The modern word for hath

Match the words and phrases with translations.

Match the words with their definitions.

the ability to move from place to place

the ability to produce original things, ideas, etc.

thinking about smth carefully before reaching a conclusion

the ability to understand and learn

not natural, made by humans

Match the words from the two columns to make collocations.

Choose the correct answer.

become a reality; cater for our needs; mow the lawn; vacuum the carpets; perform tasks; come to harm

I need a robot that can

because one of my chores is to keep the garden tidy.

There are many gadgets and machines on the market that already

, but scientists promise that future robots will satisfy even more of our demands.

Robots in factories are there to

that are dangerous or difficult for humans.

Floors in homes will never be dirty again once there are robots to

!

Should we trust robots to take on jobs where humans could

if they made a mistake?

Do you think that robotic doctors will ever

?

Choose the correct answer.

-We
to France soon!

-Have a good time!

-Thanks. I
you a postcard when I
in Paris.

-I think it
be great.

Choose the right words to complete the sentences.

-Where are you going to stay in Moscow?

-We’ve already booked a room. We
at the May Princess not far from the city centre.

-What are you going to do there?

-We
most of the sights of the city, if we
time! But I don’t think we
that.

Read the text and fill in the gaps transforming the words

entertain, grow, communicate, circle, excite, base

The Internet

Part 1

Modern Technology has had a great effect on the lives of people and their

habits. Today, all over the world the Internet has undergone a phenomenal

. It has become a very important data-gathering and

source. The Net

the globe. Young people spend a lot of time on their computers because it’s

and they have found in the Net new ways of meeting one of the

human needs: the desire to communicate with other people.

Read the text and fill in the gaps transforming the words

change, print, meet, normal, success, busy

The Internet

Part 2

What is the practical side of it?
People can

electronic messages. The Internet has replaced a post office,

, and

-place. Most companies have their own websites; others exist only on the Internet. They are

called “dot com” companies. Some of the most

Net businessmen are teenagers who are still at school. For example, Tom Hadfield, 16, started a football results website called soccer-net, and it became a great

.

Homonymy in modern English

                                                                                     
Автор: учитель английского языка

                                                  
                                   Ермилова Елена Александровна

Introduction

Homonyms
are the words different in meaning, but similar in sound.

Homonyms
are used in stilistics as members of stylistic figures called puns.

The
meaning of homonymy is very actual in our days. The appearance of new,
homonymic meanings is one of the main trends in development of Modern English,
especially in its colloquial layer, which, in its turn at high degree is supported
by development of modern informational technologies and simplification of alive
speech.

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

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

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

    In the coarse of time the number of homonyms on the whole increases,
although occasionally the conflict of homonyms ends in word loss.

The Object is – lexical
figures.

The Subject is – homonymy
in modern English.

The aim is —to
study homonymy in modern English.

The tasks of the work:

1) to give the determination to homonymy

2) to examine the classification  of  homonyms

3) to examine distinguishing homonymy and polysemy

4) to learn the literature on the subject

This work consists of:  introduction,  two chapters   and  bibliography.

Chapter Ι Homonymy as learning of homonyms

1. Determination of homonymy

     Two or more words identical in sound
and spelling but different in meaning, distribution and in many cases origin
are called homonyms. The term is derived from Greek “homonymous”
(homos – “the same” and onoma – “name”) and thus expresses very well the
sameness of name combined with the difference in meaning.

Modern
English is exceptionally rich in homonymous words and word-forms. It is held
that languages where short words abound have more homonyms than those where
longer words are prevalent. Therefore it is sometimes suggested that abundance
of homonyms in Modern English is to be accounted for by 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 phrases When analyzing
different cases of homonymy we find that some words are homonymous in all their
forms, i.e. we observe full homonymy of the paradigms of two or more different
words as, e.g., in seal a sea animal and seal—a design printed on paper by
means of a stamp’.[3,p144] The paradigm «seal, seal’s, seals, seals'»
is identical for both of them and gives no indication of whether it is seal (1)
or seal (2) that we are analyzing. In other cases, e.g. seal—a sea animal’ and
(to) seal (3)—’to close tightly, we see that although some individual
word-forms are homonymous, the whole of the paradigm is not identical. Compare,
for instance, the-paradigms:

1.
(to)seal-seal-seal’s-seals-seals’

2.
seal-seals-sealed-sealing, etc.

1
Professor O. Jespersen calculated that there are roughly four times as many
monosyllabic as polysyllabic homonyms. It is easily observed that only some of
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 but
only of homonymy of individual word-forms or of partial 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.

                                            Homonyms proper

   
Homonyms proper are words, as I have already mentioned, identical in
pronunciation and spelling, like fast and liver above. Other
examples are: back n ‘part of the body’ – back adv ‘away from the
front’ – back v ‘go back’; ball n ‘a gathering of people for
dancing’ – ball n ‘round object used in games’; bark n ‘the noise
made by dog’ – bark v ‘to utter sharp explosive cries’ – bark n
‘the skin of a tree’ – bark n

‘a
sailing ship’; base n ‘bottom’ – base v ‘build or place upon’ – base
a ‘mean’; bay n ‘part of the sea or lake filling wide-mouth opening of
land’ – bay n ‘recess in a house or room’ – bay v ‘bark’ – bay
n ‘the European laurel’.

    The
important point is that homonyms are distinct words: not different meanings
within one word.

Homophones

   
Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning:

air –
hair; arms – alms; buy – by; him – hymn; knight – night; not – knot; or – oar;
piece – peace; rain – reign; scent – cent; steel – steal; storey – story; write
– right and many others.

    In
the sentence The play-wright on my right thinks it right that some
conventional rite should symbolize the right of every man to write as he
pleases the sound complex [rait] is a noun, an adjective, an adverb and a
verb, has four different spellings and six different meanings. The difference
may be confined to the use of a capital letter as in bill and Bill, in the
following example:

“How
much is my milk bill?”

“Excuse
me, Madam, but my name is John.”

    On
the other hand, whole sentences may be homophonic: The sons raise meat – The
sun’s rays meet. To understand these one needs a wider context. If you hear
the second in the course of a lecture in optics, you will understand it without
thinking of the possibility of the first.

Homographs

   
Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally
identical in spelling: bow [bou] – bow [bau]; lead [li:d] – lead [led]; row
[rou] – row [rau]; sewer [‘soue] – sewer [sjue]; tear [tie] – tear [tee]; wind [wind] – wind [waind] and many
more.

    It
has been often argued that homographs constitute a phenomenon that should be
kept apart from homonymy, as the object of linguistics is sound language. This
viewpoint can hardly be accepted. Because of the effects of education and
culture written English is a generalized national form of expression. An
average speaker does not separate the written and oral form. On the contrary he
is more likely to analyze the words in terms of letters than in terms of
phonemes with which he is less familiar. That is why a linguist must take into
consideration both the spelling and the pronunciation of words when analyzing
cases of identity of form and diversity of content. [10, p12]

Modern
English has a very extensive vocabulary; the number of words according to the
dictionary data is no less than 400, 000.A question naturally arises whether
this enormous word-stock is composed of separate independent lexical units, or
may it perhaps be regarded as a certain structured system made up of numerous
interdependent and interrelated sub-systems or groups of words. This problem
may be viewed in terms of the possible ways of classifying vocabulary items.
Words can be classified in various ways. Here, however, we are concerned only
with the semantic classification of words which gives us a better insight into
some aspects of the Modern English word-stock. Attempts to study the inner
structure of the vocabulary revealed that in spite of its heterogeneity the
English word-stock may be analyzed into numerous sub-systems the members of
which have some features in common, thus distinguishing them from the members
of other lexical sub-systems. Classification into monosynaptic and polysemantic
words is based on the number of meanings the word possesses. More detailed
semantic classifications are generally based on the semantic similarity (or
polarity) of words or their component morphemes. Below we give a brief survey
of some of these lexical groups of current use both in theoretical
investigation and practical class-room teaching.

   
Accordingly, Professor A.I. Smirnitsky classifieds homonyms into two large
classes:

a)    
full homonyms

b)   
partial homonyms

Full
homonyms

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

Match
n – a game, a contest

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

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

Wren
n – a bird

Partial
homonyms

      
Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups:

A.
Simple lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words, which belong to the same
category of parts of speech. Their paradigms have only one identical form, but
it is never the same form, as will be soon from the examples:

(to)
found v

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

(to)
lay v

      
lay v (past indef. of to lie)

(to)
bound v

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

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

Rose
n

Rose
v (past indef. of to rise)

Maid
n

Made
v (past indef., past part. of to make)

Left
adj

Left
v (past indef., past part. of to leave)

Bean
n

Been
v (past part. of to be)

One
num

Won v
(past indef., past part. of to win)

C.
Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech
which are identical only in their corresponding forms.

to
lie (lay, lain) v

to
lie (lied, lied) v

to
hang (hung, hung) v

to
hang (hanged, hanged) v

to
can (canned, canned)

(I)              
can (could)

Chapter
ΙΙ  Problems of Homonymy

1.      Polysemy and homonymy: etymological
and semantic criteria

Words
borrowed from other languages may through phonetic convergence become
homonymous. Old Norse has and French race are homonymous in Modern English (cf.
race1 [reis]—’running’ and race [reis] ‘a distinct ethnical 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 words appeared in
the English language, one comes from Old French son (L. sonus) and denotes
‘that which is or may be heard’ and the other from the French sunder the
surgeon’s probe. One of the most debatable problems in semasiology is the
demarcation line between homonymy and polysemy, i.e. between different meanings
of one word and the meanings of two homonymous words.  [15,p55]

If
homonymy is viewed diachronically then all cases of sound convergence of two
or, more words may be safely regarded as cases of homonymy as, e.g., sound i,
sound2, sound-e, and sound4 which can be traced back to four etymologically
different words.  The transition from polysemy to homonymy is a gradual
process, so it is hardly possible to point out the precise stage at which
divergent semantic development tears asunder all ties of etymological kinship
and results in the appearance of two separate words. In the case of flower,
flour, e.g., it is mainly the resultant divergence of graphic forms that gives
us grounds to assert that the two meanings which originally made up the
semantic structure of one word are now apprehended as belonging to two
different words.

Synchronically
the differentiation between homonymy and polysemy is wholly based on the
semantic criterion. It is usually held that if a connection between the various
meanings is apprehended by the speaker, these are to be considered as making up
the semantic structure of a polysemantic word, otherwise it is a case of
homonymy, not polysemy.

Thus
the semantic criterion implies that the difference between polysemy and
homonymy is actually reduced to the differentiation between related and unrelated
meanings. This traditional semantic criterion does not seem to be reliable,
firstly, because various meanings of the same word and the meanings of two or
more different words may be equally apprehended by the speaker as
synchronically unrelated. For instance, the meaning ‘a change in the form of a
noun or pronoun’ which is usually listed in dictionaries as one of the meanings
of case!—’something that has happened’, ‘a question decided in a court of law’
seems to be just as unrelated to the meanings of this word as to the meaning of
case2 —’a box, a container’, etc

Secondly
in the discussion of lexico-grammatical homonymy it was 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 be applied to a large group of
homonymous word-forms in Modern English. This criterion proves insufficient in
the synchronic analysis of a number of other borderline cases, e.g.
brother—brothers— ‘sons of the same parent’ and brethren—’fellow members of a
religious society’. The meanings may be apprehended as related and then we can
speak of polysemy pointing out that the difference in the morphological
structure of the plural form reflects the difference of meaning. Otherwise we may
regard this as a case of partial lexical homonymy. The same is true of such
cases as hang—hung—hung—’to support or be supported from above’ and
hang—hanged—hanged—’to put a person to death by hanging’ all of which are
traditionally regarded as different meanings of one polysemantic word.

It
is sometimes argued that the difference between related and unrelated meanings
may be observed in the manner in which the meanings of polysemantic words are
as a rule relatable. It is observed that different meanings of one word have
certain stable relationships which are not to be found between the meanings of
two homonymous words. A clearly perceptible connection, e.g., can be seen in
all metaphoric or metonymic meanings of one word (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 the meanings of one word and are
considered to be indicative’ of polysemy. It is also suggested that the
semantic connection may be described in terms of such features as, e.g., form
and function (cf. horn of an animal and horn as an instrument), process and
result (to run—’move with quick steps’ and a run—act of running).

Similar
relationships, however, are observed between the meanings of two homonymic
words, e.g. to run and a run in the stocking.

Moreover
in the synchronic analysis of polysemantic words we often find meanings that
cannot be related in any way, as, e.g., the meanings of the word case discussed
above. Thus the semantic criterion proves not only untenable in theory but also
rather vague and because of this impossible in practice as it cannot be used in
discriminating between several meanings of one word and the meanings of two
different words.

A
more objective criterion of distribution suggested by some linguists is
criteria: undoubtedly helpful, but mainly increase-distribution of lexico —
grammatical and grammatical homonymy. When homonymic words of Context, belong
to different parts of speech they differ not only in their semantic structure,
but also in their syntactic function and consequently in their distribution. In
the homonymic pair paper n—(to) paper v the noun may be preceded by the article
and followed by a verb; (to) paper can never be found in identical
distribution. This formal criterion can be used to discriminate not only
lexico-grammatical but also grammatical homonyms, but it often fails the
linguists in cases of lexical homonymy, not differentiated by means of
spelling.

Homonyms
differing in graphic form, e.g. such lexical homonyms as knight—night or
flower—flour, are easily perceived to be two different lexical units as any
formal difference of words is felt as indicative of the existence of two
separate lexical units. Conversely lexical homonyms identical both in
pronunciation and spelling are often apprehended as different meanings of one
word. It is often argued that the context in which the words are used suffices
to perceive the borderline between homonymous words, e.g. the meaning of case
in several cases of robbery can be easily differentiated from the meaning of
case2 in a jewel case, a glass case. This however is true of different meanings
of the same word as recorded in dictionaries, e.g. of case as can be seen by
comparing the case will be tried in the law-court and the possessive case of
the noun. Thus, the context serves to differentiate meanings but is of little
help in distinguishing between homonymy and polysemy. Consequently we have to
admit that no formal means have as yet been found to differentiate between
several meanings of one word and the meanings of its homonyms. We must take
into consideration the note that in the discussion of the problems of polysemy
and homonymy we proceeded from the assumption that the word is the basic unit
of language.

1
It should be pointed out that there is another approach to the concept of the
basic language unit which makes the problem of differentiation between polysemy
and homonymy irrelevant.

Some
linguists hold that the basic and elementary units at the 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 of homonymy of
individual lexico-semantic variants, as polysemy is by definition, at least on
the synchronic plane, the co-existence of several meanings in the semantic
structure of the word. The criticism of this viewpoint cannot be discussed
within the framework different semantic structure. The problem of homonymy is
mainly the problem of differentiation between two different semantic structures
of identically sounding words.

2.
Homonymy of words and homonymy of individual word-forms may be regarded as full
and partial homonymy. Cases of full homonymy are generally observed in words
belonging to the same part of speech. Partial homonymy is usually to be found
in word-forms of different parts of speech.

3.
Homonymous words and word-forms may be classified by the type of meaning that
serves to differentiate between identical sound-forms. Lexical homonyms differ
in lexical meaning, lexico-grammatical in both lexical and grammatical meaning,
whereas grammatical homonyms are those that differ in grammatical meaning only.

4.
Lexico-grammatical homonyms are not homogeneous. Homonyms arising from conversion
have some related lexical meanings in their semantic structure. Though some
individual meanings may be related the whole of the semantic 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, graphic form and meaning — into
three big groups: homographs (identical graphic form), homophones (identical
sound-form) and perfect homonyms (identical sound- and graphic 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 different words. The latter is the
most potent factor in the creation of homonyms.

7.
The most debatable problem of homonymy is the demarcation line between homonymy
and polysemy, i.e. between different meanings of one word and the meanings of
two or more phonemically different words.

8.
The criteria used in the synchronic analysis of homonymy are:

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 reliable criterion is the
criterion of distribution. In lexical homonymy there are cases when none of the
criteria enumerated above is of any avail. In such cases the demarcation line
between polysemy and homonymy is rather fluid.’

9.
The problem of discriminating between polysemy and homonymy in theoretical
linguistics is closely connected with the problem of the basic unit at the
semantic level of analysis.

In
applied linguistics this problem is of the greatest importance in lexicography
and also in machine translation.

During
several scores of years the problem of distinction of polysemy and homonymy in
a language was constantly arising the interest of lexicologists is in many
countries.

                      2. Distinguishing homonymy from
polysemy

    The
synchronic treatment of English homonyms brings to the forefront a set of
problems of paramount importance for different branches of applied linguistics:
lexicography, foreign language teaching and information retrieval. These
problems are: the criteria distinguishing homonymy from polysemy, the
formulation of rules for recognizing different meanings of the same homonym in
terms of distribution, and the description of difference between patterned and
non-patterned homonymy. It is necessary to emphasize that all these problems
are connected with difficulties created by homonymy in understanding the
message by the reader or listener, not with formulating one’s thoughts; they
exist for the speaker though in so far as he must construct his speech in a way
that would prevent all possible misunderstanding.

    All three problems are so closely
interwoven that it is difficult to separate them. So we shall discuss them as
they appear for various practical purposes. For a lexicographer it is a problem
of establishing word boundaries. It is easy enough to see that match, as
in safety matches, is a separate word from the verb match ‘to
suit’. But he must know whether one is justified in taking into one entry match,
as in football match, and match in meet one’s match ‘one’s
equal’.

     On the synchronic level, when
the difference in etymology is irrelevant, the problem of establishing the
criterion for the distinction between different words identical in sound form,
and different meanings of the same word becomes hard to solve. Nevertheless the
problem cannot be dropped altogether as upon an efficient arrangement of
dictionary entries depends the amount of time spent by readers in looking up a
word: a lexicographer will either save or waste his readers’ time and effort.

    Actual solutions
differ. It is a wildly spread practice in English lexicography to combine in
one entry words of identical phonetic form showing similarity of lexical
meaning or, in other words, revealing a lexical invariant, even if they belong
to different parts of speech. In our country a different trend has settled.    
Polysemy characterizes words that have more than one meaning — any dictionary
search will reveal that most words are polysemes — word itself has 12
significant senses, according to WordNet. This means that the word,
word, is used in texts scanned by lexicographers to represent twelve different
concepts.

The point is that words are
not meanings, although they can have many meanings.     Lexicographers make a
clear distinction between different words by writing separate entries for each
of them, whether or not they are spelled the same way. The dictionary of Fred
W. Riggs has 5 entries for the form, bow — this shows that
lexicographers recognize this form (spelling) as a way of representing five
different words. Three of them are pronounced bo and two bau, which identifies two
homophones in this set of five homographs, each of which is a polyseme, capable
of representing more than one concept. To summarize: bow is a word-form that
stands for two different homophones and, as a homograph, represents five
different words.

    Moreover, the form bow
is polysemic and can represent more than 20 concepts (its various meanings or
senses). By gratuitously putting meaning in its definition of a homograph, WordNet
can mislead readers who might think that a word is a homonym because it has
several meanings — but having one word represent more than one concept is
normal — just consider term as an example: it can not only refer to the
designator of a concept, but also the duration of something, like the school
year or a politician’s hold on office, a legal stipulation, one’s standing in a
relationship (on good terms) and many other notions — more than 17 are
identified in the dictionary edited be Fred W. Riggs. By contrast, homonyms are
different words and each of them (as a polyseme) can have multiple meanings.

    To make their definitions precise, lexicographers need
criteria to distinguish different words from each other even though they are
spelled the same way. This usually hinges on etymology and, sometimes, parts of
speech. One might, for example, think that that firm ‘steadfast’ and firm
‘business unit’ are two senses of one word (polyseme). Not so! Lexicographers
class them as different words because the first evolved from a Latin stem
meaning throne or chair, and the latter from a different root in Italian
meaning signature.

    Dictionaries are not uniform in their treatment of the
different grammatical forms of a word. In some of them, the adjective firm
(securely) is handled as a different word from the noun firm (to settle)
even though they have the same etymology. Fred W. Riggs isn’t persuaded such
differences justify treating grammatical classes (adjectives, nouns, and verbs)
of a word-form that belongs to a single lexeme as different words — the
precise meaning of lexeme is 1. WordNet is a Lexical Database for
English prepared by the Cognitive Science Laboratory at Princeton University.

explained below. The relevant point here is that deciding
whether or not a form identifies one or more than one lexeme does not hinge on meanings.
There is agreement that a word-form represents different words when they
evolved from separate roots, and some lexicographers treat each grammatical use
of a lexeme (noun, verb, adjective) as though it were a different word.

    The etymological criterion may lead to distortion of the
present day situation. The English vocabulary of today is not a replica of the
Old English vocabulary with some additions from borrowing. It is in many
respects a different system, and this system will not be revealed if the
lexicographers guided by etymological criteria only.

    A more or less simple, if not very rigorous, procedure
based on purely synchronic data may be prompted by analysis of dictionary
definitions. It may be called explanatory transformation. It is based on
the assumption that if different senses rendered by the same phonetic complex
can be defined with the help of an identical kernel word-group, they may be
considered sufficiently near to be regarded as variants of the same word; if
not, they are homonyms.

    Consider the following set of examples:

1.    
A child’s voice is heard.¹

2.    
His voice…was…annoyingly well-bred.²

3.    
The voice-voicelessness
distinction…sets up some English consonants in opposed pairs…

4.    
In the voice contrast of active and
passive…the active is the unmarked form.

    The first variant (voice₁) may be
defined as ‘sound uttered in speaking or singing as characteristic of a
particular person’, voice₂ as ‘mode of uttering sounds in
speaking or singing’, voice₃ as ‘the vibration of the vocal chords
in sounds uttered’. So far all the definitions contain one and the same kernel
element rendering the invariant common basis of their meaning. It is, however,
impossible to use the same kernel element for the meaning present in the fourth
example. The corresponding definition is: “Voice – that form of the verb that
expresses the relation of the subject to the action”. This failure to satisfy
the same explanation formula sets the fourth meaning apart. It may then be
considered a homonym to the polysemantic word embracing the first three
variants. The procedure described may remain helpful when the items considered
belong to different parts of speech; the verb voice may mean, for
example, ‘to utter a sound by the aid of the vocal chords’.  

    This brings us to the problem of patterned homonymy,
i.e. of the invariant lexical meaning present in homonyms that have developed
from one common source and belong to various parts of speech.

     Is a lexicographer justified in placing the verb voice
with the above meaning into the same entry with the first three variants of
the noun? The same question arises with respect to after or before
– preposition, conjunction and adverb.

    English lexicographers think it quite possible for one
and the same word to function as different parts of speech. Such pairs as act
n – act v; back n — back v; drive n – drive v;
the above mentioned after and before and the like, are all
treated as one word functioning as different parts of speech. This point of
view was severely criticized. It was argued that one and the same word could
not belong to different parts of speech simultaneously, because this would
contradict the definition of the word as a system of forms.

    This viewpoint is not faultless
either; if one follows it consistently, one should regard as separate words all
cases when words are countable nouns in one meaning and uncountable in another,
when verbs can be used transitively and intransitively, etc. In this case hair₁
‘all the hair that grows on a person’s head’ will be one word, an uncountable
noun; whereas ‘a single thread of hair’ will be

denoted by another word (hair₂)
which, being countable, and thus different in paradigm, cannot be considered
the same word. It would be tedious to enumerate all the absurdities that will
result from choosing this path. A dictionary arranged on these lines would
require very much space in printing and could occasion much wasted time in use.
The conclusion therefore is that efficiency in lexicographic work is secured by
a rigorous application of etymological criteria combined with formalized
procedures of establishing a lexical invariant suggested by synchronic
linguistic methods.

    As to those concerned with
teaching of English as a foreign language, they are also keenly interested in
patterned homonymy. The most frequently used words constitute the greatest
amount of difficulty, as may be summed up by the following jocular example: I
think that this “that” is a conjunction but that that “that” that that man used
as pronoun.

    A correct understanding of this
peculiarity of contemporary English should be instilled in the pupils from the
very beginning, and they should be taught to find their way in sentences where
several words have their homonyms in other parts of speech, as in Jespersen’s
example: Will change of air cure love? To show the scope of the problem
for the elementary stage a list of homonyms that should be classified as
patterned is given below:

    Above, prp, adv, a; act,
n, v; after, prp, adv, cj; age, n, v; back, n, adv, v;   ball,
n, v; bank, n, v; before, prp, adv, cj; besides, prp, adv;
bill, n, v; bloom, n, v; box, n, v. The other examples
are: by, can, 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, 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.  

    For the most part all these words
are cases of patterned lexico-grammatical homonymy taken from the minimum
vocabulary of the elementary stage: the above homonyms mostly differ within
each 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,
an s-form (act-s), a Past Indefinite Tense form (acted) and an
ing-form (acting) and takes up all syntactic functions of verbs, whereas
act n can have two forms, act (sing.) and act (pl.). Semantically
both contain the most generalized component rendering the notion of doing
something.

    Recent investigations have shown
that it is quite possible to establish and to formalize the differences in
environment, either syntactical or lexical, serving to signal which of the
several inherent values is to be ascribed to the variable in a given context.
An example of distributional analysis will help to make this point clear.

    The distribution of a
lexico-semantic variant of a word may be represented as a list of structural
patterns in which it occurs and the data on its combining power. Some of the
most typical structural patterns for a verb are: N + V + N; N + V + Prp + N; N
+ V + A; N + V + adv; N + V + to + V and some others. Patterns for nouns are
far less studied, but for the present case one very typical example will
suffice. This is the structure: article + A + N.

    In the following
extract from “A Taste of Honey” by Shelagh Delaney the morpheme laugh
occurs three times: I can’t stand people who laugh at other people. They’d
get a bigger laugh, if they laughed at themselves.

    We recognize laugh
used first and last here as a verb, because the formula is N + laugh +
prp + N and so the pattern is in both cases N + V + prp + N. In the beginning
of the second sentence laugh is a noun and the pattern is article +     
A + N.

    This elementary example
can give a very general idea of the procedure which can be used for solving
more complicated problems.

    We may sum up our
discussion by pointing out that whereas distinction between polysemy homonymy
is relevant and important for lexicography it is not relevant for the practice
of either human or machine translation. The reason for this is that different
variants of a polysemantic word are not less conditioned by context then
lexical homonyms. In both cases the identification of the necessary meaning is
based on the corresponding distribution that can signal it and must be present
in the memory either of the pupil or the machine. The distinction between
patterned and non-patterned homonymy, greatly underrated until now, is of far
greater importance. In non-patterned homonymy every unit is to be learned
separately both from the lexical and grammatical points of view. In patterned
homonymy when one knows the lexical meaning of a given word in one part of
speech, one can accurately predict the meaning when the same sound complex
occurs in some other part of speech, provided, of coarse, that there is
sufficient context to guide one.

Conclusion

We
have come to conclusion  that:

1.Homonyms
are the words identical in sound and spelling, but different in meaning.

Modern
English is exceptionally rich in homonymous words and word-forms. It is held
that languages where short words abound have more homonyms than those where
longer words are prevalent. Therefore it is sometimes suggested that abundance
of homonyms in Modern English is to be accounted for by the monosyllabic
structure of the commonly used English words.

2.Homonyms
are classifiable into:

  
-homophones

  
— homographs

  
— homonyms proper

Homophones
are the words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning.

Homographs
are words different in sound and in meaning, but accidentally identical in
spelling.

Homonyms
proper are words identical in pronunciation  and spelling.

3. Synchronically the differentiation
between homonymy and polysemy is wholly based on the semantic criterion. It is
usually held that if a connection between the various meanings is apprehended
by the speaker, these are to be considered as making up the semantic structure
of a polysemantic word, otherwise it is a case of homonymy, not polysemy.

Thus
the semantic criterion implies that the difference between polysemy and
homonymy is actually reduced to the differentiation between related and
unrelated meanings. This traditional semantic criterion does not seem to be
reliable, firstly, because various meanings of the same word and the meanings
of two or more different words may be equally apprehended by the speaker as
synchronically unrelated.

4.Having
learned the literature , we have come to conclusion that great contribution to 
lexicology was  brought by: Akhmanova O.S, Potter S., Smirnitsky A.I.

Bibliography

1 Abayev
V.I. Homonyms T. O’qituvchi 1981 p. 29

2. Akhmanova
O.S. Lexicology: Theory and Method. M. 1972 p. 59

      3.Arakin English Russian Dictionary
M.Russky Yazyk 1978 p. 119     

     4. Arnold
I.V. The English Word M. High School 1986 p. 143

     5. Bloomsbury Dictionary of New Words. M. 1996 p.276

     6. Buranov, Muminov
Readings on Modern English Lexicology T. O’qituvchi   1985 p. 47

    7.  Burchfield R.W.
The English Language. Lnd. ,1985 p.47

    8.  Canon G.
Historical Changes and English Wordformation: New Vocabulary items. N.Y., 1986.
p.284

     9.  Dubenets E.M.
Modern English Lexicology (Course of Lectures) M., Moscow State Teacher
Training University Publishers 2004 p. 31

10.   Ginzburg
R.S. et al. A Course in Modern English Lexicology. M., 1979 p. 82

 11 .Halliday
M.A.K. Language as Social Semiotics. Social Interpretation of Language and
Meaning. Lnd., 1979.p.53

 12.  Hornby
The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. Lnd. 1974 p. 111

 13 . Howard
Ph. New words for Old. Lnd., 1980. p.311

 14.   Jespersen.
Linguistics. London, 1983, p. 412

 15.   Jespersen
,Otto. Growth and Structure of the English Language. Oxford, 1982 p. 249

16.    Longman
Lexicon of Contemporary English. Longman. 1981p.23

17.   Maurer
D.W. , High F.C. New Words — Where do they come from and where do they go.
American Speech., 1982.p.171

18.    Potter
S. Modern Linguistics. Lnd., 1957 p. 54

19.   Schlauch,
Margaret. The English Language in Modern Times. Warszava, 1965. p.342

 20.   Sheard,
John. The Words we Use. N.Y..,1954.p.3

    21. Smirnitsky A.I.
Homonyms in English M.1977 p. 90

    22. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. Oxford 1964, p.147

    23. Aпресян Ю.Д.Лексическая семантика. Омонимические
средства языка. М.1974. 46c.

    24. Арнольд
И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка.М. Высшая школа 1959.- 212c.

   25.  Беляева
Т.М., Потапова И.А. Английский язык за пределами Англии. Л. Изд-во ЛГУ 150c.

  26. Виноградов
В. В. Лексикология и лексикография. Избранные труды. М.
1977- .122c



Along with everyday and familiar vocabulary, there is a passive vocabulary, which includes archaisms, historicism and neologisms.

Archaism is an obsolete word that has been replaced by a synonym in modern speech.

The archaisms include words and expressions that are outdated and are not used in modern speech because they have corresponding synonyms or, on the other hand, archaisms include words that have no synonyms because the concepts expressed by these words have ceased to play any role in the modern life of society.

In English lexicology, archaisms, which are the words that have finally emerged from a language that are marked «old» are denoted by the term «obsolete words». Their meanings are understandable, but they are almost never used. It is unlikely that today we will hear the following words: ere, hither, thither.

The reason for the appearance of archaisms is in the development of the language and in the updating of its dictionary.

The research work presents usage of archaisms in the English speech and literature. We have analysed the usage of archaisms in the work of one of the most popular authors of the XIV century.

The purposeis to study the different types of archaisms, and to reveal the percent of words which underwent changes in its composition after the passage of seven centuries in «The Canterbury Tales».

Archaisms are divided into the following types: linguistic, lexico-semantic, grammatical, morphological, poetic and lexical.

The term «Linguistic archaism» means that the subject still exists, but it is already called by another word: valley, unlucky, by chance. The long-term meanings of words have disappeared from the lexico-semantic and new ones came in exchange. F/E fairbeautiful fairblack maidgirl. They are hard to hear. According to Irina Vladimirovna Arnold, a linguist, grammatical archaisms are the forms of words that are not currently used because of changes in the grammatical structure of the language. In modern English, grammatical archaisms are, for example, the words with the suffix -en moved to -es, horse — horses, however, you can still find the previous form in the words children and oxen. Morphological archaisms are outdated forms of the word, such as:

* singular third person verbs ending in “th” (doth, hath, heareth, etc.)

* abbreviated forms (tis, twas, twill, etc.).

Archaisms used to make a speech of high solemnity, pathetic tone are considered as poetic. Here are some examples: billow, hallowed, fare, aught.

Let us consider in more detail the group of lexical archaisms.

This is a category of outdated vocabulary, resulting from the separation of the dictionary. Lexical archaisms belong to the book vocabulary, in modern language they are interrelated with synonyms.

Lexical archaisms are also divided into various subgroups: lexico-phonetic and word-building.

Word-building archaisms include obsolete words which are occupied the wordsthat are synonymous with the same root, but differ from them by affix, affixes, or by the absence of them. Lexico-phonetic archaisms are archaisms that differ from modern variants of English words only by the presence of additional sounds.

Archaisms and historicisms are often used in works of art, when you need to create a certain color in the image of antiquity. In the texts of historical novels, short stories in order to recreate the historical color of the era. Also, it is necessary to mention the style of business documents. The function of archaisms in this style of speech could be conventionally called a terminological function. Many English laws have not changed in the last 600 years. Naturally, therefore, in the language of English law there is a large number of archaisms. The language of various legal documents, business letters, contracts, agreements, etc., trying to get as close as possible to the language of laws, is replete with archaisms. Archaisms are also used to convey the comic tone of speech, can also perform a satirical function and display the peculiarities of foreign speech.

Being interested in the question of the distribution of words which underwent changes in its composition in the work of English literature of the 14th century, I decided to study the percentage of such words. For the subjects of the study I took the words that have undergone phonetic change which are yellow in the text, changes in their morphemic composition which are green in the text and those that have undergone both phon etic and word-building changes in their composition which are blue. For example, the chapters by Geoffrey Chauser from «The Canterbury Tales» were taken. I have analized 97 lines, chapters from 11 to 14.

bathe— word-building archaisms.

ther — lexico-phonetic archaisms.

compaigne — archaisms that have undergone a double change in their composition.

Chapter 14

445: A good wif was ther of biside bathe,

446: But she was somdel deef, and that was scathe.

447: Of clooth—makyng she hadde swich an haunt,

448: She passed hem of ypres and of gaunt.

449: In al the parisshewif ne was thernoon

450: That to the offrynge biforehiresholde goon;

451: And if ther dide, certeyn so wrooth was she,

452: That she was out of alle charitee.

453: Hir coverchiefs ful fyne weren of ground;

454: I dorste swere they weyeden ten pound

455: That on a sonday weren upon hir heed.

456: Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed,

457: Ful streite yteyd, and shoes ful moyste and newe.

458: Boold was hir face, and fair, and reed of hewe.

459: She was a worthy womman al hir lyve:

460: Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde fyve,

461: Withouten oothercompaignye in youthe, —

462: But therof nedeth nat to speke as nowthe.

463: And thries hadde she been at jerusalem;

464: She hadde passed many a straunge strem;

465: At rome she

hadde

been, and at boloigne,

466: In galice at seint-jame, and at coloigne.

467: She koude muchel of wandrynge by the weye.

468: Gat-tothed was she, soothly for to seye.

469: Upon an amblere esily she sat,

470: Ywympled wel, and on hir heed an hat

471: As brood as is a bokeler or a targe;

472: A foot-mantel aboute hir hipes large,

After analyzing the distribution of various types of lexical archaisms, we obtained the following results:

Percentage chart of types of lexical archaisms:

Comparing the results, we may conclude that in the work of Geoffrey Chaucer «The Canterbury Tales», lexico-phonetic archaisms take the leading place in terms of use, then word-building, and the least common group of lexical archaisms are obsolete words that have undergone a double change in their composition. So, we can see that a significant part of the vocabulary which Chaucer’s stories are composed is, at this point in time, archaic for us. However there are a lot of words which did not change and are used in modern speech during the XXI century. Middle English in its sound and writing is close to modern English, so the lexical units are related to lexico-phonetic and word-building archaisms. Although some words have undergone multiple changes, however, these changes do not prevent the modern person from understanding their meanings.

Here are some examples of words which were used by Geoffrey Chaucer in «The Canterbury Tales» in chapters from 11 to 14 but they are obsolete right now.

Table 1

An archaism	A modern word	Translation
Hadde	Had	Имел
Hem	Them	Их
Koude	Could	Мог
Londoun	London	Лондон
Alle	All	Все
Olde	Old	Старый
Boold	Bold	Лысый
Sonday	Sunday	Воскресенье
Newe	New	Новый
Hir	Her	Ее
Compaignye	Company	Компания

Having done the research, we discovered that the most frequently encountered group of archaisms are phonetic archaisms. Geoffrey Chaucer’s work «The Canterbury Tales» contains 59 % of the phonetic archaisms of all that we have reviewed. 35 % is a group of word-building archaisms, and 6 % are archaisms, which have undergone a double change in their composition.

Despite the fact that the work contains a huge number of obsolete words, it is not so difficult to read. This is due to the fact that many words have historically similar roots, so we can freely translate the Old English work in modern English.

References:

1. English-Russian dictionary, 2000/ V.K.Muller — M., Diamant, Zolotoi Vek.
2. Бабич, Г. Н. LEXICOLOGY: A CURRENT GUIDE.2017/ Г. Н. Бабич — М.: ФЛИНТА: Наука. – URL:https://rucont.ru/efd/244047 (дата обращения 23.02.2019)
3. URL: http://yakov.works/libr_min/24_ch/os/er_01.htm ( дата обращения 20.02.2019)
4. URL: http://allrefs.net/c57/3qv72/p4/ ( дата обращения 21.02.2019)
5. URL: http://textarchive.ru/c-2756206-p5.html ( дата обращения 20.02.2019)
6. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaism ( дата обращения 22.02.2019)
7. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Tales ( дата обращения 22.02.2019)
8. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer ( дата обращения 22.02.2019)