See Penny Stock, "Polysemy" for a paper where a lexicographer argues
that this just isn't viable (detailed case study of the word
"culture"), also Patrick Hanks (on "climb") and Dirk Geeraerts (on the
Dutch word "vers" (= English "fresh")).
In general, yes: lexicographers try to set down non-overlapping
senses. But it is one goal among many, and not an overriding one
(unlike(?) in library science). The overriding goal is to tell the
truth (in a way that is comprehensible and consistent). If the
structure of the meaning(s) of the word means you cannot present
non-overlapping senses, then you don't.
Adam Kilgarriff
---------------
Refs:
@INPROCEEDINGS{Stock:83,
AUTHOR = "Penelope F. Stock",
TITLE = "Polysemy",
BOOKTITLE = "Proc.\ Exeter Lexicography Conference",
YEAR = "1983",
Pages = "131--140"
}
@INCOLLECTION{Geeraerts:87,
EDITOR = "B. Rudzka",
BOOKTITLE ="Topics in Cognitive Grammar",
PUBLISHER = "John Benjamins",
YEAR = "1987",
BOOKYEAR = "1987",
ADDRESS = "Amsterdam",
AUTHOR = "Dirk Geeraerts",
TITLE = "Cognitive Semantics and the History of Lexical Semantics"
}
@incollection{Hanks:94,
author = "Patrick Hanks",
title = "Linguistic Norms and Pragmatic Exploitations or, Why
Lexicographers Need Prototype Theory, and Vice Versa",
booktitle = "Papers in Computational Lexicography: {COMPLEX} '94",
year = "1994",
editor="Ferenc Kiefer and Gabor Kiss and Julia Pajzs",
pages = "89--113",
address = "Budapest"
}
(Sad to say the lexicography literature is less well-ordered or
accessible than the CL one).
- and for the full treatment:
@phdthesis{thesis,
author = "Adam Kilgarriff",
title = "Polysemy",
school = "University of Sussex",
year = "1992",
address = "CSRP 261, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences"
}