Comparison Between Polysemies '眼' And 'Eye' Through Prototype Shift, Split And Subcategorization

Polysemy is a much studied topic of linguistics. Linguists of different schools deal with it from the different perspectives. Formalism, structuralism, and cognitivism are influential in the history of the study on language.About prototype shift and prototype split, foreign scholars such as Ungerer and Schmid have used the two terms to explain the formation of polysemy. In China, there are few scholars using prototype shift, prototype split and subcategory to study Chinese polysemous words. Thus, The research is to use the theories of prototype split, prototype shift and subcategory to analyze the sense relations between different meanings of Chinese and English polysemous words'眼'and'eye'respectively and to compare the differences and similarities between them and give the reasons, in order to reveal the different cognitive views of the two nations. This study can provide a new way for analyzing Chinese and English polysemous words.The present research shows that there are more similarities than differences between Chinese and English polysemous words. A prototype or subprototype shift or split can be in radials and in chains by way of metaphor or metonymy. The meaning term split from the prototype is closer to the prototype than the one shifted from the prototype on the same level. The more the nodes are between the meaning term and prototype, the more the differences will be.