Classification of Homonyms

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. The examples given at the beginning show that homonyms may belong both to the same and to different categories of a part 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.

Accordingly, Professor A. I. Smimitsky classified homonyms into two large classes: I. full homonyms, II. partial homonyms [12].

Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the same category of a part of speech and have the same paradigm.

E.g.:

J match, n. - a game, a contest,

1 match, n. - a short piece of wood used for producing fire;

Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups: A. Simple lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words which belong to the same category of a part of speech. Their paradigms have one identical form, but it is never the same form, as

will be seen from the examples.

E.g.:

I

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 a part of speech which have one identical form in their paradigms.

rose, n., '^g'' rose, v. (past indef. of to rise);jmaid, n.,

1 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 a part of speech which are identical only in their corresponding forms.

E.g.: 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).

3. Synonyms in modern English Synonyms are traditionally defined as words identical or similar in their meaning but different in their sound form.

Synonymy is one of modern Linguistics' most controversial prob­lems. The very existence of words traditionally called synonyms is dis­puted by some linguists; the nature and essence of the relationships of these words is hotly debated and treated in quite different ways by rep­resentatives of different linguistic schools.

The duality of synonyms is, probably, their most confusing fea­ture: they are somewhat the same, and yet they are, most obviously, different. Both aspects of their dual characteristics are essential for them to perform their function in speech, revealing different aspects, shades and variations of the same phenomenon. "— Was she a pretty girl? — I would certainly have called her attractive" (From The Shivering Sands by V. Halt).

The second speaker in this short dialogue does his best to choose the word which would describe the girl most precisely: she was good-looking, but pretty is, probably, too good a word for her, so that at­tractive is again in a way opposed to pretty (~ not pretty, only attrac­tive), but this opposition is, at the same time, firmly fixed on the same­ness of pretty and attractive: essentially, they both describe a pleasant appearance.

Synonyms add precision to each detail of description and show how the correct choice of a word from a group of synonyms may col­our the whole text. In the following extract an irritated producer is talking to an ambitious young actor:

"Think you can play Romeo? Romeo should smile, not grin, walk, not swagger, speak his lines, not mumble them" (From Some Men and Women by B. Lowndes).

Here the second synonym in each pair is quite obviously and in­tentionally contrasted and opposed to the first: "... smile, not grin." Yet, to grin means more or less the same as to smile, only, perhaps, denot­ing a broader and rather foolish smile. In the same way to swagger means "to walk", but to walk in a defiant or insolent manner. Mumbling is also a way of speaking, but of speaking indistinctly or unintelligibly.

Synonyms are one of the language's most important expressive means. The above examples convincingly demonstrate that the princi­pal function of synonyms is to represent the same phenomenon in different aspects, shades and variations.

Synonymy is associated with some theoretical problems which at present are still an object of controversy. Probably, the most controver­sial among these is the problem of criteria of synonymy. To put it in simpler words, we are still not certain which words should be correctly considered as synonyms, nor are we agreed as to the characteristic fea­tures which qualify two or more words as synonyms.

Traditional Linguistics solved this problem with the notional criterion and defined synonyms as words of the same category of a part of speech conveying the same notion but differing either in shades of meaning or in stylistic characteristics.

In contemporary research on synonyms the semantic criterion is frequently used. In terms of the componental analysis synonyms may be defined as words with the same denotation, or the same denotative component, but differing in connotations, or in connotative compo­nents.

to look	+ + + + + +	steadily, lastingly
to look	steadily, lastingly
to look	steadily, lastingly
to look	briefly, in passing
to look	steadily, lastingly
	"
to look	steadily, lastingly

to stare:

to glare:

to gaze:

to glance:

to peep:

to peer:

In modem research on synonyms the criterion of interchangeabil-ity is sometimes applied. According to this, synonyms are defined as words which are interchangeable at least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning [5].

The criterion of interchangeability has been much criticized. Every or almost every attempt to apply it to this or that group of syno­nyms seems to lead one to the inevitable conclusion that either there are very few synonyms or, else, that they are not interchangeable. It is sufficient to choose any set of synonyms placing them in a simple con­text to demonstrate the point. Let us take, for example, the synonyms from the above table.

Cf.: He glared at her (i.e. He looked at her angrily). He gazed at her (i.e. He looked at her steadily and atten­tively; probably with admiration or interest).

He glanced at her (i.e. He looked at her briefly and turned away).

He peered at her (i.e. He tiled to see her better, but some-diing prevented: darkness, fog, weak eyesight). These few simple examples are sufficient to show that each of the synonyms creates an entirely new situation which so sharply differs from the rest that any attempt at "interchanging" anything can only de­stroy the utterance devoiding it of any sense at all.

Consequently, it is difficult to accept interchangeability as a crite­rion of synonymy because the specific characteristic of synonyms, and the one justifying their very existence, is that they are not, cannot and should not be interchangeable, in which case they would simply be­come useless ballast in the vocabulary.