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What are homonyms in Russian

In the lexical system of the Russian language there are words that sound the same, but have completely different meanings. Such words are called lexical homonyms, and the sound and grammatical coincidence different languages s units that are not semantically related to each other is called homonymy (gr. homos- identical + onyma- Name). For example, the key is “spring” ( icy key ) And key- “a specially shaped metal rod for unlocking and locking the lock” ( steel key ); onion" - "plant" ( green onion ) And onion- "weapon for throwing arrows" ( tight onion ). Unlike polysemantic words, lexical homonyms do not have a subject-semantic connection, that is, they do not have common semantic features by which one could judge the polysemantism of one word.

Known various shapes lexical homonymy, as well as related phenomena at other levels of language (phonetic and morphological). Complete lexical homonymy is the coincidence of words belonging to the same part of speech in all forms. Examples of complete homonyms are the words outfit- "clothes" and outfit- "order"; they do not differ in pronunciation and spelling, they are the same in all case forms the only and plural.

With incomplete (partial) lexical homonymy, a coincidence in sound and spelling is observed for words belonging to the same part of speech, but not in all grammatical forms. For example, incomplete homonyms: factory- "industrial enterprise" ( metallurgical factory ) And factory- “device for actuating a mechanism” ( factory at the clock). The second word does not have plural forms, but the first does. For homonymous verbs bury(pit) and bury(medicine) all imperfective forms coincide ( I'm burying, I'm burying, I'll be burying); forms of active participles of the present and past tenses ( burying, burying). But there is no coincidence in perfective forms ( I'll bury - I'll bury etc.).

According to their structure, homonyms can be divided into root and derivative. The first ones have a non-derivative basis: world- “absence of war, harmony” ( arrived world ) And world- "Universe" ( world filled with sounds); marriage- "flaw in production" ( factory marriage ) And marriage- "marriage" ( happy marriage ). The latter arose as a result of word formation and, therefore, have a derivative basis: assembly- "action on a verb" gather" (assembly designs) And assembly- "small fold in clothing" ( assembly on the skirt); combatant- “relating to actions in the ranks” ( drill song) And combatant- “suitable for buildings” ( combatant forest).

Along with homonymy, related phenomena related to grammatical, phonetic and graphic levels language.

1. Among consonant forms, homoforms are distinguished - words that coincide only in one grammatical form (less often - in several). For example, three- numeral in the nominative case ( three friend) And three- verb in imperative mood singular 2nd person ( three grated carrots). Homonyms can also be grammatical forms words of one part of speech. For example, forms of adjectives big, young may indicate, firstly, Nominative case singular male (big success, young "specialist); secondly, on Genitive feminine singular ( great career, young woman); thirdly, to the dative singular feminine ( to a big career, to a young woman); fourthly, on instrumental case feminine singular ( with a big career, with a young woman). These forms agree with nouns appearing in different cases. Homoforms, by their nature, go beyond the scope of vocabulary, since they belong to a different level of language and should be studied in the morphology section.

2. In the Russian language, words are used that sound the same, but are spelled differently. These are homophones (gr. homos- identical + phone- sound). For example, words meadow And onion, young And hammer, carry And lead coincide in pronunciation due to the deafening of voiced consonants at the end of a word and before a voiceless consonant. Changing vowels in an unstressed position leads to consonance of words rinse And caress, lick And climb, old-timer And guarded. Words are pronounced the same way patronize And parade, devices And acute, undertake And brother etc. Consequently, homophones are phonetic homonyms, their appearance in the language is associated with the action of phonetic laws.

Homophony can manifest itself more widely - in the sound coincidence of a word and several words: Not you, but Sima suffered unbearable, water Neva is portable; Years before one hundred grow without us old age (M.) Homophony is the subject of study not of lexicology, but of phonetics, since it manifests itself at a different linguistic level - phonetic.

3. Words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently are called homographs (gr. homos- identical + grapho- writing). They usually have stress on different syllables: mugs - mugs, fell asleep - fell asleep, steam - steam etc. There are more than a thousand pairs of homographs in modern Russian. Homography is directly related to the graphic system of the language.

Strict differentiation of linguistic phenomena requires distinguishing actual lexical homonyms from homoforms, homophones and homographs.

Lexical homonymy.

In the lexical system of the Russian language there are words that sound the same, but have completely different meanings. Such words are called lexical homonyms, and the sound and grammatical coincidence of linguistic units that are not semantically related to each other is called homonymy. (Gr. – homos – identical + onyma – name). For example, a key" is a "spring" (cold key) and a key" is a "metal rod of a special shape for unlocking and locking a lock" (steel key); onion " - "plant" (green onion) and onion " - "weapon for throwing arrows" (tight bow). Unlike polysemantic words, lexical homonyms do not have a subject-semantic connection, that is, they do not have common semantic features by which one could judge the polysemantism of one word. Various forms of lexical homonymy are known, as well as related phenomena at other levels of language (phonetic and morphological). Full lexical Homonymy is the coincidence of words belonging to the same part of speech in all forms. An example of complete homonyms is the words outfit" - "clothing" and outfit - "disposition", they do not differ in pronunciation and spelling, they are the same in all case forms of the singular and plural.

At incomplete(partial) lexical homonymy, a coincidence in sound and spelling is observed for words belonging to the same part of speech, but not in all grammatical forms. For example, incomplete homonyms: plant "-an industrial enterprise" (metallurgical plant) and plant "-a device for driving a mechanism" (winding a watch). The second word does not have plural forms, but the first does. The homonymous verbs stabbing "(pit) and burying" (medicine) have all the same forms of the imperfect form (I bury, I buried, I will bury); forms of active participles of the present and past tenses (stabbing, burying). But there is no coincidence in perfective forms (I’ll bury - I’ll bury, etc.).

According to their structure, homonyms can be divided into root And derivatives. The first ones have a non-derivative basis: peace “ – “absence of war, harmony” (peace has come) and peace “ – “universe” (the world is filled with sounds); defect " - "flaw in production" (factory defect) and defect " - "matrimony" ( happy marriage). The latter arose as a result of word formation and, therefore, have a derivative basis: assemblage " - "action on the verb to collect" (assembling a structure) and assembly " - "small fold in clothes" (assembly on a skirt); drill " – "relating to actions in the ranks" (drill song) and drill " - "suitable for buildings" (structural wood).

Along with homonymy, related phenomena related to the grammatical, phonetic and graphic levels of language are usually considered.

1. Among the consonant forms there are homoforms- words that coincide only in one grammatical form (less often - in several). For example, three" is a numeral in the nominative case (three friends) and three" is a verb in the imperative mood of the 2nd person singular (three carrots on a grater). The grammatical forms of words of the same part of speech can also be homonymous. For example, the forms of the adjectives big, young can indicate, firstly, the nominative singular masculine case (big "success, young" specialist); secondly, to the genitive singular feminine (big “career, young” woman); thirdly, to the feminine singular case (to a big “career, to a young” woman); fourthly, to the feminine instrumental case (with a big “career”, with a young “woman”). These forms agree with nouns appearing in different cases. Homoforms, by their nature, go beyond the scope of vocabulary, since they belong to a different level of language and should be studied in the morphology section.

2. In the Russian language, words are used that sound the same, but are spelled differently. This homophones(gr. homos – same + phone – sound). For example, the words meadow and onion, young and hammer, carry and lead coincide in pronunciation due to the deafening of voiced consonant sounds at the end of the word and before the voiceless consonant. Changing vowels in an unstressed position leads to the consonance of the words rinse and caress, lick and climb, old-timer and guard. The words patronize and march, island and sharp, brother and brother, etc. are pronounced in the same way. Consequently, homophones are phonetic homonyms, their appearance in the language is associated with the action of phonetic laws.

Homophony can manifest itself more broadly - in the sound coincidence of a word and several words: Not you, but Sima suffered unbearably, carried by the waters of the Neva; You can grow to be a hundred years old without getting old (M.). Homophony is the subject of study not of lexicology, but of phonetics, since it manifests itself at a different linguistic level - phonetic.

3. Words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently are called homographs(gr. homos – identical + grapho – writing). Usually they have stress on different syllables: mugs - mugs, fell asleep - fell asleep, soar - soar, etc. There are more than a thousand pairs of homographs in modern Russian. Homography is directly related to the graphic system of the language. Strict differentiation of linguistic phenomena requires distinguishing actual lexical homonyms from homoforms, homophones and homographs.

The emergence of homonyms

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, the noun marriage "in Russian is related to the verb to take (cf.: to marry oneself), it modern meaning – "family relationships between man and woman; marital relations". Its homonym is defect" - "damaged, substandard, defective items of production", as well as "flaw in the product" - borrowed from German language(Brack – “disadvantage”). In the same way, borrowings homonymous to Russian words came into our language: club "(from English) - " public organization"(cf. Russian club" of smoke from the verb to swirl); watering can" (from German) - “a type of camera" (cf. Russian watering can "garden from the verb to pour); mink "(from Finnish) - "a predatory fur-bearing animal from the family of martens", "the fur of this fur-bearing animal" (cf. Russian mink " - a diminutive of 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, a tap" (from Dutch) - "a valve in the form of a tube for releasing liquid or gas" and a tap " (from German) - "a mechanism for lifting and moving goods", block " (from French) - "unification of states , organizations for joint action" and block "(from English) - "device for lifting weights", mat" (from German) - "soft bedding made of durable material", mat" (Arabic) - "defeat in chess game", mat" (from French) - "lack of shine, roughness smooth surface subject."

3. Borrowed from the same language in the same way sounding words. Thus, the homonyms mine "-"explosive projectile" and mine" - "facial expression" were borrowed from French; from Latin - note "-" musical sound"and note" - "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, a fortification " - "place ancient settlement“and fortification” is an augmentative of the word city; plant " - "industrial enterprise" and plant " - "device for operating a mechanism"; critical "(from the word criticism) and critical" (from the word crisis); gas duct " - "a machine driven by a gas engine" and gas duct " - "gas passage", daddy " - a form of subjective assessment from the word fell and daddy " - a 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 "is a migratory plaintiff" and AIST is an "automatic information station", Amur "is a river" and AMUR is an automatic control and regulation machine, Mars is a planet and MARS is an automatic registration machine and signaling" 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.

b. Homonyms are native Russian words that have undergone various changes as a result of phonetic and morphological processes occurring in the language. For example, the word onion, meaning an ancient weapon, once had a nasal vowel, which over time began to sound like [u]. This led to the coincidence of this word with another word onion, meaning a garden plant. The pronunciation of the words zhat (from zhmu) and mother (from hnu) coincided, which previously differed in the nature of the nasal vowels that sounded in place of the modern sound [a]. The differences between the forms I fly (from treat) and I fly (from fly) have been lost. Initially, the first of them was written with the letter ъ (yat), not e. Similarly, the word once " (meaning “once upon a time”) was also written with the letter ъ. Now it is a homonym for once " meaning “no time.”

7. The source of the appearance of homonyms can also be a gap in semantic structure polysemous words, in which individual meanings are so divergent that they are no longer perceived as belonging to the same word. Thus, from polysemy, the homonymy of the pairs light "-universe" and light "-dawn, sunrise" developed. I wanted to travel around the whole world, but I didn’t travel around a hundredth part. “It’s barely light and I’m already on my feet!” and I am at your feet (Gr.); syllable – “part of a word” and syllable” – “style”; cf. also: heat the “stove and render” the lard; wave “your hand and wave” to the south (colloquial).

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In the process of learning a language, you have to master more terminology. Students must understand what homonyms, antonyms, synonyms are, and many other concepts. Although this is not the most simple task, you can gradually understand most of the intricacies of the Russian language.

Homonyms

The answer to this question can be found within the term itself. It consists of two roots taken from the ancient Greek language. The first is translated as the same, and the second is a name. Thus, homonyms are certain words that have different meanings, but at the same time they sound and are written the same.

It is interesting that this concept appeared about three hundred years before the beginning of our era. It was created by Aristotle, the famous ancient Greek philosopher, the founder of a comprehensive system of philosophy.

Homonyms are often confused with other similar concepts. For example, there are also homophones and homographs.

• A homophone differs from a homonym in that, despite the same sound, such words have different spellings.
• With a homograph the opposite is true. Although these words look exactly the same, they have different meanings and are also pronounced differently. Typically this is achieved by changing the accent.

Polysemy

There is another term similar to the concept of homonym. Polysemy is considered to be words that are written in a similar way, sound the same, but at the same time they have historically different meanings. The main difference from a homonym is that words related to polysemy originated from the same language, but became polysemous.

Determining whether a word is considered a homonym or polysemy is very simple. Just look at where the concepts came from. For example, the concept bor means forest and chemical element. However " Pinery” are words originating from the Slavic language, and the chemical element boron was formed from the Persian term “borax”. This means that these words are homonyms.

If we take the word “ether”, which can act both in the sense of a certain substance and in the sense of broadcasting, then we can replace that they all come from the ancient Greek concept of mountain air. So it would be polysemy.

Not every person who studies linguistics clearly distinguishes between polysemy and homonyms. Some perceive the first as a special case of the second. However, if the words are in different parts speech, then we can say with confidence that this is a homonym.

Classification

Homonyms have three main groups.

• Full or absolute homonyms are those words that will remain the same even if the original form is changed. This is what complete homonyms are, and their examples look like this: outfit (clothing) - outfit (order).
• The second option is partial homonyms. Such words, as a rule, differ in one case or in several forms. Classic example- the word "weasel". If we put it in the plural and genitive case, then the word denoting animal will be “caress”, and the word denoting tenderness will be “caress”.
• The third type is grammatical homonyms, also called homoforms. These concepts will coincide only in strictly a certain form, sometimes there are two or three, and sometimes there is only one. As an example, the numeral “three” will be a homonym for the verb “rub”, but only in two variants (“three”, “three”).

Omomorphemes

Another term similar to homonyms is the word omomorpheme. In this case, it is not the whole word that is taken into account, but a specific morpheme. This part of the word looks and sounds the same, but it differs in meaning from a similar morpheme.

As a rule, the example with the ending –a is considered.

• First of all, this ending means feminine at verbs.
• Moreover, it is used to depict the plural of second declension nouns.
• In addition, this ending creates the genitive case for nouns.

Taxonomy

Although homonyms are almost always remembered in connection with the rules of the Russian language, the same word is also part of the taxonomy. Taxonomy is a study that examines various classification principles.

Each group consisting of objects and being an element of classification is called a taxon. In this case homonym is a biological taxon, that is, a certain biological group that, in its own way, identical to the name(or almost identical) to another taxon, but the nomenclatural type differs.

Such homonyms have their own gradation. The taxon that appeared first is called the senior homonym. More late groups are called juniors.

Sometimes groups initially have different names, but then they are transferred to another species or genus. If in this case the name has become a homonym, then those that existed before are considered primary homonyms, and those that appeared in connection with the transfer are considered secondary.

Typically, when people discover taxonomic homonyms, they try to eliminate them. Preference is given to older homonyms, and other names are created for younger ones.