XII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2020

Language is a social phenomenon, which means it is inextricably linked with society and its development. Therefore, the language is directly dependent on the changes taking place in society.

Such phenomena as homonymy and polysemy are one of the results of these changes. Modern man inevitably faces all new and new lexical units, many of which are either polysemantic words or homonyms, for the correct understanding and correct use of which the ability to distinguish between them is required.

General notes on homonymy

Homonyms are words that are identical in pronunciation and spelling (or identical in one of these aspects), but differing in meaning. In English, the words can (to can) and can (a tin), bare (naked, empty) and bear (an animal) are homonyms.

It is noteworthy that homonymy in the English language applies not only to words and word forms, but also to, for example, language units such as morphemes. So, for example, the ending -s indicates either the 3rd person verb singular or the plural of the noun, and -er is either a suffix of the comparative degree of the adjective or a suffix of the noun.

Sources of homonymy

Coincidence in the form of words originating from different languages, but merged into a similar sound and grammatical form during the development of the language leads to the appearance of homonyms. In instance, duel as “a formal fight in the past, using guns or swords, arranged between two people as a way of deciding an argument” and dual as “a thing combining two parts”. These are homonyms that appeared as a result of borrowings from the Latin language.

The tendency of the English language to reduce words is also a source of replenishment of the group of homonyms. For example, homonyms are fan (fanatic) - fan (an apparatus with rotating blades that creates a current of air for cooling or ventilation).

Word formation in some respects is also a source of homonyms. As a result of, in particular, conversion, the transition of a word from one part of speech to another, formed to drink and a drink, to clap and a clap.

Another source of homonymy are borrowings. A borrowed word, existing in the new system, is exposed to regularities that occur in this new language, and sometimes it becomes similar to words that already existed in the language, in pronunciation or in spelling. For example, bank (a shore - native):: bank (financial institution - Italian).

Classification of homonyms of the English language

In accordance with the form, homonyms are divided into homophones, homographs and absolute homonyms.

Homophones have the same sound form, but differ not only semantically, but also graphically (bare/bear, road/rode, meat/meet, night/knight, etc.)

Homographs, on the contrary, coincide graphically, but are read differently (row, read, bow, etc.)

Absolute homonyms have a common sound and graphic form, different semantics and often different belonging to a part of speech (bear – carry, bear – animal; match – contest, match – person; match – fit; sound – healthy and sound – noise; etc.)

General notes on polysemy

Polysemy is the capacity for a word (for a given unit of expression, characterized by all the formal attributes of the word) to have multiple meanings, usually arising from the modification and development of the original meaning of the word. In the English language it is, in instance, bank (“bank”, “river bank”, “rampart”, “embankment”) or table (“a piece of furniture”, “food”, “board”, “plateau” and so on).

The world around us is incredibly rich in objects and phenomena, which determines the ambiguity of words. It would be incredibly uneconomical to assign each item or phenomenon to its own, distinct from the others name.

G. Warrel in his book “Science of Human Behavior” (Warrel, 1962) cites the following data: 500 of the most common words in the English language convey more than 10,000 meanings, and the more common the word, the more developed is the system of its derived meanings.

The main criterion for a multi-valued word is the presence of a connection (determined genetically or semantically) between its meanings.

Natalia Borisovna Gvishiani, doctor of philological sciences, adheres to the same point of view in her textbook "Modern English. Lexicology". According to her, when we talk about lexical-semantic variants of a polysemous word, we must remember that these variants are in any case closely interconnected.

The need for knowledge of the lexical-semantic variants of a word grows as the number of these very variants increases. Studying the mechanisms of the emergence and finding of polysemy leads to an understanding of the essence of semantic processes, as well as to an understanding of the mechanisms of functioning of the cognitive system of a person in general.

The principles of distinguishing homonymy and polysemy

The polysemy is based on the connection of the meanings of the word, while homonymy is based on their break, the absence of semantic connections between them. The meaning of homonyms is not deducible from one another. А number of homonyms arise as a result of a gap, a discrepancy in the meanings of a polysemantic word. The loss of common features occurs gradually, as a result it becomes difficult to find the line between the completed and incomplete process of decay of meanings.

Among the main the following objective criteria for finding this line are distinguished:

A multi-valued word should have an associative attribute, uniting all other meanings included in it, homonyms do not have such a connecting seme (face in the meaning of “a part of the head” and the meaning of “facade”, common seme here is “something that is in front "; Hand in the meaning of "an arm" and the meaning of "hand of the clock" - "something long, capable of serving as a pointer");

Homonyms are characterized by a divergence of word-formation series, which is caused by a difference in the meanings of the word (to meet as a verb among other words from its word-formation series has the word meeting, “an appointment”, and its homonym meat “flesh” has meaty, "containing meat");

Another specific feature of homonyms is different compatibility (light “shine” - bright light, green light, blinding light and light “not heavy” - light weight, light breeze);

Homonyms are characterized by the absence of synonymous relations between their synonyms, so words are homonyms if their synonyms are not interconnected and do not form a synonymous series between each other (match “coincidence” - concurrency, contemporaneity, match “marriage” - wedlock, matrimony).

In some cases, the criteria by which a distinction is made are not able to indicate with high probability that the word belongs to a particular lexical phenomenon.

The identification of methods for distinguishing homonymy and polysemy is still the broadest area for scientists to study.

List of references:

В.Д. Шевченко «Основы теории английского языка», учебное пособие, Самара 2004

В.В. Елисеева Лексикология английского языка СПб: СПбГУ, 2003

О.С. Ахманова «Словарь лингвистических терминов», издательство «Советская энциклопедия» Москва – 1966

Боярская, Е. Л. Полисемия как результат концептуальной интеграции /Е. Л. Боярская. – URL: http://www.ipages.ru/index.php?ref_item_id=2874&ref_dl=1

Головин Б. Н. «Введение в языкознание». Изд. 3-е, испр. Учебное пособие для филологических специальностей университетов и пед. институтов. М., «Высш. школа», 1977

Т.И. Вендина «Введение в языкознание», Москва, «Высшая школа», 2001

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