38. Polysemy and homonymy in the English language

The study of polysemy of a language has often been associated with the study of homonymy because distinction between the two has often not been very clear. In a piece of text, one can come across a set of words, which may appear either homonymous or polysemous. Since both types of word are often similar in surface representation(i.e., spelling and orthography) with no special mark for their distinction, one is easily misled to assume homonyms as polysemes or vice versa. However, there is a need to draw a clear line of distinction between the two, because these forms differ from each other not only in their nature, but also in function and implication.

Polysemy is the coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase. Most words of the English language are polysemantic. Highly developed polysemy is one of the characteristic features of the English language. The system of meanings of any polysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over the centuries, as more and more new meanings are either added to old ones, or out some of them. We say that the word is polysemantic when it has many meanings. In the word the main and the secondary meanings are distinguished. Thus, the word is polysemantic in the language but in actual speech it is always monosemantic, that is, it has only one meaning. It is in the context that makes the polysemantic word monosemantic. The researches of polysemy are also significant in grammar, as most grammatical forms are polysemantic. Even a single grammatical form can be made to express a whole variety of structural meanings.

The semantic structure of a polysemantic word is treated as a system of meanings. Some semantic structures are arranged on a different principle. The researches of the multiplicity of meanings began in eighteenth century and were continued in the nineteenth century. The most important investment in this century was made by Bréal whose research into polysemy marked a new starting point: he shifted the study of polysemy away from lexicography and etymology.

The important researches in the sphere of polysemy were made by Lyon who considers polysemy and homonymy as two types of lexical ambiguity and introduce some criteria for deciding when it is polysemy and when it is homonymy. One criterion is etymological information about the lexical item in question. Lexical items with the same origin are considered as polysemantic, whereas if they have evolved from distinct lexemes in some earlier stage of the language then they are regarded as homonymous.

Homonyms are words different in meaning but identical in sound or spelling, or both in sound and spelling. Homonyms can appear in the language not only as the result of the split of polysemy, but also as the result of leveling of grammar inflexions, when different parts of speech become identical in their outer aspect. They can be also formed by means of conversion, e. g “to slim» from «slim», «to water» from «water». They can be formed with the help of the same suffix from the same stem, e.g. «reader» - a person who reads and a book for reading.

Homonyms can also appear in the language accidentally, when two words coincide in their development, e.g. two native words can coincide in their outer aspects. A native word and a borrowing can coincide in their outer aspects,e.g. «Fair» from Latin «feria». Homonyms can develop through shortening of different words,e.g. «cab» from «cabriolet», «cabbage», «cabin».

Classifications of homonyms:

Walter Skeet classified homonyms according to their spelling and sound forms and he pointed out three groups: perfect homonyms that is words identical in sound and spelling, such as: «school»; homographs, that is words with the same spelling but pronounced differently, e.g. «Bow» -/bau/- «noклон» and/bou/- «цибуля»; homophones that is words pronounced identically but spelled differently, eg «Night» - «ніч» and «Knight» - «pицарь».

Another classification was suggested by AI Smirnitsky 2). Headded to Skeat's classification one more criterion: grammatical meaning. He subdivided the group of perfect homonyms in Skeat's classification into two types of homonyms: perfect which are identical in their spelling, pronunciation and their grammar form, such as В«springВ» in the meanings: the season of the year, a leap, a source, and homo-forms which coincide in their spelling and pronunciation but have different grammatical meaning, eg В«ReadingВ» - Present Participle, Gerund, Verbal noun., To lobby - lobby.