Lecture 8. Semantic relationship between words

Outline

1. Classification of lexical groups

2. Homonymy in English

3. Synonyms in English

4. Antonyms in English

1. Classification of lexical groups

Unlike most codes, there is no one-to-one relationship between meanings and signs in a natural language. When several related meanings are associated with one written or spoken word, that word is called polysemantic; when two or more unrelated meanings are associated with the same form – these are homonyms, full or partial, or homophones if only their spoken forms coincide, or homographs if their written forms coincide but spoken do not; when two or more different forms are associated with the same – or nearly the same – denotational meaning these words are synonyms. Lexicology also studies antonyms, or words with a directly opposite or polar meaning; hyponyms and hyperonyms, i.e. words whose meanings either include or are included, by meanings of other words; word-families, i.e. words related in meaning but different in form and belonging to different parts of speech; and thematic groups of words loosely associated in meaning. Of these, homonyms and word-families are often brought together by dictionaries, while synonyms and thematic groups are brought together by a thesaurus, a conversation-book or a school textbook.

2. Homonymy in English

Homonyms are traditionally defined as words identical in both sound and spelling – or at least one of these aspects (homographs, homophones) – but having different meanings. Thus match – a competition and match – a stick of wood for striking fire are grammatically identical and are thus full homonyms whereas rose (n) – a flower and rose - past tense of rise are partial homonyms (note that in Ancient Greek homonymos was having the same name).

Homonyms exist in many languages, but English is particularly rich in them. They are mostly one-morpheme, one-syllable, words, numbering about 2.5 thousand. Most homonyms exist in pairs, but there are isolated examples like baric, bay, etc. that represent three or four meanings. In most cases, a pair of homonyms is a linguistic accident of a pair of words, often of different origin, gradually becoming identical in form. Only about 7 per cent of English homonyms are a result of splitting up of polysemantic words. If synonyms and antonyms could be used as an additional expressive means in a language, homonyms are of no interest in this respect, and are hardly of any use in communication. Moreover, as an isolated word form of this type, like sound or fast, may potentially assume different meanings in different contexts, a homonym is a powerful source of ambiguity and misunderstanding.

The ambiguity of a homonym, when it arises, may only be resolved in a context - a boxing match or to strike a match are hardly ambiguous. If ambiguous contexts do arise, they are either a result of carelessness on the part of the speaker or writer, or a deliberate device of humour known as a pun. For example, a tailor's motto We guarantee you a perfect fit may be a promise of very good work – or very bad one.

Among the factors contributing to the number of homonyms in English are the monosyllabic character of English words and the analytical tendencies in the language, as well as the abundance of root words. As monosyllabic words tend to be the most frequent (according to Zipf's law), they tend to acquire meanings that may in the course of time stray very far from the original word. If an intermediate or linking meaning falls out of use, all connection with the original word is lost, and a new meaning starts on its separate existence. Thus board – a long, thin piece of wood, board – meals provided for the day and board – a group of people set up to examine a problem or run a business company are no longer felt as related because a fourth meaning, a piece of furniture, which originally held them together, dropped out of use as it was replaced by table. Similarly, spring – act of springing, spring – a source of water and spring – a season of the year are all related to the Old English verb springan (cf. German springen), which used to mean jump and all but disappeared in Modern English. The process is known as splitting or disintegration of polysemy.

Another, more frequent source of homonymy is the phonetic changes that words undergo in the course of their development. As a result, two or more words that used to be pronounced differently lose their endings, drop unstressed syllables, mutate almost out of recognition due to phonetic assimilation, and finally coincide. Thus niht and kniht used to be pronounced differently in Old English, but the initial k was dropped in the second, although the difference in spelling was preserved (night –knight).

More typically, a borrowed word, in a final stage of its phonetic adaptation, may coincide with either a native word or another borrowing.

Historically, homonyms are an interesting field of study; ironically, they are a constant source of worry for lexicographers, teachers of English, and specialists in information processing. The problems here are the criteria for distinguishing homonyms from synonyms, and recognizing different meanings of the same homonyms. For a lexicographer, the chief problem is establishing word boundaries. The only reliable evidence for distinguishing different words identical in sound form, and different meanings of the same word, is etymology. If this is disregarded, the problem becomes almost impossible to solve. Neither can it be ignored, for the convenience in the use of the dictionary depends upon it.

Actual solutions differ. English lexicographers often place phonetically identical words showing similarity of lexical meaning within one entry, even if they belong to different parts of speech. English-Russian dictionaries usually make a distinction, etymology is often disregarded if it doesn’t fit the present-day state of the language: thus ear in an ear of corn is now felt to be a metaphorical extension of the word meaning an organ of hearing, although etymologically it’s a different word – one is related to Latin auris, the other to the Old English ecʒ (related to Modern English edge).

As for those teaching English, their main problem is patterned homonymy which is often found in frequently used words, that may easily have different part-of-speech meanings. That for example, is both a conjunction and a pronoun, above is a preposition, adverb and adjective – and there are countless other examples. The only clue to the part-of-speech meaning of many English words seems to be their distribution, or ability to occur in different environments. Nouns, for example, have a very typical pattern of (article + adjective + noun), while a verb typically follows a noun. So in You’d have a bigger laugh if you laugh at yourself, the first laugh is very clearly a noun while the second is a verb.