Languages & Linguistics
Homonymy
Homonymy refers to the linguistic phenomenon where two or more words have the same form (spelling and/or pronunciation) but different meanings. These words may belong to the same or different word classes. Homonyms can create ambiguity in language, leading to potential misunderstandings, and are an important aspect of lexical semantics and word meaning.
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7 Key excerpts on "Homonymy"
eBook - PDF- Einar Haugen, Werner Winter, Einar Haugen, Werner Winter(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
The success it achieved in explaining semantic evolution within the studies of structural etymology, largely contributed to its coming to the fore (determination of homonymic slashes, conflicts of homonyms, word-obsolescence). 29 In a recent and fundamental study, E. Buyssens (1965:78-86) recalled that Homonymy, which had been much too often confused with the so-called popular etymology (or paronymical attraction), needed to be given its rightful place (see also Gougenheim 1961). The very nature of Homonymy has motivated in part the methodological works of which it was the object. Contrary to synonymic analysis, which is always of an approx-imate value, it was thought that homonymical series could bring forth more stable and rigorous elements capable of determining the type, the nature, and the degree of Homonymy. Nevertheless, linguists have never been unanimous on the methods of interpretation and numerous discussions have divided the specialists, according to their attitude which was either historical or synchronical. Recently, O. DuchaCek (1962) proposed a compromise typology which makes an inventory (not without risks) of the various homonyms and envisages the transfers ( HOMONYMIZATION of meanings and DE-HOMONYMIZATION by contamination) according to both the diachronic and synchronic approaches. 30 But, while for the last 20 years, linguists have been trying to make inventories of lexical items according to modern linguistic methods, it has been rather the limits between Homonymy and polysemy which have retained their attention. New attempts have been made to determine whether it was a question of two different words or of only two meanings of the same word. Some research workers wanted to remedy the lack of semantic criteria by using formal elements capable of bringing more objective data: various grammatical series, prefixation and derivation (Godel 1948), morpho-logical or syntaxical criteria (Diaconesco 1959).
eBook - PDFMeaning in English
An Introduction
- Javier Valenzuela(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
There are a number of ‘linguistic tests’ to Meaning Relations 117 distinguish among polysemous senses (e.g., Geeraerts, 1993), but they are complex and mostly inconclusive. 5.2.2 Homonymy Up till now, we have been only mentioning polysemy: a word ‘develops’, so to speak, a number of different but related senses, like foot for part of the leg (My left foot is bigger than my right one) and foot as a unit of measure (He’s six foot tall). But there is another related phenomenon: Homonymy, when two words happen to arrive at the same form (so, they look like only one) but each of them has a different meaning. In this case we have two (identical) word forms with completely unrelated meanings: ball can be a round object to play with, or it can be a dance; bat can be a flying animal or an object used in baseball; bass has a musical sense and a fish sense (Figure 5.2). In dictionaries, the different senses of polysemous items are typically listed within the same entry, while homonymous senses are listed as separate entries. The distinction we have established between polysemy and homo- nymy thus looks simple enough: in polysemy, the senses of a word are related and in Homonymy they are not related. However, the ‘relatedness’ of meanings that distinguishes polysemy can be a tricky notion. When are two senses related and how can we tell? This is actually a problem that makes many cases of polysemy quite hard to distinguish from Homonymy. Two traditional ways to tease apart polysemy and Homonymy are (1) reliance on speakers’ intuition and (2) etymological information. Figure 5.2 Weird Readings of Baseball Bat and He’s a Great Bass Player due to Homonymy Chapter 5, section [5.2] 118 However, both are problematic: speakers’ intuition is known to be very subjective. Lyons (1977: 550) phrases this in very precise words: ‘Relatedness of meaning is a matter of degree.
eBook - PDF- James Dickins(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Under such an approach, polysemy (Def. 23c ld ) can be viewed as a fluid pre-catastrophic state (in the sense in which catastrophe is used in catastrophe theory: cf. Woodcock — Davis 1980). In this state there is a more or less constant gradation of perceived differences of meaning with respect to different polysemous (cf. Def. 23c ld ) forms; e.g. polysemous (cf. Def. 23c ld ) pairs of forms may be perceived as extremely similar in meaning, fairly similar in meaning, to some degree similar in meaning, etc. -along a continuous scale. Homonymy (Def. 27c), on the other hand, is a post-catastrophic state, such that there is typically a clearly greater qualitative difference between the perceived closeness of what are analysed as two polysemous (cf. Def. 23c ld ) forms, and the perceived closeness of what are analysed as two homonymous (cf. Def. 27c) forms. Indubitably for literate speakers of English at least, spelling is also a factor which has a notable influence on judgements of Allosemylpo lysemy 193 polysemy (Def. 23c ,d ) and Homonymy (Def. 27c). It is to be doubted that literate native speakers would even entertain the possibility that the various senses of wait and weight or more plausibly the various senses of site and sight were senses of the same word. The fact that they are spelt differently is enough to mark off each of wait and weight, and site and sight as different words in their own right. This analysis of four different words (signa (Def. 2a 1 , Def. 24)) would also hold good not only for the written language but also for the spoken language. As in the case of horn there is a clear causal factor at work here. Also as in the case of horn, however, this factor does not form a part of the extended axiomatic-functionalist linguistic description, whose sole concern is whether the forms in question are different, not why they are different.
eBook - PDFSymposium on Lexicography X
Proceedings of the Tenth International Symposium on Lexicography May 4-6, 2000 at the University of Copenhagen
- Henrik Gottlieb, Jens Erik Mogensen, Arne Zettersten, Henrik Gottlieb, Jens Erik Mogensen, Arne Zettersten(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
Sändor Martsa * Homonymy vs Polysemy: Conversion in English 1. Introduction The basic criteria on the basis of which Homonymy and polysemy are usually distinguished in lexicology as well as in lexicography are the formal identity and the semantic relatedness (or unrelatedness) of lexemes or their senses. Thus, two or more lexemes are said to be homonymous if they have the same form, i.e. they have the same phonemic and/or graphemic shape, but their meanings are not related (e.g. sight / cite / site·, right / 'morally correct, true', right 2 'exactly, directly'). By contrast, a lexeme is perceived as a polysemous item if it has two or more semantically related senses (e.g. lesson 1/ 'thing to be learnt by a pupil', 2/ 'period of time given to learning or teaching', 3/ 'experience from which one can learn, 5/ passage from the Bible read aloud during a church service).' Drawing on the criteria of formal identity and semantic relatedness, polysemous and homonymous lexemes are relatively safely recognizable in most languages. In English, however, there is a group of words that seems to challenge the validity of these criteria. These are the so-called conversions or zero-derivatives, which constitute a large and ever-growing group of the English vocabulary, and which, especially in the case of noun-verb conversions to be discussed in this paper, call for the reconsideration of what is traditionally known about the relationship between Homonymy and polysemy. Thus, for instance, if we examine the different uses of bank in sentences (l)-(5) (1) You should keep your savings in a bank, (CIDE) (2) Come on! One evening at the theatre won't break the bank 2 . (3) My house is on the south bank 3 . (4) The snow has banked 4 up against the shed. (5) You ought to bank 5 that money as soon as possible.
- Jan Don(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Edinburgh University Press(Publisher)
In such an analysis it is the same affix that occurs in the forms that share this core meaning. Another possible analysis is to say that the affix is homonymous . Under such an analysis, it is claimed that there are two (or more) different affixes (e.g. - er 1 and -er 2 ) that are accidentally phonologically identical. How can one decide whether we are dealing with an instance of poly-functionality, or whether an affix is simply homonymous with another affix? An obvious solution would be to look for differences in the mor-phological processes in which the affix occurs. For example, the fact that the categories of the bases in (24a–d) differ from those in (24e–g) might be taken as an indication that we are dealing with different morphologi-cal processes, and consequently, with different affixes. However, note that this is not a necessary consequence for all theories of morphol-ogy. For those theories that embrace the Separation Hypothesis, there 20 MORPHOLOGICAL THEORY AND THE MORPHOLOGY OF ENGLISH is no reason to expect that an affix is different once it marks different morphological processes. Since in those theories morphological deriva-tion is separated from the phonological realisation (‘spell-out’) of the derivation, one and the same affix may spell out completely different derivations. Therefore simply looking at the morphological processes which the affix may realise is not a helpful criterion. A more promising possibility is to argue from allomorphic variation. The claim that affixes are homonymous implies that their phonological identity is a coincidence. How would such a coincidence come about? If two forms with different meanings end up having the same form, they have different historical origins. It is only in the course of history that their phonological forms have become identical. Consequently, Homonymy implies historically different origins.
eBook - PDF- Ladislav Zgusta, Vera Cerny(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
It is, however, highly probable that the lexicographer will treat the two words of the pair as homonyms. By distinguishing the two words, say by numbers, he will help the user of his dictionary, because the two members of the pair will follow each other in the alphabetic sequence. But if the lexicographer, notwith-standing these practical consideration, decides, on the strength of the theoretical arguments discussed above, not to distinguish them and not to treat them as if they were homonyms, he will be quite within his rights. Differences in the linguistic structure and differences in the linguistic tradition may cause various complications. For example, the situation is not too complex in Burmese where we have pairs of homographs like the following ones (reported by Minn Latt): pei sä [pei sä] share food with someone : : pei sa [peizä] give someone in marriage with someone khaun [gaurj] head :: khaun [kauij] coffin sa yei [sa yei] write something : : sa yei [säyei] clerk But in Arabic (as reported by Petracek), the situation is more complicated: there are roots which are graphically identical in the canonical form (in which the vowels are not written); but in the actual full spoken form, they are different, because their vowels differ. E.g. root dkr: dikrun mention, recollection dakarun male, masculine; penis Real homonyms in Arabic are only those words in which all the phonemes coincide, as (I) naqdun money, cash (II) naqdun criticism. 1.6.3 Another circumstance the lexicographer must take into consideration is the fact that the words with which he is working very often have different forms, that they very frequently form a paradigm. (More on this subject LEXICAL MEANING 81 § 2.1.) It is the lexicographer's duty to take the whole paradigm into considera-tion, not to consider one form only, because things often take on another aspect with more extended study.
eBook - PDFAristotle on False Reasoning
Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations
- Scott G. Schreiber(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- SUNY Press(Publisher)
As a result, in this latter group, different signifiers are mistakenly thought to be one and the same and, again, their different significations are overlooked. In both sets, the result is the same: a failure to signify the same things by the same names and phrases. In this and the next two chapters I examine Aristotle’s treatment of each of these six sources of fallacies. Homonymy Homonymy in the Categories Aristotle begins Categories 1 by writing: When things have only a name in common and the definition of being which corresponds to the name is different, they are called homonymous. 9 Homonymy here is a relationship holding between things rather than be- tween words. What makes two things homonymous is the fact that they are called by the same name, which has two definitions. Sometimes, instead of things being called homonymous, Aristotle says that names of things may be spoken homonymously. 10 This is not an inconsistency on Aristotle’s part but a recognition that the Homonymy that primarily pertains to things in the Categories also can be applied secondarily to the name possessed in common by those homonymous things. There is, however, one adjustment to be made when Aristotle uses “Homonymy” to apply to names. It is no longer a relationship among names (as Homonymy is properly a relationship among things). Rather, it applies simply to a name by virtue of that name’s multiple signification. We might say that what it is to be the side of a river is homonymous with what it is to be a repository for money, but the word “bank” is simply homonymous. In more Aristotelian terms, Homonymy according to the Categories is properly a pr¬V ti entity inhering in things. But when applied secondarily to the names of things, it loses that pr¬V ti status. 11 22 FALLACIES DUE TO LANGUAGE Homonymy in S.E. When we turn to S.E., sophisms attributed to Homonymy are sophisms due to names being homonymous.
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