Homonyms in English and their specific features

connection between the meanings or not, and is very subjective. Whereas in the examples dealing with phonetic convergence, i.e. when we said that “case1” and “case2” are different words because they differ in origin, we had definite linguistic criteria to go by, in the case of disintegration of polysemy there are none to guide us; we can only rely on intuition and individual linguistic experience. For a trained linguist the number of unrelated homonyms will be much smaller than for an uneducated person. The knowledge of etymology and cognate languages will always help to supply the missing links. It is easier, for instance, to see the connection between beam 'a ray of light' and beam 'the metallic structural part of a building' if one knows the original meaning of the word, i.e. 'tree' (OE beam, Germ Baum), and is used to observe similar metaphoric transfers in other words. The connection is also more obvious if one is able to notice the same element in such compound names of trees as hornbeam, white beam, etc.

The conclusion, therefore, is that in diachronistic treatment the only rigorous criterion is that of etymology observed in explanatory dictionaries of the English language where words are separated according to their origin,

For example, in the words match1 'a piece of inflammable material you strike fire with' (from OFr “mesche”, Fr “meche”) and match2 (from OE “gemcecca” 'fellow').

It is interesting to note that out of 2540 homonyms listed in a dictionary1) only 7% are due to disintegration of polysemy, all the others are etymologically different. One must, however, keep in mind that patterned homonymy is here practically disregarded. This underestimation of regular patterned homonymy tends to produce a false impression. Actually the homonymy of nouns and verbs due to the processes of loss of endings on the one hand and conversion on the other is one of the most prominent features of present-day English. . It may be combined with semantic changes as in the pair “long” (adj.) – “long” (verb). The explanation is that when it seems long before something comes to you, you long for it (long (adj.) comes from OE “lang”, whereas “long” (v.)comes from OE “langian”, so that the expression “Me longs” means 'it seems long to me'.

The opposite process of morphemic addition can also result in homonymy. This process is chiefly due to independent word-formation with the same affix or to the homonymy of derivational and functional affixes. The suffix -er forms several words with the same stem: trail — trailer 'a creeping plant' vs. trailer 'a caravan', i.e. 'a vehicle drawn along by another vehicle'. The suffix -s added to the homonymous stems -arm- gives “arms” (n.) 'Weapon' and “arms” (v.) 'Supplies with weapons'. In summing up this dichromatic analysis of homonymy it should be emphasized that there are two ways by which homonyms come into being, namely convergent development of sound form and divergent development of meaning (see table below). The first may consist in

(a) phonetic change only,

(b) phonetic change combined with loss of affixes,

(e) independent formation

from homonymous bases by means of homonymous morphemes. The second, that is divergent development of meaning may be

(a) limited within one lexico-grammatical>

(b) combined with difference in lexico-grammatical>

(c) based on independent formation from the same base by homonymous morphemes.

The process can sometimes be more complicated. At present there are at least two homonyms: “stick”(noun1) - 'insert pointed things into', a highly polysemantic word, and the no less polysemantic “stick” (noun) 'a rod'.

In the course of time the number of homonyms on the whole increases, although occasionally the conflict of homonyms ends in word loss.

4.2. 2 Practical approach in studying homonyms

The synchronic treatment of English homonyms brings to the forefront a set of problems of paramount importance for different branches of applied linguistics: lexicography, foreign language teaching and machine translation. These problems are: the criteria distinguishing homonymy from polysemy, the formulation of rules for recognizing different meanings of the same homonym in terms of distribution, and the description of difference between patterned and irregular homonymy. It is necessary to emphasize that all these problems are connected with difficulties created by homonymy in understanding the message by the reader or listener, not with formulating one's thoughts; they exist for the speaker only in so far as he must construct his speech in a way that would prevent all possible misunderstanding.

All three problems are so closely interwoven that it is difficult to separate them. So we shall discuss them as they appear for various practical purposes. For a lexicographer it is a problem of establishing word boundaries. It is easy enough to see that match, as in safety matches, is a separate word from the verb match 'to suit'. But he must know whether he is justified in taking into one entry match, as in football match, and match in meet one's match 'one's equal'. Can the English verb bear in bear a burden, bear troubles, bear fruit, bear offspring be viewed as a single word or as a set of two or perhaps even more homonyms? Similarly, charge, in charge the gun, charge the man with theft, charge somebody a stiff price can be viewed in several ways.

On the synchronic level, when the difference in etymology is irrelevant, the problem of establishing the criterion for the distinction between different words identical in sound form, and different meanings of the same word becomes hard to solve. The semantic criterion which ultimately is reduced to distinguishing between words that "have nothing in common semantically" and those that "have something in common" and therefore must be taken as one lexical unit, is very vague and hopelessly subjective. Nevertheless the problem cannot be dropped altogether as upon an efficient arrangement of dictionary entries depends the amount of time spent by the readers in looking up a word: a lexicographer will either save or waste his readers' time and effort.

Actual solutions differ. It is a widely spread practice in English lexicography to combine in one entry words of identical phonetic form showing similarity of lexical meaning or, in other words, revealing a lexical invariant, even if they belong to different parts of speech. In post-war lexicography in our country a different trend has settled. The Anglo-Russian dictionary edited by V. D. Arakin makes nine separate entries with the word “right” against four items given in the dictionary edited by Hornby.

The truth is that there exists no universal criterion for the distinction between polysemy and homonymy, unless one accepts the solution offered by V. I. Abayev and follows the data of etymology, separating as homonyms only those words that have different sources and only accidentally coincided phonetically. The necessary restriction is that different sources must be traced within the history of the language. Words that coincided phonetically before they penetrated into the English vocabulary are not taken into account. The etymological criterion, however, may very often lead to distortion of the present-day situation. The English vocabulary of to-day is not a replica of the Old English vocabulary with some additions from borrowing. It is in many respects a different system, and this system will not be revealed if the lexicographer is guided by etymological criteria only. A more or less simple, if not very rigorous, procedure based on purely synchronic data may be prompted by transformational analysis. It may be called explanatory transformation. It is based on the assumption that if different senses rendered by the same phonetic complex can be defined with the help of an identical kernel word-group, they may be considered sufficiently near to be regarded as variants of the same word; if not, they are homonyms.

Consider the following set of examples:

1. A child's voice is heard. 2. His voice ... was ... annoyingly well-bred.

3. The voice-voicelessness distinction ... sets up some English consonants in opposed pairs...

4. In the voice contrast of active and passive ... the active is the unmarked form.

The first variant (voice1 may be defined as 'sounds uttered in speaking or singing as characteristic of a particular person', voice2 as 'mode of uttering sounds in speaking or singing', voice3 as 'the vibration of the vocal chords in sounds uttered'. So far all the definitions contain one and the same kernel element rendering the invariant common basis of their meaning. It is, however, impossible to use the same kernel element for the meaning present in the fourth example. The corresponding definition is: "Voice — that forms of the verb that expresses the relation of the subject to the action". This failure to satisfy the same explanation formula sets the fourth meaning apart. It may then be considered a homonym to the polysemantic word embracing the first three variants.

The procedure described may remain helpful when the items considered belong to different parts of speech; the verb voice may mean, for example, 'to utter a sound by the aid of the vocal chords'.

This brings us to the problem of patterned homonymy, i. e. of the invariant lexical meaning present in homonyms that have developed from one common source and belong to various parts of speech.

Is a lexicographer justified in placing the verb to voice with the above meaning into the same entry with the first three variants of the noun? The same question arises with respect to after or before — preposition, conjunction and adverb.

The elder generation of English linguists thought it quite possible for one and the same word to function as different parts of speech.1 Such pairs as act n — act v, back n — back v, drive n — drive v, the above mentioned after and before and the like, were all treated as one word functioning as different parts of speech. Later on this point of view was severely criticized. It was argued that one and the same word could not belong to different parts of speech simultaneously because this would contradict the definition of the word as a system of forms. This viewpoint is not faultless either: if one follows it consistently one should regard as separate words all cases when words are countable nouns in one meaning and uncountable in another, when verbs can be used transitively and intransitively, etc.

In this case hair 'all the hair that grows on a person's head7 will be one word, an uncountable noun; whereas a single thread of hair will be denoted by another word (hair2) which, being countable, and thus different in paradigm, cannot be considered the same word. It would be tedious to enumerate all the absurdities that will result from choosing this path. A dictionary arranged on these lines would require very much space in printing and could occasion much wasted time in use. The conclusion therefore is that efficiency in lexicographic work is secured by a rigorous application of etymological criteria combined with formalized procedures of establishing a lexical invariant suggested by synchronic linguistic methods.

As to those concerned with teaching of English as a foreign language, they are also keenly interested in patterned homonymy. The most frequently used words constitute the greatest amount of difficulty, as may be summed up by the following example: I think that this "that" is a conjunction but that «that" man that used was a pronoun.

A correct understanding of this peculiarity of contemporary English should be instilled in the pupils from the very beginning, and they should be taught to find their way in sentences where several words have their homonyms in other parts of speech, as in Jespersen's1) example: Will change of air cure-love? l To show the scope of the problem for the elementary stage a list of homonyms that should be>

“Above” – prep., adv., adj.; “act”- n., v.; “after” - prep., adv., conj.; “age” – n., v.; “back” – n., adv., v.; “ball” – n., v.; “bank”

We may give the other examples: by, can, case, close, country, course, cross, direct, draw, drive, even, faint, flat, fly, for, game, general, hard, hide, hold, home, just, kind, last, leave, left, lie, light, like, little, lot, major, march, match, may, mean, might, mind, miss, part, plain, plane, plate, right, round, sharp, sound, spare, spell, spring, square, stage, stamp, try, type, volume, watch, well, will, etc.

For the most part all these words are cases of patterned lexico-grammatical homonymy taken from the minimum vocabulary of the elementary stage: the above homonyms mostly differ within each group grammatically but possess some lexical invariant. That is to say, act v follows the standard four-part system of forms with a base form act, an s-form (act-s), a Past Tense form (acted) and an -ing- form (acting) and takes up all syntactic functions of verbs, whereas act n can have two forms, act (singular.) and acts (plural). Semantically both contain the most generalized component rendering the notion of doing something.

Recent investigations have shown that it is quite possible to establish and to formalize the differences in environment, syntactical or lexical, serving to signal which of the several inherent values is to be ascribed to the variable in a given context.

An example of distributional analysis will help to make this point clear. The distribution of a lexico-semantic variant of a word may