The uzbekistan state world languages university english english faculty II english theoretical aspects department

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Bog'liq
Homonymy and Polysemy1

^part^have^{several homonyms, and}^maid^and^heart^{are polysemantic:}
^Maid^of^Athens,^ere^we^part,
^Give,^oh^give^me^back^my^heart^(Byron).

^{Homonymy exists in many languages, but in English it is particularly frequent, especially among monosyllabic words. In the list of 2540 homonyms given}ⁱⁿ^the^“Oxford^English^{Dictionary”}⁹^89%^are^monosyllabic^words^and^only
^{9.1 % are words of two syllables. From the viewpoint of their morphological structure, they are mostly one-morpheme words.}
^E.^g.^bank,^n.^—^a^shore

^ball^,^n.^—^a^sphere;^any^spherical^body
^ball^,^n.^—^a^large^dancing^party.

^{English vocabulary is rich in such 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.}
^{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.}

¹⁴

^Here^you^can^see^another^example:
¹⁰^{E.g. “}^{Bow to the board,}^{” said Bumple. Oliver brushed away two or three tears that were lingering in his eyes; and seeing}^{no board but the table}^{, fortunately}^{bowed to that}^.
^{In fact humorous effect is caused by interplay not of two meanings, but of two words (I mean homonymy, not polysemy). “Board” as a group of officials}^{with functions of administration and management and “board” as a piece of furniture (table) have become two distinct words.}

¹⁴
¹⁰^I.R.^Galperin-^{Stylystics 1977,}^стр.¹⁵⁶

^{Very seldom can ambiguity of this kind interfere with understanding. The following example, quoted from Leisi}¹¹^{, sounds}^{somewhat artificial, but may be also a deliberate joke and not carelessness.}
^{E.g. “ The girls will be playing cricket in white stockings. We hope they won’t get too many runs”.}
^{Runs in this context may mean either “ladder in stockings” or “the units of scoring, made by running once over a certain course” (a cricket term).}¹²
^{From this part we understood, that in linguistics, a homonym is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings. The state of being a homonym}^{is called homonymy. The best part about homonyms, though, is that they are the raw material for puns, a truly sublime form of humor.}

¹⁵

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