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In progress historical development dictionary, the appearance of lexical homonyms was due to a number of reasons.
One of them is semantic splitting, the disintegration of a polysemantic word. In this case, homonyms arise as a result of the fact that initially different meanings of the same word diverge and become so distant that in modern language are perceived as different words. And only a special etymological analysis helps to establish their previous semantic connections based on some characteristics common to all meanings. In this way, even in ancient times, the homonyms light - lighting and light - Earth, world, universe appeared.
In 1972, the homonymy of the words debt - obligation and debt - borrowed was recognized and recorded for the first time in Ozhegov’s Dictionary. In the 1950s, these words were seen as variations of the same word with different meanings. This indicates the duration of the process of splitting a polysemantic word and transforming its meanings into independent homonym words, and the inevitability of the appearance of “intermediate, transitional cases” when it is difficult to give an unambiguous semantic characteristic of the word. For example, the words knit (tie with a rope) and knit (with knitting needles, crochet), wave (something) and wave (go somewhere), fire (burn with a flame) and fire (shoot in volleys), etc. are treated differently in different dictionaries.
The divergence of meanings of a polysemantic word is observed in the language not only among native Russian words, but also among words borrowed from any one language. Interesting observations are made by comparing the homonymy of etymologically identical words: agent - a representative of the state, organization, etc. and agent - the active cause of certain phenomena (both words from the Latin agens, agentis - from agere - to act); openwork - end-to-end mesh fabric and openwork - maintaining accounting books, documents until the last day (from the French ajour - through: summarized).
It should be noted that there is no consensus in modern lexicology on the role of the decay of a polysemantic word in the formation of homonyms. Thus, V.I. Abaev in the article “On the presentation of homonyms in the dictionary” (see: Questions of Linguistics, 1907, No. 3) expressed the idea that new homonyms, their “reproduction is mainly due to polysemy.” E. M. Galkina-Fedoruk in the article “On the issue of homonyms in the Russian language” also considered “isolating the meaning of words” to be one of the productive ways of forming homonyms. However, V.V. Vinogradov noted the unproductiveness of this method of formation, believing that “even fewer homonyms owe their formation to the semantic breakdown of a single lexeme into several homonymous lexical units such as light-universe, and light-illumination. A. A. Reformatsky argued that in the Russian language “there are the most homonyms that arose due to borrowings,” although he also recognized the fact that the process of derivative homonymy is active. A.I. Smirnitsky called random sound coincidences the main source of replenishing the language with homonyms. O. S. Akhmanova, recognizing the sufficient activity of homonyms. arising as a result of divergent polysemy, pointed at the same time to the great difficulties associated with the search for objective criteria for assessing the completion of the homonymization process. These articles, as well as a number of other written and oral presentations, served as a stimulus for the ongoing debate on issues of homonymy?
It seems to us most appropriate to consider that the method of splitting meanings is quite active, although its productivity for different structural types of homonyms is not the same. This is evidenced by the examples given above. This is also indicated by 248 cases of divergent polysemy, noted by O. S. Akhmanova from among the 2360 homonymous words cited by her in the “Dictionary of Homonyms of the Russian Language.”
Homonymy can be the result of a coincidence of sound, spelling and complete or partial coincidence of the form change of the original word and the borrowed one. For example, the Russian (which has now become regional in use) lava - raft, platform and the Russian lava - face with a continuous development system coincided in sound with the words lava - battle order in formation (from Polish, fawa - row, line) and lava - molten mineral mass erupted by a volcano (from Italian lava), Russian cabin - cutting into parts coincided with the word cabin - a closed room on the upper deck of a ship or the superstructure of a ship (from Dutch roef-cabin); Russian forge - “smith” coincided with forge - “horn” (from German Horn), etc. But there are relatively few such examples in the language.
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Homonyms appear in a language for various reasons.
1. Words borrowed from different languages. For example, noun marriage in the meaning of "matrimony" came into the Russian language from Old Slavonic language*. A marriage The Russian language has known as a defect, a low-quality product since the time of Peter I. This word came to us through the Polish language from German. Noun bot(units from bots) apparently came from the Old Polish language, where in turn it is a reinterpretation of the French botte - canog**. A noun bot, denoting a small rowing, sailing or motor vessel, according to the Dictionary foreign words, borrowed from Dutch***. Interjection pass, denoting in card game refusal to participate in the drawing (je passe – I miss, I don't play). A noun pass(passing the ball to one of the players on your team) goes back to the English pass - transmit. See also: cartridge(head, owner of the enterprise - from Latin patronus - patron), cartridge(rifle charge, shotgun charge - from German patron); raid – anchorage place for ships (from the Dutch reed) and raid – behind enemy lines (English: raid); beat – unit of rhythmic movement (German takt) and beat – delicacy (French tact), etc.
* See below section “Old Slavonicisms”, p. 176.
** Cm.: Shansky N.M., Ivanov V.V., Shanskaya T.V. Brief etymological dictionary of the Russian language, p. 55.
*** Dictionary of Foreign Words / Ed. I.V. Lekhina, S.M. Lokshina et al. 11th ed., stereotype. M., 1984.
2. Homonym words can be borrowed from the Russian language and from the same language, where in most cases they, in turn, are homonyms. These are, for example, words of English origin boxing(sport) and boxing(sealed chamber, as well as a fenced off part of the hospital room with a separate entrance), or French mine(sad expression) and mine(explosive shell); French ones personnel(from films) and personnel(Human Resources Department); cornet(a young soldier in the tsarist army) and cornet(musical instrument), banknote(omission of a word in the printed text) and banknote(note), etc.
3. A significant group of homonyms consists of pairs, where one of the words is originally Russian, and the other is borrowed. These are, for example, the common Slavic bugle(melting furnace) and borrowed from German bugle(German: Horn) – wind instrument. Likewise: fast(religious; general glorified) – fast(an object entrusted for protection and defense to a person, group of persons, as well as the place where this task is performed; French poste); boron(pine or spruce; common glorified) – boron(drill, borrowed from German language in the 20th century).
4. Among homonyms there are also pairs where both words are originally Russian, but they arose either according to different word-formation models or with homonymous affixes: jackdaw(bird) and Jackdaw – colloquial form from Galina;lump(wool) and slang lump(commission shop); sailor suit(sailor's wife) and sailor suit(a striped blouse like sailors wear); bugbear(a room for bears in a zoo) and bugbear(bear hunter)*.
*Common noun jackdaw(bird) - ancient education from adjective gal –"black" (suffix - To-, with the meaning of the subject, and proper Jackdaw – from full name Galina(diminutive suffix - To-); lump(wool) – derived from com(diminutive suffix - OK), and modern colloquial lump(thrift store) is formed by abbreviating the corresponding phrase (suffix - OK with the meaning of the subject); sailor suit(sailor's wife) - from sailor(suffix - To- indicates a female person) sailor suit(vest) – from sailor(suffix - To- indicates an object); bugbear(at the zoo) – from bear(suffix - warrior indicates an object, room), bugbear(hunter) – from bear(suffix - warrior points to the face).
Very often, homonymy arises as a result of abbreviation*. The resulting abbreviation may coincide with a word that already exists in the language. These are, for example, the words moment(moment) and Moment(aircraft designed by A.I. Mikoyan and M.I. Gurevich), myth(ancient legend) and MYTH(Moscow Investment Fund). Homonyms pass(refusal from further participation in the game) and pass(sports – passing the ball to a partner), as the “Dictionary of Russian Language Abbreviations”** shows, are correlated with three more homonym abbreviations: PASS(field army warehouse); PASS(rules artillery shooting) And PASS(soil and agronomic station). Likewise: mind(ability to think) and MIND(police department); WHO(cart with luggage) and WHO (World organization healthcare). Word arena, in addition to the well-known meaning, this, it turns out, is the name political party in Brazil – ARENA***. A basics - not only the name of the meat dish, it also has 3 homonym-abbreviations: ASU – unit for accelerated tinning; ASU– analog storage device (in electronics); ASU– associative storage device****.
* Abbreviation (from Latin abbreviare - “to state in short”) is a way of forming words, which is the addition of abbreviated stems.
** Cm.: Dictionary of Russian language abbreviations. 2nd ed. M., 1977.
*** Port. Alianca Renovadora Nacional (National Union for Renewal).
**** Cm.: Alekseev D.I., Gozman I.G., Sakharov G.V. Dictionary of Russian language abbreviations. P. 21.
The above examples with words pass, azu show that among the abbreviations themselves there can also be homonyms, and there are many such cases*.
* See, for example, the abbreviations MGU, MZO, IRP in the specified dictionary of abbreviations.
5. Finally, the most difficult type of homonymy is when it appears as a result of splitting a polysemantic word. Once upon a time there were different meanings of the same noun fur(animal hair) and fur(a device with stretchable leather folded walls for pumping air); origin of the noun rook(chess piece) "A Brief Etymological Dictionary" explains the development of the meaning of the word rook(boat, vessel). Similar: verbs chat(i.e. talking a lot, quickly about something insignificant) and chat(to stir, to set in motion a liquid), which are currently homonyms, go back, according to the “Brief Etymological Dictionary”, to the general meaning: “ move".
Many formations of this kind give us the jargon of modern youth: botanist(good, diligent student); bastards(old shoes); horses, skulls(parents); specific(person, film – out of the ordinary, very good or, conversely, very bad); cool, cool(about a person who is dressed and combed incredibly fashionably and at the same time shocks those around him), etc. Each of the listed jargons is a homonym in relation to a word accepted in the common language.
The classification of the described group as homonyms is vulnerable, since different speakers of the language may, to varying degrees, feel the absence, the breakdown of connections between the meanings of a once single word. This is confirmed by dictionary data, where the same pair is sometimes interpreted differently. So, the above pair fur-fur in the “Dictionary of the Russian Language” by S.I. Ozhegova is given as homonyms, and in the 4-volume Dictionary of the Russian Language, ed. A.P. Evgenieva – like different meanings of the same word. The words shoe(shoe) and shoe(a device placed on the rail to stop the wheels), drive(make you move in some direction) and drive(extract by distillation), sheet(tree) and sheet(steel, paper), break(collapse) and break(grimace) ward(large, rich room) and ward(name of representative bodies or their components) and some. etc. The fact that the separation of the meanings of a polysemantic word and their transformation into homonyms occurs gradually is noted in the “Dictionary of Homonyms of the Russian Language” by O.S. Akhmanova. It records many cases of so-called unfinished processes of polysemy decay for such words as white(snow, cloud) and white(counter-revolutionary), enough(satisfied) and enough(enough), red(the color of blood) and red(revolutionary), Class(capitalist) and Class(At school), a park(large garden) and a park(car repair place, etc.), plant(on a chair) and plant(trees, flowers), crack(crack, split) and crack(evaporate strongly), etc.*
The appearance of homonyms in the language is explained by the following reasons.
1. As a result of borrowing foreign words, a formal coincidence in the sound and spelling of the “alien” word and the original Russian one may occur. For example, noun marriage 1 in Russian is related to the verb take(cf.: marry yourself), his modern meaning– “family relationships between a man and a woman; marital relations" Its homonym marriage 2 – “damaged, substandard, defective items of production”, as well as “flaw in the product” - borrowed from the German language (Brack - “flaw”). In the same way, borrowings homonymous to Russian words came into our language: club 1 (from English) – " public organization" (cf. Russian. club 2 smoke from the verb swirl), watering can 1 (from German) – “type of camera” (cf. Russian. watering can 2 garden from the verb pour); mink 1 (from Finnish) – “a predatory fur-bearing animal from the marten family”, “the fur of this fur-bearing animal” (cf. Russian. mink 2 – diminutive for the word Nora- “a depression underground with a passage outward, dug by an animal and serving as its home”).
2. Words that entered the Russian language from different source languages may turn out to be consonant. For example, tap 1 (from Dutch) – “a valve in the form of a tube for releasing liquid or gas” and tap 2 (from German) – “mechanism for lifting and moving loads”; block 1 (from French) – “unification of states, organizations for joint actions” and block 2 (from English) – “device for lifting weights”; mat 1 (from German) – “soft bedding made of durable material", mat 2 (Arabic) – “defeat in a chess game”, mat 3 (from French) – “lack of shine, roughness of the smooth surface of an object.”
3. Words that sound the same are borrowed from the same language. So, homonyms were borrowed from French mine 1 – “explosive projectile” and mine 2 – “facial expression”; from Latin - note 1 – “musical sound” and note 2 – “a diplomatic appeal from one government to another.”
4. When new words are formed from roots and affixes existing in the language, many homonyms also appear. For example, fortification 1 – “place of an ancient settlement” and fortification 2 – magnifying from the word city; factory 1 – "industrial enterprise" And factory 2 – “device for actuating the mechanism”; critical 1 (from the word criticism) And critical 2 (from the word a crisis); flue 1 – "machine driven gas engine" And flue 2 – "gas stroke"; daddy 1 – form of subjective assessment from the word dad And daddy 2 – form of subjective assessment from the word folder.
5. Homonyms also appear in the language as a result of the coincidence of a newly formed abbreviation with a long-known full-meaning word. For example, stork 1 – "migrant" And STORK 2 – “automatic information station”; Amur 1 – “river” and AMUR 2 – “automatic control and regulation machine”; Mars 1 – “planet” and MARS 2 – “automatic registration and alarm machine” and so on. Actually, in such cases we can talk about homophones, since the spelling of abbreviations differs from the spelling previously famous words. Moreover, their graphic distinction is not accidental: when introducing words into the language that are homonymous to already known ones, it is necessary to give them a different graphic form, using capital letters, in order to avoid mixing these words in written speech.
6. Original Russian words that have undergone various changes as a result of phonetic and morphological processes occurring in the language become homonyms. For example, the word onion 1 meaning ancient weapons, once had a nasal vowel, which over time began to sound like [u]. This led to the match of this word with another word onion 2, meaning garden plant. Matched word pronunciation reap 1 (from I press) And reap 2 (from I'm reaping), which previously differed in the nature of the nasal vowels, sounding from the place of the modern sound [a]. Lost differences in form I'm flying(from treat) And I'm flying(from fly). Initially, the first of them contained the letter ъ(yat), not e. Similar to the word once 1 (meaning “once upon a time”) was also written with the letter ъ. Now this is a homonym to once meaning "no time".
7. The source of the appearance of homonyms can also be a gap in the semantic structure of polysemantic words, in which individual meanings diverge so much that they are no longer perceived as belonging to one word. Thus, from polysemy, homonymy of pairs developed light 1 – “universe” and light 2 – “dawn, sunrise”: I wanted to go around the whole light, and did not go around the hundredth part. - A little light- already on your feet! and I'm at your feet(Gr.), syllable 1 – “part of a word” and syllable 2 – “style”, cf. Also drown 1 bake And drown 2 salo, wave 1 hand And wave 2 South(colloquial).
One cannot but take into account the fact that the development of polysemy into homonymy can be facilitated by changes occurring in the process of historical development of society, in the objects themselves (denotations), in the method of their manufacture. So, once the word paper meant “cotton, products made from it” and “writing material”. This was due to the fact that in the past paper was made from rag pulp. Until the middle of the 19th century, the connection between these meanings was still alive (one could say paper dress, wool fabric with paper). However, with the replacement of raw materials for the production of paper (they began to make it from wood), a semantic splitting of the polysemantic word into homonyms occurred. One of them (meaning cotton and products made from it) is given in dictionaries in a separate dictionary entry with the mark obsolete. The transformation of polysemy into homonymy in such cases should not raise doubts.
Types of homonyms
The following types of lexical homonyms are studied in lexicology:
1. Complete and incomplete, or partial .
Full lexical homonyms They are words of the same grammatical class; they have the same entire system of forms. For example braid- “type of hairstyle”, braid -"agricultural implement" and braid- “cape, sandbank”; force- “to block with something placed” and force- “to force someone to do something”, etc.
Phenomenon partial (or incomplete) homonymy characterized by the fact that words with different meanings do not coincide in sound and spelling in all grammatical forms. This may include homonyms such as fell- “forest, field or steppe fire” and fell- “a pile or cast-iron pedestal to which a ship is attached with ropes while moored (from goal. paal- pillar, pile)". In the plural, these words have different accents: fell– PALY (2 syllables) And fell- fell (for 1 syllable). All forms of homonym words will not coincide either. factory- “action on a verb” start" And factory- "company". The first noun (abstract in meaning) does not have a plural form. Incomplete lexical homonyms also include many verbs that have the same sound and spelling: bury– Nesov. form from verb bury(medicine) and bury- Nesov. form from verb bury(something into the ground). The perfect forms of these verbs are different. The same thing is observed with incomplete homonyms mix– Nesov. form from verb knead And mix– Nesov. form from verb mix and etc.
2. Real and potential homonyms .
It is necessary to differentiate real and potential homonyms depending on how often they occur with each other within the same speech context.
Real homonyms are words of the same sphere of use and expressive-stylistic properties, freely and constantly entering into homonymous relationships with each other (for example, floor - the lower flooring of the room and the floor - each of the two categories of living beings; light is the universe, light is radiant energy).
Potential homonyms- homonyms of different spheres of use and expressive-stylistic properties can be realized only in certain conditions, namely in the case of conscious word game(For example, lion – animal, lion – Bulgarian monetary unit; brow - forehead, brow - the outer opening of a Russian stove, etc.).
The emergence of homonyms (full and partial, or incomplete) in the language is due to a number of reasons.
1. Homonyms arise as a result of the fact that initially different meanings of the same word become so distant that in modern language they are already perceived as different words, and only a special etymological analysis helps to establish the commonality of these words.
This group of homonyms includes words such as month- one twelfth of the astronomical year and month- celestial body, moon; world- consent, absence of war and world- Universe, Earth; mill- body, torso and stan - camp.
2. Sometimes homonyms appear as a result of the fact that the original word coincides in its sound with the borrowed one. For example, club- the mass of something moving (dust, smoke, etc.) and club- a public organization that unites people club); bugle- part of a shaft furnace or (originally) a forge hearth and bugle- signal horn (German) Horn) and etc.
3. Often not only Russian and borrowed words sound the same, but due to certain phonetic laws in the Russian language, several words borrowed from different languages acquire the same sound. This sound coincidence is observed in words tap(Goal. kraan)- a tube with a shutter used for pouring out liquid, and tap- (German) kgap)- a mechanism for lifting and moving heavy objects; jar(Polish banka)- a cylindrical glass, clay or tin vessel, jar(Goal. bank)- sandbank and jar(German) bank)- cross bench in the boat; bar- a special type of restaurant bar), bar- alluvial shoal (fr. bagge) And bar- special unit atmospheric pressure(Greek bagos); tank- metal closed vessel (fr. bac) And tank- the bow of the ship’s upper deck (head. bak) and etc.
The coincidence of the sound of Russian and borrowed words sometimes does not occur immediately. Words that once sounded differently in the process of historical development of the language turn out to sound the same, i.e. homonyms. For example, words have gone this way onion- garden plant (an ancient borrowing from Germanic languages) and onion- hand weapon for throwing arrows (goes back to the Old Russian lonk, where combinations - He-- nasal sound O).
The appearance of homonyms in a language is caused by various reasons:
1) the most common reason is changes in the phonetic system of the language, leading to sound coincidences (cf., for example, the appearance of homonyms in the Russian language I'm flying 1 l. units, present vr.
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from the verb treat And I'm flying 1 l. units, present vr.
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from the verb fly, caused by the loss of sound and, accordingly, the letter Ђ in the phonetic system of the Russian language; ʼʼyatʼʼ included in the root morpheme of the verb treat; in English
words night ʼʼnightʼʼ – knight ʼʼknightʼʼ were not homonyms in the Old English period, because the initial k in the second word was pronounced (O.E. kniht) and only later the word underwent phonetic changes and the initial k was omitted, which is what we see in the modern sound form of the word);
2) a break in the original unified semantics of a polysemantic word, ᴛ.ᴇ. the collapse of polysemy (cf.
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rus. light"radiant energy" and lightʼʼallelennayaʼʼ);
3) word formation is also a source of growth of homonyms in the language:
a) homonyms can appear in a language not only as a result of a gap in meaning, but also be formed through conversion, for example: to slim, v. from slim, n., to water, v. from water, n.. Pairs of words like comb, n. – to combine, v., pale, adj. – to pale, v. a lot in English language. Homonyms of this type, which are the same in form and spelling, but belong to different parts of speech, are called lexico-grammatical homonyms.
b) they can be formed using the same suffix from the same stem, for example: reader– a person who reads “reader” and a book for reading “anthology, collection of texts for reading”;
c) homonyms are the result of the formation of lexical abbreviations, for example: bio – lexical abbreviation of the word biography ʼʼbiographyʼʼ with the meaning ʼʼ short biographyʼʼ, and can also develop through the abbreviation of words of different meanings, for example: cab from cabriolet ʼʼcabrioletʼʼ, cabbage ʼʼcheat sheetʼʼ, cabin ʼʼcabin, cabinʼʼ.
4) borrowing words (cf.
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marriageʼʼflawʼʼ, borrowed from German Brackʼʼdefective product, defectʼʼ through Polish and marriageʼʼmarriageʼʼ from Russian. take ; rite, n.ʼʼrite, ritualʼʼ – to write, v. write – right, adj. correct
(the second and third words are native English, while rite – borrowed from Latin. ritual); Bank, n shore - original and bank, nʼʼfinancial institutionʼʼ -
borrowed from Italian .
5) random coincidences (cf.
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rus. keyʼʼspringʼʼ, etymological connection with the verb bubble And keyʼʼmetal device for a lockʼʼ - with a noun stick; English original words to bear from beran (to carry ʼʼcarryʼʼ and bear from bera ʼʼanimalʼʼ) .
6) words formed using onomatopoeia can also create homonymous pairs, for example: English. bang, nʼʼsudden noise, explosionʼʼ - bang, n bang; mew, n.ʼʼmeowʼʼ - mew, n."seagull" - mew, n.ʼʼpen that has run out of inkʼʼ, mew, n. cache.
All of the above sources of homonym formation have one important common feature. In all of the above cases, homonyms develop from one or more different words, and their similarity is completely accidental. (In this regard, only conversion is an exception, since in this case one word of a homonymous pair is formed from the other).
We have come to another source of the formation of homonyms, which differs from all previous ones. Two or more homonyms are formed from different meanings of the same word when, for some reason, the semantic structure of the word splits into several parts. This type of homonym formation is usually called collapse of polysemy. As discussed in the previous lecture, the semantic structure of a polysemantic word represents a system within which all its component meanings are connected to each other by logical association. In most cases, the function of systematization and cohesion of components is determined by one of the meanings (the meaning of “flame” in the word “fire”). If it happens that this meaning disappears from the semantic structure of the word, the connections between the remaining components of the meanings are broken, the semantic structure loses coherence and breaks up into two or more parts, which are then perceived as independent lexical units. Let us trace the history of the emergence of the following homonyms:
Board, n. – a long, thin piece of timber
Board, n. – daily meals, often included in payment,
e. g. room and board
Board, n. - a formal group of people who manages and oversees an activity, e. g. a board of directors.
The meanings of the above words are in no way associated with each other. Although, most dictionaries include the meaningboard as uniting all other meanings of ʼʼtableʼʼ. It was formed from the meaning ʼʼpiece of timberʼʼ by transference based on contiguity (the association of an object and the material from which it is made) What is this phenomenon? – metonymy. The meanings ʼʼfoodʼʼ and ʼʼformal group of peopleʼʼ developed from the meaning ʼʼtableʼʼ, also through transference by contiguity: food is often associated with the table on which it is served; a formal group of people often holds business negotiations at a round table.
Today, however, the piece of furniture on which food was served and around which directors gathered is no longer designated by the wordBoard, a is denoted by a French loanwordtable. WordBoard has lost its basic meaning. Its role in the semantic structure was also weakened. As a result, the semantic structure of the wordBoard split into three lexical units.
It should be noted, however, that the collapse of polysemy as a source of the formation of homonyms is not accepted by some scientists. In fact, it is sometimes very difficult to decide whether we are dealing with different meanings the same word or with homonyms.
Reasons for the appearance of homonyms in the language. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Reasons for the appearance of homonyms in the language." 2017, 2018.
