Homonymy

Homonymy occurs when one phonological word has multiple unrelated senses. Different types of homonyms can be distinguished based on their syntactic behaviour and spelling. According to Saeed these distinctions include:

1.      Lexemes of the same syntactic category and with the same spelling

2.      Lexemes of the same category, but with different spelling

3.      Lexemes of different categories, but with the same spelling

4.      Lexemes of different categories and with different spelling (63-64)

The terms homograph and homophone can also be used to distinguish between senses of the same written word and senses of the same spoken word, respectively.

Homonyms are not the same for all speakers of a language. Differences in pronunciation will determine which words are homonyms and to what extent. According to Saeed “Some English speakers for example pronounce the pairs click and clique, or talk and torque, in the same way, making these homonyms which are spelled differently” (64).

There are two ways in which homonymy can come about. In the first case, the related meanings of polysemous words have drifted so far apart that the relationship between them is lost. An example of this is the word pupil. The word pupil can refer to a scholar or the iris of the eye. Both of these senses are derived from Latin pupillus/pupilla; a diminutive form of pupus meaning child.  The second case occurs when unrelated words that were originally phonologically undergo sound change over time until they are phonologically identical. An example of this is the word die. The verb to die comes from Old English and the noun die comes from Old French. Originally these two words had different pronunciation, but over time become phonologically identical. (Taylor 106).