62. Classification of homonyms.

Consequently all cases of homonymy may be classified into full and partial homonymy, homonymy of words and homonymy of individual word-forms.

Full homonyms are to be found within the same parts of speech (e.g. seal(1) n--seal(2) n), partial homonymy as a rule is observed in word-forms belonging to different parts of speech (e.g. seal n--seal v). This is not to say that partial homonymy is impossible within one part of speech. For instance in the case of the two verbs Me [lai]--'to be in a horizontal or resting position'--lies [laiz]--lay [lei]--lain [lein] and lie [lai]--'to make an untrue statement'--lies [laiz]--lied [laid]--lied [laid] we also find partial homonymy as only two word-forms [lai], [laiz] are homonymous, all other forms of the two verbs are different. Cases of full homonymy may be found in different parts of speech as, e.g., for [for]--preposition, for [fo:]--conjunction and four [fo:] --numeral, as these parts of speech have no other word-forms.

According to the type of meanings:

1. Lexical differ in LM.seal(1n)and seal2(n)-the part of speech meaning of the word and the gram. meanings of all it’s forms are identical. The difference is confined only to the denotational component of LM.

Seal(1)-a sea animal, a fur of this animal.

Seal(2)-a design printed on paper.

2. Lexico – gram.

Seal(1) – a sea animal

To seal(3)-«to close tightly».there is a difference not only in LMof the homonyous word-forms but a difference in their gram.meanings as well.

3. Grammatical. There are homonymic word-forms differing in LM only. In the paradigms of the majority of the verbs the form of P.Tense is homonymous with the form of the part.2

Possessive case plural – the common case pl.

Brother’s-brothers

Gram.H. is the H.of different word-forms of one and the same word.

There is another classification:

1.homonyms proper are words identical in pronunciation and spelling (back,base)

Homonyms are distinct words: not different meanings within the word.

2.homophons are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning.

Air;heir,buy-bye,knight-night,not-knot,wright – right;

3.homographs-words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identicalin spelling: . bow n [bou] — ‘a piece of wood curved by a string and used for shooting arrows’ and bow n [bau] — ‘the bending of the head or body’; tear n [tia] — ‘a drop of water that comes from the eye’ and tear v [tea] — ‘to pull apart by force’.

63.Origin Of Synonyms

The distinction synchronic and diachronic treatment is so fundamental that it can’t be overemphasized, but the 2 aspects are interdependent.

The majority of those who studied synonymy in the past have been cultivating both lines of approach without keeping them scrupulously apart and focused their attention on the prominent part of foreign loan words in Eng. Synonymy, e.g. freedom – liberty, heaven – sky, where the 1st elements are native and the second are French and Scandinavian. O.Jespersen and many others used to stress that the Eng. Language is peculiarly rich in synonyms, because Britons, Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans, tightly and setting upon the soil of the British Isles could not but influence each others speech. British scholars studied Greek and Latin and for centuries used Latin as a medium for communication on scholarly topics. Simple native words stylistically neutral, literary words borrowed from French and earned word of Greko-Latin origin, e.g.

Native – to ask, to rise, to end

Borrowed French – to question, to mount, to finish

From Latin – to interrogate, to ascend, to complete

The upper layer of earth in which plants grow had been denoted since OE by one of the synonyms: larth, land, folde. Folde had the same function and meaning as earth in the fight for several the latter. The letter of the word “folde” is not all unfrequent many other words now marked in the dictionary as “archaic” or “obsolete” have dropped out in the competition of synonyms, others survived with a m-ng more or less removed from the original one. The process is called synonymic differentiation. It must be noted that synonyms may influence each other semantically in two diametrically opposite ways one of them is dissimilation the other process – assimilation.

The role of borrowings should not be overestimated. Synonyms are also created by means of forming process productive in the 1-ge at a given time of history. The words already existing in the 1-ge develop new meanings. New words may be formed by affixation or loss of affixes, by conversion, compounding, shortening form synonyms to those already to use.

The fact of conversion may be a source of synonymy: it accounts for such pair as commandment – command; laughter – laugh. The problem in their connection is to bother such cases should be regarded as synonyms or as lexical variants of one and the same word. It seems more logical to consider them as lexical variants.