomenon I refer to as lexical polysemy. I illustrate with an analysis of the polysemy exhibited by the form in. And finally, semantic relatedness can be discerned as arising from different word forms which, at least on first blush, appear to share a common semantic representation. This phenomenon I refer to as inter-lexical polysemy. I illustrate with a case study involving an analysis of the prepositional forms in and on. In presenting my account of these three types of polysemous phenomena, I introduce a contemporary account of lexical representation: the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models, or LCCM Theory for short (Evans, 2006, 2009, 2010b, 2013). This provides a common theoretical architecture which facilitates a joined-up account of these specific phenomena, and of polysemy more generally. Finally, the paper introduces a new construct within the theory—the notion of a meaning spectrum—which facilitates analysis of aspects of lexical and inter-lexical polysemy.