THE COGNITIVE NATURE OF POLYSEMY: A CONCEPTUAL APPROACH

This article examines the cognitive nature of polysemy from a conceptual perspective within cognitive linguistics. The study explores how multiple meanings of a single linguistic unit are organized through conceptual structures, human experience, and cognitive mechanisms. Particular attention is given to prototype theory, conceptual metaphor, metonymy, and categorization processes that explain the development of polysemous meanings. The findings demonstrate that polysemy is not an accidental feature of language but a systematic cognitive phenomenon reflecting the flexibility of human conceptualization. The research highlights the importance of cognitive approaches for understanding semantic extension and meaning construction.