ABSTRACT
This chapter develops the approach taken to word meaning in cognitive semantics. The position originally proposed by Claudia Brugman was that polysemy as a conceptual phenomenon should form the basis of a theory of word meaning. This idea was developed within the theory of idealised cognitive models and radial categories developed by Lakoff, and integrated with the theory of conceptual metaphor developed by Lakoff' and Johnson. Conceptual metaphor has a central role in Lakoff's theory of radial categories. Lakoff proposes a radial category model for the representation of word meaning which reflects empirical facts relating to word meaning, particularly with respect to polysemy and prototype structure. Tyler and Evans argue that while Lakoff's position on polysemy as a conceptual phenomenon is correct, it is also important to take into account the crucial role of context in word meaning. Thus word meaning involves a complex interaction between polysemy, context and encyclopaedic knowledge.
