The Origin of Homonyms in the English Language

Homonyms in the English language appeared due to the historical evolution of the language system, as a result of phonetic, morphological, semantic, etc. changes. Linguists point out two main processes that led to appearance of homonyms:

1. Сonvergent sound development: In the course of historical evolution the lexemes that primarily differed in their sound form came to coincide in their sound /graphic form due to phonetic and graphic changes which took place in Old English, Middle English and early New English periods: sea (ОЕ sæ):: see (OE seon), meat (OE mete):: meet (OE metan), eye (OE eage):: I (OE ic), son (OE sunu):: sun (OE sunne, sunna), love, n. (OE lufu):: love, v. (OE lufian), answer, n. (OE andswaru):: answer, v. (OE andswarian), work, n.(OE weorc):: work, v. (OE wyrcan).

As is known, phonetic changes resulted in changes in the morphological system of the English language, particularly in simplification and loss of inflections. These processes brought about phonetic identity of many words which earlier had different morphological structure: love, n. (OE lufu) and love, v. (OE lufian), answer, n. (OE andswaru) and answer, n. (OE andswarian), work, n. (OE weorc) and work, v. (OE wyrcan), warm, adj. (OE wearm) and warm, v. (OE werman) and many others. These numerous phonetic changes led to the fact that homonyms which appeared as a result of convergent sound development in English are so great in number. Numerous borrowings from other languages, mainly Romance languages (Latin and French) contributed to homonymy after they have undergone phonetic changes. For instance, case ‘instance or example of the occurrence of sth.’ (ME & OF f. L casus ‘fall’) case ‘box, container’ (f. ONF casse f. L capsa ‘hold’), also plain ‘easy to see, hear or understand’ (ME f. OF plain, f. L planus), plain ‘mourn, complain’ (ME f. OF plaindre, f. L plangere ‘lament’), plane ‘tall, spreading tree, Rus. платан’ (ME & OF, f. L f. Gk platanos), plane ‘tool for smoothing surface of woodwork, Rus. рубанок, мастерок’ (ME & OF, LL plana), plane ‘flat or level surface’ (f. L planum).

2. Divergent meaning development (split of polysemy): Along with phonetic and morphological changes in the lexemes there occur semantic changes in polysemantic words. In consequence it may happen that the links of certain LSVs with their semantic structures are destroyed and lost. Such LSVs become new different words homonymous to the lexemes they have split from. In some cases they deviate to such an extent from their source word that they acquire different spelling. For example words flower and flour originated from the selfsame word ME & OF flour, flur, f. L florem, discrete and discreet from ME, f. OF discret f. L discretus.

In some controversial cases it is difficult to decide whether the split of polysemy has been completed or the lexeme is on the way to it as in the examples: case ‘instance or example of the occurrence of sth.’ case ‘question to be decided in a law court’, case ‘form of a noun or pronoun’; right ‘just, morally good’, right ‘of the side of the body’.

The main source of homonyms in modern English is word formation, mostly conversion (see the next chapter): nurse, n. > nurse, v., leaf, n. > leaf, v., father, n. > father, v. and many others.

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