Contents

Introduction2
I. Homonymy vs Polysemy3
II. Sources of Homonyms..5
III. Classification of Homonyms8
Conclusion....10
Bibliography.11
Exercises...12

1
 Introduction
Homonymy is the relation between words with identical forms but different meaningsthat is,
the condition of being homonyms. A stock example is the word bank as it appears in river bank
and savings bank.
The first to talk about homonymy was Aristotle: "Those things are called homonymous of which
the name alone is common, but the account of being corresponding to the name is different
Those things are called synonymous of which the name is common, and the account of being
corresponding to the name is the same." (Aristotle, Categories)
Linguist Deborah Tannen has used the term pragmatic homonymy (or ambiguity) to describe
the phenomenon by which two speakers "use the same linguistic devices to achieve different ends".
David Crystal mentions that "Homonyms are illustrated from the various meanings of the word
bear (=animal, carry) or ear (of body, of corn). In these examples, the identity covers both the
spoken and written forms, but it is possible to have partial homonymy (or heteronymy), where
the identity is within a single medium, as in homophony and homography. When there is
ambiguity between homonyms (whether non-deliberate or contrived, as in riddles and puns), a
homonymic clash or conflict is said to have occurred."
Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling, or, at least, in one of these
aspects, but different in their meaning.
The word homonym comes from the Greek (homonumos), meaning "having the same
name", which is the conjunction of (homos), "common, same" and (onoma) meaning
"name". Thus, it refers to two or more distinct concepts sharing the "same name" or signifier.
If synonyms and antonyms can be regarded as the treasury of the language's expressive resources,
homonyms are of no interest in this respect, and one cannot expect them to be of particular value
for communication. Metaphorically speaking, groups of synonyms and pairs of antonyms are
created by the vocabulary system with a particular purpose whereas homonyms are accidental
creations, and therefore purposeless.
In the process of communication they are more of an encumbrance1, leading sometimes to
confusion and misunderstanding. Yet it is this very characteristic which makes them one of the
most important sources of popular humour.
The pun is a joke based upon the play upon words of similar form but different meaning (i. e. on
homonyms) as in the following: "A tailor guarantees to give each of his customers a perfect fit."
(The joke is based on the homonyms: I. fit, n. perfectly fitting clothes; II. fit, n. a nervous
spasm.)
The main aim of this report is to research the sources of homonymy and the classification of
homonyms, as well as to distinguish between the two linguistic phenomena: homonymy and
polysemy.

1
a burden or impediment
2
 Homonymy vs Polysemy
Lexical ambiguity normally comprises both homonymy and polysemy.
Homonymy means different lexical meaning with the same form. It is a sense relation that occurs
with items which have the same form but have different meaning that are not related to each other,
they are totally different and distinct in meaning.
Polysemy is a lexical phenomenon where two lexemes have the same form and different but
related sense. They have something in common, e.g.:
iron 1. Metal. 2. Instrument made out of metal.
fork 1. Instrument for eating 2. A rode that branches in two paths resembling a fork;
but: pupil 1. A young student 2. Part of the eye.
The first two examples were examples of polysemy while the third one is an example of
homonymy. The meanings of the third one are different and unrelated but have common origin
and during the time they drifted apart in meaning. Therefore, a word should be defined
synchronically because one can never be sure of the etymology of the word, e.g. mouth 1. Part of
a face 2. Part of a river where it touches the sea.
As Tom McArthur has noted, "There is an extensive grey area between the concepts of polysemy
and homonymy".
Homonymy and polysemy both involve one lexical form that is associated with multiple senses
and as such both are possible sources of lexical ambiguity. But while homonyms are distinct
lexemes that happen to share the same form, in polysemy a single lexeme is associated with
multiple senses. The distinction between homonymy and polysemy is usually made on the basis
of the relatedness of the senses: polysemy involves related senses, whereas the senses associated
with homonymous lexemes are not related.
Linguists have long distinguished between polysemy and homonymy. Usually, an account like the
following is given. Homonymy obtains when two words accidentally have the same form, such as
bank 'land bordering on a river' and bank 'financial institution.' Polysemy obtains where one word
has several similar meanings, such as may indicating 'permission' (e.g., May I go now?) and may
indicating possibility (e.g., It may never happen). Since it is not easy to say when two meanings
are totally different or unrelated (as in homonymy) or when they are just a little different and
related (as in polysemy), it has been customary to adduce additional, more easily decidable criteria.
The trouble is that, although helpful, these criteria are not totally compatible and do not go all the
way. There are cases where we may think that the meanings are clearly distinct and that we
therefore have homonymy, but which cannot be distinguished by the given linguistic formal
criteria, e.g., charm may denote 'a kind of interpersonal attraction' and may also be used in physics
denoting 'a kind of physical energy.' Not even the word bank, usually given in most textbooks as
the archetypical example of homonymy, is clear-cut. Both the 'financial bank' and the 'river bank'
meanings derive by a process of metonymy and metaphor, respectively from Old French banc
'bench.' Since bank in its two meanings belongs to the same part of speech and is not associated
with two inflectional paradigms, the meanings of bank are not a case of homonymy by any of the
above criteria... Traditional linguistic criteria for distinguishing homonymy from polysemy,
although no doubt helpful, in the end turn out to be insufficient.

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Dictionaries recognize the distinction between polysemy and homonymy by making a polysemous
item a single dictionary entry and making homophonous lexemes two or more separate entries.
Thus head is one entry and bank is entered twice. Producers of dictionaries often make a decision
in this regard on the basis of etymology, which is not necessarily relevant, and in fact separate
entries are necessary in some instances when two lexemes have a common origin. The form pupil,
for instance, has two different senses, 'part of the eye' and 'school child.' Historically these have a
common origin but at present they are semantically unrelated. Similarly, flower and flour were
originally 'the same word,' and so were the verbs to poach (a way of cooking in water) and to
poach 'to hunt [animals] on another person's land'), but the meanings are now far apart and all
dictionaries treat them as homonyms, with separate listing. The distinction between homonymy
and polysemy is not an easy one to make. Two lexemes are either identical in form or not, but
relatedness of meaning is not a matter of yes or no; it is a matter of more or less.

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 Sources of Homonyms
89 % of the homonyms are monosyllabic lexemes, the origin of which is due to the monosyllabic
analytic nature of English vocabulary (short words developed different meaning).
There are two main sources of homonymy:
1. Convergent nature of the homonymy where two words that have the same form, e.g. OE
gesund - healthy - sound (safe and sound).
OE sund - swimming - sound (straits)
Lat. Sonus - sound (sense detected by the ears).
This shows that three distinct forms ended up in one form.
2 . Divergent nature of homonvmy occurs when the words have one common etymological
source but during the course of time their meaning split or diverged. E.g.; pupil - a young
student,.pupil - part of the eye. What happened with this word is that the forms survived but there
was semantic disintegration.
One source of homonyms is phonetic changes which words undergo in the course of their
historical development. As a result of such changes, two or more words which were formerly
pronounced differently may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms.
Night and knight, for instance, were not homonyms in Old English as the initial k in the second
word was pronounced, and not dropped as it is in its modern sound form: .. kniht (cf. .. niht).
A more complicated change of form brought together another pair of homonyms: to knead (..
cndan) and to need (.. nodian).
In Old English the verb to write had the form writan, and the adjective right had the forms reht,
riht. The noun sea descends from the Old English form s, and the verb to see from . . son.
The noun work and the verb to work also had different forms in Old English: wyrkean and weork
respectively.
Borrowing is another source of homonyms. A borrowed word may, in the final stage of its
phonetic adaptation, duplicate in form either a native word or another borrowing. So, in the group
of homonyms rite, n. to write, v. right, adj. the second and third words are of native origin
whereas rite is a Latin borrowing (< Lat. ritus). In the pair piece, n. peace, n., the first originates
from O.F. pais, and the second from O.F. (< Gaulish) pettia. Bank, n. ("shore") is a native word,
and bank, n. ("a financial institution") is an Italian borrowing. Fair, adj. (as in a fair deal, it's not
fair) is native, and fair, n. ("a gathering of buyers and sellers") is a French borrowing. Match, n.
("a game; a contest of skill, strength") is native, and match, n. ("a slender short piece of wood used
for producing fire") is a French borrowing.
Word-building also contributes significantly to the growth of homonymy, and the most important
type in this respect is undoubtedly conversion. Such pairs of words as comb, n. to comb, v.,
pale, adj. to pale, v., to make, v. make, n. are numerous in the vocabulary. Homonyms of
this type, which are the same in sound and spelling but refer to different categories of parts of
speech, are called lexico-grammatical homonyms.
Shortening is a further type of word-building which increases the number of homonyms. E.g. fan,
n. in the sense of "an enthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer, etc." is a
shortening produced from fanatic. Its homonym is a Latin borrowing fan, n. which denotes an
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implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current of air. The noun rep, n. denoting a kind of
fabric (cf. with the R. ) has three homonyms made by shortening: rep, n. (< repertory), rep,
n. (< representative), rep, n. (< reputation)', all the three are informal words.
During World War II girls serving in the Women's Royal Naval Service (an auxiliary of the British
Royal Navy) were jokingly nick-named Wrens (informal). This neologistic formation made by
shortening has the homonym wren, n. "a small bird with dark brown plumage barred with black".
Words made by sound-imitation can also form pairs of homonyms with other words: e. g. bang,
n. ("a loud, sudden, explosive noise") bang, n. ("a fringe of hair combed over the forehead").
Also: mew, n. ("the sound a cat makes") mew, n. ("a sea gull") mew, n. ("a pen in which
poultry is fattened") mews ("small terraced houses in Central London").
The above-described sources of homonyms have one important feature in common. In all the
mentioned cases the homonyms developed from two or more different words, and their similarity
is purely accidental. (In this respect, conversion certainly presents an exception for in pairs of
homonyms formed by conversion one word of the pair is produced from the other: a find < to find.)
Now we come to a further source of homonyms which differs essentially from all the above cases.
Two or more homonyms can originate from different meanings of the same word when, for some
reason, the semantic structure of the word breaks into several parts. This type of formation of
homonyms is called split polysemy.
The semantic structure of a polysemantic word presents a system within which all its constituent
meanings are held together by logical associations. In most cases, the function of the arrangement
and the unity is determined by one of the meanings (e. g. the meaning "flame" in the noun fire). If
this meaning happens to disappear from the word's semantic structure, associations between the
rest of the meanings may be severed, the semantic structure loses its unity and falls into two or
more parts which then become accepted as independent lexical units.
Let us consider the history of three homonyms:
board, n. a long and thin piece of timber;
board, n. daily meals, esp. as provided for pay, e. g. room and board;
board, n. an official group of persons who direct or supervise some activity, e. g. a board of
directors.
It is clear that the meanings of these three words are in no way associated with one another. Yet,
most larger dictionaries still enter a meaning of board that once held together all these other
meanings "table". It developed from the meaning "a piece of timber" by transference based on
contiguity (association of an object and the material from which it is made). The meanings "meals"
and "an official group of persons" developed from the meaning "table", also by transference based
on contiguity: meals are easily associated with a table on which they are served; an official group
of people in authority are also likely to discuss their business round a table.
Nowadays, however, the item of furniture, on which meals are served and round which boards of
directors meet, is no longer denoted by the word board but by the French Norman borrowing table,
and board in this meaning, though still registered by some dictionaries, can very well be marked
as archaic as it is no longer used in common speech. That is why, with the intrusion of the borrowed
table, the word board actually lost its corresponding meaning. But it was just that meaning which
served as a link to hold together the rest of the constituent parts of the word's semantic structure.

6
With its diminished role as an element of communication, its role in the semantic structure was
also weakened. The speakers almost forgot that board had ever been associated with any item of
furniture, nor could they associate the concepts of meals or of a responsible committee with a long
thin piece of timber (which is the oldest meaning of board). Consequently, the semantic structure
of board was split into three units.
A somewhat different case of split polysemy may be illustrated by the three following homonyms:
spring, n. the act of springing;
a leap spring, n. a place where a stream of water comes up out of the earth;
spring, n. a season of the year.
Historically all three nouns originate from the same verb with the meaning of "to jump, to leap"
(. . springan), so that the meaning of the first homonym is the oldest. The meanings of the
second and third homonyms were originally based on metaphor. At the head of a stream the water
sometimes leaps up out of the earth, so that metaphorically such a place could well be described
as a leap. On the other hand, the season of the year following winter could be poetically defined
as a leap from the darkness and cold into sunlight and life. Such metaphors are typical enough of
Old English and Middle English semantic transferences but not so characteristic of modern mental
and linguistic processes. The poetic associations that lay in the basis of the semantic shifts
described above have long since been forgotten, and an attempt to re-establish the lost links may
well seem far-fetched. It is just the near-impossibility of establishing such links that seems to
support the claim for homonymy and not for polysemy with these three words.
It should be stressed, however, that split polysemy as a source of homonyms is not accepted by
some scholars. It is really difficult sometimes to decide whether a certain word has or has not been
subjected to the split of the semantic structure and whether we are dealing with different meanings
of the same word or with homonyms, for the criteria are subjective and imprecise. The imprecision
is recorded in the data of different dictionaries which often contradict each other on this very issue,
so that board is represented as two homonyms in Professor V. K. Muller's dictionary, as three
homonyms in Professor V. D. Arakin's and as one and the same word in Hornby's dictionary.
Spring also receives different treatment. V. K. Muller's and Hornby's dictionaries acknowledge
but two homonyms: I. a season of the year, II. a) the act of springing, a leap, b) a place where a
stream of water comes up out of the earth; and some other meanings, whereas V. D. Arakin's
dictionary presents the three homonyms as given above.

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 Classification of Homonyms
W. Skeat classified homonyms into:
1) perfect homonyms (they have different meaning, but the same sound form & spelling: school
an institution for educating children- school a large group of fish or sea mammals);
2) homographs (are words identical in spelling, but different both in their sound-form and
meaning, e.g. tear, n. [tia] a drop of water that comes from the eye and tear, v. [tea] to
pull apart by force.
3) homophones are words identical in sound-form but different both in spelling and in meaning,
e.g. sea, n. and see, v.; son, n. and sun, n..
However, the subdivision of homonyms into homonyms proper, homophones and homographs
is certainly not precise enough and does not reflect certain important features of these words, and,
most important of all, their status as parts of speech. Homonyms may belong both to the same and
to different categories of parts of speech. Obviously, a classification of homonyms should reflect
this distinctive feature. Also, the paradigm of each word should be considered, because it has been
observed that the paradigms of some homonyms coincide completely, and of others only partially.
A more detailed classification was worked out by I. V. Arnold. She classified perfect homonyms
by 4 criteria (lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, basic forms, paradigms) into 4 groups:
1) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings, basic form and paradigms and their
different lexical meanings, e.g. board in the meaning a council and a piece of wood sawn thin;
2) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings and basic forms, but different in their lexical
meanings and paradigms, e.g. to lie lied lied, and to lie lay lain;
3) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings, paradigms, but
coinciding in their basic form, e.g. light (lights) light (lighter, lighted);
4) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings, in their basic forms and
paradigms, but coinciding in one of the forms of their paradigms, e.g. a bit and bit (from to bite).
In I. V. Arnolds classification there are also patterned homonyms, which, differing from other
homonyms, have a common component in their lexical meanings. These are homonyms formed
either by means of conversion, or by levelling of grammar inflexions. These homonyms are
different in their grammatical meanings, in their paradigms, but identical in their basic forms, e.g.
warm, to warm. Here we can also have unchangeable patterned homonyms which have identical
basic forms, different grammatical meanings and a common component in their lexical meanings,
e.g. before an adverb, a conjunction, a preposition. There are also homonyms among
unchangeable words which are different in their lexical and grammatical meanings, but identical
in their basic forms.
Professor A. I. Smirnitsky classified homonyms into two large classes:
I. full homonyms;
II. partial homonyms.
Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the same category of parts of speech and have
the same paradigm.

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E. g. match, n. a game, a contest; match, n. a short piece of wood used for producing fire;
wren, n. a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service; wren, n. a bird.
Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups:
A. Simple lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words which belong to the same category
of parts of speech. Their paradigms have one identical form, but it is never the same form, as will
be seen from the examples.
E. g. (to) found; v. found, v. (Past Indef., Past Part. of to find);
to lay, v.; lay, v. (Past Indef. of to lie);
to bound, v.; bound, v. (Past Indef., Past Part, of to bind).
B. Complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words of different categories of parts of
speech which have one identical form in their paradigms.
E. g. rose, n.; rose, v. (Past Indef. of to rise);
maid, n.; made, v. (Past Indef., Past Part, of to make);
left, adj.; left, v. (Past Indef., Past Part, of to leave);
bean, n.; been, v. (Past Part, of to be);
one, num.; won, v. (Past Indef., Past Part, of to win).
C. Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech which are identical
only in their corresponding forms.
E. g. to lie (lay, lain), v.; to lie (lied, lied), v.
to hang (hung, hung), v.; to hang (hanged, hanged), v.
to can (canned, canned); (I) can (could).

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 Conclusion
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.
English vocabulary is rich in homonymic pairs and even groups of words. Their identical forms
are mostly accidental: the majority of homonyms coincided due to phonetic changes which they
suffered during their development.
Although homonyms cannot be regarded as a source of expressiveness of the language, like
synonyms and antonyms, and appear in the language accidently and aimless, the study of the
homonymy as a linguistic phenomenon is of great importance, especially in order to avoid the
common mistakes that occur in communication when confusing a word with its homonym.
Nevertheless, homonyms are not completely useless in the English language. They serve as the
main source of the word play upon which the pun is based.
The basic knowledge about homonyms is important to be possessed not only by us, students at the
philology department, but by each speaker of the language who wants to understand and to be
understood in a conversation.

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 Bibliography

1. English Lexicology, G. B. Antrushina, O. V. Afanasyeva, N. N. Morozova; Moscow,

1999
2. The Study of Modern English Lexicology, V. M. Shirokikh, L. P. Koudrevatykh; Glazov,
2004
3. A Guide to English Lexicology, Olga Ciobanu; Chiinu, 2013
4. Conversational Style, Deborah Tannen; 2005
5. Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language, Tom McArthur; 2005
6. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, David Crystal; 2008
7. Key Terms in Semantics, M. Lynne Murphy, Anu Koskela; 2010
8. Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics, Jens Allwood, 2003
9. Introducing English Semantics, Charles W. Kreidler, 1998

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 Exercises
Exercise 1: (Homographs) Link the homonyms with their meaning and pronunciation.
1. All the students are present today (a) here (rhymes with pleasant)
The boss will present the award at 10:00. (b) give (rhymes with resent)

2. I dont know if I will live or die. (a) to have life (rhymes with give)
Last night I saw the band play live in the concert. (b) in real time performance (rhymes
with hive)

3. The singer made a bow to the audience. (a) decorative ribbon (rhymes with so)
Maria placed a red bow on the birthday gift. (b) bend at the waist (rhymes with how)

4. The wind is blowing hard. (a) moving air (rhymes with pinned)
I have to wind my clock. (b) turn the stem (rhymes with find)

5. Please, close the door. (a) near (rhymes with dose)

The boy sit close to his uncle. (b) shut (rhymes with toes)

6. The rope was wound around his ankles. (a) tied around (rhymes with pound)
The soldier received a wound in the battle. (b) an injury (rhymes with moon)

Answer keys: 1. a,b; 2. a,b; 3. b,a; 4. a,b; 5. b,a; 6. a,b.

Exercise 2: (Homophones) Fill in the blanks using the right choice given in brackets.
1. They ________ at the market where they buy ________. (meat / meet)
2. Nobody can ________ what I tell ________. (hear / here)
3. ________ how the ________ is tumultuous. (see / sea)
4. ________ desires in our village to become a ________. (nun / none)
5. Last ________ she was ________. (weak / week)
6. ________ ________ you till now? (were / where)
7. ________ people cannot show the ________ way to success. (idle / ideal)
8. I have not ________ the ________ cover book till now. (red / read)
9. The house ________ was ________ to work for many hours without rest. (maid / made)

Answer keys: 1. meet, meat; 2. hear, here; 3. see, sea; 4. none, nun; 5. week, weak; 6. where, were;
7. idle, ideal; 8. read, red; 9. maid, made.

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Exercise 3: (Homonyms proper) Guess the word represented in the pictures.
1

13
5

14
 9

10

11

12

Answer keys: 1. bat; 2. chip; 3. club; 4. crane; 5. deck; 6. groom; 7. key; 8. match; 9. mole; 10.
nails; 11. quarry; 12. seal.

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