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| A /beə/ |
Recently, at English for Lunch, the students had a look at
English homonyms. According to a broader definition, a homonym is ‘a word that sounds the same or is spelled
the same as another word but has a different meaning’ (Cambridge Dictionary).
English has LOTS of homonyms. Can you think of any?
.
.
.
Ok, here are some examples:
Stalk (part of a
plant) and stalk (follow/harass a
person)
Bare (not
covered) and bear (the animal)
Left (past
tense of leave) and left (opposite
of right)
Not to overuse Greek-origin words here but if homonyms are
PRONOUNCED the same, they are called ‘homophones’ and if they are SPELLED the
same, we call them ‘homographs’ (regardless of pronunciation).
Some homonyms can, therefore, be both homophones AND homographs
at the same time: staff (employee or long stick), rose (flower or past tense of ‘rise’).
Some homonyms, however, are homophones but not homographs: No and know (Same
pronunciation, different spelling) and some homonyms are
homographs but not homophones: Bow (bend at the waist) and bow (weapon): Different pronunciation, same spelling.
This
may be enough of linguistics for today but if you’d like to think more
about this, here is a picture which captures the relationship of homonyms and
other language concepts:
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym#/media/File:Homograph_homophone_venn_diagram.svg |
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