Naapurimerkitys

Naapurimerkitys, literally “neighboring meaning,” is a term used in Finnish linguistics to describe a relation between senses of a single lexical item that are semantically close. It refers to polysemous senses that sit near each other in a conceptual or semantic space, sharing a core domain or image schema and arising from relatively small shifts in meaning.

Conceptually, neighboring meanings often originate through metaphorical extension, metonymy, or generalization within the same semantic field. They reflect how speakers extend a basic sense along a familiar axis—such as space, quantity, or social role—without leaving the core domain of the word. Because the senses are close, naapurimerkitys tends to produce smooth transitions in understanding and comparatively high mutual intelligibility in context.

Naapurimerkitys is typically contrasted with more distant forms of polysemy and with homonymy. Distant or remote senses may diverge in ways that obscure their relation, while neighboring meanings remain linked by a shared core concept. The notion is useful for lexicography and natural language processing, where clustering senses by proximity can improve word sense disambiguation and the presentation of dictionary entries.

In practice, the boundaries of naapurimerkitys can be fluid and language-specific. What counts as neighboring in one language may be less so in another, and diachronic change can gradually move a sense from neighboring to more distant or vice versa. Related concepts include polysemy, semantic networks, and metaphor/metonymy within cognitive linguistics.