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Part Two
ENGLISH VOCABULARY AS A SYSTEM
Chapter 10
HOMONYMS. SYNONYMS. ANTONYMS
§ 10.1 HOMONYMS
In a simple code each sign has only one meaning, and each meaning is associated with only one sign. This one-to-one relationship is not realised in natural languages. When several related meanings are associated with the same group of sounds within one part of speech, the word is called polysemantic, when two or more unrelated meanings are associated with the same form — the words are homonyms, when two or more different forms are associated with the same or nearly the same denotative meanings — the words are synonyms.
Actually, if we describe the lexical system according to three distinctive features, each of which may be present or absent, we obtain 23 = 8 possible combinations. To represent these the usual tables with only horizontal and vertical subdivisions are inadequate, so we make use of a mapping technique developed for simplifying logical truth functions by E.W. Veitch that proved very helpful in our semantic studies.
In the table below a small section of the lexico-semantic system of the language connected with the noun sound (as in sound of laughter) is represented as a set of oppositions involving phonetical form, similar lexical meaning and grammatical part-of-speech meaning. Every pair of words is contrasted according to sameness or difference in three distinctive features at once.
A maximum similarity is represented by square 1 containing the lexico-semantic variants of the same word. All the adjoining squares differ in one feature only. Thus squares 1 and 2 differ in part of speech meaning only. Some dictionaries as, for instance “Thorndike Century Junior Dictionary” even place sound1 and sounds3 in one entry. On the other hand, we see that squares 2, 3 and 4 represent what we shall call different types of homonymy. Square 7 presents words completely dissimilar according to the distinctive features chosen. Square 5 is a combination of features characteristic not only of synonyms but of other types of semantic similarity that will be discussed later on. But first we shall concentrate on homonyms, i.e. words characterised by phonetic coincidence and semantic differentiation.
Two or more words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning, distribution and (in many cases) origin are called homonyms. The term is derived from Greek homonymous (homos ‘the same'
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Table 1
SIMILAR LEXICAL MEANING
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DIFFERENT LEXICAL MEANING
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SIMILAR SOUND FORM
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1. Polysemy
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2. Patterned Homonymy
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3. Partial Homonymy
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.4. Full Homonymy
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sound2 n : : sound2 n sound2 as in : a vowel sound
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sound1 n : : sounds3 sounds as in: to sound a trumpet
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sound1 n : : sound4 a sound4 as in: sound argument
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sound1 n: : sound5 n sound5 as in: Long Island Sound
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DIFFERENT SOUND FORM
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5. Synonymy and Hyponymy
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6. Word-Family
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7. Any English Words
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8. Words of the Same Part of Speech
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sound1: : noise sound1:: whistle
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sound1 n soundless a soundproof a sound3 v
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sound n simple a
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sound n simplicity n
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SAME PART OF SPEECH
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DIFFERENT PART OF SPEECH
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SAME PART OF SPEECH
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and onoma ‘name’) and thus expresses very well the sameness of name combined with the difference in meaning.
There is an obvious difference between the meanings of the symbol fast in such combinations as run fast ‘quickly’ and stand fast ‘firmly’. The difference is even more pronounced if we observe cases where fast is a noun or a verb as in the following proverbs: A clean fast is better than a dirty breakfast; Who feasts till he is sick, must fast till he is well. Fast as an isolated word, therefore, may be regarded as a variable that can assume several different values depending on the conditions of usage, or, in other words, distribution. All the possible values of each linguistic sign are listed in dictionaries. It is the duty of lexicographers to define the boundaries of each word, i.e. to differentiate homonyms and to unite variants deciding in each case whether the different meanings belong to the same polysemantic word or whether there are grounds to treat them as two or more separate words identical in form. In speech, however, as a rule only one of all the possible values is determined by the context, so that no ambiguity may normally arise. There is no danger, for instance, that the listener would wish to substitute the meaning
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'quick’ into the sentence: It is absurd to have hard and fast rules about anything (Wilde), or think that fast rules here are ‘rules of diet’. Combinations when two or more meanings are possible are either deliberate puns, or result from carelessness. Both meanings of liver, i.e. ‘a living person’ and ‘the organ that secretes bile’ are, for instance, intentionally present in the following play upon words: “Is life worth living?” “It depends upon the liver.” Сf.: “What do you do with the fruit?” “We eat what we can, and what we can’t eat we can.”
Very seldom can ambiguity of this kind interfere with understanding. The following example is unambiguous, although the words back and
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