Phonetic coincidence and semantic differentiation of homonyms

     Thus the semantic criterion implies that the difference between polysemy and homonymy is actually reduced to the differentiation between related and unrelated meanings. This traditional semantic criterion does not seem to be reliable, firstly, because various meanings of the same word and the meanings of two or more different words may be equally apprehended by the speaker as synchronically unrelated/ For instance, the meaning 'a change in the form of a noun or pronoun' which is usually listed in dictionaries as one of the meanings of case!—'something that has happened', 'a question decided in a court of law' seems to be just as unrelated to the meanings of this word as to the meaning of case2 —'a box, a container', etc

     Secondly in the discussion of lexico-grammatical homonymy it was pointed out that some of the mean of homonyms arising from conversion (e.g. seal in—seal 3 v; paper n—paper v) are related, so this criterion cannot be applied to a large group of homonymous word-forms in Modern English. This criterion proves insufficient in the synchronic analysis of a number of other borderline cases, e.g. brother—brothers— 'sons of the same parent' and brethren—'fellow members of a religious society'. The meanings may be apprehended as related and then we can speak of polysemy pointing out that the difference in the morphological structure of the plural form reflects the difference of meaning. Otherwise we may regard this as a case of partial lexical homonymy. The same is true of such cases as hang—hung—hung—'to support or be supported from above' and hang—hanged—hanged—'to put a person to death by hanging' all of which are traditionally regarded as different meanings of one polysemantic word.

     It is sometimes argued that the difference between related and unrelated meanings may be observed in the manner in which the meanings of polysemantic words are as a rule relatable. It is observed that different meanings of one word have certain stable relationships which are not to be found between the meanings of two homonymous words. A clearly perceptible connection, e.g., can be seen in all metaphoric or metonymic meanings of one word (cf., e.g., foot of the man— foot of the mountain, loud voice—loud colors, etc.,1 cf. also deep well and deep knowledge, etc.).

     Such semantic relationships are commonly found in the meanings of one word and are considered to be indicative’ of polysemy. It is also suggested that the semantic connection may be described in terms of such features as, e.g., form and function (cf. horn of an animal and horn as an instrument), process and result (to run—'move with quick steps' and a run—act of running) [27:internet].

     Similar relationships, however, are observed between the meanings of two homonymic words, e.g. to run and a run in the stocking.

     Moreover in the synchronic analysis of polysemantic words we often find meanings that cannot be related in any way, as, e.g., the meanings of the word case discussed above. Thus the semantic criterion proves not only untenable in theory but also rather vague and because of this impossible in practice as it cannot be used in discriminating between several meanings of one word and the meanings of two different words.

     A more objective criterion of distribution suggested by some linguists is criteria: undoubtedly helpful, but mainly increase-distribution of lexico - grammatical and grammatical homonymy. When homonymic words of Context, belong to different parts of speech they differ not only in their semantic structure, but also in their syntactic function and consequently in their distribution. In the homonymic pair paper n—(to) paper v the noun may be preceded by the article and followed by a verb; (to) paper can never be found in identical distribution. This formal criterion can be used to discriminate not only lexico-grammatical but also grammatical homonyms, but it often fails the linguists in cases of lexical homonymy, not differentiated by means of spelling.

     Homonyms differing in graphic form, e.g. such lexical homonyms as knight—night or flower—flour, are easily perceived to be two different lexical units as any formal difference of words is felt as indicative of the existence of two separate lexical units. Conversely lexical homonyms identical both in pronunciation and spelling are often apprehended as different meanings of one word. It is often argued that the context in which the words are used suffices to perceive the borderline between homonymous words, e.g. the meaning of case in several cases of robbery can be easily differentiated from the meaning of case2 in a jewel case, a glass case. This however is true of different meanings of the same word as recorded in dictionaries, e.g. of case as can be seen by comparing the case will be tried in the law-court and the possessive case of the noun. Thus, the context serves to differentiate meanings but is of little help in distinguishing between homonymy and polysemy. Consequently we have to admit that no formal means have as yet been found to differentiate between several meanings of one word and the meanings of its homonyms. We must take into consideration the note that in the discussion of the problems of polysemy and homonymy we proceeded from the assumption that the word is the basic unit of language.1 It should be pointed out that there is another approach to the concept of the basic language unit which makes the problem of differentiation between polysemy and homonymy irrelevant [28:internet].

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

     2.6 Comparative typological analysis of two linguistic phenomena in other languages.

 

     Below we would like to compare the English differences between homonymy and polysemy with Russian and Kazakh equivalents.

     As it was noticed above we have polysemy and homonymy in both Russian and Kazakh. As in English, in Russian and Kazakh homonyms are words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning.

     In Kazakh homonyms “қазақ тілінде дыбысталуы бірдей бірақ мағыналары әр түрлі сөздер кездеседі, мұндай сөздерді омонимдер деп атаймыз”. For example: “Е, балам, мен бұл араға келгенде, сенің атың түгілі затың да жоқ еді (С. Жүнісов)” and “Заты, қолға түскен біреудің киім кешегі, қару жарағы болса керек. (С. Телжанов)”

     In this two examples the same word “Зат” is homonyms, in first sentence it means “like you are nobody for me”, and in the second sentence this word means “thing” [30:123]

     Like in English language Kazakh homonyms are divided into three parts :

1. толық омонимдер
2. жартылай омонимдер
3. аралас омонимдер

 

     For example, "завод1” - "an industrial undertaking" and "завод2" - "a device which brings an action of a mechanism".

     1) In this chapter we partially used the materials of the investigations of Prof. Buranov

     As in English, in Russian and Kazakh we correspond to polysemantic words the words which have several connected meanings.

     In Russian homonymy means Омо́нимы (др.-греч. ὁμός — одинаковый + ὄνομα — имя) — разные по значению, но одинаковые по написанию единицы языка (слова, морфемы и др.). Термин введён Аристотелем [29:internet].

     For example, "кольцо" - "one of the jewelry things" and "кольцо" - "a shape of something, e.g. smoke". Another example is "көз1" - "a part of human's body" and "көз2" - "a thing on wood".

     As in, English there is the lexical method of distinction of polysemy and homonymy is used in Russian and Kazakh in the same degree.

     For example, in Russian the word "коренной₁” – used in the meaning of "коренной житель” is referred to its synonym “исконный, основной” and the word "коренной₂" in еру meaning of “коренной вопрос” corresponds to the synonym “главный”. The words “основной” “главный” used in this sense are synonymic in their character, so we may conclude, therefore, that in this example we have two meanings of one word.

     The word "худой1" –used in the meaning of “не упитанный” is formed in the synonymic row with the adjectives “тощий, щуплый, сухой” while the word “худой2” forms its meaning with the adjectives “плохой”, “скверный”, “дурной”. So we can draw a conclusion that the words “тощий”, “щуплый” are not synonyms with the words “плохой”, “скверный” So in this case the words “худой1” and “худой2” are homonyms.

     In Kazakh we have the same phenomenon: For example, the word “ай1” - "the natural satellite of the earth that can be seen in the sky at night" and “ай 2” "each of the twelve parts into which a year is divided" [31:15-18]

     It means that these two meanings we can be substitutive with synonymy "a satellite of any planet". It means that these words are polysemantic in their lexical meaning.

     If we take another pair of words, e.g. "жаз1" - "summer" and "жаз2" - 'the form of the verb which expresses the order".

     2. Ethimological method can be shown in the following:

     For example, the word “голос1” used in the meaning of "sounds which are created when we speak", and the word “голос2”  in the meaning of "sounds which appear in the course of vibration of humans’ vocal cords" and “голос3” in the meaning of "to give your vote on election". The words “голос1”and “голос2” can be substituted by the synonym common for both these words -"sound", while the third meaning of this word has nothing in common with the mentioned synonym. So we are able to draw the following conclusion: the first mentioned two meanings of the word “голос” are synonymic to each other, while the third mentioned meaning is homonymic to the previous twos.

     Such kind of examples we can find in the Kazakh language as well. For instance, the words “дауыс1” we can substitute into the synonym "sound" while the word “дауыс2” in the meaning of “opinion a group of people” is homonymic to the first one, e.g. “жастар дауысы”.

     3. The semantic criterion can also be compared in all three languages.

     For example, in Russian the word “шляпка1” used in the meaning of "one of the things of woman's clothes and the word “шляпка2”used in the meaning of "the top beginning of a mushroom or a nail" can be compared as following: these two meanings mean “something round and located on the top”. So these two meanings are synonymic between each other.

      The same example we can find in Kazakh. For instance, the word “бас1”used in the meaning of "the beginning of human's body" and the word “бас2” used in the meaning of “the main person in a work, e.g.”істің басы”. These two meanings are alike because they do the same function, so they are not homonymic, they are synonyms.

     4. Morphological method of distinction of polysemy and homonymy can also be demonstrated in all the languages compared.

     For example, in Russian, the noun “хлеб1” used in the meaning of “хлебный злак” and “хлеб2”  used in the meaning of “пищевой продукт, выпекаемый из муки” form the adjective with the help of the suffix “-н“.

     Cf.: “Хлебные всходы” and “Хлебный запах”.

     In Kazakh the word “ай 1” – e.g. “Бір жылда он екі ай бар” and “ай2” – e.g. “Жер серігі – ай” form the new word with the help of the suffix “lik”:

     Cf.: “айлық жалақы” and “Бір айлық жалақы 25кунде беріледі”.

     So having analyzed the phenomenona of homonymy and polysemy in the three languages we can draw the following conclusion to this chapter: there are no so big differences in these languages in respect to the linguistic phenomena analysed.

However, the following conclusion can also be drawn: the problem of distinction of homonymy and polysemy in all the languages compared has not been investigated thoroughly yet and there is still much opportunities to discover new fields of approaches and this problem is still waiting its salvation [7:155-158]

 

      

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CANCLUSION

         1. Homonyms are words that sound alike but have different semantic structure. The problem of homonymy is mainly the problem of differentiation between two different semantic structures of identically sounding words.

          2. Homonymy of words and homonymy of individual word-forms may be regarded as full and partial homonymy. Cases of full homonymy are generally observed in words belonging to the same part of speech. Partial homonymy is usually to be found in word-forms of different parts of speech.

 

     3. Homonymous words and word-forms may be classified by the type of meaning that serves to differentiate between identical sound-forms. Lexical homonyms differ in lexical meaning, lexico-grammatical in both lexical and grammatical meaning, whereas grammatical homonyms are those that differ in grammatical meaning only.

 

     4. Lexico-grammatical homonyms are not homogeneous. Homonyms arising from conversion have some related lexical meanings in their semantic structure. Though some individual meanings may be related the whole of the semantic structure of homonyms is essentially different.

 

     5. If the graphic form of homonyms is taken into account, they are classified on the basis of the three aspects — sound-form, graphic form and meaning — into three big groups: homographs (identical graphic form), homophones (identical sound-form) and perfect homonyms (identical sound- and graphic form).

 

     6. The two main sources of homonymy are:

     1) diverging meaning development of one polysemantic word, and

     2) convergent sound development of two or more different words. The latter is the most potent factor in the creation of homonyms.

 

     7. The most debatable problem of homonymy is the demarcation line between homonymy and polysemy, i.e. between different meanings of one word and the meanings of two or more phonemically different words.

 

     8. The criteria used in the synchronic analysis of homonymy are:

     1) the semantic criterion of related or unrelated meanings;

     2) the criterion of spelling;

     3) the criterion of distribution, and

     4) the criterion of context.

     In grammatical and lexico-grammatical homonymy the reliable criterion is the criterion of distribution. In lexical homonymy there are cases when none of the criteria enumerated above is of any avail. In such cases the demarcation line between polysemy and homonymy is rather fluid.'

 

     9. The problem of discriminating between polysemy and homonymy in theoretical linguistics is closely connected with the problem of the basic unit at the semantic level of analysis.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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