Classification of Homonyms

The subdivision of homonyms into homonyms proper, homophones and homographs is certainly not precise enough and does not reflect certain important features of these words, and, most important of all, their status as parts of speech. The examples given in the beginning of this chapter show that homonyms may belong both to the same and to different categories of parts of speech. Obviously, a classification of homonyms should reflect this distinctive feature. Also, the paradigm of each word should be considered, because it has been observed that the paradigms of some homonyms coincide completely, and of others only partially.

Accordingly, Professor A. I. Smirnitsky classified homonyms into two large classes: I. full homonyms, II. partial homonyms [15].

Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the same category of parts of speech and have the same paradigm.

Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups:

A. Simple lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words which belong to the same category of parts of speech. Their paradigms have one identical form, but it is never the same form, as will be seen from the examples.

B. Complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words of different categories of parts of speech which have one identical form in their paradigms.

E. g. rose, n.

rose, v. (Past Indef. of to rise}

maid, n.

made, v. (Past Indef., Past Part. of to make}

left, adj.

left, v. (Past Indef., Past Part. of to leave)

bean, n.

been, v. (Past Part. of to be)

one, num.

won, v. (Past Indef., Past Part. of to win)

C. Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech which are identical only in their corresponding forms.

E. g. to lie (lay, lain), v.

to lie (lied, lied), v.

to hang {hung, hung}, v.

to hang (hanged, hanged), v.

to can canned, canned)

(I) can (could)

Exercises