Functional Shift in Relation to Lexical Semantics

Abstract

There are three concepts in the English language that tend to confuse some English language users: Functional shift, homonymy and polysemy. Functional Shift can fall under morphological and/or syntactic domain depending on the theoretical approach one adopts. It can also fit into semantics when meaning of words is considered in addition to forms and functions; hence, its relation to semantics. Homonymy and polysemy fall under the lexical semantics which tend to characterize the meaning of a word not in terms of its component features, but in terms of its relationship to other words. However, homonymy and polysemy sometimes, pose some difficulties to English language users when compared to functional shift. This paper sets out to critically evaluate these processes with the intention to clear all manner of ambiguities surrounding the distinction of functional shift from homonymy and polysemy by providing a clear cut distinguishing features among these three concepts and present each on an atmosphere devoid of complexities.