What is the difference between polysemantic words and homonyms? Definition, examples

When studying the Russian language you come across a lot of terms. In the section "Vocabulary" there are more than two dozen terms that allow explaining various phenomena in the vocabulary of the Russian language. What distinguishes polysemantic words from homonyms, is described later in this article.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is the main section of linguistics. It consists of units - words, through which we can formulate our thoughts. Making out our thoughts with words, we mean what these words mean. Such meanings of words are fixed in dictionaries.

Each dictionary article relates the sound envelope of a word to that object or phenomenon that it designates. Lexical meaning from the whole set of features of the word calls the most basic, those that are regarded as meaningful.

A word without meaning can not be. And here I have to say about this phenomenon in Russian: some words have one meaning (for example, bandage, analgin, trolley, noun, etc.), and for some there are several (for example, a fire in the oven and in the shower , Sleeve shirt and river, etc.).

Unambiguous words in the Russian language are many, usually they are terms, names of animals, plants or the name of some profession. For example, syntax, roe deer, birch, neuropathologist. If everything is clear with this group, then the second one can cause some difficulties in determining: here it is necessary to talk about two terms that differ from each other. They are homonymous and polysemantic words.

Words that have one meaning make it possible to build our speech clearly and clearly. With another group the situation is more complicated: their meaning can be understood only from the context.

Examples of homonyms and polysemantic words with careful study show the main differences between these groups from each other.

Many-valued words

When we say a certain sound set with which several objects or phenomena of reality are associated in our mind, then we are dealing with a many-valued word.

For example, with the word "star" you can imagine a star in the sky, a star of show business, a starfish.

Multivalued words in Russian are a frequent occurrence. These are the most frequent, commonly used words. They can have many meanings. So, for example, the word "go" in the dictionary of Ozhegov has twenty-six meanings. Among them are: the time goes by, the hours go by (show the time), the rain goes (drips), the person walks (moves), the coat goes (comes to the face), etc.

Values of a multivalued word have a common component. For example, this is the "direction" of the word "road": an asphalt road, the road to the house, the road of life, the journey.

All the values of a multivalued word are divided into two groups: the first is the basic direct, and the derivatives are portable. The second is the result of transferring the sound-letter shell of the word to another object on some basis. For example, the word "hat" has the meaning "hat" and "part of the fungus," a common sign of a "field of circular shape."

As a result of such a transfer, metaphor and metonymy can result. Metaphor is a transfer based on similarity: by form (bell button); By color (gray clouds); Location (tail of the airplane), by function (the visor of the entrance). Metonymy draws an emotional picture (a storm of applause - a loud ovation, living in a hole is bad).

And now let's see what distinguishes polysemantic words from homonyms.

Homonyms

This is another group of words in Russian. They have similarities in writing and pronunciation, but they mean completely different things. For example, a braid - a female hairdo and an agricultural implement, glasses - a device for improving eyesight and score in the game.

Thus, similarity by some kind of feature is what distinguishes polysemantic words from homonyms.

Types of homonyms

Homonyms are divided into the following types:

• Homographs are words written in the same way, but pronounced differently; For example, "zamok" - "zamok";
• Homophones - are equally heard, but differently written; For example, "raft" - "fruit";
• Omoforms are words that coincide in some grammatical form; For example, "glass" is a noun and a verb in the past tense.

Differences

The modern poet Alexander Kushner has a poem "We and the Alien Bill", where both homonyms and polysemantic words are visually represented: the differences between the two groups are very well seen.

We were admiring walruses on the Neva,

As they sailed, they were squeezed by ice.

A foreigner named Bill

Was with us near and surprised everyone:

"You say that this is a walrus,

What is she wearing a hat, like a swimmer? "...

"It's a pity," I said, "that the Muscovites in the final

The Leningraders took away their points. "

A foreigner named Bill

Was with us near and surprised everyone:

"Give," he said, "to get to New York,

I will send glasses to the dear Leningraders. "

Many-valued words refer to objects that have a similar feature. Many words in this poem are the word walrus - a large northern sea animal and a lover of winter swimming. The general semantic part, uniting these values, is the ability to swim in icy water.

An alien named Bill did not understand the meaning of the word glasses . He thought that this is a subject for improving vision, and the poem speaks of an account in a sports game. Between the lexical meanings of these words there is no similarity. It's homonymous.

Dictionaries can be used to distinguish these terms. They use special notices to show which words are multi-valued and which are homonymous.

The causes of the appearance of homonyms

Linguists explain the reasons for the appearance of homonyms in the Russian language.

1. Borrowings lead to the fact that a foreign word can coincide in writing and sound. For example, the German word "marriage" (defect), appearing in our language, coincided with the Russian "marriage" (family relations).
2. When word-building using the tools available in the language (roots and affixes), the same words also appear. For example, the word "fortification" with the meaning "the place of the ancient settlement" coincided with the later formed identical, but with the meaning "huge city".
3. There is a change in the native Russian words under the influence of the processes that operate in the language. For example, the word "bow", which had the meaning "ancient weapons," acquired a new meaning "vegetable garden plant."
4. The disintegration of a multivalued word also leads to the appearance of homonyms. So the word "light" in the meaning of "the universe, the world" has acquired a new "dawn, morning."

Knowing the processes that occur in the language, one can understand the difference between polysemantic words from homonyms.