Question about polysemy vs hononymy factors

[Mariner]

Hello my friends,

I have a linguistics task that requires from us to argue whether bald in expression such as He's going bald or It's a bald on record expression represents polysemy or homonymy, giving at least 3 reasons for the answer.

Obviously, it's a case of polysemy, since the words in both sentences are semantically similar , with conceptually related meanings ("clear", "uncluttered" , etc.)

But what more can one say? Any ideas for the other two reasons?

Thank you

[Tdol]

Same historical root? bald. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

[Mariner]

Yep, that's one more! Thanks T.

[Tdol]

How about same other forms- baldly/baldness?

[Mariner]

That was my instinct too. That by changing the syntactic category, the sense relation can still be applied. I think we got 3. Thanks a lot

[Tdol]

Kewl.

[dr_linguista]

I believe polysemy when we have ONE word that has interrelated meanings...but if they share the same historical root, then I guess the relation is homonymy...