Le changement de sens des mots Entre approches « polysémistes » et approches « monosémistes »

Résumé

This contribution aims to answer the problem of the conception of the changes of meaning of
words in two different theoretical approaches. Traditional semantic theories centred on the
polysemy of words conceive the change of meaning as a new meaning that is added to the already
existing range of meanings for a word, while modern approaches, focused on monosemy in
language and poly-designation in speech, defend the idea that the change of meaning cannot
give rise to a polysemy, but rather to a homonymy in language or a change of field of use in
speech.