Phonetic coincidence and semantic differentiation of homonyms

     CONTENT 

 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………...4 

1. THEORETICAL BASES OF HOMONYM

1. Notion of homonyms ………………………………………………………5
2. History of homonyms ……………………………………………………..11
3. Classification of homonyms……………………………………………….15

2. PECULIARITIES OF ENGLISH HOMONYMS

2.1 Phonetic coincidence and semantic differentiation of homonyms………24

2.2 Diachronically approach of homonyms…………………………………...26

2.3 Synchronically approach in studying homonymy………………………..30

2.4 Lexical, grammatical and lexico-grammatical distinctions of

homonyms……………………………………………………………………….35

2.5 Etymological and semantic criteria in polysemy and homonymy………38

2.6 Comparative typological analysis of two linguistic

phenomena in other languages…………………………………………………59 

CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………62 

REFERENCE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

     INTRODUCTION 
 

     The theme of my diploma work sounds as following: “Homonyms in English and their specific features”. This diploma work can be characterized by the following:

     The actuality of this theme. The work could serve as a good source of learning English by young teachers at schools and colleges.

     The object: of the diploma work is Homonyms in English.

     The subject: Investigation of specific features of Homonyms.

     The aim of my diploma work is to research  specific features of homonyms in English, to define the types of homonyms and to teach the usage  of homonyms to English learners.

          The practical value: The given materials help teachers in teaching the students to use easily homonyms in English.

          The theoretical value: Providing additional materials to the information of homonyms and  identifying specific feautures of homonyms in English.

          The structure of the diploma work consists of introduction, two titles, conclusion and references. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

             1. THEORETICAL BASES OF HOMONYM

               1.1 Notion of homonyms  

      In linguistics, a homonym is one of a group of words that share the same spelling or pronunciation (or both) but have different meanings. The state of being a homonym is called homonymy. Examples of homonyms are stalk (which can mean either part of a plant or to follow someone around) and the trio of words to, too and two (actually, to, to, too, too and two, being "for the purpose of" as in "to make it easier", the opposite of "from", also, excessively, and "2", respectively). Some sources state that homonym meanings must be unrelated in origin (rather than just different). Thus right (correct) and right (opposed to left) would be polysemous and not be homonyms. Note that some sources define homonyms as words that are spelled and pronounced alike. There is a similar confusion about the definition of some of the related terms described below. This article explains what appear to be the "standard" meanings, and variant definitions are then summarised under "Terminological confusion". The word "homonym" comes from the conjunction of the Greek prefix homo- (meaning same) and suffix -onym (meaning name). Thus, it refers to two or more distinct words sharing the "same name".

      Language processing considerations have often been used to explain aspects of language structure and evolution. According to Bates and MacWhinney, this view "is a kind of linguistic Darwinism, an argument that languages look the way they do for functional or adaptive reasons". However, as in adaptationist accounts of biological structures and evolution, this approach can lead to the creation of "just so" stories. In order to avoid these problems, case-by-case analyses must be replaced by statistical investigations of linguistic corpora. In addition, independent evidence for the relative "adaptiveness" of certain linguistic structures must be obtained. We will use this approach to study a linguistic phenomenon – homonymy. That seems to be maladaptive both intuitively and empirically and has been frequently subjected to informal adaptationist arguments. A statistical analysis of English homonyms then uncovered a reliable bias against the usage of homonyms from the same grammatical class. A subsequent experiment provided independent evidence that such homonyms are in fact more confusing than those from different grammatical classes.

     In a simple code each sign has only one meaning, and each meaning is associated with only one sign. This one-to-one relationship is not realized in natural languages. When several related meanings are associated with the same group of sounds within one part of speech, the word is called polysemantic, when two or more unrelated meanings are associated with the same form – the words are homonyms.

      The intense development of homonymy in the English language is obviously due not to one single factor but to several interrelated causes, such as the monosyllabic character of English and its analytic structure.

      The abundance of homonyms is also closely connected with such a characteristic feature of the English language as the phonetic identity of word and stem or, in other words, the predominance of free forms among the most frequent roots. It is quite obvious that if the frequency of words stands in some inverse relationship to their length, the monosyllabic words will be the most frequent. Moreover, as the most frequent words are also highly polysemantic, it is only natural that they develop meanings, which in the coarse of time may deviate very far from the central one.

      In general, homonymy is intentionally sought to provoke positive, negative or awkward connotations. Concerning the selection of initials, homonymy with shortened words serves the purpose of manipulation.  The demotivated process of a shortened word hereby leads to re-motivation.  The form is homonymously identical with an already lexicalized linguistic unit, which makes it easier to pronounce or recall, thus standing out from the majority of acronyms.  This homonymous unit has a secondary semantic relation to the linguistic unit.

      Homonymy of names functions as personified metaphor with the result that the homonymous name leads to abstraction.  The resultant new word coincides in its phonological realization with an existing word in English. However, there is no logical connection between the meaning of the acronym and the meaning of the already existing word, which explains a great part of the humor it produces.

      In the coarse of time the number of homonyms on the whole increases, although occasionally the conflict of homonyms ends in word loss [1:88].

List of Homonyms which contains all the Homonyms. 
 
Cache: A hidden store of things 
Cash: Money in coins or notes 
 
Cannon:  
 
1. A large, heavy piece of artillery formerly used in warfare 
2. (Billiards or snooker) A stroke in which the cue ball strikes two balls successfully 
3. Collide with something forcefully or at an angle 
 
Canon:  
 
1. A general rule or principle by which something is judged 
2. The degree or the law of a Church 
3. A collection or the list of sacred books accepted as genuine 
 
Canvas: A strong coarse unbleached cloth used to make sails, tents etc… and as a surface for oil painting 
 
Canvass: 
 
1. Solicit votes from voters 
2. Propose an idea or a plan for discussion 
 
Capital:  
 
1. The most important city or a town of a country or a region, usually the seat of government and administration 
2. Wealth owned by a person or an association or invested, lent or borrowed 
3. A capital letter 
 
4. (Of an offence or charge) Liable to attract the death penalty 
 
Capitol:  
 
1. (In the USA) A building housing a legislative assembly 
2. (The Capitol) The temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill in ancient Rome 
 
Carat: 
 
1. A unit of weight for precious stones and pearls, equivalent to 200 milligrams 
2. (USA spelling of karat) A measure of the purity of Gold, pure gold being 24 carats 
 
Caret:A proofreader’s mark (^) placed below a line of text to indicate a proposed insertion or correction 
 
Carrot: A tapering orange-colored root eaten as a vegetable 
 
Cast: 
 
1. Throw forcefully in a specified direction 
2. Cause (light or shadow) to appear on a surface  
3. Discard 
4. Shape (metal or other material) by pouring into a mould while molten 
5. Register( a vote) 
6. Throw the hooked and baited end of a fishing line into the water 
7. cast a magic spell to take effect 
8. The actors taking part in a play or film 
 
Caste:

1. each of hereditary classes of Hindu society, distinguished by relative degrees of ritual purity or pollution (untouchables) and of social status 
2. (In some social insects) A physically distinct kind of individual with a particular function(Entomology) 
 
Cede: Give up (power or territory) 
 
Seed: A plant’s unit of reproduction through which another plant is capable of growing 
 
Cell:  
 
1. A small room in which a prisoner is kept locked or in which a monk or a nun sleeps 
2. A small group of people forming a nucleus of a political party 
3. A device containing electrodes immersed in electrolyte, used for current generation or electrolysis 
 
Sell: Give or hand over in exchange for money 
 
Censor: An official who examines material that is to be published or a film that is to be screened and deletes or edits parts considered offensive to societal sensibilities or a threat to the security of the society 
 
Sensor: A device which detects or measures a physical property 
 
Cite:  
 
1. Quote (a book or author) as evidence for an argument or belief 
2. Praise for a courageous act in an official dispatch 
 
Sight:

 
1. The faculty or the power of seeing

2. The action or the fact of seeing someone or something 
 
Site: 
 
1. An area of ground on which something is located

2. The place where a particular event or activity is occurring or has occurred 
 
 
Coarse:  
 
1. Rough or harsh in texture, unrefined 
2. (Of a person’s features) Not elegantly formed or well proportioned 
3. (Of a person’s character or his speech) Rude or vulgar 
 
Course:  
 
1. The route or direction followed by a ship, aircraft, road or a river 
2. The way in which something progresses or develops 
3. A dish forming one of the successive parts of meal 
4. A series or lectures or lessons in a particular subject 
5. An area of land prepared for racing, golf or any other sport 
 
 
Complacent: Smug and uncritically satisfied with oneself or one’s achievements, self-satisfied 
 
Complaisant: Willingness to please others or to accept their behavior without protest 
 
 
Complement:  
 
1. A thing that contributes extra features to something else and thereby enhances and improves it 
2. The number or quantity the makes something complete 
 
Compliment: A polite expression of praise or admiration 
 
Conch: A tropical marine mollusk 
 
Conk:  
 
1. (Of a machine) break down  
2. Faint or go to sleep or die 
Coo:  
 
1. (Of a pigeon or dove) Make a softy murmuring sound  
2. (Of a person) To speak in a soft and gentle voice 
 
Coup:  
 
1. A sudden and violent seizure of power from a government 
2. An unexpected and notably successful act [2:89]. 
 

      Homonym conflict arises from the phonetic similarity, or homophony, of two or more homonyms and is frequently associated with at least one of the following features: (a) paradigmatic similarity, i.e. homonyms of the same word class are more likely to conflict, e.g. ME heal and hele (‘to cover, hide’); (b) syntactic confusion, i.e. ‘homonyms’ may be created through phonetic similarity brought about in certain syntactic environments, e.g. ME ear and nere (‘kidney’) conflicting in the syntactic environment of an ear vs a nere; (c) occurrence in the same lexical field or domain, e.g. OFr. *gat (‘cat’ and ‘cock’), both agricultural terms. Homonym conflict may be avoided by (a) differentiation of gender in some languages, e.g. Ger. der/das Band (‘volume’/‘ribbon’); (b) orthographic distinction, e.g. plane vs plain (homography); (c) lexical expansion, e.g. light (in weight)>light-weight vs light (in color)> light-colored; and (d) loss or replacement of one of the conflicting words, e.g. ME quēn (‘queen’) vs (‘harlot’).

      Apparent aversion to homonym conflict is offset by the fact that a language may at any given time have numerous instances of potentially conflicting homonyms, as illustrated by the English homophonic pairs flower: flour and pray: prey [3:64]. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

1.2 History of homonyms 

      The word homonymcomes from a Latin borrowing of Greek homonymon, the neuter of homonymos "homonymous". The Greek word is a combination of homos "same" + onyma "name". The Greek word for "same" comes from a PIE ancestor, *sem-/*som- "together, as one", with that ablaut vowel, sometimes [o], sometimes [e]. It is the same stem that made it to English as same. In Russian it emerged as sam "self", found in words like samovar "self-boiler" from sam + var(it') "to boil". With a suffix -l, it devolved into Latin simul "at the same time", which we see in our borrowing simultaneous. We aren't quite sure why some word-initial Ss became [h] in Greek, but some did [4:136].

      There are a lot of different sources of homonyms in English language, so let’s talk about some of them, which are the most important ones, due to my point of view.

      One source of homonyms is phonetic changes, which words undergo in the coarse of their historical development. As a result of such changes, two or more words, which were formally pronounced differently, may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms.

      Night and knight, for instance, were not homonyms in Old English as the initial k in the second word was pronounced, and not dropped as it is in its modern sound form: O.E. kniht (cf. O.E. niht). A more complicated change of form brought together another pair of homonyms: to knead (O.E. cneadan) and to need (O.E. neodian).

     In Old English the verb to write had the form writan, and the adjective right had the forms reht, riht. The noun sea descends from the Old English form sae, and the verb to see – from O.E. seon. The noun work and the verb to work also had different forms in Old English: wyrkean and weork respectively.

      Borrowing is another source of homonyms. A borrowed word may, in the final stage of its phonetic adaptation, duplicate in form either a native word or another borrowing. So, in the group of homonyms rite, noun – to write, verb – right, adjective the second and the third words are of native origin whereas rite is a Latin borrowing (<Lat. ritus). In the pair piece, noun – peace, noun, the first originates from Old French pais, and the second from O.F. (<Gaulish) pettia. Bank, noun ‘a shore’ is a native word, and bank, noun ‘a financial institution’ is an Italian borrowing. Fair, adjective ( as in a fair deal, it’s not fair) is native, and fair, noun ‘a gathering of buyers and sellers’ is a French borrowing. Match, noun ‘a game; a contest of skill, strength’ is native, and match, noun ‘a slender short piece of wood used for producing fire’ is a French borrowing.

      Word building also contributes significantly to the growth of homonymy, and the most important type in this respect is undoubtedly conversion. Such pairs of words as comb, noun – to comb, verb; pale, adjective – to pale, verb; to make, verb – make, noun are numerous in the vocabulary. Homonyms of this type, which are the same in sound and spelling but refer to different categories of parts of speech, are called lexico-grammatical homonyms.

       Shortening is a further type of word building, which increases the number of homonyms. Fan, noun in the sense of ‘enthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer, etc.’ is a shortening produced from fanatic. Its homonym is a Latin borrowing fan, nou which denotes an implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current of air. The noun rep, n denoting a kind of fabric (cf. with the Rus. penc) has three homonyms made by shortening: rep, noun (< repertory), rep, noun (< representative), rep, noun (< reputation); all the three are informal words.

       During World War II girls serving in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (an auxiliary of the British Royal Navy) were jokingly nicknamed Wrens (informal). This neologistic formation made by shortening has the homonym wren, noun ‘a small bird with dark brown plumage barred with black’ (Rus. крапивник).

      Words made by sound-imitation can also form pairs of homonyms with other words: bang, noun ‘a loud, sudden, explosive noise’ – bang, noun ‘a fringe of hair combed over the forehead’. Also: mew, noun ‘the sound the cat makes’ – mew, noun ‘a sea gull’ – mew, noun ‘a pen in which poultry is fattened’ – mews ‘small terraced houses in Central London’.

      The above-described sources of homonyms have one important feature common. In all the mentioned cases the homonyms developed from two or more different words, and their similarity is purely accidental. (In this respect, conversion certainly presents an exception for in pairs of homonyms formed by conversion one word of the pair is produced from the other: a find < to find.)

       Now we come to a further source of homonyms, which differs essentially from all the above cases. Two or more homonyms can originate from different meanings of the same word when, for some reason, the semantic structure of the word breaks into several parts. This type of formation of homonyms is called disintegration or split of polysemy.

       From what has been said above about polysemantic words, it should become clear that the semantic structure of a polysemantic word presents a system within which all its constituent meanings are held together by logical associations. In most cases, the function of the arrangement and the unity if determined by one of the meanings. 

  Fire, noun:

1. Flame
2. An instance of destructive burning: a forest fire
3. Burning material in a stove, fireplace: There is a fire in the                    next room. A camp fire.
4. The shooting of guns: to open (cease) fire.
5. Strong feeling, passion, and enthusiasm: a speech lacking fire.

       If this meaning happens to disappear from word’s semantic structure, associations between the rest of the meanings may be severed, the semantic structure loses its unity and fails into two or more parts which then become accepted as independent lexical units.

Let us consider the history of three homonyms: 

board, n – a long and thin piece of timber

board, n – daily meals, esp. as provided for pay, e.g. room and board

board, n – an official group of persons who direct or supervise some activity, e.g. a board of directors.

        It is clear that the meanings of these three words are in no way associated with one another. Yet, most larger dictionaries still enter a meaning of board that once held together all these other meanings ‘a table’. It developed from the meaning ‘a piece of timber’ by transference based on contiguity (association of an object and the material from which it is made). The meanings ‘meals’ and ‘an official group of persons’ developed from the meaning ‘table’, also by transference based on contiguity: meals are easily associated with a table on which they are served; an official group of people in authority are also likely to discuss their business round a table. 

      Nowadays, however, the item of the furniture, on which meals are served and round which boards of directors meet, is no longer denoted by the word board but by the French Norman borrowing table, and board in this meaning, though still registered by some dictionaries, can very well be marked as archaic as it is no longer used in common speech. That is why, with the intrusion of the borrowed table, the word board actually lost its corresponding meaning. But it was just that meaning which served as a link to hold together the rest of the constituent parts of the word’s semantic structure. With its diminished role as an element of communication, its role in the semantic structure was also weakened. The speakers almost forgot that board had ever been associated with any item of furniture, nor could they associate the notions of meals or of a responsible committee with a long thin piece of timber (which is the oldest meaning of board). Consequently, the semantic structure of board was split into three units.

 The following scheme illustrates the process: 

Board, n (development of meanings) 

Board I, II, III, n (split of the polysemy) 

     Historically all three nouns originate from the same verb with the meaning of ‘to jump, to leap’ (O.E. springan), so that the meaning of the first homonym is the oldest. The meanings of the second and third homonyms were originally based on metaphor. At the head of a stream the water sometimes leaps up out of the earth, so that metaphorically such a place could well be described as a leap. On the other hand, the season of the year following winter could be poetically defined as a leap from the darkness and cold into sunlight and life. Such metaphors are typical enough of Old English and Middle English semantic transferences but not so characteristic of modern mental and linguistic processes. The poetic associations that lay in the basis of the semantic shifts described above have long since been forgotten, and an attempt to re-establish the lost links may well seem far-fetched. It is just the near-impossibility of establishing such links that seems to support the claim for homonymy and not for polysemy with these three words.

       It should be stressed, however, that split of the polysemy as a source of homonyms is not accepted by all scholars. It is really difficult sometimes to decide whether a certain word has or has not been subject to the split of the semantic structure and whether we are dealing with different meanings of the same word or with homonyms, for the criteria are subjective and imprecise. The imprecision is recorded in the data of different dictionaries, which often contradict each other on this very issue, so that board is represented as two homonyms in Professor V.K. Muller’s dictionary, as three homonyms in Professor V.D. Arakin’s and as one and the same word in Hornby’s dictionary.

      Spring also receives different treatment. V.K. Muller’s and Hornby’s dictionaries acknowledge but two homonyms:

1. a season of the year;
2. a) the act of springing, a leap,

b)a place where a stream of water comes up out of the earth;

and some other meanings, whereas V.D.Arakin’s dictionary presents the three homonyms as given above [5:64]. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

1.3 Classification of homonyms. 

       Various types of classification for homonyms proper have been suggested.

Classification given by A.I. Smirnitsky   

    The one most often used in present-day Anglistics in the Soviet Union is that suggested by professor A. I. Smirnitsky. It has been criticized for failing to pt the homonyms within general vocabulary system.

   The classification, which we have mentioned above, 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 their show those homonyms may belong to both to the same and to different categories of parts of speech. Obviously, the classification of homonyms should reflect this distinctive feather. 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 classifieds homonyms into two large classes:

     a)   full homonyms

     b)   partial homonyms 

Full homonyms

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

Match n – a game, a contest

Match n – a short piece of wood used for producing fire

Wren n – a member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service

Wren n – a bird 

Partial homonyms

     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 only one identical form, but it is never the same form, as will be soon from the examples:

(to) found v

       found v (past indef., past part. of to find)

(to) lay v

       lay v (past indef. of to lie)

(to) bound v

       bound v (past indef., past part. of to bind) 

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

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.

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) 

       A more comprehensive system may be worked out if we are guided by the theory of oppositions and in classifying the homonyms take into consideration the difference or sameness in their lexical and grammatical meaning, paradigm and basic form. For the sake of completeness we shall consider this problem in terms of identity and difference between the elements of vocabulary system because we must define the place of homonyms among other relationships. In a simple code each sign has only one meaning, and each meaning is associated with only one sign. But this ideal, as we have seen, is not realised in natural languages. When several related meanings are associated with the same form, the word is called polysemantic, when two or more unrelated meanings are associated with the same form – the word are homonyms, when two or more forms are associated with the same or nearly the same meaning – the words are synonyms. As both form and meaning can be further subdivided, the combination of distinctive features by which two words are compared becomes more complicated — there are four features: the form may be phonetical and graphical, the meaning — lexical and grammatical, a word may also have a paradigm of grammatical forms different from the basic form.

    The distinctive features are lexical meaning (different denoted by A, or nearly the same denoted by A), grammatical meaning (different denoted by B, or same by B), paradigm (different denoted by C, or same denoted by C), and basic form (different D and same D).

     The term “nearly same lexical meaning” must not be taken too literally. It means only that the corresponding members of the opposition have some important invariant semantic components in common. “Same grammatical meaning” implies that both members belong to the same part of speech.

      Same paradigm comprises also cases when there is only one word form, i.e. when the words are unchangeable. Inconsistent combinations of features are crossed out in the table. It is, for instance, impossible for two words to be identical in all word forms and different in basic forms, or for two homonyms to show no difference either in lexical or grammatical meaning, because in this case they are not homonyms. That leaves twelve possible classes. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  ABCD. Members of the opposition light noun ‘the contrary of darkness’ : : light adjective ‘not heavy’ are different in lexical and grammatical meaning, have different paradigms but the same basic form. The class of partial homonymy is very numerous. A further subdivision might take into consideration the parts of speech to which the members belong, namely the oppositions of noun : : verb, adjective : : verb, noun : : adjective, etc.

  ABCD. Same as above, only not both members are in their basic form. The noun (here might ‘power’) is in its basic form, the singular, but the verb may will coincide with it only in the Past Tense. This lack of coincidence between basic forms is not frequent, so only few examples are possible. Compare also bit noun ‘a small piece’ and bit (the Past Indefinite Tense and Participle II of bite).

ABCD. Contains pairs of words belonging to the same part of speech, different in their basic form but coinciding in some oblique form, e. g. in the plural, or in the case of verbs, in the Past Tense. Axe — axes, axis — axes. The type is rare.

ABCD. Different lexical meaning, same basic form, same grammatical meaning and different paradigm: lie — lay — lain and lie — lied — lied. Not many cases belong to this group.

ABCD. Represents pairs different in lexical and grammatical meaning but not in paradigm, as these are not changeable form words. Examples: for preposition contrasted to for conjunction.

ABCD. The most typical case of full homonymy accepted by everybody and exemplified in every textbook. Different lexical meanings, but the homonyms belong to the same part of speech: spring₁ noun ‘a leap’ :: spring₂ ‘a source’ :: spring₃ noun ‘the season in which vegetation begins’.

ABCD. Patterned homonymy. Differs from the previous (i.e. ABCD) in the presence of some common component in the lexical meaning of the members, some lexical invariant: before preposition, before adverb, before conjunction, all express some priority in succession. This type of opposition is regular among form words. .

ABCD. Pairs showing maximum identity. But as their lexical meaning is only approximately the same, they may be identified as variants of one polysemantic word.

ABCD. Contains all the cases due to conversion: eye noun : : eye verb. The members differ in grammatical meaning and paradigm. This group is typical of patterned homonymy. Examples of such noun-to-verb or verb-to-noun homonymy can be augmented almost indefinitely. The meaning of the second element can always be guessed if the first is known.

ABCD. Pairs belonging to different parts of speech and coinciding in some of the forms. Their similarity is due to a common root, as in thought noun : thought verb (the Past Indefinite Tense of think).

ABCD. Similarity in both lexical and grammatical meaning combined with difference in form is characteristic of synonyms.

ABCD. The group is not numerous and comprises chiefly cases of double plural with a slight change in meaning such as brother — brothers : : brother — brethren.

      It goes without saying that this is a model that gives a general scheme. Actually a group of homonyms may contain members belonging to different groups in this classification. Take, for example, fell₁ noun ‘animal’s hide or skin with the hair’; fell₂ noun ‘hill’ and also ‘a stretch of North-English moorland’; fell₃ adjective ‘fierce’ (poet.); fell₄ verb and noun ‘to cut down trees’ and as a noun ‘amount of timber cut’; fell₅ (the Past Indefinite Tense of the verb fall). This group may be broken into pairs, each of which will fit into one of the above described divisions. Thus, fell₁ : : fell₂ may be characterised as ABCD, fell₁ : : fell₄ as ABCD and  fell₄ : : fell₅ as ABCD [6:160-196].