Homonymy and polysemy

In relation to words belonging to the same parts of speech, in linguistics they often distinguish between homonymy and polysemy. Homonymy is a random coincidence of words, while polysemy- the presence of a word with different historically related meanings. For example, the words “boron” in the meaning of “pine forest” and “boron” in the meaning of “chemical element” are homonyms, since the first word is of Slavic origin, and the second arose from the Persian “Bura” - the name of one of the boron compounds. At the same time, for example, linguists call the words “ether” in the sense of organic matter and “ether” in the sense of “radio broadcasting and television” the meanings of one word, that is, polysemy, since both come from ancient Greek. αἰθήρ - Mountain air.

However, another part of linguists draws the line between polysemy and homonymy in a different way. Namely, if most people see a common shade of meaning in two coinciding words (as linguists say, “a common semantic element”), then this is polysemy, and if they do not see it, then this is homonymy, even if the words have a common origin. For example, in the words “braid” (tool) and “braid” (hairstyle), the common semantic element noticed by most people is “something long and thin.”

Finally, some linguists consider all individual meanings of polysemous words to be homonyms. In this case, polysemy is a special case of homonymy.

All or almost all Russian linguists certainly classify coinciding words belonging to different parts of speech as homonyms. Examples of such homonyms are “flow” (leak) and “flow” (leakage).

Classification

• Complete (absolute) homonyms are homonyms in which the entire system of forms coincides. For example, outfit (clothing) - outfit (order), forge (blacksmith) - bugle (wind instrument).
• Partial homonyms are homonyms in which not all forms coincide. For example, weasel (animal) And caress (show of tenderness) diverge in the genitive plural form ( caresses - caress).
• Grammatical homonyms, or homoforms, are words that coincide only in certain forms (of the same part of speech or different parts of speech). For example, the numeral three and verb three coincide only in two forms (to three - we are three).

Omomorphemes

Along with homonyms, that is, homonymous words, there are also homomorphemes, that is, homonymous morphemes, in other words, parts of words (prefixes, suffixes, roots, endings) that coincide, but have different meanings.

Homonyms, homophones, homographs, and homoforms

• Homonyms - words that sound the same at the same time And spelled, but different in meaning.
• Homophones (phonetic homonyms) are words that sound the same, but have different spellings and meanings.
• Homographs (graphic homonyms) are words that are the same in spelling, but different in sound and meaning.
• Homoforms (grammatical homonyms) are different words that coincide in individual grammatical forms. For example, the verbs fly and treat coincide in the 1st person singular form of the present tense - I'm flying.

Examples

Words

• 3: Braid - on the girl’s head; scythe - a tool for mowing; spit - a long cape in a body of water or in a watercourse (Curonian Spit).
• 7: Key - musical sign; key from door; the key is a natural source of water; wrench - wrench; key - information that allows you to decrypt a cryptogram or verify a digital signature; key - hint, cheat sheet, answer to a task, key - closing device in an electrical circuit
• 3: Butterfly is an insect; the bow tie; butterfly knife.
• 2: Onion is a plant; bow weapon.
• 3: Pen - writing (gel, ballpoint, etc.); handle - human hand; handle - door handle.
• 4: Brush - a bunch of ropes; wrist; brush - berries (rowan brush); brush - brush (for painting).
• 2: Trot - running (eg horse); lynx is an animal.
• 4: Troika - horses; three - mark; troika - the judicial body of the NKVD; three-piece suit.
• 2: The world is the universe; peace - the absence of war, hostility.
• 2: Messenger - giving news, a signal about something; messenger - in the army: a private for sending parcels on service matters.
• 3: Beam - part of a structure, a beam resting on something at several points (on walls, abutments); beam - a long ravine; beam and beam are lexical homonyms.
• 2: Kiwi is a fruit; kiwi is a bird.
• 2: Zebra is a beast; zebra crossing - pedestrian crossing.
• He mowed with a scythe (a well-known problematic phrase for foreigners).

Homonyms in poetry

You are the white swans fed,
Throwing away the weight of black braid…
I was swimming nearby; agreed fed;
The sunset ray was strange braid.

Valery Bryusov

Getting into a taxi, I asked dachshund:
“What is the fare? dachshund?»
And the driver: “Money from dachshunds
We don’t take it at all, here we go yes sir».

Yakov Kozlovsky

From the inside, like a ball chamber,
I burst, but hardly poem,
if my partner chamber
hears my prisoner poem
and a motive from the heart chamber.

Aydin Khanmagomedov

Homonymy in taxonomy

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Synonyms:

See what “Homonym” is in other dictionaries:

Greek homonymos, from homos, similar, and onoma, a name. A word that has the same pronunciation as another word but a different meaning. Explanation of 25,000 foreign words that have come into use in the Russian language, with the meaning of their roots. Mikhelson A.D.,... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

homonym- a, m. homonyme m. gr. homonyma homos identical + onyma name. 1. A word that has the same sound as another word, but different in meaning. MAS 2. The game of Homonyms... consists in the fact that one leaves the company in which, without him... ... Historical Dictionary of Gallicisms of the Russian Language

homonym- (incorrect homonym) ... Dictionary of difficulties of pronunciation and stress in modern Russian language

HOMONYM, homonym, husband. (from Greek homos identical and onyma name) (Ling.). A word that is identical to another in sound form, but different from it in meaning, for example. hail city and hail meteorological phenomenon. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov... ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

HOMONYM, ah, husband. In linguistics: a word that coincides with another in sound, but is completely divergent from it in meaning, as well as in the system of forms or in the composition of the nest, for example. "flow 1" and "flow 2", "mow 1" and "mow 2". | adj. homonymous... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary Terms of botanical nomenclature

homonym- Borrowing. from French lang., where omonyme lat. homonymus, rendering Greek. homōnymos, the addition of homos “one and the same, identical” and onyma “name”. Homonym literally “single name” (meaning the same sound of words denoting different... ... Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language

Homonyms- these are different in meaning, but identical sounding or spelling units of language - words, morphemes.
Derived from Greek homos- identical and onyma- Name.
There are several types of homonyms: full and partial, graphic and grammatical, phonetic and homonymous.

U full/absolute homonyms the entire system of forms coincides. For example, key(for castle) - key(spring), bugle(blacksmith) - bugle(wind instrument).
U partial Not all forms have the same sound. For example, weasel(animal) and weasel(show of tenderness) diverge in the genitive plural form - caress - caress.

Graphic homonyms or homographs- words that are the same in spelling, but differ in pronunciation (in Russian due to differences in stress).
From Greek homos- identical and graphic- writing.
Atlas - atlas
lead - lead
whiskey - whiskey
road - road
castle - castle
smell - smell
great - great
goats - goats
lesok - lesok
little - little
flour - flour
hell - hell
pier - pier
forty - forty
Already - already

Grammatical homonyms or homoforms- words that sound the same only in some grammatical forms and most often belong to different parts of speech.
I'm flying by plane and I'm flying throat (in other forms - fly and heal, flew and treated, etc.); acute saw And saw compote (in other forms - saw and drink, saw and drink, etc.).

Homonymous morphemes or homomorphemes- morphemes that are the same in their sound composition, but different in meaning.
Derived from Greek homos- identical and morphe- form.
For example, the suffix -tel in nouns teacher(actor meaning) and switch(the meaning of the current item); suffix -ets in words sage, male, cutter and brother; suffix -k(a) in words river, training, extras and graduate student.

And the most interesting Phonetic homonyms or homophones- words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings.
Derived from Greek ὀμόφωνο - "sound-likeness".
Examples in Russian:

threshold - vice - park,
meadow - onion, fruit - raft,
mascara - mascara,
fall - you will fall,
ball - point,
inert - bony,
betray - give,
emit - imitate.

In the Russian language, the two main sources of homophony are the phenomenon of deafening consonants at the end of words and before another consonant and the reduction of vowels in an unstressed position.

Homophony also includes cases of phonetic coincidence of a word and a phrase or two phrases. The letters used can be completely identical and the difference in spelling is only in the placement of spaces:

in place - together,
in everything - at all,
from mint - crushed,
from the hatch - and the angry one,
not mine - dumb.

In English, homophones arose as a result of the historically established different designations in writing for the same consonant or vowel sound, for example:

whole-hole,
knew - new.

In the French language, there are a whole series of homophones consisting of three to six words, one of the reasons for which is that in French many final letters are not readable.

Sources: Wikipedia, Dictionaries, Directories

In many languages ​​of the planet there is such a thing as homonymy. It is based on the fact that words and morphemes that are identical in sound and spelling have different meanings. They are called "homonyms". Examples of them are found everywhere. We use them extremely often in ordinary speech.

Homonyms

Examples confirming this phenomenon are known to many. These are the common words:

• “bow” in the meaning of plant and weapon;
• “escape”, in one case denoting a young branch, and in the other - an unauthorized hasty departure.

Out of context, it is difficult to determine in what exact meaning these homonyms are used. Example sentences with words will demonstrate this phenomenon clearly.

• Green onions are especially good in vegetable salads.
• A boy was given a toy bow and arrow for his birthday.
• The apple tree produced a young shoot, but the gardener pruned it in the fall.
• The Count of Monte Cristo escaped from prison in a creative way, replacing the prisoner's corpse with himself.

Examples of phrases will help you understand what homonyms mean:

• “green onions” and “sharp onions”;
• “maiden braid” and “river braid”;
• "three apples" and "three rag stain".

This phenomenon is quite entertaining, therefore it is often used by Russian language teachers as an entertaining technique in studying the subject, a way to expand the vocabulary and horizons of students.

Games with homonyms in lessons and extracurricular activities

To conduct this competition, you should prepare pairs of words that have the same pronunciation and spelling, but completely different meanings. Players are offered only meanings, and the words themselves (you can use the same spelling for both) are hidden under a cardboard picture that will serve as a point token, for example, a template of a tree leaf, an apple, a gold bar. The participant who correctly names the homonyms receives this emblem as a point after the correct answer. At the end of the game, the token points are tallied and a winner is chosen.

Homonyms are suitable for the competition, examples of which can be as follows (it should be recalled that only pictures are presented to participants and spectators, the words themselves are closed):

• “shop” as a piece of furniture and a small retail outlet;
• the word "Lama", appearing in one sense as an animal, and in another - as a Tibetan monk.

During the lesson, you can offer students one or two pairs of words. Completing this task will only take a few minutes, but the benefits will be enormous. Indeed, in addition to the above, this type of activity generates and strengthens interest in learning the Russian language.

Homonymy and polysemy

Many words have more than one meaning. Although they have the same spelling, they differ lexically. It is necessary to distinguish between homonyms and polysemantic words. Examples of polysemy are also quite common. For example, two words pronounced like “key” can act as homonyms in the following way:

• spring and device for opening.

But in the meanings of “violin”, “wrench”, “from a door lock”, “a device for rolling up cans”, “key” is one word. This is an amazing linguistic feature that should already be considered a phenomenon of polysemy. After all, each listed option involves the key’s ability to open something: a line of music or some object. This is one word with different meanings, not different homonyms.

There are a great many examples of such polysemantic words in Russian speech. Sometimes it is quite difficult to separate them from homonyms.

Polysemy sometimes occurs from the transition of a name based on external similarity. This is

• “sleeve” - a separate river bed and part of the shirt;
• “ribbon” is a device for a girl’s hairstyle and a long road, a moving part of a conveyor.

The ambiguity of these words arose from the external similarity of some features. For example, a sleeve in clothing is separated from a common large item. And the branching of the riverbed resembles the same phenomenon. Actually, the word “trouser leg” could have appeared in this version, but for some reason the Russian people chose “sleeve”.

The tape is a narrow, long object. Apparently, the person who invented the conveyor saw the similarity of its moving part with a device for a girl’s hairstyle. This is how the name transition occurred, the phenomenon of polysemy.

Etymological homonymy

A group of words belongs to homonyms unambiguously, since their very origin is already different. Therefore, in the task “Give examples of homonyms that differ etymologically,” you need to select words that came into Russian speech from different languages. To do this, you should look into the etymological dictionary.

These are the word “boron”, which means a chemical element, and its homonym - pine forest. The first noun came into Russian speech from the Persian language, where it sounded like “borax,” that is, boron compounds. The name of the pine forest is of Slavic origin.

Some linguists believe that the existence of the phenomenon of homonymy should be recognized only where the etymology of the words itself differs.

These same linguists do not see homonymy in the noun “ether” as an organic substance and in the meaning of “radio broadcasting and television.” After all, historically both words have a common etymology. They come from the ancient Greek root αἰθήρ, which means “mountain air.” And if the task says: “Give examples of homonyms,” and the answerer uses the word “ether” in two meanings, then these scientists will consider the answer incorrect.

Disputes between linguists about polysemy and homonymy

However, not everyone can determine the historical origin of words offhand. This often requires special dictionaries. Therefore, most people see that the meanings of the word “ether” are completely different and classify them as homonyms. Therefore, some linguists also do not see the polysemy here. The explanatory dictionary classifies them as different words with different meanings.

Examples of homonyms that cause controversy among linguists are:

• “braid” in the meaning of a hairstyle and a tool for mowing, since some argue that there is a transition of the name based on external similarity (thin and long);
• “pen” as a tool for writing, a device for opening, turning on, since some people determine ambiguity by the fact that they have something in common in their method of action (writing and opening with their hand);
• “feather” in the sense of “handle” and as a cutaneous horny formation of birds and some dinosaurs, considering that the first meaning came to the word from the historical method of writing with bird feathers.

Some linguists classify as homonymy all words in which polysemy can be traced. They consider polysemy to be only a special case.

Full homonyms

Linguists divide words that have the same pronunciation and spelling and have different meanings into two groups. Full lexical homonyms belonging to the same grammatical category are divided into one category. Examples of these: “braid”, “tongue”, “escape”, “key” and others. In all their forms, these words are the same in both spelling and pronunciation.

Incomplete or partial homonyms

Words that coincide only in some forms are also highlighted. These are grammatical homonyms. Examples of this phenomenon often refer to different parts of speech:

• “three” is a 2nd person singular verb of the imperative mood with the initial form “to rub” and “three” is a cardinal number;
• “oven” is an infinitive verb and “oven” is a feminine singular noun;
• “saw” is a feminine singular verb in the past tense and “saw” is a feminine singular noun.

Grammatical homonymy is also observed in words belonging to the same part of speech. For example, the 1st person singular verbs of the present tense are “I’m flying.” The first word is defined as an action related to medicine. Already the infinitive will sound like “to treat.” And the second verb has the initial form “fly” and denotes the action of flying.

Partial homonymy is observed in words of the same grammatical category. This occurs when words differ in only one form. For example, the two nouns “caress” - animal and manifestation of tenderness - do not coincide only in the genitive plural. These homonyms in this form will look like “weasel” and “weasel”.

Homonyms and homophones

Some people confuse the phenomenon of homonymy with others. For example, homophones are words that sound alike but have different meanings but are differently spelled. These are not homonyms! Examples of words that are homophones show this feature.

• “Cat” is a pet, and “code” is most often a certain set of symbols or sounds.

Everyone will notice that these words should be written differently. But it is almost impossible to hear the difference by ear. The word “code” must be pronounced with the final consonant stunned. This is where the sound similarity comes from.

Homonymy and homography

There are other linguistic phenomena similar to the one we are considering. For example, homographs are interesting because they have the same spelling, but are pronounced differently, most often due to stress. These are also not homonyms. Examples of homograph words are:

• gate - gate;
• castle - castle;
• smell - smell.

Homographs are also interesting for composing tasks for competitions and games. Using picture riddles in which homographs are encrypted, you can diversify linguistic activities.

The Russian language is one of the top 10 most famous languages ​​in the world. But in several languages ​​there are words that sound the same but are spelled differently, including in Russian.

The names of such words are homonyms. To study in more detail what homonyms are and what types of them exist, you should read this article.

What are homonyms and what are they?

“Homonymy” is translated from Greek as “same name.” Homonyms are those words that are similar in writing and pronunciation, but differ in understanding

For example:

1. The word "outfit". At the same time it can mean both the type of clothing and a soldier’s outfit.
2. "Onion" is also considered a homonym. In one sense it is a plant, in another it is a weapon.
3. The word "shop". One of the meanings of the word “bench” is a trading bench, and the second is an ordinary bench installed in a park on which people sit.

In our language, complete and incomplete homonyms are classified. Full homonyms include those that are one part of speech. For example, the word “smooth” is a noun with a double meaning: it means an even plane and a type of embroidery.

In both cases, “smooth” is a noun, the words are heard and written the same. We can conclude that, in fact, the word “smooth surface” is a homonym.

Types of homonyms - homophones, homographs, homoforms

Let's talk about incomplete homonyms. The translation of the word “homograph” from Greek is “same spelling.” In its turn Homographs are identical in spelling, similar to each other, but differ in pronunciation and meaning.

The most famous example is the word “castle”. When the accent is on the letter a, that is, “lock” is a certain building, and “LOCK” is a device that locks the door.

Or the word "organ". When we stress the first vowel, we get the word “Organ” - an element of a living organism, for example, heart, liver. When the second vowel is stressed, we get the word “organ” - a musical instrument.

The word "homophone" also came to us from the Greeks. Translated, it means “similar sound.” Based on this, we conclude that Homophones are words that are similar in sound but different in spelling. For example, in the expressions “open the door” and “boil dumplings” the verbs sound exactly the same, but when written, and, accordingly, in understanding, they are different.

It remains to figure out what homoforms are. Everything is much simpler here. Homoforms are words that are the same when written and pronounced not in all contexts of sentences.

For example, in the expressions “glass of water” and “glass of glass”, the word “glass” is a homoform.

Homonyms - examples of words

For children, homonyms are shown very clearly in the following pictures.

This concept can be explained to a 5-6 year old child, which is often done by speech therapists, specialized kindergartens and advanced parents.

Dictionary of homonyms of the Russian language

They wrote their own dictionaries for homonyms. The dictionary of homonyms, written by O. S. Akhmanova, fully and fully presents the classification of homonyms and information about them.

The dictionary of homonyms, which was created by N.P. Kolesnikov, contains translations of homonyms into 3 languages.

What helps to distinguish between words and homonyms

Homonym words are constantly confused with words that have several definitions, simpler, polysemantic words. Let's figure out what it is?

These are words that have a number of meanings that are interconnected in meaning. For example, the word hat.

The hat can be women's, nail or mushroom. In these cases, the meaning is not particularly different and means some kind of accessory or some kind of upper part.

Grammatical homonyms

These are words that are similar in pronunciation, but in spelling they coincide only in certain grammatical forms. For example, the word “flying”. It can mean the action “heal” in the first person, singular, or “fly”.

Also a good example of this type of homonym is the word “three”. "Three" can be a verb or the numeral "three" in the dative case.

Functional homonyms

These are words that are similar in spelling and sound, but belong to different parts of speech. They occur due to the transition of words from one part of speech to another.

The most obvious example of this type of homonym is the word “exactly”. It can be either a comparative particle or an adjective.

“To notice accurately” is an adverb. “Like a hurricane flew by” is a comparative particle. “Precisely defined” is an adjective.

Lexical homonyms

Words that have different meanings, but are the same when pronounced and written in almost all forms. They are one part of speech.

A good example is the word “flog”. This is a verb that can mean cutting a sewing stitch or beating.

Morphological homonyms

These are words that are written identically, but depending on the context they are different parts of speech.

The word "oven" is both a noun and a verb. It is possible to understand in what form this word is used only from the context.

Examples:

• “Ilya lit the oven so that grandma could make pies,” here the word “oven” is a noun;
• “Grandma was going to bake pies with meat and onions,” in this sentence the word “bake” is a verb.

Homonymous endings

To understand this concept, you first need to remember what case is. Case is a form of a name that indicates the relationship of words in a sentence.

There are 6 cases in the Russian language: nominative (I.p.), genitive (R.p.), dative (D.p.), accusative (V.p.), instrumental (T.p.), prepositional (P. .P.). Among the case endings there are also homonym endings.

Homonymous endings are those endings that sound the same, like all homonyms, but have different grammatical meanings.

For example, the words “sisters” and “water”. In the first case, the word “sisters” is plural. h., I. p, and the word “water” is singular. h., R. p.

To summarize, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the topic of homonyms is complicated not so much by the definitions of this concept, but by the variety of types. To fully understand the topic, you need to carefully familiarize yourself with and understand all types of homonyms and their differences.

Homonymy is the sound coincidence of different words whose meanings are in no way related to each other.

This is precisely why homonymy is categorically different from polysemy. Homonyms differ from ambiguous words in the following characteristics:

1) homonyms have no semantic connection;

2) homonyms have different word-formation connections;

3) homonyms have different lexical compatibility;

4) homonyms have different phraseological environments.

Reasons for the emergence of homonyms in the Russian language

Homonyms arise in a language as a result of the following reasons:

1) sound coincidence of words that were previously phonetically different.

Examples: onion (plant) - onion (melee weapon); peace (absence of war) - peace (light).

Until 1918, the word “peace” in the sense of “absence of war” was written with i: mir. After the spelling reform of 1918, the letter “and decimal” was abolished, and the spelling of the two words coincided;

2) borrowing words from. As a result, the word may coincide in form and sound with the original Russian word. Examples: marriage (, from the word “to take”) - marriage (flaw, defect; came from German through Polish); raid (sea pier; from Dutch) - raid (campaign; from English);

3) the collapse of polysemy, i.e. If one of the meanings of a polysemantic word completely loses its semantic connection with its other meanings, then it is torn away from this word and turns into an independent lexical unit.

This is one of the most productive, but also the most difficult ways of forming homonyms.

Examples: Wednesday (day of the week) - Wednesday (what surrounds us); light () - light (world);

4) the formation of derivative words from the same stem and according to the same word-formation model, but with different meanings. Examples: drummer (performs actions with blows, drummer) - drummer (advanced worker); raincoat (raincoat) - raincoat (mushroom).