Homonymy, Polysemy, and Vagueness

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The word tattoo is a general word. Tattoo isn’t confined to a specific gang sign or tramp stamp. There are gothic tattoos and Indian tribal tattoos. Tattoo is vague because it is an umbrella word which encompasses various categories. Since using the word tattoo alone does not clarify which category of tattoos we intend, we call the word tattoo vague. Tattoo is not only vague. It is ambiguous as well. Contrary to popular belief, tattoo is not singly reserved for decorative designs. It can mean a military drum beat; it can mean an Indian bred pony. Yet these three completely separate lexemes all share the same spelling and pronunciation. Linguists call such a phenomenon homonymy. This is in contrast to homophones which only have identical pronunciations and not identical spellings, and homographs which only have the same spelling but not the same pronunciations. Homonyms have identical spellings and pronunciations and yet the words have no logical connection to one another. Tattoo is ambiguous in more than one way. The lexeme tattoo which refers to a military drum beat has three somewhat unique senses. It can mean a rhythmic rapping; a notice to go to one’s quarters; or an outdoor military entertainment exercise (Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary). This ambiguity of separate senses which share a common denominator (here a drum beat) is called polysemy. Polysemy often emerges when words branch out to acquire new senses/meanings. The various senses still retain logical similarity to each other, and yet they describe separate things. Polysemous words are more logically similar to one another than their homonymous cousins. The two lexemes of tattoo, one referring to a decorative design and the other to a military drum beat, exhibit a slight degree of polysemy. They share the similarity that both are created through puncturing; one through puncturing the skin
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