8MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE, YOUTH AND SPORT

OF UKRAINE

Kyiv National Linguistic University

Project Work in English Lexicology

POLYSEMY AND HOMONYMY: THE PROBLEM OF DIFFERENTIATION

Kateryna Smoleva

Group 301(Па01-10)

Translators’/Interpreters’ Department

Research supervisor:

V.G. Nikonova

Professor, Doctor of Philology

Kyiv 2012

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION OF THE PROBLE

The problem of differentiation of polysemy and homonymy is not merely a theoretical question, but one that is of greatest practical significance. How do we know that this or that word is polysemantic and what are the criteria used to arrive at the final decision? In fact the demarcation line between homonymy and polysemy is one of the most debatable problems in semasiology.

In a simple code each sign has only one meaning, and each meaning is associated with only one sign. This one-to-one relationship is not realised in natural languages. According to N. Rayevska, a single word can be made to express the whole variety of meanings. This is polysemy, in which different meanings of one and the same word are mutually dependent and proceed from the primary signification. Polysemy is the natural consequence of sense-shift, undergone by the words in different contexts. In case of homonymy the different meanings of words are mutually independent, there is no connection between such words, and they have only the same pronunciation and spelling (perfect homonyms) or are identical only in spelling (homographs) or sound (homophones). For example the words might – mite, red – read, see – sea rarely interfere with each other, the context inevitably shows which is meant.

Polysemy Homonymy

Meaning1 Word 1_________Meaning1 Word Word form Meaning 2 Word2_________Meaning2

If homonymy is viewed diachronically then all cases of sound convergence of two or more words may be safely regarded as cases of homonymy, as, e.g., race₁ and race₂ can be traced back to two etymologically different words.

Synchronically the differentiation between homonymy and polysemy is based on the semantic criterion. It implies that the difference between polysemy and homonymy is actually reduced to the differentiation be­tween related and unrelated meaning.

It is observed that different meanings of one word have certain stable relationships which are not to be found between the meanings of two homonymous words. Such clear connection may be seen in all metaphoric and metonymic meanings of one word (e.g. foot of the man and foot of the mountain; loud voice – loud colours; deep water – deep knowledge).Such semantic relationships are found in the meanings of one word and are considered to be indicative of polysemy.

Another method that can be applied to the distinction between the homonymy and polysemy is based on purely synchronic data and called transformational analysis. It can also be called explanatory analysis. It’s based on the assumption that if different senses, rendered by the same phonetic complex, can be defined with the help of an identical kernel word-group, they may be considered sufficiently near to be regarded as variants of the same word, if not, they are homonyms.

e.g. 1. A child’s voice is heard. (Wesker)

2. His voice … was … annoyingly well-bread. (Cronin)

3. The voice- voicelessness distinctions … sets up some English consonants in opposed pairs.

4. In the voice contrast of active and passive … the active is unmarked form.

The first variant, voice ¹, may be defined as “sounds uttered in speaking or singing as characteristic of a particular person”, voice ² - as “mode of uttering sounds in speaking or singing”, voice³ – as “the vibrations of vocal cords in sounds uttered”. So far all the definitions contain one and the same kernel element rendering the invariant common basis of their meanings. It is, however, impossible to use the same kernel element for the meaning, present in the fourth example. The corresponding definition is: “Voice – that form of the verb that expresses the relation of the subject to the action.” This failure to satisfy the same explanation formula sets the fourth meaning apart. It may then be considered a homonym to the polysemantic word embracing the first three variants.

A more objective criterion of distribution suggested by some linguists is undoubtedly helpful, but mainly in cases of lexico-grammatical and grammatical homonymy- Formal criteria: distribution and spelling, criterion of context.

When homonymic words belong to different parts of speech they differ not only in their semantic structure, but also in their syntactic function and consequently in their distribution:

e.g. in the homonymic pair paper_{1 n}

paper₂ v

the noun may be proceeded by the article and followed by a verb; paper, v can never be found in identical distribution. But this formal criterion often fails in cases of lexical homonymy, not differentiated by means of spelling.

Homonyms differing in graphic form (knight – night, flower – flour) are easily perceived to be two different lexical units.

But lexical homonyms identical both in pronunciation and spelling are often apprehended as different meanings of one word. It is often argued that the context in which the words are used suffices to preserve the borderline between homonymous words.

e.g. “case” in “several cases of robbery”

and in “a jewel case; a glass case”

Thus the context serves to differentiate meanings but is of little help in distributing between homonymy and polysemy.

To sum up it should be mentioned that a knowledge of the suggested criteria for identifying polysemy and homonymy is important in making a distinction between these two sense relations, but this does not always solve the question of subjectivity in distinguishing between polysemy and homonymy, since the criteria are always associated with the semantic relationship of the lexical items

Criteria	Polysemy	Homonymy
Existence	Word level	Word level
Structure	Single form	Similar forms
Orthography	Do not vary	May vary in spelling
Utterance	Do not have variation	Pronounced variation
Sense variation	Mostly due to context	Due to meaning and etymology
Context	Plays a vital role	Has no role to play

Key words and expressions from the text:

1. Polysemy - багатозначність

2. Homonymy - омонімія

3. Mutually independent - незалежні один від одного

4. Mutually dependent – взаємозалежні

5. Perfect homonyms - прості (лексичні) омоніми

6. Homographs – омографи

7. Homophones – омоформи

8. Semantic criterion – семантичний критерій

9. Criterion of context – контекстуальний критерій

10)Orthography - орфографія

11) Sense variation - зміна значення