Homonyms in English and their specific features

that in early New English the verb overlook was employed in the meaning of 'look with an evil eye upon, cast a spell over' from which there developed the meaning 'deceive' first recorded in 1596. Exactly half a century later we find oversee a synonym of overlook employed in the meaning of 'deceive'.1 This form of analogy active in the semantic development of synonyms is referred to as "radiation of synonyms".

1.2.2 Etymological and semantic criteria in polysemy and homonymy

As it was mentioned before, two or more words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning, distribution and (in many cases) origin are called homonyms. The term is derived from Greek (homos 'similar' and onoma 'name') and thus expresses very well the sameness of name combined with the difference in meaning.

There is an obvious difference between the meanings of the symbol fast in such combinations as run fast 'quickly' and stand fast 'firmly'. The difference is even more pronounced if we observe cases where fast is a noun or a verb as in the following proverbs: A clean fast is better than a dirty breakfast; Who feasts till he is sick, must fast till he is well.

Fast as an isolated word, therefore, may be regarded as a variable that can assume several different values depending on the conditions of usage, or, in other words, distribution. All the possible values of each linguistic sign are listed in dictionaries. It is the duty of lexicographers to define the boundaries of each word, i.e. to differentiate homonyms and to unite variants deciding in each case whether the different meanings belong to the same polysemantic word or whether there are grounds to treat them as two or more separate words identical in form. In speech, however, only one °f all the possible values is determined by the context, so that no ambiguity may normally arise. There is no danger, for instance that the listener would wish to substitute the meaning 'quick' into the sentence: It is absurd to have hard and fast rules about anything or think that fast rules here are 'rules of diet'. Combinations when two or more meanings are possible are either deliberate puns, or result from carelessness. Both meanings of liver, i.e. 'a living person' and 'the organ that secretes bile' are, for instance, intentionally present in the following play upon words: "7s life worth living?" "It depends upon the liver.''

Very seldom can ambiguity of this kind interfere with understanding. The following example quoted from lies, 1 sound somewhat artificial, but may him also a deliberate joke and not carelessness: The girls will be playing cricket in white stockings. We hope they won't get too many runs. Runs in this context may mean either 'ladders in stockings' or 'the units of scoring, made by running once over a certain course' (a cricket term).

Homonymy exists in many languages, but in English it is particularly frequent, especially among monosyllabic words. In the list of 2540 homonyms given in the Oxford English Dictionary 89% are monosyllabic words and only 9,1% are words of two syllables. From the viewpoint of their morphological structure, they are mostly one-morpheme words. Many words, especially those characterized by a high frequency rating, are not connected with meaning by a one-to-one relationship. On the contrary, one symbol as a rule serves to render several different meanings. The phenomenon may be said to be the reverse of synonymy where several symbols correspond to one meaning.

2.2.2 Comparative typological analysis of two linguistic phenomena in English, Russian and Uzbek

The most widely accepted classification is that recognizing homonyms proper, homophones and homographs. Homonyms proper are words identical in pronunciation and spelling, like/as if and liver above or like scale 'one of the thin plates that form the outer covering of most fishes and reptiles' and scale, 'a basis for a system of measuring'. Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning: air :: heir; arms :: alms; buy :: bye : by; him :: hymn; knight :: night; not :: knot; or :: ore :: oar; piece ; peace; rain :: reign; scent :: cent :: sent; steel :: steal; storey ;: story write :: right :: rite and many others.

For example, in the sentence “The millwright on my right thinks it right that some conventional rite should symbolize the right of every man to write as he pleases.” the sound complex [rait] is noun, adjective, adverb and verb, has four different spellings and six different meanings7.

The difference may be confined to the use of a capital letter as in bill and Bill, in the following example: "How much is my milk bill?" "Excuse me, Madam, but my name is John." Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling: bow [bou] :: bow IbauJ; lead [li:d] :: lead [led]; row [rouj :: row [rau]; sewer I'soua] :: sewer [sjual; tear [tea] :: tear [tia]; wind [wind] :: wind [wand] and many more.

It has been often argued that homographs constitute a phenomenon that should

be kept apart from homonymy as the object of linguistics is sound language. This viewpoint cans hardly be accepted. Because of the effects of education and culture written English is a generalized national form of expression. An average speaker does not separate the written and oral form. On the contrary he is more likely to analyze the words in Terries of letters than in terms of phonemes with which he is less familiar. That is why a linguist must take into consideration both the spelling and the pronunciation of words when analyzing cases of identity of form and diversity of content.8

Various types of>

A more comprehensive system may be worked out on the same basis if we are guided by the theory of oppositions and in>

The term "nearly same lexical meaning" must not he taken too literally. It means only that the corresponding members of the opposition have some important invariant components in common. "Same grammatical meaning" implies that both members belong to the same part of speech.

Same paradigm comprises also cases when there is only one word form, i.e. when the words are unchangeable. Inconsistent combinations of features are crossed out in the table. It is, for instance, impossible for two words to be identical in all word forms and different in basic forms, or for two homonyms to show no difference either in lexical or grammatical meaning, because in this case they are

not homonyms. That leaves seven possible>

ABCD, Members of the opposition “light” (noun) – “light” (adjective) are different in lexical and grammatical meaning, have different paradigms but the same basic form. The>

ABCD. Same as above, only not both members are in their basic form. The noun (here might) is in its basic form, the singular, but the verb will coincide with it only in the Past Tense. This lack of coincidence between basic forms is not frequent, so only few examples are possible.

Cf. also “bit” (noun) - 'a small piece' and “bit” - Past Tense and Participle II of “bite”.

ABCD, Represents pairs different in lexical and grammatical meaning but not in paradigm, as these are not changeable words. For example, “for” (preposition) contrasted to “for” - conjunction.

ABCD. Patterned homonymy.1 Differs from the previous (i.e. ABGD) in the presence of some common component in the lexical meaning of the members, some lexical invariant:

For example, the word “before” has the following lexical invalidations: “before” (prep.), “before” (adv), “before” (conj.), though they all express some priority in succession. This type of opposition is regular among form words.

ABCD. Contains all the cases due to conversion:

For example, “eye” (noun) vs. “eye” (verb). These members differ in grammatical meaning and paradigm. It should be borne in mind that they also belong to patterned homonymy. Examples of such noun-to-verb or verb-to-noun homonymy can be augmented almost indefinitely The meaning of the second can always be guessed if the first is known.

ABCD. Different lexical meaning, same grammatical meaning; and different paradigm:

e.g. lie ~ lay ~ lain and lie - lied - lied in many cases belong to this group. We should also underline the configuration of cases of double plural

cf.: “genius” – “geniuses” and “genius” – “genii”.

ABCD. The most typical case of homonymy accepted by everybody and exemplified in every textbook. Different lexical meanings but the homonyms belong to the same part of speech: For example, the word “spring” can be understood as a leap, “spring” as a source and “spring” as the season in which vegetation begins.

It goes without saying that this is a model that gives a general scheme. Actually, a group of homonyms may contain members belonging to different groups in this>

3.2.2 Modern methods of investigating homonyms

The intense development of homonymy in the English language is obviously due not to one single factor but to several interrelated causes, such as the monosyllabic character of English and its analytic structure. Inflections have almost disappeared in present-day English and have been superseded by separate words of abstract character (prepositions, auxiliaries, etc.) stating the relations that once expressed by terminations.9

The abundance of homonyms is also closely connected with a characteristic feature of the English language as the phonetic unity of word and stem or, in other words, the predominance of forms among the most frequent roots. It is very obvious that the frequency of words stands in some inverse relationship to length, the monosyllabic words will be the most frequent moreover, as the most frequent words are also highly polysemantic, It is only natural that they develop meanings which in the course of time may deviate very far from the central one. When the inter-mediate links fall out, some of these new meanings lose all with the rest of the structure and start a separate existence. Phenomenon is known as disintegration or split of polysemy, Different causes by which homonymy may be brought about subdivided into two main groups:

1) Homonymy through convergent sound development, when or three words of different origin accidentally coincide in sound;

2) Homonymy developed from polysemy through divergent development. Both may be combined with loss of endings and 0tJier morphological processes.

In Old English the words “gesund”- 'healthy' and “sund”- 'swimming' were separate words both in form and in meaning. In the course of time they have changed their meaning and phonetic form, and for latter accidentally coincided: OE “sund” in ME “sound” 'strait’. The group was joined also accidentally by the noun sound 'what is or may be heard' with the corresponding verb that developed from French and ultimately the Latin word “sonus”, and the verb sound 'to measure the depth' of dubious etymology. The coincidence is purely accidental.

Two different Latin verbs: “cadere”-'to fair and “capere”- 'to hold' are the respective sources of the homonyms In case1 'instance of thing's occurring' and case a box. Homonymy of this type is universally recognized. The other type is open to discussion.

Unlike the homonyms case and sound all the homonyms of the box group due to disintegration or split of polysemy are etymologically connected. The sameness of form is not accidental but based on genetic relationship. They are all derived from one another and are all ultimately traced to the Latin “buxus”. The Concise Oxford Dictionary1) has five separate entries for box: 1.box n. - 'a kind of small evergreen shrub';

2. box n. 'receptacle made of wood, cardboard, metal, etc. and usually provided with a lid';

3. box v. 'to put into a box';

4. box n. 'slap with the hand on the ear';

5. boxt v. ‘a sport term meaning 'to fight with fists in padded gloves'.10

Such homonyms may be partly derived from one another but their common point of origin lies beyond the limits of the English language. In these with the appearance of a new meaning, very different from the previous one, the semantic structure of the parent word splits. The new meaning receives a separate existence and starts a new semantic structure of its own. Hence the term disintegration or split of polysemy. It must be noted, however, that though the number of examples in which a process of this sort could be observed is considerable, it is difficult to establish exact criteria by which disintegration of polysemy could be detected. The whole concept is based on stating whether there is any