It is very common in English for one word to have many different meanings. This condition, where one word has different meanings, is known as polysemy. (This term comes from poly-meaning ”many” and sem- meaning “meaning.”)
Sound is one such polysemic word. As a noun, it refers to a noise (as in a loud sound) or a body of water (as in Puget Sound). As an adjective, it can refer to a state of health (as in sound mind and body). It can also be an intransitive verb (as in sound angry), a transitive verb (as in sound the alarm), or part of a verb phrase as an outburst (as in sound off) and an inquiry ( as in sound out).
You may think that the word sound is a truly wondrous polysenic word. After all, its definition cover seven pages in one major dictionary and include 19 meanings as a noun, 12 meanings as an adjective, 12 meanings as a verb (some transitive and some intransitive), 4 meanings in verb phrases, and 12 meanings as an adverb.
But what about the extraordinary word set? It looks like such a short, simple word, only three letters in all. However, if you look it up in an unabridged dictionary, you will find at least 57 meanings for set when it is used as a noun and over 120 meanings when it is used as a verb.
In this set of materials, in the reading passage the polysemic words are introduced and illustrated more by some examples and in the listening passage a special groups of polysemies are discussed.
According to the states in the reading, the words which carriy different meanings as used in different sentences are called polysemy. Two examples of these words are provided in the reading to make them more sensible. The first word would be sound which holds a large number of various meanings as nouns, adjectives, and verbs when accompanied by different words. And the second word mentioned is set which also could have different meanings when it is used as a noun or verb.
In the listening it is declared that there would be some specific group of polysemic words which not only would have distinct meanings when used in various ways but also create opposite meanings. The professor mentions some words of this group such as bolt, fast and sanction. The word bolt could have two contradictory meanings: fastened or not moving like in the sentence “He bolt the door” and moving very quickly like in the sentence “He decided to bolt”. In addition the word sanction have two completely opposite meanings of to permit when we say sanction something and do not permit when it is said put sanction on something.
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- It is very common in English for one word to have many different meanings This condition where one word has different meanings is known as polysemy This term comes from poly meaning many and sem meaning meaning Sound is one such polysemic word As a noun i 93
the word sanction have two completely opposite meanings
the word sanction has two completely opposite meanings
Sentence: According to the states in the reading, the words which carriy different meanings as used in different sentences are called polysemy.
Error: carriy Suggestion: carry
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 24 in 30
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 9 12
No. of Words: 223 250
No. of Characters: 1065 1200
No. of Different Words: 108 150
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 3.864 4.2
Average Word Length: 4.776 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.51 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 70 80
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 59 60
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 49 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 23 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.778 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.941 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.556 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.446 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.621 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.208 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 3 4