The existence of a relationship between frequency and polysemy in words is well known in statistical linguistics. Nevertheless, few data are available on the amount of polysemy in high-frequency words across languages, and no systematic investigation of the Italian lexicon has been carried out so far. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the number and types of senses of the about 7,000 highest frequency lexemes that constitute the basic vocabulary in Italian (vocabolario di base, VDB). Data confirm that frequency and polysemy are strongly related: the percentage of polysemic words in VDB (89%) is much greater than in the overall lexicon (19%); and within VDB, too, changes in frequency correlate with growth in polysemy. Verbs are found to be more polysemic than nouns, in the sense that there are less monosemic verbs than nouns; however, polysemic verbs and nouns give rise to a similar amount of senses (average number of senses is 7.3 in verbs and 6.6 in nouns). The crucial difference between verbs and nouns is to be found in the type, more than in the number, of their senses. In both classes the largest number of senses belongs to the area of basic/common vocabulary, but this area covers 77% of verb senses vs. 55% of noun senses. On the contrary, in nouns 34% of senses (vs. 8% in verbs) belong to the area of technical-scientific vocabulary, and 67% of nouns have at least one technical-scientific sense.

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