ABSTRACT
The number and nature of variable senses of a word may be due to POLYSEMY (related by extension from an ‘original’ meaning or BASIC SENSE: band ‘ribbon’ > ‘belt’ > ‘range’ > ‘track’) or HOMONYMY (accidental similarity: band 1 ‘ribbon’ (etc.) versus band 2 ‘group of musicians’), but these sometimes shade into one another. Distinct senses are used to subdivide dictionary entries into sections (SUBLEMMA), but the ordering of these sub-senses (by etymology? by semantic ‘logic’? by frequency?) is not always clear. SEMANTICS, SENSE RELATION. Landau 1984, Moon 1987, McArthur 1992, Svensén 1993, Considine 1996.
