ГОС_1 / Lexicology / Lecture2 / The role of borrowing, polysemy and homonymy in English

The Role of Borrowing, Polysemy and Homonymy in English

Borrowing or the adoption of words of foreign languages has always been one of the most important ways of enlarging the English vocabulary. One of the peculiarities and characteristic features of the English vocabulary is the great number of borrowed words or borrowings from different languages. Borrowings constitute about 70% of all the words of the English vocabulary. The great number of borrowings brought with them new phonetic, morphological and semantic features. They also influenced to some extend the semantic structure, collocability, frequency and derivational ability of native English words in the course of the historical development of the English language. Loan words brought about some changes in English synonymic groups, mainly enlarging the number of stylistic synonyms, e.g.

• to feed (English) – to nourish (French)

• to try – to endeavour

• to meet – to encounter

• to ask – to question – to interrogate (Latin)

• to gather – to assemble – to collect (Latin)

• teaching – guidance – instruction (Latin)

According to their semantic structure all the words in English fall into two groups: monosemantic (i.e. words having only one meaning) and polysemantic (i.e. words having several meanings). Polysemantic words denote a whole set of related concepts grouped according to the national peculiarities of a given language. Most words in the English vocabulary are polysemantic. The meaning of a polysemantic word in speech depends on the context it’s used in. Verbs and nouns are characterized by a greater number of polysemantic words than adjectives and adverbs. A polysemantic word enters as many synonymic and antonymic groups as meanings it has, e.g. the noun “work” has synonymic relations with two distinct groups of words: WORK I – labour (труд), toil, travail, drudgery, grind (зубрежка), work created man; WORK II (работа, место, должность) – job, employment, occupation, she failed to obtain work in the city.

When several related meanings are associated with the same group of sounds within one part of speech, the word is called polysemantic. When two or more unrelated meanings are associated with the same form the words are homonyms.

Modern English is characterized by a great number of homonyms, words identical in sound form and/or in spelling but different in meaning. The abundance of homonyms in English is determined by its analytical character and the monosyllabic structure of the commonly used English words, e.g. four – for – fore (front); spring (пружина, весна, ручей, внезапно появляться/пробиваться).

Some homonyms in English appear as a result of disintegration or split of Polysemy when one of the meanings of a polysemantic word loses all the connections with the rest of the structure and starts a separate existence. Hence, one of the most debatable problems of the English Lexicology is the demarcation line between homonymy and Polysemy. The question is whether the given vocabulary items are related meanings of a polysemantic word or whether they are two different words with unrelated meanings, that is, homonyms. Eg. box To solve this problem we should take into consideration a set of various criteria.