Ant, butterfly, cat (2x), crocodile, cuckoo, dog, donkey, duck, duckling, hen, horse (2x), jackal, lamb, lark, owl, parrot, snail, swan, viper, vulture, weasel, worm.

3 Colours – use colours to fill in the blanks– try to think of etymological or historical explanation for the usage of these particular colours.

# 6 HOMONYMS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION

The problem of homonymy is closely connected with the problem of polysemy. Two or more identical in sound and spelling, but different in meaning distribution and origin are called homonymy.

Homonyms may be classified into:

Homonyms proper (full or perfect) /identical in spelling and pronunciation/

Homophones

Homographs

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

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

The playwright on my right thinks that it is right that some conventional rite should symbolize the right of every man to write as they please.

The sound complex /r a I t / has 4 different spelling and six different meaning.

The sun’s raise meet.

The sons raise meat. /breed cattle/

The pun is joke based upon the play words of similar form but different meanings.

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

Professor Smirnitzky classified homonyms into two large groups: full and partial homonyms.

Full lexical homonyms are words, which represent the same category of part of speech and have the same paradigm (all forms of the verbs, nouns) sister – sisters, nice – nicer. Match – a game, match – a short stick of wood.

Partial homonyms are subdivided into 3:

Simple, lexico-grammatical, paradigm – words which belong to the same category of part of speech. Their paradigms have one identical form. But it is never the same form. For instance: to found – to establish, found ---find

Exercise 1. Answer the following questions:

1. What is a homonymy?

2. Tell about the classification of homonyms.

3. What is the problem concerning the homonymy and polysemy?

4. What is a homophone? Give examples.

5. What is a homograph? Give examples.

6. What is a full lexical homonymy? Give examples.

7. What is a partial homonymy?

8. What is a paradigm?

Exercise 2. Give 10 examples to the following:

1. Full homonymy.

2. Partial homonymy.

3. Homophone.

4. Homograph.

# 7 SYNONYMS

Synonyms can be defined in terms of linguistic as two or more words of the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical denotational meaning, interchangeable at least in some context without any considerable rations in denotational meaning, but different in morphemic composition, phonetic shades, and shapes of meaning, style and idiomatic usage.

For example: jump – spring – leap – hip-hop – skip --- verbs: one or more identical meaning.

Synonyms are one of the language’s most important expressive means. The study of synonyms enriches our vocabulary and helps to master language.

The skill to choose the most suitable word in every context, situation is an essential part of the language learning process.

For instance, hope – expectation – anticipation. They are considered to be synonyms because all the three mean “having something in mind, which is likely to happen”.

THE TYPES OF SYNONYMS

Ideographic – words convey the same concept, but different in shades of meaning: handsome – beautiful.

Stylistic – different in stylistic classification.

Absolute – coinciding in all shades of meaning and stylistic meaning. /rare in vocabulary/

Reversion – back formation.

Stylistic synonyms – can also appear by abbreviation.

Euphemism – identical in styles but different with other words.

Contextual or context dependant – similar in meaning only under some specific distributional combinations.

To buy, to get are synonyms in the following examples: I will go to the shop and get some bread, sugar. /not interchangeable/.

Except when used in the negative form: I cannot stand him.

SOURCES OF SYNONYMY

Many scholars used to stress that the English language is rich in synonyms, because Britains, Romans, Normans fighting, settling upon the soil of British Isles influenced each others speech.

Synonymy has its characteristic patterns in each language. Its peculiar feature in English is contrast between simple native words stylistically neutral and literary words borrowed from French and words of Greek and Latin words.

SOURCE OF SYNONYMY: BORROWINGS

SOURCE OF SYNONYMY: SLANG

SOURCE OF SYNONYMY: EUPHIMISM

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

1. Speak on the term synonymy.

2. Give an example to synonymy.

3. Name the types of synonyms.

4. What is an ideographic synonym?

5. What is an absolute synonym?

6. What is a contextual synonym?

7. Name the sources of the synonymy.

8. Give examples to the sources of synonyms: borrowing and euphemisms.

9. What is a definition of a slang “big nose”?

10 Speak on the importance of the synonymy.

Exercise 2. Give synonyms to the following and define to what type of synonyms they refer:

1. WC

2. strong

3. big

4. small

5. excellent

6. beautiful

7. clever

8. fashionable

9. quickly

10 clean

Exercise 3. Give 10 examples to the sources of the synonymy: borrowings, slang, euphemisms.