What are homonyms and how to distinguish them

In every language there are words that cause confusion among foreigners. These lexical units have one unique feature: they are identical in writing and in pronunciation. From the school course of the Russian language, you probably remember that such components of native speech are called homonyms. Learn more about what is homonyms, what properties they have, this article will help.

Such unusual words we meet daily in everyday life, but do not attach any importance to them. The simplest examples of these lexical units are the onions in the meaning of plants and onions as weapons. Such nouns are a clear demonstration of complete homonymy. This means that the presented words coincide in absolutely all grammatical forms. To this category, you can also include a noun such as a key: an object that helps open a door lock, and a spring is a source of drinking water.

The definition of what is homonymous can not be unambiguous, if only because there are many subcategories of this lexical section. One of them is incomplete homonymy, that is, the coincidence of words related to a single part of speech in only certain word forms. The simplest illustration of this group is the word "plant". As you know, the plant is a manufacturing enterprise. On the other hand, the watch can have a factory. Partial homonymy in this case is manifested in the fact that this word in the second meaning does not have a plural form.

Thus, many-valued words and homonyms are in certain situations identical lexical units. The main thing is not to be confused, that homonyms are always words with a lot of various meanings, but on the contrary, it is not always so.

What is homonyms, perfectly understand, for example, the British. In their own language there are also words that are written and pronounced in exactly the same way. The most common example is bat. On the one hand, it 's a bat, and on the other - a baseball bat. But, despite the similarity of lexical phenomena in the language, it is extremely difficult for foreigners to correctly interpret the meaning of Russian homonyms.

Homonyms in Russian, as in many other world dialects, can be distinguished from each other only in context. If, for example, we are talking about how to properly water and fertilize onions, it will immediately become clear to everyone that it is a plant. In the event that it is described how to string a bowstring, we mean a weapon.

There is one more group of words standing in line with homonymy. It combines words that are pronounced identically, but are written differently. Cat - code, onion - meadow and many other lexical units have identical phonetic analysis, but different meanings and spelling, and are called omoforms.

The Russian language is a storehouse of amazing phenomena, many of which are difficult to understand and explore. But you, after reading this article, took a step towards studying native speech and learned what homonyms and homonyms are, so you can be congratulated: our great and mighty has already revealed to you some of his secrets!