Heterosemy

Heterosemy is a concept in linguistics.

Heterosemy is a special case of polysemy where the different but related meanings of a given morpheme are associated with distinct grammatical contexts. Examples where the meaning varies depending on the usage of the word as a noun or a verb include "father", "walk", "stone", and "talk". [Ameka, Felix K., Alan Charles Dench, and Nicholas Evans. "Catching Language: The Standing Challenge of Grammar Writing". Trends in linguistics, 167. Berlin: M. de Gruyter, 2006.]

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