10.2. Homonyms

a) Definition

When several related meanings are associated with the same group of sounds within the same part of speech, me word is called polysemantic, when two or more unrelated meanings are associated with the same form the words are homonyms. . ,

For example, the word .tattoo (the designs made on skin) and the word tattoo meaning 'drum beating, especially played as a military signal' are two entirety different words with entirely different origins.

The skin design kind of tattoo came from the South Pacific, where tatau. in the Polynesian word for this sort of ritual marking. The word was imported into English by 18th century sailors together with the exotic practice.

The other sort of tattoo, which originally meant a drum beat used to recall soldiers to their quarters at the close of day, comes from the Dutch word taptoe which meant 'to close the tap of a cask of wine or beer, as at closing time in a tavern.' Imported into English as 'tattoo', it was originally used to mean 'drum beat at the end of day,' but was eventually expanded to include any sort of drum-heavy performance of military music.

Two or more words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning and distribution are called homonyms. The term is derived from Greek homos -- the same, and onoma - name.

llomonymy exist in many languages, bur in English it is particularly frequent, especially among monosyllabic words.

b) Sources of Homonymy

There are two main sources of homonymy.

a) Homonymy usually develops through convergent sound development,- when two or three words of different origin accidentally coincide, in form.

The word case (a box or receptacle for hoiding something) developed from Latin word capere - to take; its homonym case (a set of circumstances or conditions) originated from the Latin word cadere – to fall.

b) Homonymy may develop from polysemy through divergent sense development. As the most frequent words are also highly polysemantic, it is only natural that they develop meanings which in the course of time may deviate very far from the central one. When the intermediate links fall out, some of these new meanings lose all connection with the rest of semantic structure and start a separate existence. This phenomenon is known as disintegration or split of polysemy.

Let us take, for example, the word box and its five entries in a dictionary:

box - a kind of small evergreen shrub

box - a receptacle made of wood, cardboard, etc.

box - slap with the hand on the ear

box-fight with fists in padded gloves (sport term)

These words may be partly derived from one another but their common point of origin lies beyond the limits of the English language. | They can be ultimately traced to the Latin word 'buxus'.

Both sources of homonymy may be combined with loss of endings and other morphological processes.

The opposite process of adding suffixes may also result in homonymy. e.g. adder '(the common venomous viper) — adder '(a device that performs addition: trailer (a creeping plant) - trailer (a vehicle drawn along another vehicle). It is interesting to note that out of 2540 homonyms listed in "The Oxford English Dictionary' only 7 percent arc due to the disintegration of polysemy, all the others are etymologically different.

c) Classification of Homonyms

When analyzing different cases of homonymy we find that some words are homonymous in all their forms, i.e. we observe full homonymy of the paradigms of two or more different words,

e.g. seal — a sea animal

seal- a design printed on paper by means of a stamp

In other cases we see that only some of the word forms arc homonymous, while others are not.

e.g. find'— found —found

found -founded-founded

Consequently all cases of '"homonymy may be classified into full and partial homonymy, i.e. homonyms of words and homonyms of forms.

We find full homonymy in the following examples: for -preposition, for- conjunction, four - numeral, as these parts of speech have no other word-forms."

The second classification takes into account the phonetic and graphic form of the word. Homonyms are then classified into perfect homonyms, homographs and homophones. .

Perfect homonyms are identical both pronunciation and spelling, but different in meaning.

e g. bear, n. (a large heavy mammal) - bear, v, (put up with); bay, h.

(an inlet of sea usually smaller than a gulf - bay, V. (bark with

prolonged tones) - bay, adj. - reddish brown; fast, adv. (in a

rapid manner) -fast, v. (abstain from food)

Homographs or heteronyms are words identical in spelling but different in sound and meaning.

e.g. how [au], v. (incline c head or body in salutation) - bow, n. [ou] (the forward part of the ship); row, n. [ou] (move a boat by means of oars) - row, n. [ au]. (a noisy quarrel) Homophones are words identical in sound form but different m j; spelling and meaning.

e.g. son, n. (a male offspring)— sun. n. (the celestial body around .which, the earth and other planets revolve; air, n. (the mixture of gases that surrounds the earth) - heir, n. (one who inherits); heroin, k. (an addictive narcotic) — heroine, n. (a woman admired for her qualities)