Sources of homonymy. Homonymy and polysemy

The intense development of homonymy in English is explained by several interrelated causes, such as the monosyllabic character of English and its analytic structure. Inflections have disappeared in present-day English and have been replaced by prepositions, auxiliaries, etc.

According to I.V. Arnold different causes by which homonymy may be brought about are subdivided into 3 main groups:

l) homonymy through convergent phonetic changes, when two or three words of different origin accidentally coincide in sound; e.g: night – knight were not homonyms and were pronounced differently. Here we also speak about borrowing e.g. rite- a ceremonial act (latin ritus)- write- to make letters – right- correct (native ); bank – shore (native); bank – a financial institution (Italian) and shortening, e.g. fan – fanatic – fan- implement for waving; cab- cabbage - cab- cabriolet

2) conversion; e.g. comb- an object used for arranging hair -to comb -to arrange hair; ape – a monkey –to ape - to copy smb`s behaviour. As a result, lexico-grammatical homonyms are formed. Morphemic addition can also result in homo­nymy. This process is connected with word-formation with the same affix or to the homonymy of derivational and functional affixes. The suffix –er: trail - to drag — trailer - a creeping plant - trailer - a caravan. The suffix-s added to the homonymous stems: arm – an upper limb of a person — arms - weapon.

3) homonymy developed from polysemy through divergent sense development. It is called split or in N. Gvishiani`s terms - limit polysemy. The most frequent words are also highly polysemantic, and it is natural that they develop mean­ings which may deviate very far from the central one after some time. When the intermediate links fall out, some of these new meanings lose all connections with the rest of the structure and start a separate existence. Both may be combined with loss of endings and other morphological processes.

It is diffic­ult to establish exact criteria by which disintegration of polysemy could be detected. In general it is based on stating whether there is any connection between the meanings or not, and is very subjective.

N. Gvishiani speaks about 3 factors: 1) the semantic proximity of LSVs 2) their derivation capacity 3) the range of collocability.

1) to find semantic proximity means to see the connection of different LSVs with the central(core) meaning of the word and between one another She gives an example: 1) He propped his elbows upon a greasy counter; The roads are greasy with rain; I don`t like because he is greasy (too polite, that is unpleasant.). Here the connection can be followed. But there are cases when it is really difficult or impossible to follow the link with the core meaning. The classical example of split polysemy is the set of words 1) board – apiece of wood; 2) an official group of people performing some task 3) meals. At first sight these words have no close associations, in dictionaries they are given as homonyms or in V.K.Myuller`s dictionary- 1,3-one word; 2-a separate meaning). But etimologically, they had one close concept- table or a flat piece of wood used for various purposes, the development of meaning went metonymically; e.g spring - a leap;a stream of water; a season.The change is metaphorcal: water leaps, nature leaps from sleeping etc.

2) potential homonyms develop their own sets of related word: e.g. c ustom - tradition - customary; custom - a purchase - a customer; customs - control of luggage - customs officer.

3) homonyms or potential homonys are collocated differently, e.g. The board made up their mind; He paid for the board and tuition; He took a board and a nail; a blackboard

In this connection the phenomenon of enantiosemy should be mentioned. It is a specific use of the word that is the result of incompatibility of meaning and function(prosody). It is close to what is called irony. E.g. A fine specimen! – Вот так тип!

In general only 7% of homonyms are due to split polysemy

I.V.Arnold and V. I. Abayev think that in diachronic treatment the only criterion is etymology observed in explanatory dictiona­ries. In their opinion only those words that have different sources and only accidentally coincided phonetically should be treated as homonyms.

LECTURE IV

Synonymic and Antonymic Relations in the Language