Homonymy- Classification of homonyms.

Homonyms - words identical in their spelling or/and sound form but different in their meaning. When analyzing homonymy, we see that some words are homonyms in all their forms, i.e. we observe full homonymy of the paradigms of two or more different words, e.g., in seali? 'a sea animal¹ and seal₂? 'a design printed on paper by means of a stamp: The paradigm "seal, seal's, seals, seals' " is identical for both of them and gives no indication of whether it is seah or seal₂,that we are analysing. In other cases, e.g. seah? 'a sea animal' and (to) seal, ? 'to close tightly', we see that although some individual word - forms are homonymous, the whole of the paradigm is not identical. It is easily observed that only some of the word-forms (eg, seal, seals, etc.) are homonymous, whereas others (e.g. sealed, sealing) are not. In such cases we cannot speak of homonymous words but only of homonymy of individual word-forms orof partial homonymyThis is true of a number of other cases, e.g. compare find[faind], found [faund], found [faund],and found[faund], founded[faundid], founded[faundidj; know[nou], knows[nouz]_s knew [nju:],and no[nou]; nose[nouz], noses ['nouzis]; new[nju:] in which partial homonymy is observed. Walter Skeatclassified homonyms into: 1) perfect homonyms (they have differentmeaning, but the same sound form & spelling: school - school); 2) homographs (they have the same spelling: bow /Bay/- bow /???/}; 3) homophones (same sound form: night- knight),

Smirnitsky classified perfect homonyms into: 1) full homonyms {identical in spelling, sound form, grammatical meaning but different in lexical meaning: spring - spring, springs - springs); 2) homoforms (the same sound form & spelling but different lexical and grammatical meaning: "readings-gerund, particle 1, verbal noun).

members of which have some features in common, thus distinguishing them from the members of other lexical sub-systems. Words can be classified in various ways. Here, however, we are concerned only with the semantic classification of words. Classification into monosemantic and polysemantic words is based on the number of meanings the word possesses. More detailed semantic classifications are generally based on the semantic similarity (or polarity) of words or their component morphemes. The scope and the degree of similarity (polarity) may be different. Byhyponymy is meant a semantic relationship of inclusion. Thus, e.g., vehicleincludes car, bus, taxiand so on; oakimplies tree;

horseentails animal; tableentails furniture.Thus the hyponymic relationship may be viewed as the hierarchical relationship between the meaning of the general and the individual terms.

The general term (vehicle, tree, animal, etc.) is sometimes referred to as the classifier and serves to describe the lexico-semantic groups, e,g. Lexico-semantic groups (LSG) of vehicles, movement, emotions, etc.

The individual terms can be said to contain (or entail) the meaning of thegeneral term in addition to their individual meanings which distinguish them from each other (cf the classifier moveand the members of the group walk, run, saunter,etc.).

It is of importance to note that in such hierarchical structures certain words may be both classifiers and members of the groups. This may be illustrated by the hyponymic structure represented below.

Another way to describe hyponymy is in terms of genus and differentia.

The more specific term is called the h ? ? ? ? ? ? of the more general, and the more general is called the hype ?? ??? or the classifier.

It is noteworthy that the principle of such hierarchical classification is widely used by scientists in various fields of research: botany, geology, etc. Hyponymic classification may be viewed as objectively reflecting the structure of vocabulary and is considered by many linguists as one of the most important principles for the description of meaning.

A general problem with this principle of classification (just as with lexico-semantic group criterion) is that there often exist overlapping classifications. For example, personsmay be divided into adults(man, woman, husband, etc.) and children(boy, girl, !ad_r etc.) but also into national groups(American, Russian, Chinese, etc.)_T professional groups(teacher, butcher, baker, etc.), socialand economic groups,and so on.

Another problem of great importance for linguists is the dependence of thehierarchical structures cf lexical units not only on the structure of the corresponding group of referents in real world but also on the structure of vocabulary in this or that

language.

This can be easily observed when we compare analogous groups in different languages. Thus, e.g., in English we may speak of the lexico-semantic group of meals which includes: breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper,

snack,etc. The word mealis the classifier whereas in Russian we have noword for rneals in general and consequently no classifier though we have several words for different kinds of meals.

Synonyms are words only similar but not identical in meaning. This definition is correct but vague. E, g. horse and animal are also semantically similar but not synonymous. A more precise linguistic definition should be based on a workable notion of the semantic structure of the word and of the complex nature of every separate meaning in a polysemantic word. Each separate lexical meaning of a word has been described in Chapter 3 as consisting of a denotational component identifying the notion or the object and reflecting the essential features of the notion named, shades of meaning reflecting its secondary features, additional connotations resulting from typical contexts in which the word is used, its emotional component and stylistic colouring. Connotations are not necessarily present in every word. The basis of a synonymic opposition is formed by the first of the above named components, i.e. the denotational component. It will be remembered that the term opposition means the relationship of partial difference between two partially similar elements of a language. A common denotational component forms the basis of the opposition in synonymic group. All the other components can vary and thus form the distinctive features of the synonymic oppositions.

Synonyms can therefore be defined interms of linguistics as two or more words of the same language, belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable, at least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning, but differing in morphemic composition, phonemic shape, shades of meaning, connotations, style, valency and idiomatic use. Additional characteristics of style, emotional colouring and valency peculiar to one of the elements in a synonymic group may be absent in one or all of the others

Antonyms may be defined as two or mor& words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech and to the same semantic field, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and often used together so that their denotative meanings render contradictory or contrary notions.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 516