Homonymy is a fairly common phenomenon in almost every language. It is characterized by the presence of identical words, which, however, have different meanings. Lexical homonyms deserve special attention . Examples show that this type is the most common and active. This phenomenon enriches the language, making it more artistic and imaginative.
The concept
Homonyms mean the same morphemes, words and other lexical units that have different meanings. Such a term is often confused with ambiguous words or paronyms, but in terms of their functions and characteristics they are completely different categories.
The term is of Greek origin and was introduced by Aristotle. Literally, the concept means “identical” and “name”. Homonyms can both be present in the framework of one part of speech, and manifest themselves in different parts.
Homonymy and polysymony
In linguistics, in relation to the same words of one part of speech, there are two different concepts. It is about polysemy and homonymy. The first concept implies the presence of the same words with different meanings, however, which have a common historical origin. For example, if we consider the word "ether" in its two meanings. The first is organic matter, and the second is television or television broadcasting. The meaning of the words is different, but it was formed from one common lexical unit, namely from the Greek term, which literally means “mountain air”.
As for homonymy, here we are also talking about different meanings of words, however, their historical connection is absent, and identical spelling is a coincidence. For example, the word “boron”, which has two meanings: a chemical element and a pine forest. There is no connection between these words, and even the lexical units themselves came into the Russian language in different ways. The first is Persian, and the second is Slavic.
Some linguists, however, look at it differently. In accordance with this, polysimy is if two words have a common semantic connotation and lexical meaning. Homonyms have no such meaning. In this case, the historical origin of the word does not matter. For example, the word "braid". A connecting element is that two lexical units describe something long and thin.
Classification
Given vocabulary, morphology and phonetics, homonymy can be as follows:
- Lexical homonyms. Examples of words: a key (as a spring and as a tool for opening doors), peace (the absence of war and the entire planet), etc.
- Homonyms of morphological or grammatical type, which are also known as homoforms.
- Phonetic, or homophones.
- Graphic, or homographs.
Complete and incomplete homonyms are also distinguished. In the first case, words coincide in all their forms, and in the second - only in some.
Differences between lexical homonyms from other types
Lexical homonyms are often confused with other types of this category, however, they have distinctive characteristics and their own specifics:
- As for omoforms, they have a coincidence of spelling or sound only in a few specific forms. For example, the word “dear”, which means an adjective of masculine and feminine gender: “dear textbook” and “give flowers to dear woman”.
- Homophones are distinguished by identical pronunciation, but different spelling of lexical units, which lexical homonyms do not have. Examples: eye - voice, wet - could, etc.
- Differences are also characteristic of homographs. By this we mean words that have the same spelling, but different pronunciation. This is not possessed by lexical homonyms. Examples of sentences with the word “lock”: 1. She opens the door lock. 2. The king and queen went to their castle.
These phenomena in the language are used for a variety of lexical purposes, starting with the expressiveness and richness of artistic speech and ending with puns.
Features of lexical homonyms
This type of homonymy is characterized by the coincidence of lexical units in all their forms. In addition, belonging to one part of speech is a mandatory attribute possessed by lexical homonyms. Examples: schedule - as a plan and as an artist.
There are two types of similar lexical homonyms:
- Full or absolute. They are characterized by the coincidence of all morphological and grammatical forms. For example, a cage (bird and nerve), a bench (trading and bench), etc.
- Partial or incomplete lexical homonyms. Examples: tact (as a sense of proportion and as a musical unit).
Regardless of the type, this phenomenon appears for certain reasons.
Appearance methods
Lexical homonyms arise in a language for various reasons:
- The discrepancy between the meanings of one lexical unit is so far that it is no longer perceived as a single word. For example, a month (part of a year and a celestial body).
- The coincidence of national vocabulary and borrowing. For example, a club (in Russian - a mass of dust or smoke; in English - a public organization or a meeting of people).
- Match words that were borrowed from different languages. For example, a crane (from the Dutch language - a tube that allows you to fill in the liquid; from German - a special mechanism for lifting goods).
Homonyms in a language do not appear immediately. Most often, this takes a lot of time, as well as certain historical conditions. At the initial stage, words can be a little similar in sound or spelling, however, due to changes in the structure of the language, in particular its morphology and phonetics, lexical units can become homonyms. The same applies to splitting the meanings of one word. In the process of historical development, the connecting semantic element between the interpretations of the word disappears. Due to this, homonyms are formed from multivalued lexical units.
Homonymy is an active phenomenon in almost any language of the world. It is characterized by the presence of words with the same spelling or sound, but with different meanings. Homonyms, in particular their lexical types, change the language, making it more imaginative and artistic. This phenomenon occurs for various reasons, most often historical or structural, and has its own characteristics and characteristic signs in each specific language.