Homonym is each of two or more words having the same spelling or pronunciation but different meanings and origins (Oxford: 94). Homograph is two words that have different pronunciations but have the same spelling (Kreidler: 1998).
e.g.:
Bow → rhyming with go,
refer to an instrument for shooting arrows.
Bow → rhyming with cow,
indicating a bending of the body as a form of respectful greeting.
Lexicographers and semanticists sometime have to decide whether a form with wide range of meanings is an instance of polysemy or of homonymy. A polysemous lexeme has several (apparently) related meanings. The noun head, for instance, seems to have related meanings when we speak of the head of a person, the head of a company, head of a table of bed, a head of lettuce or cabbage. If we take the anatomical referent as the basic one, the other meanings can be seen as derived from the basic one, either reflecting the general shape of the human head or, more abstractly, the relation of the head to the rest of the body.
ex:
progress...
Dictionaries recognize the distinction between polysemy and homonymy by making a polysemous item a single dictionary entry and making homophonous lexemes two or more separate entries. Thus head is one entry and bank is entered twice. Producers of dictionaries often make a decision in this regard on the basis of etymology, which is not necessarily relevant, and in fact separate entries are necessary in some instances when two lexemes have a common origin. The form pupil, for example, has two different senses, ‘part of the eye’ and ‘school child.’ Historically these have a common origin but at present they are semantically unrelated. Similarly, flower and flour were originally ‘the same word,’ and so were the verbs to poach (a way of cooking in water) and to poach (‘to hunt [animals] on another person’s land’), but the meanings are now far apart and all dictionaries treat them as homonyms, with separate listing. The distinction between homonymy and Polysemy is not an easy one to make. Two lexemes are either identical in form or not, but relatedness of meaning is not a matter of yes or no; it is a matter of more or less.
Example:
A. Fred asked Betty where his golf clubs were.
→ Fred: “Where are my golf clubs, Betty?” (a request for information)
B. Fred asked Donna if she had seen his clubs.
→ Fred: “Have you seen my clubs, Donna?” (a request for information)
C. Fred asked Charles to help him find his clubs.
→ Fred: “Help me to find my clubs, Charles.” (a request for a kind of action)
Sentences A and B are about questions, requests for information. The utterances behind sentences A and B would be something like “Where are my golf clubs, Betty?” and “Have you seen my clubs, Donna?” respectively. Sentence C is not a request for information but a request for a kind of action. The utterance behind sentence C might be something like “Help me to find my clubs, Charles.”, a request for action is prospective: the asking naturally precedes whatever action the other person takes. A request for information has no such relation to the information sought; it is about what the addressee may know at the time of asking. Now, do we have two homonymous verbs ask, or is there just one verb which happens to have two meanings? (We’ll leave aside the possibility of more than two meanings.) Before deciding, it may be useful to look at the correspondences in two languages related to English, three Germanic and three Romance.
| English | Indonesian | ||
| Ask | for information | Bertanya | untuk informasi |
| Ask | for action | Meminta | untuk tindakan |
If this display shows anything, we can conclude that English ask is a polysemous verb that corresponds to two different verbs in some other languages. The context in which ask occurs determines whether information or a favor is being requested. Therefore, there is no lexical ambiguity.
Bank =
- the land alongside or sloping down to a river or lake.
- a long, high mound or elevation.
- a transverse slope given to a road, railway, or sports track to enable vehicles or runners to maintain speed round a curve.
- the sideways tilt of an aircraft when turning in flight.
- a set of similar things grouped together in rows.
- the cushion of a pool table.
· v.
- heap or form into a mass or mound.
- (of an aircraft or vehicle) tilt sideways in making a turn.
- build (a road, railway, or sports track) with a bank on a bend.
- Brit. (of a locomotive) provide additional power for (a train) in ascending an incline.
- (of an angler) land (a fish).