Theories of lexical semantics offers a comprehensive overview of the major traditions of word meaning research in linguistics in spite of the growing importance of the lexicon in linguistic theory no overview of the main theoretical trends in lexical semantics is currently available this book fills that gap by charting the evolution of the discipline from the mid nineteenth century to the . Lexical semantics is the study of word meaning descriptively speaking the main topics studied within lexical semantics involve either the internal semantic structure of words or the semantic relations that occur within the vocabulary within the first set major phenomena include polysemy in contrast with vagueness metonymy metaphor and prototypicality. Theories of lexical semantics offers a comprehensive overview of the major traditions of word meaning research in linguistics in spite of the growing importance of the lexicon in linguistic theory no overview of the main theoretical trends in lexical semantics is currently available. Theories of lexical semantics offers a comprehensive overview of the major traditions of word meaning research in linguistics in spite of the growing importance of the lexicon in linguistic theory no overview of the main theoretical trends in lexical semantics is currently available this book fills that gap by charting the evolution of the