The Organization of the Lexicon 
The Polysemy of Grow and Disambiguation  
 Yukiko Sasaki Alam 
Dept. of Digital Media Science 
Hosei University 
Tokyo, Japan 
sasaki@k.hosei.ac.jp 
 
 
 
Abstract 
This paper demonstrates that the polysemy of 
the verb grow is a result of natural extension 
of individual meanings connoted by its basic 
literal meaning and that the polysemy of grow, 
as such, can be disambiguated by applying 
simple rules of elimination to the argument 
structures, which are the contexts that make 
particular senses viable. 
1 Introduction1 
This paper claims that the polysemy of the verb 
grow is a result of natural extension of meanings 
connoted by the basic literal meaning and that the 
connotations develop into each independent mean-
ing of grow by requiring different semantic fea-
tures of the arguments. The connotations of the 
literal meaning of grow become viable in a new 
context of argument structure. 
 
It will be demonstrated that for the computational 
treatment of disambiguation, it is not necessary to 
exhaust all the features involved in a particular 
meaning of grow, but the application of simple 
rules of elimination to the argument structure 
would be sufficient. 
                                                           
1 I would like to thank Alan Wallington, John Barnde, Mark 
Lee and Sheila Glasbey for organizing the workshop entitled 
The Lexicon and Figurative Language at ACL 2003 in Sap-
poro, Japan on July 11, 2003. My thanks also go to three 
anonymous reviewers for valuable comments. I alone, how-
ever, am responsible for any errors this paper may contain. 
 
The second section will discuss each sense of grow, 
focusing on the semantic components of the argu-
ments, and on the relationships among them. I will 
demonstrate what is required to disambiguate the 
polysemy of grow in the third section, which is 
followed by short sections for implications and 
conclusion. 
2 Relationships of extended meanings 
Viewed by using such thematic roles of verbs as 
GOAL and SOURCE, the meanings of the verb 
grow shows an interesting relationship among each 
other. According to the etymology of the word, the 
original sense would be for a plant to germinate 
and develop or for a living thing to undergo natural 
development, for instance, by increasing in size 
and changing physically. The meanings of grow 
could be illustrated as below2: 
 
(1) grow_proto 
 
a. It’s too cold for orchids to grow here. 
b. Crocuses don't grow in ponds. 
c. Later, forests grew on the delta. 
                                                           
2 The following idiomatic uses of grow are not included in the 
discussion of this paper: 
(i)  His new jacket’s a bit big for him now, but he’ll soon grow 
into it. 
(ii) I didn’t like blue cheese at first, but the taste has kind of 
grown on me. 
(iii) Jonathan still sucks his thumb, but we hope he’ll grow out 
of it. 
(iv) What will you be when you grow up? 
d. A dozen or so bushes grew from a wide fis-
sure. 
e. He grew mentally and spiritually.3 
 
(2) grow_appear 
 
a. A small glimmer of happiness grew on their 
faces. 
b. Confidence grew in him. 
c. Their love grew out of friendship. 
d. The book grew out of their weekly meetings. 
e. In those days such interests rarely grew from 
the pupils’ enthusiasm or choice. 
 
(3) grow_increase 
 
a. His confidence grew. 
b. He grew in confidence. 
c. The city’s population grew from 130,000 to 
more than 500,000.  
d. The ethnic minorities grew in influence. 
e. The European market for ISDN telephone 
lines will grow in value from £200,000 
now to £2.5m by the year 2000. 
 
(4) grow_change 
 
a. A boy grows to manhood. 
b. A boy grows into a man. 
c. His love grew cold 
d. I am growing to hate him. 
e. They grew from girl to woman. 
f. The city of London grew from a small fish-
ing village to a great city. 
 
 (5) grow_caused 
 
a. The farmer grew corn in this field last year. 
b. He’s growing a beard. 
c. Plants grow roots. 
d. Cattle often grow horns. 
 
A.  grow_proto and grow_appear 
 
The meaning of ‘grow_proto’ connotes a combina-
tion of appearance, development, increase in size 
and change, all of which seem to have developed 
to be independent meanings of grow through the 
                                                           
3 He grew mentally and spiritually in (1e) may be a result of 
personification. 
metaphorical process. Therefore, each developed 
meaning has the undertone of the basic meaning of 
grow. 
 
The characteristic properties of the meaning of 
‘grow_proto’ are that the SUBJECT noun phrase 
refers to a living thing such as a plant and a human 
and that it may take a component that plays a role 
of denoting place for both growing and existence. 
Such a component is called LOCUS among such 
scholars who study the semantic structure of verbs 
as Gruber (1965), Starosta (1978) and Ostler 
(1980)4. 
 
Unlike the meaning of ‘grow_proto’, the meaning 
of ‘grow_appear’ takes the SUBJECT noun phrase 
that does not refer to a living thing. Therefore, the 
meanings of ‘grow_proto’ and ‘grow_appear’ are 
complementary in terms of the  features of the 
SUBJECT noun phrases. In addition, unlike the 
reading of ‘grow_proto’, the reading of 
‘grow_appear’ does not necessarily require a  
LOCUS component having the feature of PLACE, 
but the feature of denoting a physical object such 
as a face in (2a) would be sufficient. Thus, it could 
be stated that the reading of ‘grow_appear’ has less 
semantic constraint on the LOCUS component 
than that of ‘grow_proto’.  
 
In addition, the reading of ‘grow_appear’ takes a 
component indicating source of coming into exis-
tence, which can be called SOURCE because of 
the role of indicating the source of action. The 
SOURCE element refers to an abstract entity as in 
(2c) through (2e). Difference in the semantic fea-
tures of the components in the readings of 
‘grow_proto’ and ‘grow_appear’ is illustrated in 
the following table: 
 
                                                           
4 It should be noted that LOCUS should be distinguished from 
LOCATION, which indicates place where AGENT takes ac-
tion. Take the following for instance: 
  a. He is writing a letter on a letter pad. 
  b. He is writing a letter in the kitchen. 
The phrase on a letter pad functions as LOCUS whereas in the 
kitchen,  LOCATION. 
(6)  
a. grow_proto 
SUBJECT + GROW (+ LOCUS or SOURCE)5 
 
b. grow_appear 
SUBJECT + GROW + LOCUS or SOURCE 
 
readings semantics 
of 
SUBJECT 
semantics 
of 
LOCUS 
semantics 
of 
SOURCE 
grow_proto living 
thing 
place place 
grow_appear non-living 
thing 
physical 
entity 
abstract 
entity 
 
Although both readings take the construction in the 
form of SUBJECT + GROW + LOCUS, the read-
ing of ‘grow_appear’ needs either the LOCUS or 
the SOURCE whereas the reading of ‘grow_proto’ 
can have the SUBJECT only. 
 
B.  grow_increase 
 
The SUBJECT noun phrase of the reading of 
‘grow_increase’ refers either to a physical object 
or to an abstract object. This reading permits an 
interesting interchange of  two constructions, as 
illustrated below: 
 
(7)  
 a. His confidence grew.  (= 3a) 
  (POSSESSOR’s ATTRIBUTE GROW) 
 
 b. He grew in confidence. (= 3b) 
 (POSSESSOR GROW in ATTRIBUTE) 
 
As (7b) shows, the POSSESSOR component can 
be the SUBJECT of the sentence, and the 
ATTRIBUTE can appear in the form of in + 
ATTRIBUTE. Let us look into the phrase in confi-
dence in (7b). In fact, we find the third construc-
tion somewhat similar in meaning to those in (7a) 
and (7b), which is repeated below: 
 
(8)  Confidence grew in him. (= 2b) 
 
Let us use the following conceptual diagrams for 
our exploration of the nature of the phrase “in + 
ATTRIBUTE”: 
                                                           
5 Parentheses indicate the item inside is optional. 
 
(9)  
  a. A flower grew in the pot. 
 b. Confidence grew in him. (= 2b, 8) 
 c. He grew in confidence. (=3b, 7b) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The two diagrams suggest that in (9a) the part, a 
flower, is the SUBJECT of the sentence, and the 
whole, the pot,  is the LOCUS. Likewise, in (9b) 
the part, confidence, is the SUBJECT while the 
whole, him, is the LOCUS. Alternatively, by using 
Talmy’s (1978) terminology in cognitive psychol-
ogy, we could call the part ‘figure’ and the whole 
‘ground’. Moreover, Brugman and Lakoff (1988) 
treated the figure as an element in focus and the 
ground as an element not in focus in the paper 
dealing with prepositions. Drawing on the insight 
of previous researchers, I call the thematic role of 
the phrase in confidence FOCUS. The FOCUS 
element in this construction always appears in the 
form of in + FOCUS noun, and the noun refers to 
an abstract entity.  
 
Furthermore, the reading of ‘grow_increase’ may 
appear with phrases indicating a finishing point of 
increase as well as a starting point. As those 
phrases are preceded by the prepositions to and 
from, I call their thematic roles GOAL and 
SOURCE respectively according to the naming 
convention of thematic roles. As the examples in 
(3c) and (3e) show, the GOAL and SOURCE ele-
ments denote quantities. It should also be noted 
that the reading of ‘grow_increase’ does not take 
the SOURCE element alone without accompany-
ing the GOAL element. Where there is a SOURCE 
element, so is there a GOAL element. 
 
flower 
pot 
confidence
him 
Thus, we need three-fold constructions in this read-
ing, as illustrated below; 
 
(10) grow_increase 
 
(a) SUBJECT+ GROW 
 
(a) semantics 
of SUBJECT 
(possessor’s 
attribute) 
FOCUS GOAL 
(finishing 
point) 
SOURCE 
(starting 
point) 
abstract entity (None) (None) (None) 
 
(b) SUBJECT + GROW + in + FOCUS 
 
(b) semantics 
of SUBJECT 
(possessor) 
FOCUS 
(attribute) 
GOAL 
(finishing 
point) 
SOURCE 
(starting 
point) 
abstract or 
physical en-
tity 
abstract 
entity 
 (None) (None) 
 
(c) SUBJECT + GROW  (+ in + FOCUS) + GOAL 
(+ SOURCE)6 
 
(c) semantics 
of SUBJECT 
 
FOCUS 
(attribute) 
GOAL 
(finishing 
point) 
SOURCE 
(starting 
point) 
abstract or 
physical en-
tity 
abstract 
entity 
 quantity quantity 
 
C.  grow_change 
 
The reading of ‘grow_change’ seems to derive by 
focusing the aspect of change or development con-
noted by the basic meaning of grow. The 
SUBJECT noun phrase refers to an entity that un-
dergoes change of state. The minimum require-
ment of this reading is an element that indicates the 
final state of change whether the final state is ex-
pressed as a prepositional phrase as in to manhood 
(4a) and into a man (4b), as an adjective as in grew 
cold (4c), or as an infinitival phrase as in growing 
to hate him (4d). This reading may optionally ap-
pear with an element denoting the initial state of 
change, as in from girl to woman in (4e).  
 
                                                           
6 Parentheses indicate the item inside is optional. 
The characteristics of this reading is that the se-
mantic features in the SUBJECT, GOAL and, if 
any, SOURCE elements should agree in feature 
specification. For instance, in (4b) the semantic 
features of boy and man should agree in feature 
specification for well-formedness. It is easy to de-
tect some cases of this reading syntactically. Only 
this reading permits such a construction as His love 
grew cold in (4c) and I am growing to hate him in 
(4d). The following table shows semantic features 
for the reading of ‘grow_change’ in constructions 
other than (4c) and (4d), both of which require a 
special syntactic treatment. 
 
(11) grow_change (requiring the feature agreement 
among the three roles) 
 
semantics of 
SUBJECT 
semantics of 
GOAL (re-
quired ele-
ment) 
semantics of 
SOURCE (op-
tional element) 
physical entity physical entity physical entity 
abstract entity abstract entity abstract entity 
 
D.  grow_caused 
 
The reading of ‘grow_caused’ differs structurally 
from the other readings discussed above in that it 
requires the component which plays the grammati-
cal role of OBJECT. In other words, grow in this 
reading is a transitive verb. This reading is derived 
from the reading of ‘grow_proto’ by adding the 
AGENT element, and thus it may take the LOCUS 
element, as in grew corn in this field (5a). Thus it 
is not difficult to distinguish this reading from the 
other readings. 
 
To sum up, a combination of connotations of the 
literal meaning of ‘grow_proto’ each seems to be-
come a focus and develop into an independent 
meaning of grow. The shift of focus has caused the 
change of the semantics of the argument, resulting 
in a different argument structure from that for the 
basic meanig: for instance, the meaning of increase 
does not take the LOCUS that denotes place any 
longer, but can instead have a FOCUS element that 
denotes an abstract entity. Likewise, the GOAL 
and SOURCE elements in the reading of 
‘grow_increase’ do not denote place, but indicate a 
finishing and a starting points of increase respec-
tively. The reading of ‘grow_change’ may have 
GOAL and SOURCE elements, but what they 
really represent is the final and initial states of 
change. Yet, the readings of ‘grow_increase’ and 
‘grow_change’ are related to each other, and share 
something in common: both events are realized by 
growing. All extended meanings carry the under-
tone of the basic meaning with them. These mean-
ings seem to be developed from ‘grow_proto’ as if 
cell division takes place. This kind of lexical or-
ganization and extension would reduce memory 
load on the learner.  
 
3 For computational treatment 
Finally, I would like to make comments on the 
computational treatment of the polysemy of grow. 
The following table gives an idea of which read-
ings are similar syntactically and semantically and 
of what is required to disambiguate the polysemy. 
For the computational treatment of disambiguation, 
we would not need to exhaust all the features in-
volved in argument structure for each meaning of a 
verb, but to have sufficient rules of elimination of 
other readings would suffice. 
 
Following is a table showing relationships among 
the meanings of grow, which is organized in terms 
of grammatical and thematic roles.7 
 
(12) 
 
Meanings Just 
SUBJ 
L G G&S S 
grow_proto ok ok   ok 
grow_appear  ok   ok 
grow_increase ok ok 
(=F)8 
ok ok  
grow_change   ok ok  
 
L=LOCUS, F=FOCUS, G=GOAL, G&S = GOAL 
& SOURCE, S=SOURCE 
 
                                                           
7 I will not include the reading of ‘grow_caused’ because it 
has a distintive construction by having the OBJECT, and is 
easy to distinguish from the others. In addition, constructions 
such as His love grew cold and I am growing to hate him are 
not included in this table because these are typical of the rea d-
ing of ‘grow_change’, and are easy to detect syntactically. 
8 “=F” means that in this reading the LOCUS element has a 
more specific role, FOCUS. 
The construction in the form of SUBJECT + 
GROW appears in both readings of ‘grow_proto’ 
and ‘grow_increase’. Both readings are distin-
guishable from each other by the semantics of the 
SUBJECT noun phrases. The SUBJECT noun 
phrase in the reading of ‘grow_proto’ requires an 
entity referring to a living thing, while that in the 
reading of ‘grow_increase’, an abstract entity. 
 
Three readings, ‘grow_proto’, ‘grow_appear’ and 
‘grow_increase’ take the form of SUBJECT noun 
phrase + GROW + P9 + LOCUS noun phrase; in 
particular the last reading in the form of SUBJECT 
+ GROW + in + FOCUS noun instead. As the 
LOCUS in the reading of ‘grow_proto’ denotes the 
PLACE feature and the others do not, the reading 
of ‘grow_proto’ can be distinguished from the 
other two. Between the remaining two, the reading 
of ‘grow_appear’ takes the LOCUS requiring a 
physical entity whereas the reading of 
‘grow_increase’, an abstract entity. 
 
The readings of ‘grow_incease’ and 
‘grow_change’ may appear in the form of 
SUBJECT + GROW + to + GOAL or in the form 
of SUBJECT + GROW + from + SOURCE + to + 
GOAL. They are distinguishable because the 
GOAL and SOURCE in the reading of 
‘grow_increase’ include features of QUANTITY 
while those in the reading of ‘grow_change’ do not. 
 
The readings of ‘grow_proto’ and ‘grow_appear’ 
take the form of SUBJECT + GROW + from + 
SOURCE, but while the SOURCE in the reading 
of ‘grow_appear’ refers to an abstract entity, that 
in the reading of ‘grow_proto’ does not. As men-
tioned above, the two readings are also distin-
guishable in terms of the semantic features of the 
SUBJECT noun phrases because the SUBJECT of 
the reading of ‘grow_proto’ requires a feature indi-
cating a living thing while that of the reading of 
‘grow_appear’ should not. 
 
As discussed above, once rules of elimination are 
prepared, it would not be difficult to disambiguate 
the polysemy of a word, because the polysemy is 
based on the extension of meanings that do not 
overlap and the contexts that make the extensions 
                                                           
9 “P” stands for preposition. 
viable should not overlap either. The contexts in 
the case of verbs are the argument structures. 
4 Implications  
Interestingly, the hypothesis of the relationship 
between the primary sense and other extended 
senses in this study differs from that in Tyler and 
Evans’ (2001) study on the polysemy of the prepo-
sition over. This study claims that the basic or pri-
mary sense of grow has a combination of 
individual connotations such as change of state, 
increase and appearance, and that grow acquires a 
new sense extended from each individual connota-
tion by allowing a different argument structure. On 
the other hand, the primary sense of over proposed 
in Tyler and Evans ‘represents a highly idealized 
abstraction from our rich recurring experience of 
spatial scenes’ and ‘other distinct senses instanti-
ated in the polysemy network for over result from 
pragmatic strengthening, i.e. reanalysis and encod-
ing.’ (p. 762) It would be an open question whether 
this difference is due to different subject matters, 
i.e. between the verb and the preposition, or due to 
different approaches, i.e. between computationally 
motivated and psycholinguistic approaches.  
 
However, both studies have a common underlying 
thesis that the lexicon is highly motivated exhibit-
ing regularities. This is in contrast to the view gen-
erally held by Minimalist linguists that the lexicon 
is not organized by general principles (Chomsky 
1995).10 
 
The advantage of the analysis of the polysemy of 
grow proposed in this study is that it is somewhat 
similar to analyses we find in the entries for grow 
in dictionaries. This suggests that it might be pos-
sible to use analyses of lexical entries listed in tr a-
ditional dictionaries for computational purposes. 
5 Conclusion  
This paper has discussed the relationships of the 
polysemy of the verb grow by examining the se-
                                                           
10 The study of the lexicon and in particular the semantic 
polysemy has never been a subject of serious linguistic re-
search in the framework of Generative Linguistics. As the 
study of the lexicon has been scarce and the research has to 
cover a vast realm of linguistic data and activities, this field is 
in dire need of future research. 
mantic features of the arguments. It has demon-
strated that a combination of meanings connoted in 
the basic literal meaning each develops into an in-
dependent meaning of grow, attaining a new con-
text that makes the meanig effective. The 
polysemy of grow is a natural extension of conno-
tations of its basic meaning. This type of lexical 
organization, if this assumption is in the right di-
rection, would have reduced memory load on the 
learner. It has also pointed out that for the compu-
tational treatment of disambiguation, it is not nec-
essary to exhaust all the features involved in a 
particular reading of the polysemy, but that simple 
rules of elimination of other readings should suf-
fice. This claim has been demonstrated by disam-
biguating the polysemy of grow by applying the 
rules of elimination to the argument structures, 
which are in fact the contexts that make particular 
meanings viable. 
 
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