Выполнил ученик 8 “Б” класса
Веселов Кирилл
Homonyms (Gr. homos “similar” + onoma
“name”) are words which have identical sound
form and/or spelling but are different in their
meaning.
E.g. bank (n) – a shore (of the river);
bank (n) – an institution for receiving, lending,
exchanging and safeguarding money
Homonyms proper: E.g. ball (e.g Playing a game of ball)
– ball (e.g"Nonsense, a costume ball!“); bank (e.g The bank
wants to lend money to people like you) – bank (All the
way to the snowy bank); light, adj. (e. g A light weight) –
light, n. (e. g The light shines too bright).
 Homophones: E.g. piece – peace; air - heir; knight – night;
rose (flower) – rose (Past form of rise).
 Homographs: E.g. bow [bəu] (e. g He shot from a bow) –
bow [bau] (e. g He bowed down); lead [liːd] (e. g Lead the
way) – lead [led] (A lead processing compound); row [rəu]
(e.gYou sat in the front row) – row [rau] (e. g You're
causing a row).

The criterion: whether homonyms belong to
the same or to different parts of speech.
 Lexical
 Lexico-grammatical
 Grammatical

Belong to the same part of speech. The
difference is confined to the lexical meaning
only: fair (e.g Outside the fair, in the valleys and
woods) – fare (e.g They pay my fare back); bow
[bəu] (Shoot a bow) - bow [bau] (He bowed
down); match (e.g Strike a match under him) –
match (e.g “Did you even come to the match?”)
•
Belong to different parts of speech and differ
in lexical meaning: tear [tɪə], n. (e.g Drop a
tear) – to tear, v. [tɛə] (e.g Rip and tear); bear,
n. [bɛə] (e.g A bear got in) – to bare [bɛə], v.
(e.g He had bare feet) – bare [bɛə], adj. (e.g
he bare fields unhappy look).
•
Belong to different parts of speech but there
is a link between their lexical meanings: milk –
to milk; practice – to practice.
The criterion: whether the paradigms of the
homonyms coincide completely or partially.
 Full homonyms are identical in sound in all their
forms and paradigms: match; ear; ball etc.
 Partial homonyms are identical only in some of
the forms: to found (Past Indefinite, Past
Participle of the verb to find); to lie (lied, lied) to
lie (lay, lain); bean, n. been, v. (Past Part. of the
verb to be).
phonetic changes: night – knight (OE kniht);
write (OE writan) – right (OE reht and riht).
• borrowings: bank (берег): native origin bank :Italian; fair: native - fair : French.
•
•
•
shortening of words: flu (from influenza) flew (Past Indef. of to fly); fan (from fanatic) –
fan.
conversion: comb, n. – to comb, v., pale, adj. –
to pale, v., to make, v. – make, n. (grammatical
homonyms).
Split polysemy:
spring (n) – “the act of springing, a leap”;
spring (n) – “a place where a stream of
water comes up out of the earth”;
spring (n) – “a season of the year”.

The original word: springan - “to jump,” “to
leap”
For attention!