Classification of homonyms

HOMONYMS

Synonyms are also created by means of all word-forming processes productive in the language.

SOURCES OF SYNONYMY

One of the sources of borrowings is borrowing. Synonymy has its characteristic patterns in each language. Its peculiar feature in English is the contrast between simple native words stylistically neutral, literary words borrowed from French, and learned words of Greco-Latin origin.

Native English	French Borrowing	Latin Borrowing
To ask	To question	To interrogate
To rise	To mount	To ascend
Teaching	Giudance	Instruction
To end	To finish	To complete
Belly	Stomach	Abdomen

There are also synonyms that came from dialects, in the last hundred years, from American English, in particular, a long distance call (Br. E.) – a trunk call (Am. E.); radio (Am. E.) – wireless (Br. E.)

Synonyms may influence each other semantically in two diametrically opposite ways: one of them is dissimilation or differentiation, the other – the reverse process, i.e. assimilation.

Many word that are marked in the dictionaries as “archaic” or “obsolete” have dropped out of the language in the competition of synonyms, others survived with a meaning more or less different from the original one. This process is called synonymic differentiation and is so current that is regarded as an inherent law of language development, cf.:

soil (French borrowing) – a strip of land – corpe, land, folde (OE synonyms) – the upper layer of earth in which plants grow – soil, earth, ground – the mould in which plants grow.

The assimilation of synonyms consists in parallel development. The loss of meaning becomes linguistically possible because there were too many synonymous words of similar meaning. As the result all the words undergo degradation in their meaning: wench (a girl)- indecent girl; knave (a boy)-rascal; churl (a labourer)-country man.

Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling, but different in their meaning, e.g.: a bank of a river; a bank – an institution of receiving and safeguarding 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.

The pun is a joke based upon words of similar form but different meaning (i.e. homonyms) as in the following:

“A tailor guarantees to give each of his customers a perfect fit”. Fit: 1) perfectly fitting clothes;

2) a nervous spasm.

The most widely accepted classification of homonyms is that recognizing homonyms proper, homophones and homographs.

Homonyms proper (or perfect, absolute) are words identical in pronunciation and spelling but different in meaning, cf.: bear (n) – an animal; bear (v) – carry, tolerate.

Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning: air (n) – heir (n); buy (v) – by (prep.); him(pr.)- hymn (n).

In Ukrainian: Вчителька: «Дітки, придумайте речення зі словом ананас».

Оксанка: «Мій тато купив ананас».

Вовочка: «А мій татко всю зарплату пропив».

Вчителька: «Чекай, Вовочко, а де ж ананас?»

Вовочка: «А на нас йому начхати»

Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling:

Bow (bau), (v) – to decline the head or body in salutation;

Bow (bou), n – a flexible strip of wood for propelling arrows;

Lead (li:d), v – to conduct on the way, go before others to show the way;

Lead (led), n – a heavy, rather soft metal.

Ukrainian: деревина – одиничне дерево;

деревина – матеріал для будівництва та виготовлення предметів;

сага – жанр давньогерманського епосу;

сага – річкова затока.

Homoforms are words identical in some of their grammatical forms: to bound (jump, spring) – bound (past participle of the verb to bind); found (establish) – found (past participle of the verb to find).

Homonyms may belong both to the same and to different categories of parts of speech. Professor A.I. Smirnitsky classified homonyms into two large classes: full homonyms and partial homonyms. Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the same category of parts of speech and have the same paradigm, cf.:

match, n – a game or a contest; match, n – a short piece of wood used for producing fire.

Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups:

a) a simple lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words which belong to the same category of parts of speech. Their paradigms have one identical form, but it is never the same form: found (infinitive of the verb)- found (Past Participle of the verb to find); lay (lay, the infinitive of the verb) – lay (Past Participle of the verb to lie).

b) complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words of different categories of parts of speech which have one identical form in their paradigm, e.g.:

rose, n – rose Past Ind. of the verb to rise;

maid, n – made Past Ind., Past part. of the verb to make.

c) partial lexico-grammatical homonyms are words of the same category of pars of speech which are identical only in their corresponding forms:

lie (lay, lain), v – lie (lied, lied), v

hang (hung, hung), v – to hang (hanged, hanged), v

Paronyms are words that are alike in form, but different in meaning and usage. They are liable to be mixed and sometimes mistakenly interchanged. The term paronym comes from the Greek “para” “beside ” and “ ono

Preposition - proposition;

popular - populous.

In Ukrainian:

громадський-громадянський;

економний-економічний;

соціальний-соціалістичний;

компанія-кампанія;

статичний-статистичний;

абонент-абонемент.

Homonyms in English are very numerous. Oxford English Dictionary registers 2540 homonyms, of which 89% are monosyllabic words and 9,1% are two-syllabic words.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11