Homonyms

Two or more words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning, distribution and origin are called homonyms. (GK. homōnymous – homos “the same”, onoma “name”).

Homonymy exists in many languages but it is particularly frequent in English with its monosyllabism. (from 2540 homonyms listed in the “Oxford English dictionary” 89 % are one-morpheme words).

Homonyms are subdivided into homonyms proper, homophones and homographs.

Homonyms proper are words identical in pronunciation and spelling: back (part of the body) – back (away), ball (a round object used in games) – ball (a gathering of people for dancing), bark (the skin of a tree) – bark (a sailing ship) – bark (the noise made by the dog).

Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning: air – heir, birth – berth, cite- site – sight, desert – dessert, fir – fur, hoarse – horse, sale – sail.

Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling: bow [bau] – bow [bou], lead [lJd] – lead [led], tear [tFq] – tear [tIq].

Patterned homonymy is characteristic of homonyms that have developed from one common source, possess identical lexical meaning and belong to various parts of speech. Care_n – care_v, love_v – love_n, stone_n – stone_v, drive_v – drive_n.

Full homonyms are words that are homonymous in all their forms (complete homonymy).

Seal – any of various aquatic mammals with a sleek, torpedo – shaped body and limbs in the form of flippers; seal – a die or signet with a raised or incised emblem used to stamp an impression on a substance such as wax or lead.

Partial homonyms are word forms that are homonymous in some of their forms (this type of homonymy is characteristic of words belonging to different lexico-grammatical classes).

Seal_n – an aquatic mammal (seal, seal’s, seals, seals’).

Seal_v, to close tightly (seal, seals, sealed, sealing).

Paronyms are words that are kindred both in sound and meaning and usage and therefore only mistakenly interchanged:

Hanged – hung, assure – ensure, ingenious – ingenuous, affect – effect.

The Origin of Homonyms

The intense development of homonymy in the English language is first of all connected with the phonetic identity or words and stems, their monosyllabic character.

In the course of numerous phonetic transformations two or more words accidentally coincide in sound: homonymy develops in this case through convergent sound development. Out of 2540 homonyms listed in “The Oxford English Dictionary” 93 % are formed through occasional coincidence in sound:

Sound (Zesund) – sound (sonus), see – sea, knight – night, bee – be, bean – been, cell – sell, fair – fare, son – sun, week – weak.

Homonymy may also develop from polysemy through divergent sense development. This process also may be combined with loss of endings and other morphological processes. It may be the result of split of polysemy or polysemy destroy.

Polysemy and Homonymy

When a word has several meanings it is not always an example of polysemy or homonymy. LSVs cease to be alternations of one and the same unit and become different words. Solving this problem we must turn to dictionaries where a polysemantic word will be treated as a single entry while a homonymous one has separate entry for each of the homonyms. Are there any serious criteria by means of which we can distinguish between polysemy and homonymy? There are three major factors taken into account:

1. the semantic proximity of the lexical-semantic variants;

2. their derivation capacity;

3. the range of collocability.

In case of polysemy it is easy to discover a central core of meaning which brings the LSVs under a single general notion. Usually they are metaphorically interrelated.

It is most difficult to distinguish between polysemy and homonymy when a word has a number of nominative (and not nominative-derivative) meanings. They are usually nominations of things or actions which developed independently of each other. This parallel polysemy is mostly characteristic of nouns and verbs.

If we take board 1) a piece of wood; 2) a company, council; 3) meals, at first sight their semantic proximity does not lie on the surface and it is not clear synchronically whether it’s a case of polysemy but a deeper insight on a diachronistic plane helps us to restore the fact that the original meaning “a piece of wood” through metonymic transfers served as the basis for development of additional meanings.

As it was already mentioned, one of the sources of homonymy in language is its development as the limit of polysemy. At a certain point new lexical-semantic variants become mutually incompatible. We observe the process of diverging meaning development of a polysemantic word. Various meanings of the same word move away from each other so far away:

Spring

the season between winter and summer; a twisted piece of metal that will return to its previous shape after it has been pressed down; a place where water comes up naturally from the ground; a sudden quick movement or jump in a particular direction.

The semantic core of the word spring is no longer elastic, it cannot be stretched any further. Thus we receive four separate words which are homonymous. But how can we distinguish between polysemy and homonymy? We must bear in mind that the transition form polysemy to homonymy is a gradual process and it is not possible to point out the time when two separate words with identical form and sound shape appear in the language.

We must take into account the semantic proximity of the lexical-semantic variants; in polysemantic words we look for a central meaning; especially when we have examples of semantic transfer.

It is more difficult to distinguish between polysemy and homonymy when a word has a number of nominative meanings (concrete names referring to things and to actions which have developed independently of each other):

board₁ (a piece of wood)

board­₂ (a company, council)

board₃ (meals)

Distinguishing polysemy from homonymy we also take into consideration the derivational capacity of the variants. Homonyms usually develop their own sets of derivative or derived words: deep – voiced, voicing against the candidate, active voice of the verb.

One more criterion which differentiates homonymy, from polysemy is the range of the word’s collocability:

Cell

1. The number of red blood cells is abnormal in his blood analysis.

2. The monk retired to his cell.

3. To produce electricity they used alkaline battery cells.

4. The police arrested a terrorist cell.

5. The old peasant showed the cells of a honeycomb to the children.

It should be mentioned that the problem of established strict and reliable criteria for the distinction of different words identical in sound form and different meanings of the same word is hard to solve: synchronically there exists no universal criterion between polysemy and homonymy.