Homonyms as words with different meanings. Classifications of homonyms

Whole sentences may be homophonic: The sons raise meat- The sun’s rays meet. To understand such sentences we should have a wider context.

Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning but identical in spelling: bow [bou] -bow [bau]; lead [li:d] - lead[led]; row[rou]-row[rau]; tear[tiэ]- tear[teэ]

There is an opinion that homographs are not homonyms, as the object of linguistics is sound language. According to I.V.Arnold and M.V.Solovieva this viewpoint can hardly be accepted. Because of the effects of education and culture written English is a generalized national form of expression. That is why a linguist must take into consideration both the spelling and the pronunciation of words.

Various types of classification for homonyms proper have been sugges­ted. R.S. Ginsburg and other linguists classify all cases of homonymy into full and partial homonymy – i.e. homonymy of word and homonymy of word-forms. In case words are homonymous in all their forms we observe full homonymy: e.g. seal – an animal -seal – the official mark of a government or company. In other cases seal – to seal we see that only some individual word-forms are homonymous: seals (n,pl) – seals(Pr. Ind), but the forms sealed, sealing are not observed in the paradigm of the noun seal. In such cases we speak about partial homonymy. The bulk of full homonyms are found within the same parts of speech, partial homonymy is observed in word-forms belonging to different parts of speech.

Another important classification is that suggested by Prof. A. I. Smirnitsky. He also classified homonyms into full and partial. But he distinguished lexical and lexico-grammatical homonyms.

Full lexical homonyms are words of the same part of speech and have the same paradigm, e.g. match- a sports event – match – a stick of wood which burns.

Partial homonyms can be of 3 types.

Simple lexico-grammatical homonyms are words of the same part of speech. Their paradigms have only one identical form, e.g: to found- to establish – found (P.Ind of find).

Complex lexico-grammatical partial homony ms are words of different parts of speech, which have only one identical form, e.g: rose – a flower – rose (P.Ind of rise); maid -agirl –made (P.Ind. of make).

Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same part of speech, which are identical only in their corresponding forms, e.g: to lie – to make an untrue statement(an regular verb) - to lie- to be in a flat position(a regular verb).