2.2. Sources of Homonyms

One source of homonyms is phonetic changes which words undergo in the course of their historical development. As a result of such changes, two or more words which were formerly pronounced differently may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms.

Night and knight, for instance, were not homonyms in Old English as the initial k in the second word was pronounced, and not dropped as it is in its modern sound form: ОЕ. kniht (cf. ОЕ niht). A more complicated change of form brought together another pair of homonyms: to knead (ОЕ cnēdan) and to need (ОЕ nēodian).

conversion which serves the creating of grammatical homonyms, e.g. iron →to iron, work → to work, etc.;

Shortening is a further type of word-building which increases the number of homonyms. E.g. fan, n. in the sense of “an enthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer, etc.” is a shortening produced from fanatic. Its homonym is a Latin borrowing fan, n. which denotes an implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current of air. The noun rep, n. denoting a kind of fabric has three homonyms made by shortening: repertory → rep, n., representative → rep, n., reputation → rep, n.

Borrowing is another source of homonyms. A borrowed word may, in the final stage of its phonetic adaptation, duplicate in form either a native word or another borrowing:

ritus Lat. → rite n.— write v. — right adj.;

pais OFr → piece, n. —pettia OFr → peace n.;

vitim Lat. − wrong, an immoral habit → vice Eng. − evil conduct;

vilis Lat. − spiral → vice Eng. − apparatus with strong jaws

in which things can be hold tightly;

vice Lat. − instead of, in place of → vice - president Eng.

Words made by sound-imitation can also form pairs of homonyms with other words:

bang, n. “a loud, sudden, explosive noise” — bang, n. “a fringe of hair combed over the forehead”.

mew, n. “the sound a cat makes” — mew, n. “a sea gul” — mew, n. “a pen in which poultry is fattened” — mews “small terraced houses in Central London”.

Two or more homonyms can originate from different meanings of the same word when, for some reason, the semantic structure of the word breaks into several parts. As soon as a derived meaning is no longer felt to be connected with the primary meaning at all polysemy breaks up and separate words come into existence, quite different in meaning from the basic word but identical in spelling: bar − балка; bar − бар; bar − адвокатура

This type of formation of homonyms is called split polysemy.

The semantic structure of a polysemantic word presents a system within which all its constituent meanings are held together by logical associations. In most cases, the function of the arrangement and the unity is determined by one of the meanings. If this meaning happens to disappear from the word's semantic structure, associations between the rest of the meanings may be severed, the semantic structure loses its unity and falls into two or more parts which then become accepted as independent lexical units.

Figure 2

Board, n. (development of meanings)

A long, thin piece of timber

A piece of furniture

Meals provided for pay

An official group of persons

Board I, II, III, n. (split polysemy)

A long, thin piece of timber

A piece of furniture

Meals provided for pay

An official group of persons

I. II.

Seldom used; ousted III.

by the French borrowing

table

It should be stressed, however, that split polysemy as a source of homonyms is not accepted by some scholars. It is really difficult sometimes to decide whether a certain word has or has not been subjected to the split of the semantic structure and whether we are dealing with different meanings of the same word or with homonyms, for the criteria are subjective and imprecise. The most debatable problem in homonymy is the demarcation line between homonymy and polysemy, i.e. between different meanings of one word and the meanings of two or more homonymous words.

From the viewpoint of their origin homonyms are sometimes divided into historical and etymological.

Historical homonyms are those which result from the breaking up of polysemy; then one polysemantic word will split up into two or more separate words, e.g.

to bear (терпіти) − to bear (народити);

pupil (учень) − pupil (зіниця);

plant (рослина) - plant (завод).

Etymological homonyms are words of different origin which come to be alike in sound or in spelling (and may be both written and pronounced alike).