Homonyms in English and their specific features

MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL EDUCATION OFTHE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
GULISTAN STATE UNIVERSITY
The English and Literature department
Abdukarimov Doniyor’s qualification work on speciality5220100, English philology on theme:
“Homonyms in English and their specific features”
 
Supervisor: Ibragimov. O.O.
Gulistan-2006

CONTENTS
I. Introduction.
1.1. The tasks andpurposes of the work
2.1. The main items of thework
II. Main Part
1.2. Chapter1 Commonanalysis of homonyms in Modern English
1.1.2. Phoneticcoincidence and semantic differentiation of homonyms
2.1.2. Classification ofhomonyms
3.1.2. Diachronicallyapproach of homonyms
4.1.2. Synchronicallyapproach in studying homonymy
5.1.2. Lexical,grammatical and lexico-grammatical distinctions of homonyms
2.2. Chapter2. Theinterrelations between homonymy and polysemantic words.
1.2.2. Etymological andsemantic criteria in polysemy and homonymy
2.2.2. Comparativetypological analysis of two linguistic phenomena in English, Uzbek and Russian
3.2.2. Modern methods ofinvestigating homonyms
4.2.2. Practical approachin studying homonyms
5.2.2.Polysemy andHomonymy: Etymological and Semantic Criteria
6.2.2. Typologicalanalysis of homonymy and polysemy in three languages.
III. Conclusion.
1.3. Common review of theessence of the work
2.3. Perspectives of thequalification work
IV. Bibliography.

Introduction
 
1.1 The tasks and purposes of the work
The theme of my qualification work sounds as following: “Homonymsin English and their Specific Features”. This qualification work can becharacterized by the following:
The actuality of this work caused by several importantpoints. We seem to say that the appearance of new, homonymic meanings is one ofthe main trends in development of Modern English, especially in its colloquiallayer, which, in its turn at high degree is supported by development of moderninformational technologies and simplification of alive speech. So thesignificance of our work can be proved by the following reasons:
a) Studying of homonyms of words is one of the developingbranches of lexicology nowadays.
b) Homonyms reflect the general trend of simplification of alanguage.
c) Homonymic meanings of words are closely connected with thedevelopment of modern informational technologies.
d) Being a developing branch of linguistics it requires aspecial attention of teachers to be adequated to their specialization inEnglish.
e) The investigation of homonyms and their differentiationwith polysemantic words is not being still investigated in the sufficientdegree and this problem is still waiting for its investigator. Ourqualification work is one another attempt to investigate this problem.
Having based upon the actuality of the theme we are able toformulate the general goals of our qualification work.
a) To study, analyze, and sum up all the possible changeshappened in the studied branch of linguistics for the past fifty years.
b) To teach the problem of homonyms to young Englishlearners.
c) To demonstrate the significance of the problem for thosewho want to brush up their English.
d) To mention all the major linguists’ opinions concerningthe subject studied.
If we say about the new information used within our work wemay note that the work studies the problem from the modern positions andanalyzes the modern trends appeared in this subject for the last ten years. Inparticular, the new meanings of the old habitual words were mentioned in ourqualification work.
The practical significance of the work can be concluded inthe following items:
a) The work could serve as a good source of learning Englishby young teachers at schools and colleges.
b) The lexicologists could find a lot of interesting informationfor themselves.
c) Those who would like to communicate with theEnglish-speaking people through the Internet will find new causing homonymicterms in our qualification work.
Having said about the linguists studied the material beforewe can mention that our qualification work was based upon the investigationsmade by a number of well known English, Russian and Uzbek lexicologists asA.I.Smirnitsky, B.A. Ilyish, N.Buranov, V.V. Vinogradov, O.Jespersen and someothers.
If we say about the methods of scientific approaches used inour work we can mention that the method of typological analyses was used.
The newality of the work is concluded in including the newhomonymic meanings of words appeared during for the last ten years by means ofdevelopment and applying of the internet technologies.
The general structure of our qualification work looks asfollows:
The work is composed onto three major parts: introduction,main part and conclusion. Each part has its subdivision onto the specific thematicallyitems. There are two points in the introductory part: the first item tellsabout the general content of the work while the other gives us the generalexplanation of the lexicological phenomenon of homonymy in a language. The mainpart bears two chapters itself which, in their turn, are subdivided onto severalspecific items. The first chapter it explains the common analysis of homonymsin Modern English. Here we analyzed phonetic coincidence and semanticdifferentiation of homonyms in Modern English (the first item), acceptedclassification of the homonymic units of a language (the second item),diachronic and synchronic research to the problem studied (third and fourthitems subsequently). The second chapter shows the interrelations betweenhomonyms and polysemantic words. In the first item we made the etymological andsemantic criteria of distinguishing of homonyms and polysemantic words in theEnglish language. The second item of the work shows the typological analysis ofthe two linguistic phenomena in the three languages compared: English, Russianand Uzbek. The third and the fourth items summarize the ideas concerning themodern methods and practical approaches in investigating the linguisticphenomenon of homonyms and polysemantic words.
The conclusion of the qualification work sums up the ideasdiscussed in the main part (the first item) and shows the ways of implying ofthe qualification work (in the second item).
2.1. The main items of the work.
Words identical in sound-form butdifferent in meaning are traditionally termed homonymous.
Modern English is exceptionally richin homonymous words and word-forms. It is held that languages where short wordsabound have more homonyms than those where longer words are prevalent.Therefore it is sometimes suggested that abundance of homonyms in ModernEnglish is to be accounted for by the monosyllabic structure of the commonlyused English words.1
Not only words but other linguistic units may be homonymous.Here, however, we are concerned with the homonymy of words and word-forms only,so we shall not touch upon the problem of homonymous affixes or homonymousphrases. When analyzing different cases of homonymy we find that some words are
homonymous in all their forms, i.e. homonymy of the paradigms of two or moredifferent words as, e.g., in seal!—'a sea animal' and seal2—'adesign printed on paper by means of a stamp'. The paradigm «seal, seal's,seals, seals'» is identical for both of them and gives no indica­tion ofwhether it is sea or seal that we are analyzing. In other cases, e.g. seal—'asea animal' and (to) seal—'to close tightly', we see that although someindividual word-forms are homonymous, the whole of the paradigm is notidentical. Compare, for instance, the paradigms:seal
(to)seal3 seal seal seal's seals seals sealed seals' sealing, etc
It is easily observed that only someof the word-forms (e.g. seal, seals, etc.) are homonymous, whereas others (e.g.sealed, sealing) are not. In such cases we cannot speak of homonymous words butonly of homonymy of individual word-forms or of partial homonymy. This is trueof a number of other cases, e.g. compare find [famdj, found [faund], found[faund] and found [faundj, founded ['faundidj, founded [faundid]; know [nou],knows Jnouz], knew [nju:], and no [nou]; nose [nouz], noses [nouzizj; new[nju:J in which partial homonymy is observed. Consequently all cases ofhomonymy may be classified into full and partial homonymy, homonymy of wordsand homonymy of individual word-forms.
1) Professor 0. Jespersen calculated thatthere are roughly four times as many monosyllabic as polysyllabic homonyms. 0.Jespersen. Linguistics. Copenhagen-London, J933, p. 398.

MAIN PART
 
1.1.2 Words identical in sound-form but different inmeaning are traditionally termed homonymous
Modern English is exceptionally rich in homonymous words andword-forms. It is held that languages where short words abound have morehomonyms than those where longer words are prevalent. Therefore it is sometimessuggested that abundance of homonyms in Modern English is to be accounted forby the monosyllabic structure of the commonly used English words.
Not only words but other linguistic units may be homonymous.Here, however, we are concerned with the homonymy of words and word-forms only,so we shall not touch upon the problem of homonymous affixes or homonymous phrasesWhen analyzing different cases of homonymy we find that some words are homonymousin all their forms, i.e. we observe full homonymy of the paradigms of two ormore different words as, e.g., in seal a sea animal and seal—a design printedon paper by means of a stamp'. The paradigm «seal, seal's, seals,seals'» is identical for both of them and gives no indication of whetherit is seal (1) or seal (2) that we are analyzing. In other cases, e.g. seal—asea animal' and (to) seal (3)—'to close tightly, we see that although someindividual word-forms are homonymous, the whole of the paradigm is notidentical. Compare, for instance, the-paradigms:
1. (to)seal-seal-seal's-seals-seals'
2. seal-seals-sealed-sealing, etc.
1 Professor O. Jespersen1) calculated that thereare roughly four times as many monosyllabic as polysyllabic homonyms. It iseasily observed that only some of the word-forms (e.g. seal, seals, etc.) arehomonymous, whereas others (e.g. sealed, sealing) are not. In such cases we cannotspeak of homonymous words but only of homonymy of individual word-forms or ofpartial homonymy. This is true of a number of other cases, e.g. compare find[faind], found [faund], found [faund] and found [faund], founded ['faundidj,founded [faundid]; know [nou], knows [nouz], knew [nju:], and no [nou]; nose[nouz], noses [nouziz]; new [nju:] in which partial homonymy is observed.
From the examples of homonymydiscussed above it follows that the bulk of full homonyms are to be foundwithin the same parts of speech (e.g. seal(1) n—seal(2) n), partial homonymy asa rule is observed in word-forms belonging to different parts of speech (e.g.seal n—seal v). This is not to say that partial homonymy is impossible withinone part of speech. For instance in the case of the two verbs Me [lai]—'to bein a horizontal or resting position'—lies [laiz]—lay [lei]—lain [lein] and lie[lai]—'to make an untrue statement'—lies [laiz]—lied [laid]—lied [laid] we alsofind partial homonymy as only two word-forms [lai], [laiz] are homonymous, allother forms of the two verbs are different. Cases of full homonymy may be foundin different parts of speech as, e.g., for [for]—preposition, for[fo:]—conjunction and four [fo:] —numeral, as these parts of speech have noother word-forms.
2.1.2 Classification ofhomonyms
Modern English has a very extensivevocabulary; the number of words according to the dictionary data is no lessthan 400, 000.A question naturally arises whether this enormous word-stock iscomposed of separate independent lexical units, or may it perhaps be regardedas a certain structured system made up of numerous interdependent andinterrelated sub-systems or groups of words. This problem may be viewed interms of the possible ways of classifying vocabulary items. Words can beclassified in various ways. Here, however, we are concerned only with thesemantic classification of words which gives us a better insight into someaspects of the Modern English word-stock. Attempts to study the inner structureof the vocabulary revealed that in spite of its heterogeneity the Englishword-stock may be analyzed into numerous sub-systems the members of which havesome features in common, thus distinguishing them from the members of otherlexical sub-systems. Classification into monosynaptic and polysemantic words isbased on the number of meanings the word possesses. More detailed semanticclassifications are generally based on the semantic similarity (or polarity) ofwords or their component morphemes. Below we give a brief survey of some ofthese lexical groups of current use both in theoretical investigation andpractical class-room teaching.
3.1.2 Diachronicallyapproach of homonyms
Now let us analyze the semantic similarityof morphemes. Lexical groups composed of words with semantically andphonemically identical root-morphemes are usually described as word-families orword-clusters. The term itself implies close links between the members of thegroup. Such are word-families of the type: lead, leader, leadership; dark,darken, darkness; form, formal, formality, and others. It should be noted thatmembers of a word-family as a rule belong to different parts of speech and arejoined together only by the identity of root-morphemes. In the word-familiesdiscussed above the root-morphemes are identical not only in meaning but alsoin sound-form[1]. There are cases,however, when the sound-form of root-morphemes may be different, as for examplein sun, sunny, solar; mouth, oral, orally; brother, brotherly, fraternal, etc.;their semantic similarity however, makes it possible to include them in aword-family. In such cases it is usual to speak of lexical supplementation,i.e. formation of related words of a word-family from phonemically differentroots. As a rule in the word-families of this type we are likely to encounteretymologically different words, e.g. the words brother and mouth are ofGermanic origin, whereas fraternal and oral can be easily traced back to Latin.We frequently find synonymic pairs of the type fatherly — paternal,brotherly—fraternal. Semantic and phonemic identity of affixation morphemes canbe observed in the lexical groups of the type darkness, cleverness, calmness,etc.; teacher, reader, writer, etc. In such word-groups as, e.g. teacher,doctor, musician, etc., only semantic similarity of derivational affixes isobserved. As derivational affixes impart to the words a certain generalizedmeaning, we may single out lexical groups denoting the agent, the doer of theaction (Nomina Agenti)—teacher, reader, doctor, etc. or lexical groups denotingactions [Nomina
Acti] — movement, transformation, andothers.
Now we shall study the semantic similaritiesand polarities of words. Semantic similarity or polarity of words may beobserved in the similarity of their denotational or connotation meaning.Similarity or polarity of the denotational component of lexical meaning is tobe found in lexical groups of synonyms and antonyms. Similarity or polarity ofthe connotation components serves as the basis for stylistic stratification ofvocabulary units. Stylistic features of words and problems of stylisticstratification in general were discussed in connection with different types ofmeaning. So here let us confine ourselves mainly to the discussion of theproblems of the main word phenomena containing the English word stock: i.e. wemean synonyms and antonyms.
4.1.2 Synchronicallyapproach in studying homonyms
Synonymy, polysemy and homonymy inthe language hierarchy are usually felt to be correlative notions: firstlybecause the criterion of synonymy is semantic similarity which is in exactopposition to the criterion of antonym—semantic polarity. Secondly, becausesynonyms and polysemantic words seem to overlap in a number of cases. Forinstance, when we speak of the words “daddy” and “parent” as synonyms, we do sobecause of the similarity of their denotational meaning and polarity of theirstylistic reference (cf. daddy—colloquial, parent—bookish).
The problem of synonymy is treatedsimilarity differently by different linguists. The most debatable problem isthe definition of synonyms. Synonyms are traditionally described as wordsdifferent in sound-form but identical or similar in meaning. This definitionhas been severely criticized on many points. Firstly it seems impossible tospeak of identical or similar meaning of words as such, as this part of thedefinition cannot be applied to polysemantic words. It is inconceivable thatpolysemantic words could be synonymous in all their meanings. The verb “look”, forinstance, is usually treated as a synonym of the following words:”see”, “watch”,“observe”, etc., but in another of its meanings it is not synonymous with thisgroup of words but rather with the verbs seems, appear (cf. to look at smb. andto look pale). The number of synonymic sets of a polysemantism word tends as arule to be equal to the number of individual meanings the word possesses.
5.1.2. Lexical,grammatical and lexico-grammatical
In the discussion of polysemy andcontext we have seen that one of the ways of discriminating between differentmeanings of a word is the interpretation of these meanings in terms of theirsynonyms, e.g. the two meanings of the adjective handsome are synonymouslyinterpreted as handsome—'beautiful' (usually about men) andhandsome—'considerable, ample' (about sums, sizes, etc.).
Secondly it seems impossible to"speak of identity or similarity of lexical meaning as a whole as it is only thedenotation component that may be described as identical or similar. If weanalyses words that are usually considered synonymous, e.g. to die, to passaway; to begin, to commence, etc., we find that the connotation component or,to be more exact, the stylistic reference of these words is entirely differentand it is only the similarity of the denotation meaning that makes themsynonymous. The words, e.g. to die, to walk, to smile, etc., may be consideredidentical as to their stylistic reference or emotive charge, but as there is nosimilarity of denotation meaning they are never felt as synonymous words.
Thirdly it does not seem possible tospeak of identity of meaning as a criterion of synonymy as identity of meaningis very rare even among monosynaptic words. In fact, cases of complete synonymyare very few and are, as a rule, confined to technical nomenclatures where wecan find monosynaptic terms completely identical in meanings as, for example,spirant and fricative in phonetics. Words in synonymic sets are in generaldifferentiated because of some element of opposition in each member of the set.The word handsome, e.g., is distinguished from its synonym beautiful mainlybecause the former implies the beauty of a male person or broadly speaking onlyof human beings, whereas beautiful is opposed to it as having no suchrestrictions in its semantic structure[2].Thus it seems necessaryto modify the traditional definition and to word it as follows: synonyms arewords different in sound-form but similar in their denotational meaning ormeanings. Synonymous relationship is observed only between similar denotationalmeanings of phonemically different words.Differentiation of synonyms may beobserved in different semantic components—denotational or connotation.
It should be noted, however, that thedifference in denotation meaning cannot exceed certain limits and is found onlyas a variation of some common denotational component. The verbs look, seem,appear, e.g., are viewed as members of one synonymic set as all three of thempossess a common denotational semantic component «to be in one's view”.Semantic similarity of affixation morphemes is treated in more detail in thechapter about Word-Formation in Prof. Ginsburg’s textbook on lexicology,judgment, but not necessarily in fact» and come into comparison in thismeaning (cf. he seems (looks) (appears) tired). A more detailed analysis showsthat there is a certain difference in the meaning of each verb: seem suggests apersonal opinion based on evidence (e.g. nothing seems right when one is out ofsorts); look implies that opinion is based on a visual impression (e.g. thecity looks its worst in March), appear sometimes suggests a distortedimpression (e.g. the setting sun made the spires appear ablaze). Thussimilarity of denotational meaning of all members of the synonymic series iscombined with a certain difference in the meaning of each member.[3]
It follows that relationship ofsynonymy implies certain differences in the denotational meaning of synonyms.In this connection a few words should be said about the traditionalclassification of vocabulary units into ideographic and stylistic synonyms.This classification proceeds from the assumption that synonyms may differeither in the denotational meaning (ideographic synonyms) or the connotationmeaning, i.e. stylistic reference (stylistic synonyms). This assumption cannotbe accepted as synonymous words always differ in the denotational componentirrespective of the identity or difference of stylistic reference. Thestylistic reference in the synonymous verbs seem, appear, look may be regardedas identical though we observe some difference in their denotational component.Difference in the denotational semantic component is also found in synonymouswords possessing different connotational components. The verbs see and behold,e.g., are usually treated as stylistic synonyms; see is stylistically neutraland behold is described as bookish or poetic. It can be readily observed,however, that the difference between the two verbs is not confined solely tostylistic reference. Though they have a common denotational component 'to takecognizance of something by physical (or mental) vision', there is a markeddifference in their comparable meanings. The verb behold suggests only 'lookingat that which is seen', e.g. «behold them sitting in their glory»(Shelley), The verb see denotes 'have or use power of sight' (e.g. the blindcannot see), 'understand' (e.g. don't you see my meaning?), have knowledge orexperience of (e.g. he has seen a good deal in his long life) and others.
Consequently, the interrelation ofthe denotational and the connotational meaning of synonyms is rather complex.Difference or rather variation of the denotational component does not implydifference in either the stylistic reference or the emotive charge of membersof synonymic series. Difference of the connotational semantic component isinvariably accompanied by some variation of the denotational meaning ofsynonyms. Therefore it would be more consistent to subdivide synonymous wordsinto purely ideographic (denotational) and ideographic-stylistic synonyms. Itshould be pointed out that neither criterion the traditional definition ofsynonyms modified version suggested here provide for any objective criterion ofsimilarity of meaning. Judgment as to semantic similarity is based solely onthe linguistic intuition of the analyst.[4]
It is sometimes argued that themeaning of two words is identical if they can denote the same referent, inother words, if an object or a certain class of objects can always be denotedby either of the two words. For example in the sentence «Washington is thecapital of the United States»—«Washington» and «the capitalof the United States» have obviously the same referent, but there is nolinguistic relationship of synonymy between the two lexical units.
Recently attempts have been made tointroduce into the definition of synonymy the criterion of interchangeabilityin linguistic contexts. It is argued that for the linguistic similarity ofmeaning implies that the words are synonymous if either of them can occur inthe same context. In this case the relationship of synonymy is defined asfollows: «If A and B have almost identical environment except chiefly forsentences which contain both, we say they are synonyms» (cf. eye-doctor,oculist).
Another well-known definition also proceeding from thecontextual approach is the definition of synonyms as words which can replaceeach other in any given context without the slightest alteration either in thedenotational or connotational meaning.
The contextual approach also invites criticism as wordsinterchangeable in any given context are rarely found. This fact may beexplained as follows: firstly, words synonymous in some lexical contexts maydisplay no synonymity in others. As one of the English scholars aptly remarks,the comparison of the sentences «the rainfall in April was abnormal»and «the rainfall in April was exceptional» may give us grounds forassuming that exceptional and abnormal are synonymous. The same adjectives in adifferent context are by no means synonymous, as we may see by comparing«my son is exceptional» and «my son is abnormal».[5]
Secondly, it is evident that interchangeability alone cannotserve as a criterion of synonymity. Werner safely assumes that synonyms arewords interchangeable in some contexts. But the reverse is certainly not trueas semantically different words of the same part of speech are, as a rule,interchangeable in quite a number of contexts. For example, in the sentence«I saw a little girl playing in the garden» the adjective little maybe formally replaced by a number of semantically different adjectives, e.g.pretty, tall, English, etc.
Thus a more acceptable definition of synonyms seems to be thefollowing:
synonyms are words different in their sound-form, but similarin their denotational meaning or meanings and interchangeable at least in somecontexts.
Theoretically, the degree of synonymity of words may becalculated by the number of contexts in which these words are interchangeable.The simplest technique of such semantic analysis is substitution in variouscontexts. It is argued that two synonymous adjectives, e.g. deep and profound,could be analyzed in relation to each other by ascertaining how far they areinterchangeable in different contexts, say, in combination with water, voice,remark, relief; what changes of denotational meaning and emotive charge occurwhen they are interchanged (cf. deep relief—profound relief); what is theirproper antonym in each of these combinations (shallow, high, superficial); inhow many of the possible contexts they are interchangeable without anyconsiderable alteration of the denotational meaning, etc.
The English word-stock is extremely rich. Synonymic accountedfor by abundant borrowing. '" English Quite a number of words in asynonymic set are usually of Latin or French origin. For instance, out ofthirteen words making up the set see, behold, descry, espy, view, survey,contemplate, observe, notice, remark, note, discern, perceive only see andbehold can be traced back to Old English (OE. seen and beheading), all othersare either French or Latin borrowings[6].
Thus, a characteristic pattern of English synonymic sets isthe pattern including the native and the borrowed words. Among the bestinvestigated are the so called double-scale patterns: native versus Latin (e.g.bodily—corporal, brotherly— fraternal); native versus Greek or French (e.g.answer— reply, fiddle—violin). In most cases the synonyms differ in theirstylistic reference, too. The native word is usually colloquial (e.g. bodily,brotherly), whereas the borrowed word may as a rule be described as bookish orhighly literary (e.g. corporal, fraternal).
Side by side with this pattern there exists in English asubsidiary one based on a triple-scale of synonyms: native— French and Latin orGreek [e.g. begin (start)—commence (Fr.)—initiate (/.); rise—mount (Fr.)—ascend(/,)]. In most of these sets the native synonym is felt as more colloquial, theLatin or Greek one is characterized by bookish stylistic reference, whereas theFrench stands between the two extremes.
There are some minor points of interest that should bediscussed in connection with the problem of synonymy. It has often been foundthat subjects prominent in the interests of a community tend to attract a largenumber of synonyms. It is common knowledge that in Beowulf there are 37synonyms for hero or prince and at least a dozen for battle and fight. The sameepic contains 17 expressions for sea to which 13 more may be added from otherEnglish poems of that period. In Modern American English there are at leasttwenty words used to denote money: beans, bucks, the chips, do-re-mi, theneedful, wherewithal, etc. This linguistic phenomenon is usually described asthe law of synonymic attraction,
It has also been observed that when a particular word isgiven a transferred meaning its synonyms tend to develop along parallel lines.We know that in early New English the verb overlook was employed in the meaningof 'look with an evil eye upon, cast a spell over' from which there developedthe meaning 'deceive' first recorded in 1596. Exactly half a century later wefind oversee a synonym of overlook employed in the meaning of 'deceive'.1 Thisform of analogy active in the semantic development of synonyms is referred toas «radiation of synonyms».
1.2.2 Etymological and semantic criteria in polysemyand homonymy
As it was mentioned before, two or more words identical insound and spelling but different in meaning, distribution and (in many cases)origin are called homonyms. The term is derived from Greek (homos 'similar' andonoma 'name') and thus expresses very well the sameness of name combined withthe difference in meaning.
There is an obvious difference between the meanings of thesymbol fast in such combinations as run fast 'quickly' and stand fast 'firmly'.The difference is even more pronounced if we observe cases where fast is a nounor a verb as in the following proverbs: A clean fast is better than a dirtybreakfast; Who feasts till he is sick, must fast till he is well.
Fast as an isolated word, therefore, may be regarded as avariable that can assume several different values depending on the conditionsof usage, or, in other words, distribution. All the possible values of eachlinguistic sign are listed in dictionaries. It is the duty of lexicographers todefine the boundaries of each word, i.e. to differentiate homonyms and to unitevariants deciding in each case whether the different meanings belong to thesame polysemantic word or whether there are grounds to treat them as two ormore separate words identical in form. In speech, however, only one °f all thepossible values is determined by the context, so that no ambiguity may normallyarise. There is no danger, for instance that the listener would wish tosubstitute the meaning 'quick' into the sentence: It is absurd to have hard andfast rules about anything or think that fast rules here are 'rules of diet'.Combinations when two or more meanings are possible are either deliberate puns,or result from carelessness. Both meanings of liver, i.e. 'a living person' and'the organ that secretes bile' are, for instance, intentionally present in thefollowing play upon words: «7s life worth living?» «It dependsupon the liver.''
Very seldom can ambiguity of this kind interfere withunderstanding. The following example quoted from lies, 1 sound somewhatartificial, but may him also a deliberate joke and not carelessness: The girlswill be playing cricket in white stockings. We hope they won't get too manyruns. Runs in this context may mean either 'ladders in stockings' or 'the unitsof scoring, made by running once over a certain course' (a cricket term).
Homonymy exists in many languages, but in English it isparticularly frequent, especially among monosyllabic words. In the list of 2540homonyms given in the Oxford English Dictionary 89% are monosyllabic words andonly 9,1% are words of two syllables. From the viewpoint of their morphologicalstructure, they are mostly one-morpheme words. Many words, especially thosecharacterized by a high frequency rating, are not connected with meaning by a one-to-onerelationship. On the contrary, one symbol as a rule serves to render severaldifferent meanings. The phenomenon may be said to be the reverse of synonymywhere several symbols correspond to one meaning.
2.2.2 Comparative typological analysis of twolinguistic phenomena in English, Russian and Uzbek
The most widely accepted classification is that recognizing homonymsproper, homophones and homographs. Homonyms proper are words identical inpronunciation and spelling, like/as if and liver above or like scale 'one ofthe thin plates that form the outer covering of most fishes and reptiles' andscale, 'a basis for a system of measuring'. Homophones are words of the samesound but of different spelling and meaning: air :: heir; arms :: alms; buy ::bye: by; him :: hymn; knight :: night; not :: knot; or :: ore :: oar; piece;peace; rain :: reign; scent :: cent :: sent; steel :: steal; storey ;: storywrite :: right :: rite and many others.
For example, in the sentence “The millwright on my rightthinks it right that some conventional rite should symbolize the right of everyman to write as he pleases.” the sound complex [rait] is noun, adjective,adverb and verb, has four different spellings and six different meanings[7].
The difference may be confined to the use of a capital letteras in bill and Bill, in the following example: „How much is my milkbill?“ „Excuse me, Madam, but my name is John.“ Homographs arewords different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling:bow [bou] :: bow IbauJ; lead [li:d] :: lead [led]; row [rouj :: row [rau];sewer I'soua] :: sewer [sjual; tear [tea] :: tear [tia]; wind [wind] :: wind[wand] and many more.
It has been often argued that homographs constitute aphenomenon that should
be kept apart from homonymy as the object of linguistics issound language. This viewpoint cans hardly be accepted. Because of the effectsof education and culture written English is a generalized national form ofexpression. An average speaker does not separate the written and oral form. Onthe contrary he is more likely to analyze the words in Terries of letters thanin terms of phonemes with which he is less familiar. That is why a linguistmust take into consideration both the spelling and the pronunciation of wordswhen analyzing cases of identity of form and diversity of content.[8]
Various types of classification for homonyms proper have beensuggested. The one most often used in present-day Annalistic in Russia it isthat suggested by Prof. A. I. Smirnitsky1). It has been criticized for failingto bring out the main characteristic features of homonyms.
A more comprehensive system may be worked out on the samebasis if we are guided by the theory of oppositions and in classifying thehomonyms take into consideration the difference or sameness in their lexicaland grammatical meaning, paradigm and basic form. The distinctive featuresshown in the table on lexical meaning (different denoted by A, or nearly samedenoted by A l) grammatical meaning (different denoted by B, or same denoted byB), 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 hetaken too literally. It means only that the corresponding members of theopposition have some important invariant components in common. „Samegrammatical meaning“ implies that both members belong to the same part ofspeech.
Same paradigm comprises also cases when there is only oneword form, i.e. when the words are unchangeable. Inconsistent combinations offeatures are crossed out in the table. It is, for instance, impossible for twowords to be identical in all word forms and different in basic forms, or fortwo homonyms to show no difference either in lexical or grammatical meaning,because in this case they are
not homonyms. That leaves seven possible classes.
ABCD, Members of the opposition “light” (noun) – “light”(adjective) are different in lexical and grammatical meaning, have differentparadigms but the same basic form. The class is very numerous. A furthersubdivision might take into consideration the parts of speech to which themembers belong, namely the oppositions of noun vs. verb, adjective vs. verb,noun vs. adjective, etc.
ABCD. Same as above, only not both members are in their basicform. The noun (here might) is in its basic form, the singular, but the verbwill coincide with it only in the Past Tense. This lack of coincidence betweenbasic forms is not frequent, so only few examples are possible.
Cf. also “bit” (noun) — 'a small piece' and “bit” — PastTense and Participle II of “bite”.
ABCD, Represents pairs different in lexical and grammaticalmeaning but not in paradigm, as these are not changeable words. For example, “for”(preposition) contrasted to “for” — conjunction.
ABCD. Patterned homonymy.1 Differs from the previous (i.e.ABGD) in the presence of some common component in the lexical meaning of themembers, some lexical invariant:
For example, the word “before” has the following lexical invalidations:“before” (prep.), “before” (adv), “before” (conj.), though they all expresssome priority in succession. This type of opposition is regular among formwords.
ABCD. Contains all the cases due to conversion:
For example, “eye” (noun) vs. “eye” (verb). These membersdiffer in grammatical meaning and paradigm. It should be borne in mind thatthey also belong to patterned homonymy. Examples of such noun-to-verb orverb-to-noun homonymy can be augmented almost indefinitely The meaning of thesecond can always be guessed if the first is known.
ABCD. Different lexical meaning, same grammatical meaning;and different paradigm:
e.g. lie ~ lay ~ lain and lie — lied — lied in many casesbelong to this group. We should also underline the configuration of cases ofdouble plural
 cf.: “genius” – “geniuses” and “genius” – “genii”.
ABCD. The most typical case of homonymy accepted by everybodyand exemplified in every textbook. Different lexical meanings but the homonymsbelong to the same part of speech: For example, the word “spring” can beunderstood as a leap, “spring” as a source and “spring” as the season in whichvegetation begins.
It goes without saying that this is a model that gives ageneral scheme. Actually, a group of homonyms may contain members belonging todifferent groups in this classification.
 
3.2.2 Modern methods of investigating homonyms
The intense development of homonymy in the English languageis obviously due not to one single factor but to several interrelated causes,such as the monosyllabic character of English and its analytic structure.Inflections have almost disappeared in present-day English and have beensuperseded by separate words of abstract character (prepositions, auxiliaries,etc.) stating the relations that once expressed by terminations.[9]
The abundance of homonyms is also closely connected with acharacteristic feature of the English language as the phonetic unity of wordand stem or, in other words, the predominance of forms among the most frequentroots. It is very obvious that the frequency of words stands in some inverserelationship to length, the monosyllabic words will be the most frequentmoreover, as the most frequent words are also highly polysemantic, It is onlynatural that they develop meanings which in the course of time may deviate veryfar from the central one. When the inter-mediate links fall out, some of thesenew meanings lose all with the rest of the structure and start a separateexistence. Phenomenon is known as disintegration or split of polysemy,Different causes by which homonymy may be brought about subdivided into two maingroups:
1) Homonymy through convergent sound development, when orthree words of different origin accidentally coincide in sound;
2) Homonymy developed from polysemy through divergentdevelopment. Both may be combined with loss of endings and 0tJier morphologicalprocesses.
In Old English the words “gesund”- 'healthy' and “sund”-'swimming' were separate words both in form and in meaning. In the course oftime they have changed their meaning and phonetic form, and for latteraccidentally coincided: OE “sund” in ME “sound” 'strait’. The group was joinedalso accidentally by the noun sound 'what is or may be heard' with thecorresponding verb that developed from French and ultimately the Latin word“sonus”, and the verb sound 'to measure the depth' of dubious etymology. Thecoincidence is purely accidental.
Two different Latin verbs: “cadere”-'to fair and “capere”-'to hold' are the respective sources of the homonyms In case1 'instance ofthing's occurring' and case a box. Homonymy of this type is universallyrecognized. The other type is open to discussion.
Unlike the homonyms case and sound all the homonyms of thebox group due to disintegration or split of polysemy are etymologicallyconnected. The sameness of form is not accidental but based on geneticrelationship. They are all derived from one another and are all ultimatelytraced to the Latin “buxus”. The Concise Oxford Dictionary1) hasfive separate entries for box: 1.box n. — 'a kind of small evergreen shrub';
2. box n. 'receptacle made of wood, cardboard, metal, etc.and usually provided with a lid';
3. box v. 'to put into a box';
4. box n. 'slap with the hand on the ear';
5. boxt v. ‘a sport term meaning 'to fight with fists inpadded gloves'.[10]
Such homonyms may be partly derivedfrom one another but their common point of origin lies beyond the limits of theEnglish language. In these with the appearance of a new meaning, very differentfrom the previous one, the semantic structure of the parent word splits. Thenew meaning receives a separate existence and starts a new semantic structureof its own. Hence the term disintegration or split of polysemy. It must benoted, however, that though the number of examples in which a process of thissort could be observed is considerable, it is difficult to establish exactcriteria by which disintegration of polysemy could be detected. The wholeconcept is based on stating whether there is any connection between themeanings or not, and is very subjective. Whereas in the examples dealing withphonetic convergence, i.e. when we said that “case1” and “case2” are differentwords because they differ in origin, we had definite linguistic criteria to goby, in the case of disintegration of polysemy there are none to guide us; wecan only rely on intuition and individual linguistic experience. For a trainedlinguist the number of unrelated homonyms will be much smaller than for anuneducated person. The knowledge of etymology and cognate languages will alwayshelp to supply the missing links. It is easier, for instance, to see theconnection between beam 'a ray of light' and beam 'the metallic structural partof a building' if one knows the original meaning of the word, i.e. 'tree' (OEbeam, Germ Baum), and is used to observe similar metaphoric transfers in otherwords. The connection is also more obvious if one is able to notice the sameelement in such compound names of trees as hornbeam, white beam, etc.
The conclusion, therefore, is that indiachronistic treatment the only rigorous criterion is that of etymology observedin explanatory dictionaries of the English language where words are separatedaccording to their origin,
For example, in the words match1 'apiece of inflammable material you strike fire with' (from OFr “mesche”, Fr“meche”) and match2 (from OE “gemcecca” 'fellow').
It is interesting to note that out of2540 homonyms listed in a dictionary1) only 7% are due todisintegration of polysemy, all the others are etymologically different. Onemust, however, keep in mind that patterned homonymy is here practicallydisregarded. This underestimation of regular patterned homonymy tends toproduce a false impression. Actually the homonymy of nouns and verbs due to theprocesses of loss of endings on the one hand and conversion on the other is oneof the most prominent features of present-day English… It may be combinedwith semantic changes as in the pair “long” (adj.) – “long” (verb). Theexplanation is that when it seems long before something comes to you, you longfor it (long (adj.) comes from OE “lang”, whereas “long” (v.)comes from OE“langian”, so that the expression “Me longs” means 'it seems long to me'.
The opposite process of morphemicaddition can also result in homonymy. This process is chiefly due toindependent word-formation with the same affix or to the homonymy ofderivational and functional affixes. The suffix -er forms several words withthe same stem: trail — trailer 'a creeping plant' vs. trailer 'a caravan', i.e.'a vehicle drawn along by another vehicle'. The suffix -s added to thehomonymous stems -arm- gives “arms” (n.) 'Weapon' and “arms” (v.) 'Supplieswith weapons'. In summing up this dichromatic analysis of homonymy it should beemphasized that there are two ways by which homonyms come into being, namelyconvergent development of sound form and divergent development of meaning (seetable below). The first may consist in
(a) phonetic change only,
(b) phonetic change combined withloss of affixes,
(e) independent formation
from homonymous bases by means ofhomonymous morphemes. The second, that is divergent development of meaning maybe
(a) limited within onelexico-grammatical class of words,
(b) combined with difference in lexico-grammaticalclass and therefore difference in grammatical functions and distribution,
(c) based on independent formation fromthe same base by homonymous morphemes.
The process can sometimes be morecomplicated. At present there are at least two homonyms: “stick”(noun1) — 'insert pointed things into', a highly polysemantic word, and the no lesspolysemantic “stick” (noun) 'a rod'.
In the course of time the number ofhomonyms on the whole increases, although occasionally the conflict of homonymsends in word loss.
4.2. 2 Practical approachin studying homonyms
The synchronic treatment of Englishhomonyms brings to the forefront a set of problems of paramount importance fordifferent branches of applied linguistics: lexicography, foreign languageteaching and machine translation. These problems are: the criteriadistinguishing homonymy from polysemy, the formulation of rules for recognizingdifferent meanings of the same homonym in terms of distribution, and thedescription of difference between patterned and irregular homonymy. It isnecessary to emphasize that all these problems are connected with difficultiescreated by homonymy in understanding the message by the reader or listener, notwith formulating one's thoughts; they exist for the speaker only in so far ashe must construct his speech in a way that would prevent all possiblemisunderstanding.
All three problems are so closelyinterwoven that it is difficult to separate them. So we shall discuss them asthey appear for various practical purposes. For a lexicographer it is a problemof establishing word boundaries. It is easy enough to see that match, as insafety matches, is a separate word from the verb match 'to suit'. But he mustknow whether he is justified in taking into one entry match, as in footballmatch, and match in meet one's match 'one's equal'. Can the English verb bearin bear a burden, bear troubles, bear fruit, bear offspring be viewed as asingle word or as a set of two or perhaps even more homonyms? Similarly,charge, in charge the gun, charge the man with theft, charge somebody a stiffprice can be viewed in several ways.
On the synchronic level, when thedifference in etymology is irrelevant, the problem of establishing thecriterion for the distinction between different words identical in sound form,and different meanings of the same word becomes hard to solve. The semantic criterionwhich ultimately is reduced to distinguishing between words that „havenothing in common semantically“ and those that „have something incommon“ and therefore must be taken as one lexical unit, is very vague andhopelessly subjective. Nevertheless the problem cannot be dropped altogether asupon an efficient arrangement of dictionary entries depends the amount of timespent by the readers in looking up a word: a lexicographer will either save orwaste his readers' time and effort.
Actual solutions differ. It is awidely spread practice in English lexicography to combine in one entry words ofidentical phonetic form showing similarity of lexical meaning or, in otherwords, revealing a lexical invariant, even if they belong to different parts ofspeech. In post-war lexicography in our country a different trend has settled.The Anglo-Russian dictionary edited by V. D. Arakin makes nine separate entrieswith the word “right” against four items given in the dictionary edited byHornby.
The truth is that there exists nouniversal criterion for the distinction between polysemy and homonymy, unlessone accepts the solution offered by V. I. Abayev and follows the data ofetymology, separating as homonyms only those words that have different sourcesand only accidentally coincided phonetically. The necessary restriction is thatdifferent sources must be traced within the history of the language. Words thatcoincided phonetically before they penetrated into the English vocabulary arenot taken into account. The etymological criterion, however, may very oftenlead to distortion of the present-day situation. The English vocabulary ofto-day is not a replica of the Old English vocabulary with some additions fromborrowing. It is in many respects a different system, and this system will notbe revealed if the lexicographer is guided by etymological criteria only. Amore or less simple, if not very rigorous, procedure based on purely synchronicdata may be prompted by transformational analysis. It may be called explanatorytransformation. It is based on the assumption that if different senses renderedby the same phonetic complex can be defined with the help of an identicalkernel word-group, they may be considered sufficiently near to be regarded asvariants of the same word; if not, they are homonyms.
Consider the following set ofexamples:
1. A child's voice is heard.2. His voice… was… annoyingly well-bred.
3. The voice-voicelessness distinction… sets up someEnglish consonants in opposed pairs...
4. In the voice contrast of active and passive… the active isthe unmarked form.
The first variant (voice1 may be defined as 'sounds utteredin speaking or singing as characteristic of a particular person', voice2 as'mode of uttering sounds in speaking or singing', voice3 as 'the vibration ofthe vocal chords in sounds uttered'. So far all the definitions contain one andthe same kernel element rendering the invariant common basis of their meaning.It is, however, impossible to use the same kernel element for the meaningpresent in the fourth example. The corresponding definition is: „Voice —that forms of the verb that expresses the relation of the subject to theaction“. This failure to satisfy the same explanation formula sets thefourth meaning apart. It may then be considered a homonym to the polysemanticword embracing the first three variants.
The procedure described may remain helpful when the itemsconsidered belong to different parts of speech; the verb voice may mean, forexample, 'to utter a sound by the aid of the vocal chords'.
This brings us to the problem of patterned homonymy, i. e. ofthe invariant lexical meaning present in homonyms that have developed from onecommon source and belong to various parts of speech.
Is a lexicographer justified in placing the verb to voicewith the above meaning into the same entry with the first three variants of thenoun? The same question arises with respect to after or before — preposition,conjunction and adverb.
The elder generation of English linguists thought it quitepossible for one and the same word to function as different parts of speech.1Such pairs as act n — act v, back n — back v, drive n — drive v, the abovementioned after and before and the like, were all treated as one wordfunctioning as different parts of speech. Later on this point of view wasseverely criticized. It was argued that one and the same word could not belongto different parts of speech simultaneously because this would contradict thedefinition of the word as a system of forms. This viewpoint is not faultlesseither: if one follows it consistently one should regard as separate words allcases when words are countable nouns in one meaning and uncountable in another,when verbs can be used transitively and intransitively, etc.
In this case hair 'all the hair that grows on a person'shead7 will be one word, an uncountable noun; whereas a single thread of hairwill be denoted by another word (hair2) which, being countable, and thusdifferent in paradigm, cannot be considered the same word. It would be tediousto enumerate all the absurdities that will result from choosing this path. Adictionary arranged on these lines would require very much space in printing andcould occasion much wasted time in use. The conclusion therefore is thatefficiency in lexicographic work is secured by a rigorous application ofetymological criteria combined with formalized procedures of establishing alexical invariant suggested by synchronic linguistic methods.
As to those concerned with teaching of English as a foreignlanguage, they are also keenly interested in patterned homonymy. The mostfrequently used words constitute the greatest amount of difficulty, as may besummed up by the following example: I think that this „that“ is aconjunction but that «that» man that used was a pronoun.
A correct understanding of this peculiarity of contemporaryEnglish should be instilled in the pupils from the very beginning, and theyshould be taught to find their way in sentences where several words have theirhomonyms in other parts of speech, as in Jespersen's1) example: Willchange of air cure-love? l To show the scope of the problem for the elementarystage a list of homonyms that should be classified as patterned is given below:
“Above” – prep., adv., adj.; “act”-n., v.; “after” — prep., adv., conj.; “age” – n., v.; “back” – n., adv., v.;“ball” – n., v.; “bank”
We may give the other examples: by,can, case, close, country, course, cross, direct, draw, drive, even, faint,flat, fly, for, game, general, hard, hide, hold, home, just, kind, last, leave,left, lie, light, like, little, lot, major, march, match, may, mean, might,mind, miss, part, plain, plane, plate, right, round, sharp, sound, spare,spell, spring, square, stage, stamp, try, type, volume, watch, well, will, etc.
For the most part all these words arecases of patterned lexico-grammatical homonymy taken from the minimumvocabulary of the elementary stage: the above homonyms mostly differ withineach group grammatically but possess some lexical invariant. That is to say,act v follows the standard four-part system of forms with a base form act, ans-form (act-s), a Past Tense form (acted) and an -ing- form (acting) and takesup all syntactic functions of verbs, whereas act n can have two forms, act(singular.) and acts (plural). Semantically both contain the most generalizedcomponent rendering the notion of doing something.
Recent investigations have shown thatit is quite possible to establish and to formalize the differences inenvironment, syntactical or lexical, serving to signal which of the severalinherent values is to be ascribed to the variable in a given context.
An example of distributional analysiswill help to make this point clear. The distribution of a lexico-semanticvariant of a word may be represented as a list of structural patterns in whichit occurs and the data on its combining power. Some of the most typicalstructural patterns for a verb are: N + V -f- N, N + V –f- Prep.; V- N,N-f-V-f-Adj., N + V + Adv., N + V + t o –f- V and some others. Patterns fornouns are far less studied, but for the present case one very typical examplewill suffice. This is the structure article for A + N. In the following extractfrom «A Taste of Honey» by Sheath
Delaney the morpheme “laugh” occursthree times:
1.I can't stand people who laugh atother people.
2. They'd get a bigger laugh, if theylaughed at themselves.
We recognize laugh used first andlast here as a verb because the formula is N + laugh + prep + N and so thepattern is in both cases \ -[-V H-prep — N. In the beginning of the secondsentence laugh is a noun and the pattern is article -f- A -J- N.
This elementary example can give avery general idea of the procedure which can be used for solving morecomplicated
99Distributional analysis of thistype is of great practical importance both in foreign language teaching and inmachine translation. In order to translate a sentence the machine must analyzeit, i.e. determine the types of elementary configurations that constitute it.Practically speaking, the pupil even if taught by patterns, must do the same.Elementary configurations are not mere word-groups but combinations of wordclasses. Therefore in the process of identification of the symbols given, it isnecessary to establish to what classes they belong. As homonymy prevents this,the first step to be taken in machine translation aims at getting rid ofhomonymy. The system of formal rules aimed at revealing and eliminatinglexico-grammatical homonymy in machine translation has been described by T.Moloshnaya. l These rules begin with morphological criteria: if the word formconsidered has an ending typical of one class and impossible in all others, itsclass is thus determined. Laughed is obviously a verb, as the noun does nottake the ending -ed. Of the two homonyms complete v and complete adj. only theverb can have such endings as -ed, -ing. When the morphological data areexhausted, syntactical combinations are analyzed.
Without attempting to give a moredetailed analysis of these operations since they belong rather to grammar thanto lexicology, we may sum up our discussion by pointing out that whereasdistinction between polysemy and homonymy is relevant and important forlexicography it is not relevant for the practice of either human or machinetranslation. The reason for this is that different variants of a polysemanticword are not less conditioned by context than lexical homonyms. In both casesthe identification of the necessary meaning is based on the corresponding.distribution that can signal it and must be present in the memory either ofthe pupil or the machine. The distinction between patterned and non-patternedhomonymy, greatly underrated until now, is of far greater importance. Innon-patterned homonymy every unit is to be learned separately both from thelexical and grammatical points of view. In patterned homonymy when one knows thelexical meaning of a given word in one part of speech, one can accuratelypredict the meaning when the same sound complex occurs in some other part ofspeech, provided, of course, that there is sufficient context to guide one.
5.2.2 Homonyms may be alsoclassified by the type of meaning into lexical, lexico-grammatical andgrammatical homonyms
In seal n and seal n, e.g., thepart-of-speech meaning of the word and the grammatical meanings of all itsforms are identical. (cf. seal [si:l] Common Case Singular, seal's [si:lz]Possessive Case Singular for both seal* and sea!2). The difference is confinedto lexical meaning only or, to be more exact, to the denotational component:seal denotes 'a sea animal', 'the fur of this animal', etc., seaI2—'a designprinted on paper, the stamp by which the design is made', etc. So we can saythat seal 2 and seal are lexical homonyms as they differ in lexical meaning.
If we compare seal —'a sea animal'and (to) seal 3—'to close tightly', we shall observe not only a difference in thelexical meaning of their homonymous word-forms, but a difference in theirgrammatical meanings as well. Identical sound-forms, i.e. seals [si:lz] (CommonCase Plural of the noun) and (he) seals [si:lz] (third person Singular of the(verb) possess each of them different grammatical meanings. As both grammaticaland lexical meanings differ we describe these homonymous word-forms aslexico-grammatical homonymy.
Lexico-grammatical homonymy generallyimplies that the homonyms in question belong to different parts of speech asthe part-of-speech meaning is a blend of the lexical and grammatical semanticcomponents. There may be cases however when lexico-grammatical homonymy isobserved within the same part of speech as, e.g., in the verbs (to) find[faind] and (to) found [faund], where homonymic word-forms: found [faund]—PastTense of (to) find and found [faund]—Present Tense of (to) found differ bothgrammatically and lexically. Modern English abounds in homonymic word-formsdiffering in grammatical meaning only. In the paradigms of the majority ofverbs the form of the Past Tense is homonymous with the form of Participle II,e.g. asked [a:sktl—asked [a:skt]; in the paradigm of nouns we usually findhomonymous forms of the Possessive Case Singular and the Common Case Plural,e.g.: brother’s. It may be easily observed that grammatical homonymy is thehomonymy of different word-forms of one and the same word. The twoclassifications: full and partial homonymy and lexical, lexico-grammatical andgrammatical homonymy are not mutually exclusive. All homonyms may be describedon the basis of the two criteria—homonymy of all forms of the word or only someof the word-forms and the type of meaning in which homonymous words orword-forms differ. So we speak of full lexical homonymy of seen and seal 2 n,of partial lexical homonymy of live and leave, and of partiallexico-grammatical homonymy of seen and seal 3 It should be pointed out that inthe some classification discussed above one of Peculiarities the groups, namelylexico-grammatical of Lexico-Grammatical homonymy, is not homogeneous. This canbe seen by analyzing the relationship between two pairs of lexico-grammaticalhomonyms, e.g.
1. seal a sea animal'—seal 3 v—'toclose tightly as with a seal;
2. seal 2 n—'a piece of wax,lead'—seal 3 f—'to close tightly as with a seal'.
We can see that seal n and seal 3 vactually differ in both grammatical and lexical meanings. We cannot establishany semantic connection between the meaning «a sea animal" and «toclose tightly». The lexical meanings of seal 2 n and seal3u areapprehended by speakers as closely related for both the noun and the verbdenote something connected with «a piece of wax, lead, etc., a stamp bymeans of which a design is printed on paper and paper envelopes are tightlyclosed». Consequently the pair seal 3 n—seal 3 v does not answer thedescription of homonyms as words or word-forms that sound alike but differ inlexical meaning. This is true of a number of other cases of lexico-grammaticalhomonymy, e.g. work n—(to) work o; paper /i—(to) paper v; love n—(to) love vand so on. As a matter of fact all homonyms arising from conversion haverelated meanings.
It is sometimes argued that as a rule the whole of thesemantic structure of such words is not identical. The noun paper, e.g., has atleast five meanings (1. material in the form of sheets, 2. a newspaper, 3. a document, 4. an essay, 5. a set of printed examination questions) whereas theverb paper possesses but one meaning «to cover with wall-paper». Itfollows that the whole of the semantic structure of the two words isessentially different, though individual meanings are related.
Considering this peculiarity of lexico-grammatical homonymswe may subdivide them into two groups: A. identical in sound-form but differentin their grammatical and lexical meanings (sea n—seal3 v), and B. identical insound-form but different in their grammatical meanings and partly different intheir lexical meaning, i.e. partly different in their semantic structure (seal2v; paper n—(to) paper v). Thus the definition of homonyms as words possessingidentical sound-form but different semantic structure seems to be more exact asit allows of a better understanding of complex cases of homonymy, e.g. seahn—seah n—sealx v —seal3 u which can be analyzed into homonymic pairs, e.g. sealn—seal n—lexical homonyms; seal n—seal 3 v—lexico-grammatical homonyms,subgroup A; seals n—seal3y— lexico-grammatical homonyms, subgroup B; etc.
In the discussion of the problem of graphic homonymy weproceeded from the as possessing both sound-form and meaning, and wedeliberately disregarded their graphic form. Some linguists, however, arguethat the graphic form of words in Modern English is just as important as theirsound-form and should be taken into consideration in the analysis andclassification of homonyms. Consequently they proceed from the definition ofhomonyms as words identical in sound-form or spelling but different in meaning.It follows that in their classification of homonyms all the three aspects: sound-form,graphic-form and meaning are taken into account. Accordingly they classifyhomonyms into homographs, homophones and perfect homonyms.
Homographs are words identical in spelling, but differentboth in their sound-form and meaning, e.g. bow n [bouj— 'a piece of wood curvedby a string and used for shooting arrows' and bow n (bail—'the bending of thehead or body'; tear n [tiaj—'a drop of water that comes from the eye' and tearv [tesj—'to pull apart by force'.
Homophones are words identical in sound-form but differentboth in spelling and in meaning, e.g. sea n and see v; son n and sun n.
Perfect homonyms are words identical both in spelling and insound-form but different in meaning, e.g. case in something that has happened'and case n—'a box, a container’. It may be readily observed that in thisapproach no distinction is made between homonymous words and homonymousword-forms or between full and partial homonymy. The description of various typesof Sources homonyms in Modern English would of Homonymy incomplete if we did flatgive flat brief outline of the diachronic processes that account for theirappearance.
6.2.2 The two main sources of homonymy are:
1) diverging meaning development of one polysemantic word,and 2) converging sound development of two or more different words. The processof diverging meaning development can be observed when different meanings of thesame word move so far away from each other that they come to be regarded as twoseparate units. This happened, for example, in the case of Modern Englishflower and flour which originally were one word meaning 'the flower' and 'thefinest part of wheat'. The difference in spelling underlines the fact that fromthe synchronic point of view they are two distinct words even thoughhistorically they have a common origin.
Convergent sound development is the most potent factor in thecreation of homonyms. The great majority of homonyms arise as a result ofconverging sound development which leads to the coincidence of two or morewords which were phonetically distinct at an earlier date.
For example: OE. Icand OE cage have become identical inpronunciation (MnE. I [ai] and eye [ai], A number of lexico-grammaticalhomonyms appeared as a result of convergent sound development of the verb andthe noun (cf. MnE. love—(to) love and OE. lufu—lufian).

5.2.2 Polysemy and Homonymy: Etymological and SemanticCriteria
Words borrowed from other languages may through phoneticconvergence become homonymous. Old Norse has and French race are homonymous inModern English (cf. race1 [reis]—'running' and race2 [reis] 'a distinctethnical stock'). There are four homonymic words in Modern English: sound —’healthy’was already in Old English homonymous with sound—'a narrow passage of water',though etymologically they are unrelated. Then two more homonymous wordsappeared in the English language, one comes from Old French son (L. sonus) anddenotes 'that which is or may be heard' and the other from the French sunder thesurgeon's probe. One of the most debatable problems in semasiology is thedemarcation line between homonymy and polysemy, i.e. between different meaningsof one word and the meanings of two homonymous words.
If homonymy is viewed diachronically then all cases of soundconvergence of two or, more words may be safely regarded as cases of homonymyas, e.g., sound i, sound2, sound-e, and sound4 which can be traced back to fouretymologically different words. /fie cases of semantic divergence, however, aremore doubtful. The transition from polysemy to homonymy is a gradual process,so it is hardly possible to point out the precise stage at which divergentsemantic development tears asunder all ties of etymological kinship and resultsin the appearance of two separate words/ In the case of flower, flour,1 e.g.,it is mainly the resultant divergence of graphic forms that gives us grounds toassert that the two meanings which originally made up the semantic structure ofone word are now apprehended as belonging to two different words.
Synchronically the differentiation between homonymy andpolysemy is wholly based on the semantic criterion. It is usually held that ifa connection between the various meanings is apprehended by the speaker, theseare to be considered as making up the semantic structure of a polysemanticword, otherwise it is a case of homonymy, not polysemy.
Thus the semantic criterion implies that the differencebetween polysemy and homonymy is actually reduced to the differentiationbetween related and unrelated meanings. This traditional semantic criteriondoes not seem to be reliable, firstly, because various meanings of the sameword and the meanings of two or more different words may be equally apprehendedby the speaker as synchronically unrelated/ For instance, the meaning 'a changein the form of a noun or pronoun' which is usually listed in dictionaries asone of the meanings of case!—'something that has happened', 'a question decidedin a court of law' seems to be just as unrelated to the meanings of this wordas to the meaning of case2 —'a box, a container', etc
Secondly in the discussion of lexico-grammatical homonymy itwas pointed out that some of the mean of homonyms arising from conversion (e.g.seal in—seal 3 v; paper n—paper v) are related, so this criterion cannot beapplied to a large group of homonymous word-forms in Modern English. Thiscriterion proves insufficient in the synchronic analysis of a number of otherborderline cases, e.g. brother—brothers— 'sons of the same parent' andbrethren—'fellow members of a religious society'. The meanings may beapprehended as related and then we can speak of polysemy pointing out that thedifference in the morphological structure of the plural form reflects thedifference of meaning. Otherwise we may regard this as a case of partiallexical homonymy. The same is true of such cases as hang—hung—hung—'to supportor be supported from above' and hang—hanged—hanged—'to put a person to death byhanging' all of which are traditionally regarded as different meanings of onepolysemantic word.
It is sometimes argued that the difference between relatedand unrelated meanings may be observed in the manner in which the meanings ofpolysemantic words are as a rule relatable. It is observed that differentmeanings of one word have certain stable relationships which are not to befound between the meanings of two homonymous words. A clearly perceptibleconnection, e.g., can be seen in all metaphoric or metonymic meanings of oneword (cf., e.g., foot of the man— foot of the mountain, loud voice—loud colors,etc.,1 cf. also deep well and deep knowledge, etc.).
Such semantic relationships are commonly found in themeanings of one word and are considered to be indicative’ of polysemy. It isalso suggested that the semantic connection may be described in terms of suchfeatures as, e.g., form and function (cf. horn of an animal and horn as aninstrument), process and result (to run—'move with quick steps' and a run—actof running).
Similar relationships, however, are observed between themeanings of two homonymic words, e.g. to run and a run in the stocking.
Moreover in the synchronic analysis of polysemantic words weoften find meanings that cannot be related in any way, as, e.g., the meaningsof the word case discussed above. Thus the semantic criterion proves not onlyuntenable in theory but also rather vague and because of this impossible inpractice as it cannot be used in discriminating between several meanings of oneword and the meanings of two different words.
A more objective criterion of distribution suggested by somelinguists is criteria: undoubtedly helpful, but mainly increase-distribution oflexico — grammatical and grammatical homonymy. When homonymic words of Context,belong to different parts of speech they differ not only in their semanticstructure, but also in their syntactic function and consequently in theirdistribution. In the homonymic pair paper n—(to) paper v the noun may bepreceded by the article and followed by a verb; (to) paper can never be foundin identical distribution. This formal criterion can be used to discriminatenot only lexico-grammatical but also grammatical homonyms, but it often failsthe linguists in cases of lexical homonymy, not differentiated by means ofspelling.
Homonyms differing in graphic form, e.g. such lexicalhomonyms as knight—night or flower—flour, are easily perceived to be twodifferent lexical units as any formal difference of words is felt as indicativeof the existence of two separate lexical units. Conversely lexical homonymsidentical both in pronunciation and spelling are often apprehended as differentmeanings of one word. It is often argued that the context in which the wordsare used suffices to perceive the borderline between homonymous words, e.g. themeaning of case in several cases of robbery can be easily differentiated fromthe meaning of case2 in a jewel case, a glass case. This however is true ofdifferent meanings of the same word as recorded in dictionaries, e.g. of caseas can be seen by comparing the case will be tried in the law-court and thepossessive case of the noun. Thus, the context serves to differentiate meaningsbut is of little help in distinguishing between homonymy and polysemy.Consequently we have to admit that no formal means have as yet been found todifferentiate between several meanings of one word and the meanings of itshomonyms. We must take into consideration the note that in the discussion ofthe problems of polysemy and homonymy we proceeded from the assumption that theword is the basic unit of language.1 It should be pointed out that there isanother approach to the concept of the basic language unit which makes theproblem of differentiation between polysemy and homonymy irrelevant.
Some linguists hold that the basic and elementary units atthe semantic level of language are the lexico-semantic variants of the word,i.e. individual word-meanings. In that case, naturally, we can speak only ofhomonymy of individual lexico-semantic variants, as polysemy is by definition,at least on the synchronic plane, the co-existence of several meanings in thesemantic structure of the word. The criticism of this viewpoint cannot bediscussed within the framework different semantic structure. The problem ofhomonymy is mainly the problem of differentiation between two differentsemantic structures of identically sounding words.
2. Homonymy of words and homonymy of individual word-formsmay be regarded as full and partial homonymy. Cases of full homonymy aregenerally observed in words belonging to the same part of speech. Partialhomonymy is usually to be found in word-forms of different parts of speech.
3. Homonymous words and word-forms may be classified by thetype of meaning that serves to differentiate between identical sound-forms.Lexical homonyms differ in lexical meaning, lexico-grammatical in both lexicaland grammatical meaning, whereas grammatical homonyms are those that differ ingrammatical meaning only.
4. Lexico-grammatical homonyms are not homogeneous. Homonymsarising from conversion have some related lexical meanings in their semanticstructure. Though some individual meanings may be related the whole of thesemantic structure of homonyms is essentially different.
5. If the graphic form of homonyms is taken into account,they are classified on the basis of the three aspects — sound-form, graphicform and meaning — into three big groups: homographs (identical graphic form),homophones (identical sound-form) and perfect homonyms (identical sound- andgraphic form).
6. The two main sources of homonymy are:
1) diverging meaning development of one polysemantic word,and
2) convergent sound development of two or more differentwords. The latter is the most potent factor in the creation of homonyms.
7. The most debatable problem of homonymy is the demarcationline between homonymy and polysemy, i.e. between different meanings of one wordand the meanings of two or more phonemically different words.
8. The criteria used in the synchronic analysis of homonymyare:
1) the semantic criterion of related or unrelated meanings;
2) the criterion of spelling;
3) the criterion of distribution, and
4) the criterion of context.
In grammatical and lexico-grammatical homonymy the reliablecriterion is the criterion of distribution. In lexical homonymy there are caseswhen none of the criteria enumerated above is of any avail. In such cases thedemarcation line between polysemy and homonymy is rather fluid.'
9. The problem of discriminating between polysemy andhomonymy in theoretical linguistics is closely connected with the problem ofthe basic unit at the semantic level of analysis.
In applied linguistics this problem is of the greatestimportance in lexicography and also in machine translation.
During several scores of years the problem of distinction ofpolysemy and homonymy in a language was constantly arising the interest oflexicologists is in many countries. The English language as well as Russian andUzbek ones could not escape this arguable question too. In my work I shouldlike to sum up the experience concerning this field of study and make acomparative analysis of it on the basis of three languages.
2.3.2 As it was mentioned above the lexical categoriesof homonyms and polysemantic words exist in all three languages, so we must,firstly, know what it meant by homonymy and polysemy
Homonyms are words different in meaning but identical insound or spelling, or both in sound and spelling. Homonyms can appear in thelanguage not only as the result of the split of polysemy, but also as theresult of leveling of grammar inflexions, when different parts of speech becomeidentical in their outer aspect, e.g. «care» from «care» and «care» from«careen». They can be also formed by means of conversion, e.g. «to slim» from«slim», «to water» from «water». They can be formed with the help of the samesuffix from the same stem, e.g. «reader» — a person who reads and a book forreading.
Homonyms can also appear in the language accidentally, whentwo words coincide in their development, e.g. two native words can coincide intheir outer aspects: «to bear» from «beran» /to carry/ and «bear» from «bera»/an animal/. A native word and a borrowing can coincide in their outer aspects,e.g. «fair» from Latin «feria» and «fair « from native “fagen” /blond/. Twoborrowings can coincide e.g. «base» from the French «base» /Latin basis/ and«base» /low/ from the Latin «bas» /Italian «basso»/.
Homonyms can develop through shortening of different words,e.g. «cab» from «cabriolet», «cabbage», «cabin».
Classifications of homonyms:
Let us give us the classification of homonyms according tothe point of view of famous British lexicologist Walter Skeat1).
So Walter Skeet classified homonyms according to theirspelling and sound forms and he pointed out three groups: perfect homonyms thatis words identical in sound and spelling, such as: «school» — «косяк рыбы» and«школа»; homographs, that is words with the same spelling but pronounceddifferently, e.g. «bow» -/bau/ -«noклон» and /bou/ — «лук»; homophones that is wordspronounced identically but spelled differently, e.g. «night» — «ночь» and«knight» -«pыцарь».
Another classification was suggested by A.I Smirnitsky 2). Headded to Skeat's classification one more criterion: grammatical meaning. Hesubdivided the group of perfect homonyms in Skeat's classification into twotypes of homonyms: perfect which are identical in their spelling, pronunciationand their grammar form, such as «spring» in the meanings: the season of theyear, a leap, a source, and homo-forms which coincide in their spelling andpronunciation but have different grammatical meaning, e.g. «reading» — PresentParticiple, Gerund, Verbal noun., to lobby — lobby.
A more detailed classification was given by I.V. Arnold1). Heclassified only perfect homonyms and suggested four criteria of theirclassification: lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, basic forms andparadigms.
ccording to these criteria I.V. Arnold pointed out thefollowing groups:
 a) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings, basicforms and paradigms and different in their lexical meanings, e.g. «board» inthe meanings «a council» and «a piece of wood sawn thin»;
b) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings and basicforms, different in their lexical meanings and paradigms, e.g. to lie — lied — lied, and to lie — lay — lain;
c) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammaticalmeanings, paradigms, but coinciding in their basic forms,
e.g. «light» / «lights»/, «light» / «lighter», «lightest»/;
d) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammaticalmeanings, in their basic forms and paradigms, but coinciding in one of theforms of their paradigms, e.g. «a bit» and «bit» (from «to bite»).
In I. V. Arnold's classification there are also patternedhomonyms, which, differing from other homonyms, have a common component intheir lexical meanings. These are homonyms formed either by means ofconversion, or by leveling of grammar inflexions. These homonyms are differentin their grammar meanings, in their paradigms, identical in their basic forms,e.g. «warm» — «to warm». Here we can also have unchangeable patterned homonymswhich have identical basic forms, different grammatical meanings, a commoncomponent in their lexical meanings, e.g. «before» an adverb, a conjunction, apreposition. There are also homonyms among unchangeable words which aredifferent in their lexical and grammatical meanings, identical in their basicforms, e.g. «for» — «для» and «for» — «и6o».
The word «polysemy» means «plurality of meanings» it existsonly in the language, not in speech. A word which has more than one meaning iscalled polysemy.
Different meanings of a polysemantic word may come togetherdue to the proximity of notions which they express.
E.g. The word «blanket» has the following meanings: a woolencovering used on beds, a covering for keeping a horse warm, a covering of anykind /a blanket of snow/, covering all or most cases /used attributively/, e.g.we can say «a blanket insurance policy».There are some words in the languagewhich are monosynaptic, such as most terms, /synonym, molecule, bronchitis,some pronouns /this, my, both/, numerals, and so like.
There are two processes of the semantic development of aword: radiation and concatenation. In cases of radiation the primary meaningstands in the centre and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays.Each secondary meaning can be traced to the primary meaning. E.g. in the word«face» the primary meaning denotes «the front part of the human head» Connectedwith the front position the meanings: the front part of a watch, the front partof a building, the front part of a playing card was formed. Connected with theword «face» itself the meanings: expression of the face, outward appearance isformed.
In cases of concatenation secondary meanings of a worddevelop like a chain. In such cases it is difficult to trace some meanings tothe primary one. E.g. in the word «crust» the primary meaning «hard outer partof bread» developed a secondary meaning «hard part of anything /a pie, acake/», then the meaning »harder layer over soft snow» was developed, then «asullen gloomy person», then «impudence» were developed. Here the last meaningshave nothing to do with the primary ones. In such cases homonyms appear in thelanguage. It is called the split of polysemy.
In most cases in the semantic development of a word both waysof semantic development are combined.
Nowadays methods of distinction of homonymy and polysemy wereworked out. This helps us to differ the meaning of the same word and homonymywhich formed in a result of the complete gap of polysemy. Below let us studythe methods of studying of synonymy and homonymy.
1. The lexical method of distinction of homonymy andpolysemy. This method is concluded in revealing the synonymic connection ofpolysemy and homonymy. If consonant units are get in one synonymic row whendifferent meanings of words remain still the semantic intimacy and, there fore,it is early to say that polysemy is transferred in to homonymy. If theconsonant words are not get in one synonymic row that words are homonymy.
Homonymy and polysemy are different categories in polysemy wedeal with the different meanings of the same word. In homonymy we havedifferent words which have their own meanings. For example, the word«man» has ten meanings in Modern English:
1- человек; 2 — мужчина;      3 — адвокат; 4 — мужественныйчеловек;5-человечество; 6 — слуга; 7 — рабочий; 8 — муж; 9 — вассал; 10 — пешка.
As the all meanings are connected with the major meaning«чeлoвeк». But homonyms are different words which have nothing in commonиуецуут themselves.
For example «bark1” — »лай собаки" and«bark2» — «плывущий корабль». In this example we can seethat homonymy words coincide only in pronunciation and writing.
2. Some scientists say that the substitution of differentmeanings of words by the synonyms may help to differ the homonyms frompolysemantic words. This way of distinction of polysemy and homonymy gets itsname in literature as “etiological criterion”.For example «voice1 — »sounds uttered in speaking" (sound); «voice2» — «modeof uttering sounds in speaking» (sound); «voice3» – “thevibration of the vocal cords in sounds uttered” (sound); «voice4» — «the form of the verb that express the relation of the subject to theaction». «Voice1» — «voice2» — «voice3» arenot homonymic in their character although they have different meanings becauseof the reason that they can be substituted by the synonymic word«sound». As far as «voice4» is concerned as homonymic tothe previous three meanings because the fourth meaning of the word “sound” cannot be substituted by the word common to the previous three meanings of theword “voice” (i.e. the analyzed meaning of the word «sound»).
V. Abaev1) gave etymological criterion of distinguishinghomonymic and polysemantic words. He says that homonyms are words which havedifferent sources and only coincided phonetically.
3. We also use the semantic method of distinction of these occurrences.The meaning of homonyms always mutually excepts each other and the meaning ofpolysemantic words airs formed by one sensible structure keeping the semanticintimacy: one of the meanings assumes, while the other is non-irresistiblelimit.
The semantic criterion implies that the difference betweenpolysemy and homonymy is actually reduced to the differentiation betweenrelated and unrelated meanings. This semantic criterion does not seen to bereliable, firstly, because various meanings of same word and the meanings oftwo or more different words may be equally apprehended by speaker.
It is some times argued that the difference between relatedand unrelated polysemantic words is, as a rule, relatable. It is observed thatdifferent meanings have certain stable relationships which are not to be foundbetween the meanings of homonymous words. A clearly perceptible connection ofsuch semantic relationships is commonly found in the meanings of one word andis considered to be indicative to polysemy. It is also suggested that thesemantic connection may be described in terms of such features.
For example, we may give the following word
«face1» — 'the front part of human's head".
 «face2» – “playing card, building, watches”.
In this example we can find that meanings form one sensible structure.Another example shares the same idea:
E.g. The word «fair1» which means«a person with light hairs» and «fair2» whichmeans «just, honest». In this example the meanings except to eachother and do not keep the semantic intimacy.
4. There is a fourth method of distinction of polysemy andhomonymy. It is morphological method. It means that polysemy and homonymy arecharacterized by the various word -building. So some words which have a fewmeanings the new word is formed with the same suffix.
For example, for the word «park1» — «place of rest» we form a new word by ending “-ed-“:«parked» while in the word «park2'' — »a placeof keeping automobiles" the new word is formed by “-ing-“ ending:«parking».
6.2.2 Typological analysis of homonymy and polysemy inthree languages
Below we would like to compare the English differencesbetween homonymy and polysemy with Russian and Uzbek equivalents.[11]
As it was noticed above we have polysemy and homonymy in bothRussian and Uzbek. As in English, in Russian and Uzbek homonyms are wordsidentical in sound and spelling but different in meaning.
For example, «завод1” — »an industrialundertaking" and «завод2» — «a device which brings anaction of a mechanism».
«o’t1» — «firewood», «o’t2» — «grass» and «o’t» — «the verb which meansmovement».
1) In this chapter we partially used the materials of theinvestigations of Prof. Buranov
As in English, in Russian and Uzbek we correspond topolysemantic words the words which have several connected meanings.
For example, «кольцо» — «one of the jewelry things» and «кольцо» — «a shape
of something, e.g. smoke». Another example is«ko’z1» — «a part of human's body» and «ko’z2» — «a sing on wood».
As in, English there is the lexical method of distinction ofpolysemy and homonymy is used in Russian and Uzbek in the same degree.
For example, in Russian the word «коренной1”– used in the meaning of „коренной житель” is referred to its synonym“исконный, основной” and the word “коренной2» in еруmeaning of “коренной вопрос” corresponds to the synonym “главный”. The words“основной” “главный” used in this sense are synonymic in their character, so wemay conclude, therefore, that in this example we have two meanings of one word.
The word «худой1» –used in the meaning of “неупитанный” is formed in the synonymic row with the adjectives “тощий, щуплый,сухой” while the word “худой2” forms its meaning with the adjectives “плохой”,“скверный”, “дурной”. So we can draw a conclusion that the words “тощий”,“щуплый” are not synonyms with the words “плохой”, “скверный” So in this casethe words “худой1” and “худой2” are homonyms.
In Uzbek we have the same phenomenon: For example, the word“dum1” — «a part of animal's body» and “dum2” «a partialcomet».
It means that these two meanings we can be substitutive withsynonymy «the end of the body». It means that these words arepolysemantic in their lexical meaning.
If we take another pair of words, e.g. «yoz1» — «summer» and «yoz2» — 'the form of the verb which expressesthe order".
2. Ethimological method can be shown in the following:
For example, the word “голос1” used in the meaning of«sounds which are created when we speak», and the word “голос2” inthe meaning of «sounds which appear in the course of vibration of humans’vocal cords» and “голос3” in the meaning of «to give your vote onelection». The words “голос1”and “голос2” can be substituted by thesynonym common for both these words -«sound», while the third meaningof this word has nothing in common with the mentioned synonym. So we are ableto draw the following conclusion: the first mentioned two meanings of the word“голос” are synonymic to each other, while the third mentioned meaning ishomonymic to the previous twos.
Such kind of examples we can find in the Uzbek language aswell. For instance, the words “ovoz1” we can substitute into the synonym«sound» while the word “ovoz2” in the meaning of “opinion a group ofpeople” is homonymic to the first one, e.g. “yoshlar ovozi”.
3. The semantic criterion can also be compared in all threelanguages.
For example, in Russian the word “шляпка1” used in themeaning of «one of the things of woman's clothes and the word“шляпка2”used in the meaning of „the top beginning of a mushroom or anail“ can be compared as following: these two meanings mean “somethinground and located on the top”. So these two meanings are synonymic between eachother.
 The same example we can find in Uzbek. For instance, theword “bosh1”used in the meaning of „the beginning of human's body“and the word “bosh2” used in the meaning of “the main person in a work,e.g.”ishning boshi”. These two meanings are alike because they do the samefunction, so they are not homonymic, they are synonyms.
4. Morphological method of distinction of polysemy andhomonymy can also be demonstrated in all the languages compared.
For example, in Russian, the noun “хлеб1” used in the meaningof “хлебный злак” and “хлеб2” used in the meaning of “пищевой продукт,выпекаемый из муки” form the adjective with the help of the suffix “-н“.
Cf.:“Хлебные всходы” and “Хлебныйзапах”.
In Uzbek the word “oy1” – e.g. “Yilda un ikkita oylar bor”and “oy2” – e.g. “oy – yerning yo’ldoshi” form the new word with the help ofthe suffix “lik”:
Cf.: “Oylik maoshi” and “Bir oylik 14 kundan iborat”.
So having analysed the phenomenona of homonymy and polysenyin the three languages we can draw the following conclusion to this chapter:there are no so big differences in these languages in respect to the linguisticphenomena analysed.
However, the following conclusion can also be drawn: theproblem of distinction of homonymy and polysemy in all the languages comparedhas not been investigated thoroughly yet and there is still much opportunitiesto discover new fields of approaches and this problem is still waiting itssalvation.

Conclusion
 
1.3 Common review of the essence of the work
Having analyzed the problem of homonyms in Modern English wecould do the following conclusions:
a) The problem of homonyms in Modern English is very actualnowadays.
b) There are several problematic questions in the field ofhomonymy the major of which is the problem of distinguishing of homonyms andpolysemantic words..
c) A number of famous linguists dealt with the problem of homonymsin Modern English. In particular, Profs. A. Buranov and J.Muminov were thefirst who dealt with this problem in our Republic, .Moloshnaya, V.I. Abaev etc.
d) The problem of homonymy is still waiting for its detailinvestigation.
2.3 Perspectives of the qualification works
Having said about the perspectives of the work we hope thatthis work will find its worthy way of applying at schools, lyceums and collegesof high education by both teachers and students of English. We also express ourhopes to take this work its worthy place among the lexicological worksdedicated to the types of shortening.

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