On Understanding and Defining Polysemy and Ambiguity;

The study of English prepositional polysemy is one of the hot issues in cognitive linguistics.

Approached with Liu Shuxiang s static and dynamic theory, this paper distinguishes ambiguity from polysemy and holds that the opposition between static and dynamic is the major distinction between ambiguity and polysemy while the oppositions between realization and possibility, overlapping and codominance, strong control and zero control are secondary ones between ambiguity and polysemy.

Analyzing the different sememes in a polysemous field by taking conceptual elements analysis could clarify the historical development of the meanings of a common word,and reveal the rules of the evolution of the meanings of common words.

The particular polyphonic polysemous phenomena in Hunan dialect occur in two situations: first, when they are homonyms in standard Chinese, the words are polyphonic polysemous for distinct meanings and pronounciations in some Hunan dialect; second, when they are polysemants in standard Chinese, the words are polyphonic polysemous for distinct meanings and pronounciations in some Hunan dialect.