24. Homonyms

Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling, or, at least in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning. (Ex: bank – a shore; an institution for receiving, lending, exchanging money). English vocabulary is rich in such pairs and even groups of words. Their identical forms are mostly accidental: the majority of homonyms coincided due to phonetic changes which they suffered during their development. If synonyms and antonyms can be regarded as the treasury of the language’s expressive resources, homonyms are of no interest in this respect, and one cannot expect them to be of particular value for communication. In the process of communication they are more of an encumbrance, leading sometimes to confusion and misunderstanding. Homonyms which are the same in sound and spelling (bank, bank) are traditionally called homonyms proper. The same in sound but different in spelling (bean фасоль, been – past of “to be”) – homophones. The third type – the same in spelling, different in sound – homographs (to tear – to pull apart or in pieces by force; a tear – a drop of the fluid). Sources of homonyms. 1)phonetic changes which words undergo in the course of their historical development. As a result of such changes, two or more words which were formerly pronounced differently may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms. (night and knight weren’t homonyms).2)borrowings. A borrowed word may, in the final stage of its phonetic adaptation, duplicate in form either a native word or another borrowing. (rite – write – right: rite is borrowed from latin).3)word-building also contributes significantly to the growth of homonymy, and the most important type in this respect is undoubtedly conversion. (to make – a make, pale – to pale). Homonyms of this type which are the same in sound and spelling, but refer to different categories of part of speech are called lexico-grammatical homonyms. Shortening (fan – from fanatic; fan from latin – an implement for waving).4) Two or more homonyms can originate from different meanings of the same word when, for some reason, the semantic structure of the word breaks into several parts. This type of formation of homonyms is called split polysemy.(board – a long piece of timber => a piece of furniture => meals provided for pay => an official group of persons)

Classification of Homonyms. The subdivision of homonyms into homonyms proper, homophones and homographs is certainly not precise enough and does not reflect certain important features of these words, and, most important of all, their status as parts of speech. Smirnitski classified homonyms into two large classes: 1)full homonyms; 2)partial homonyms. Full lexical homonyms are words, which represent the same category of parts of speech and have the same paradigm. (match – a game; a piece of wood to produce fire). Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups: A)simple lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words, which belong to the same category of parts of speech. Their paradigms have one idential form, but it is never the same form, as will be seen from the examples (lay; lay past of “to lie”); B)Complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words of different categories of parts of speech which have one identical form in their paradigms. (rose; rose past of “to rise”); C)Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech which are idential only in their corresponding forms. (lie – lay – lain лежать; lie – lied - lied).