Chapter 9:

Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling, or, at least, in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning.

Homonyms which are the same in sound and spelling are traditionally termed homonyms proper.

e.g. "A tailor guarantees to give each of his customers a perfect

fit."(The joke is based on the homonyms: I. fit, n. — perfectly fitting clothes; II. fit, n. — a nervous spasm.)

Homophones are the same in sound but different in spelling. Here are some more examples of homophones:

night, n. — knight, n.; piece, n. — peace, n.; scent, n. — cent, n. — sent, v. (Past Indef., Past Part, of to send); rite, n. — to write, v. — right, adj.; sea, n. — to see, v. — С [si:] (the name of a letter).

Homographs are words which are the same in spelling but different in sound. to bow [bau], v.

to incline the head or body in salutation; bow [bqu], п. a flexible strip of wood for propelling arrows.

Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the same category of parts of speech and have the same paradigm.E. g. / match, n. — a game, a contest I match, n. — a short piece of wood used for I producing

Fire; wren, n. — a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service wren, n. — a bird.

Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups:

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, as will be seen from the examples.

E. g. / (to) found, v.\ found, v. (Past Indef., Past Part. of to ( find)/ to lay, v.I lay, v. (Past Indef. 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.

E. g. f rose, n. - rose, v. (Past Indef. of to rise)

maid, n. - made, v. (Past Indef., Past Part, of to make)

left, adj. - left, v. (Past Indef., Past Part, of to leave)

bean, n. - been, v. (Past Part, of to be)

one, num. - won, v. (Past Indef., Past Part, of to win)

C. Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech which are identical only in their corresponding forms.

E. g. \ to lie (lay, lain), v. to lie (lied, lied), v.to hang (hung, hung), v. to hang (hanged, hanged).

Chapter 10:

Synonyms in the traditional meaning of the term are somewhat elusive and, to some extent, fictitious it is certain that there are words in any vocabulary which clearly develop regular and distinct relationships when used in speech.

Traditional linguistics solved this problem with the conceptual criterion and defined synonyms as words of the same category of parts of speech conveying the same concept but differing either in shades of meaning or in stylistic characteristics.

In modern research on synonyms the criterion of interchangeability is sometimes applied. According to this, synonyms are defined as words which are interchangeable at least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning.

Chapter 11:

The Dominant Synonym All (or, at least, most) synonymic groups have a "central" word of this kind whose meaning is equal to the denotation common to all the synonymic group. This word is called the dominant synonym

Euphemisms There are words in every language which people instinctively avoid because they are considered indecent, indelicate, rude, too direct or impolite. As the "offensive" referents, for which these words stand, must still be alluded to, they are often described in a roundabout way, by using substitutes called euphemisms

Antonyms We use the term antonyms to indicate words of the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meanings, such as hot — cold