Social Science · Original Research

Semantic Study of Polysemy of CAN/COULD

Sangar Hassan Najim1 , Anjuman Muhammad Sabir1

1 University of Salahaddin

Published
October 22, 2019
Volume
6 (2), 86-100
License
CC BY 4.0
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Abstract

The polysemous phenomenon exposes the diversity of meanings within the same lexeme, English modals auxiliaries have more than one interrelated meanings (i.e. they are polysemous). This paper describes three meanings of CAN (plus its derived form COULD) : possibility, ability and permission. The flexibility of meanings in CAN/COULD has been applied on English journals in different fields (i.e. politics, literary criticism, science-tech, sport and health).The paper concludes that the meaning of CAN/COULD denotes possibility is more frequent in the Science-Tech than in the other fields.

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Semantic Study of Polysemy of CAN/COULD

Sangar Hassan Najim, Anjuman Muhammad Sabir

The polysemous phenomenon exposes the diversity of meanings within the same lexeme, English modals auxiliaries have more than one interrelated meanings (i.e. they are polysemous). This paper describes three meanings of CAN (plus its derived form COULD) : possibility, ability and permission. The flexibility of meanings in CAN/COULD has been applied on English journals in different fields (i.e. politics, literary criticism, science-tech, sport and health).The paper concludes that the meaning of CAN/COULD denotes possibility is more frequent in the Science-Tech than in the other fields.