Homonymy: Arabic Language and Words

1

Babylon University

Homonymy in English and Arabic: A
Contrastive Study

By:
Lecturer Ahmed Mohammed Ali Abdul Ameer (ME in Methods of Teaching English as a Foreign Language)
Department of English
College of Education (Safi yil Deen Al-Hilli)
University of Babylon

Asst. Lecturer Areej As’ad Ja’far Altaie (MA in English
Language and Linguistics)
Department of English
College of Education (Safi yil Deen Al-Hilli)
University of Babylon

2010

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Introduction
In fact, although homonymy is defined differently in English, yet in general, a word is similar in form with another word either in pronunciation (i.e. homophone) or in spelling (homograph), or both, but differs from it in meaning.
On the other hand, in Arabic, there is a general agreement that the homonym is an expression with one enunciation (or form) and more than one meaning.
Actually, this phenomenon creates lexical and syntactic ambiguity in both languages. Thus, it should be studied and examined. In addition, homonymy has its own features, specifications and forms in each language. Hence, this research aims at:
1- investigating homonymy in English and Arabic.
2- making a comparison between the two languages to show the similarities and differences between them.
Homonymy in English
Definitions of Homonymy
Originally, the word "homonym" comes from the conjunction of the Greek prefix homo-, meaning "same", and suffix -ṓnymos, meaning "name". Thus, it refers to two or more distinct concepts sharing the "same name" or signifier (Wikipedia
2010: 1).
Lyons (1982: 72; Oxford Wordpower 2000:366; Richards and Schmidt
2002:241; and for lexical items that are identical in spelling and pronunciation but have different meanings. Examples of homonyms are lie as in you have to lie down and lie in
Don’t lie, tell the truth. The above definition does not involve anything about homophones and homographs; in addition, it creates a problem with polysemy.
Hartmann and Stork

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