The origin of homonyms in English

All the different causes by which homonymy is brought about can be subdivided into two main groups:

1. Sound development, due to which two or three words of different origins accidentally coincide in sound, e.g. the word gamaner in Old English meant “common”, the Latin word medianus means “average”, and the OE unit manon meant “to think”. As a result the Modern English form sounds and looks like mean, e.g. the mean age and what do you mean?.

2. Disintegrated meaning or split of polysemy, which reason is much more common. The OE cest turned into chest meaning “a large box” and chest being a part of the human body. The Latin word silentium turned into silence in ME as a noun and to silence as a verb.

The problems of homonymy, if treated synchronically, may be shown as follows:

1. There is no universal criterion for the distinction between polysemy and homonymy, and the problem is always faced by the dictionary compilers, who each time have to decide whether to include two identical forms into one entry or create two different entries for them, e.g. the form work being both a noun and a verb is included under one entry by Muller, while Apresian’s dictionary makes two entries for them.

2. This is a problem of patterned homonymy, that is of the invariant lexical meaning, present in the homonyms that have developed from one common source, but belong to various parts of speech. The case is best of all illustrated by the examples of grammatical conversion, e.g. war and to war, father and to father.

3. The phenomenon of homonymy may refer not only to words, but to their parts, e.g. affixes or to the auxiliary forms, which may also be perceived as morphemes.

4. Relevant in modern linguistics is the problem of interlingual homonymy.

Synonyms

The richer the language, the more developed its lexical diversity and therefore the greater the possibilities of lexical choice, and the more developed synonymy it has. Typically synonyms are words only similar, but rarely identical in their meanings and usage. Speaking about synonymy we should remember that each separate meaning is a complex structure, consisting of:

1. the denotational component, which reflects the most essential features of the notion named,

2. the shades of meaning reflecting the secondary features,

3. the connotations,

4. the emotional component.

The last two points are only optional, while the first two ones are compulsory. The common denotational component forms the basis for the opposition in a synonymic group. Hence synonyms may be defined as two or more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech and possessing similar or typically nearly similar denotational meanings.

An example of a group of synonyms may be: hope, expectation, anticipation. All the three words are combined by the common meaning “having something in mind which is likely to happen”. But expectation may be either of good or evil, anticipation is a hope of something predominantly good, while hope is not only a belief of something good, but a desire of that to come. The fourth element in this group, still stronger in its meaning, may be looking forward to. A synonymic dominant here is hope, which is the most generic term of the group, containing the most specific features of the rest members.

Synonymy should not be confused with hyponymy or inclusion, and the synonymic dominant is not a hypernym. Thus animal is a generic form or a hypernym, while wolf, trout, spider, etc. are hyponyms to it and no synonymy can be traced here.

Synonyms very often differ in their stylistic and/or emotional coloring. Sometimes a synonymic group may include not only separate words, but word combinations, that is set expressions. Numerous in ME phraseology are synonymic pairs like wear and tear, pick and choose, stress and strain, act and deed, really and truly, etc. The problem of synonymy is connected with the question of interchangeability of synonyms. In fact, it is rather seldom that one synonym may be substituted by another one without the slightest harm to either the grammatical norm or the style of the utterance.

So it would be reasonable to speak here about the phenomenon of word valency. E.g. such words as to ask, to question, to interrogate, but their most frequent combinations with other words are: the teacher questions the students, the judge interrogates the witness, while to ask the dominant for the whole group, so it may substitute both words in both combination.

Adjectives high and tall are also synonyms, but in combinations like a tall man their substitution is impossible.

Words also, too and as well all mean the same, but they cannot be interchanged since their positions in a sentence are different. We may also say that too and either are synonyms, but they become such within appropriate contexts only, e.g. I can swim too and I can’t swim either.

According to the character of interchangeability there are several groups of synonyms:

1. Contextual synonyms – become synonyms only when they find themselves in some specific context (e.g. to stand and to bear are synonyms only when used with negation). Contextual synonyms can’t be fixed as such by dictionaries, but become such in many pieces of fiction.

2. Relative synonyms – to love and to adore, talent and gift, etc. The treatment of such words as synonyms is still under discussion, mainly because they strictly speaking name different notions, but not different degrees of the same notion. Such synonyms above all cannot substitute each other.

3. Total/complete/perfect synonyms – these are words which show absolute interchangeability without the slightest alteration in denotational or emotive meanings. Their existence in the language is always very short. Examples of total synonyms are few and can be mainly found in special literature among terms, because terminology is in many ways an artificial kind of language. E.g. noun and substantive, flection and inflection, though and although. We should realize that terms are supposed to be devoid of any connotation and emotionality, besides every author in science makes up his or her mind and uses this or that word in his/her papers to avoid confusion in terminology. That’s why interchangeability among terms is more a theoretical problem that can hardly be actualized in a non-scientific text.