Homonyms Many words may be characterized by a

Homonyms Many words may be characterized by a high frequency rating are not connected with meaning, but identical in form, on the contrary different in form, but connected in meaning.

That’s why we differentiate English words, as other languages as homonyms, synonyms and antonyms. Two or more words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning, distribution and origin is called homonyms. F: bank (n)- a shore, an institution for receiving, lending, exchanging and safe-guarding money. English vocabulary is rich in such words and even groups of words.

The term is derived from Greek “homos”similar and “onoma”-name. homonyms exists in many languages, but in English it is frequent, especially among monosyllabic words. From the viewpoint of their morphological structure, they are mostly one -morpheme words.

People cannot expect homonyms to be of particular value for communication, metaphorically speaking, homonyms are accidental creations, and therefore purposeless. In the process of communication they are more of an encumbrance, leading sometimes to confusion and misunderstanding.

This characteristics of homonyms makes them one of the most important sources of popular humour

Sources of homonyms: 1. phonetic changes which words undergo in the course of their historical development. As the result of such changes, two or more words which were formerly pronounced differently may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms. F: night-knight were not homonyms in old English as the initial k in the second word was pronounced, but in modern sound form it is not pronounced.

2. borrowing – a borrowed word may, in initial stage of its phonetic adaptation, duplicate in form either a native word or another borrowing. F: bank (n)-shore is a native word and bank (n)-a financial institution is an Italian borrowing. Match (n)-a game, a contest of skill, strength is native and match (n)-a slender short piece of wood used for producing fire is a French borrowing.

3. shortening- F: fan (n)-an enthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer is a shortening produced from fanatic. This homonym is a Latin borrowing fan (n)denotes an implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current of air

4. sound-imitation can also form pairs of homonyms with other words. F: bang (n)-a loud sudden, explosive noise – bang (n)-a fringe of hair combed over the forehead.

5. split polysemy-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. All its constituent meanings are held together by logical associations. The function of the arrangement and the unity is determined by one of the meanings. If this meaning happens to disappear from the word’s semantic structure, associations between the rest of the meanings may be severed, the semantic structure loses its unity and falls into two or more parts which then become accepted as independent lexical units.

F: board (n)-a long and thin piece of timber, board (n)-an official group of persons who direct or supervise some activity, e. g. a board of directors. The meanings of these three words are in no way associated with one another.

A piece of timber by transference based on contiguity (association of an object and the material from which it is made). The meanings meals and an official group of persons developed from the meaning table also by transference based on contiguity: meals are easily associated with a table on which they are served; an official group of people in authority are also lively to discuss their business round a table.

Classification of homonyms We can mention three types of homonyms. 1) homonyms proper are the words which are the same in sound and spelling, e. g. ball-ball 2) homophones are words which are the same in sound but different in spelling, e. g. beanbeen 3) homographs are words which are the same in spelling but different in sound, e. g. to lead-to conduct on the way, go before to show the way; lead-a heavy, rather soft metal

Homonyms may belong both the same and to different categories of parts of speech. According to professor A. I. Smirnitsky classified homonyms into two large classes: 1) full or complete homonyms. They are words which represent the same category of parts of speech and have the same paradigm. Paradigm is the system of the grammatical forms of a word. F: match (n)- a game, a contest; match (n)-a short piece of wood used for producing fire.

2) partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups: a) simple lexicogrammatical partial homonyms are words which belong to the same category of parts of speech. Their paradigms have one identical form, but it never the same form, as will be seen from the examples as found (v), found (v)-past indef, past part of to find;

b) complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words of different categories of parts of speech which have one identical form in their paradigms. F: rose (n)-rose (v)-past indef, past part of to rise; c) partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech which are identical only in their corresponding forms. F: to hang (hung, hung) (v) - to hang (hanged, hanged) (v)

Task I. Find homonymous words in the following sentences and comment on their types. 1. a)“Mine is a long and sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. b) “It is a long tail, certainly, ” said Alice, looking down with wonder at the mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad? ” 2. a) Our Institute football team got a challenge to a match from the University team and we accepted it. b) Somebody struck a match so that we could see each other. 3. a) Do you always forget to wind up your watch? b) Crane had an old Ford without a top and it rattled so much and the wind made so much noise. 4. a) He was growing progressively deafer in the left ear. b) I saw that I was looking down into another cove similar to the one I had left.

2. Give homophones to the underlined words. a) Two heads are better than one. b) After rain comes fine weather. c) It was a difficult task. Not all candidates got through. d) Make hay while the sun shines. e) I was out when you called me.