Many foreigners note that the Russian language is very difficult to learn. It is especially difficult with words that are not spelled the way they are heard, or are similar in sound to a radically different word. We are talking about homophones, to which we will devote this article.
Homophone is...
Let's figure out what it is. The list will help us:
- A pair or more words that sound the same but are spelled differently different meaning.
- Phonetic (sound) ambiguity.
- Phonetic homonyms (from Greek - "the same sounds").
Homophones in Russian are formed due to the following sources:
- Changing the sound of a vowel in an unstressed position.
- sounds when the latter are placed at the end of a word or before another consonant.
To make it clearer to you what we are talking about, we present concrete examples homophones.
Homophones: examples of words and phrases
Let's get acquainted with various types this phonetic phenomenon. Examples of homophone words:
- Stunning consonants: meadow-bow, twig-pond, cat-code, threshold-vice, opened-boiled, case-fall, cry-cry.
- Merging with the second consonant: ball-ball.
- Vowel reduction: give-betray, ghost-cast.
- The coincidence of the sound of the verb in the infinitive and the 3rd person of the present or simple future tense: it is necessary to decide - it will be decided today, we will build - the village is being built.
You can also find examples of homophones-phrases - both the coincidence in the sound of one word and the whole phrase, and the coincidence of two phrases. Sometimes the only difference is the location of the space. For example:
- pine - from sleep;
- not mine - mute;
- skid - by the nose;
- I carry different things - absurd things;
- in place - together;
- manure - for a cart;
- for the cause - hurt;
- from the hatch - and evil.
In context it looks like this:
- This warrior could stand up for his entire family. In a public place, you should cover your mouth when you yawn.
- He was always drawn to the sea, Paul said that this was his element. In this sad hour, I write poetry for you.
- What does it have to do with what I once told you? I am already navigating in this area, and without the help of a navigator.
- It was decided to continue moving, not allowing even the slightest delay. From line to line, Valya re-read her mother's letter again.
- I was again drawn to green meadows, noisy waterfalls, unexplored forests, brown rocks. Whatever he said, it seems that his speech is entwined with a pun.
- Every day I walk the same path, but I carry different things. She simply could not fit in her head these truly absurd things.
Origin of the concept
Homophone - it came from the ancient Greek ὁμόφωνος, which means "speaking the same language", "consonant", "consonant". According to another version, the concept was formed from a combination of two ancient Greek words: ὁμός - "same", "equal" and φωνή - "sound", "voice".
Related concepts
Do not confuse homophones with related terms:
- Homonyms- morphemes, words and other units of the language are completely identical both in sound and in spelling; their cardinal difference is in meaning. Example: ether in broadcasting and ether - organic matter.
- homographs- such words are the same in spelling, but completely different in pronunciation. A lock with an accent on the first syllable and a lock with an accent on the second.
- homoforms- the so-called graphic homonyms. Different words that coincide in spelling only in a specific grammatical form. For example, I fly - the verbs "fly" and "treat", I cry - the infinitives "cry" and "pay".
- Homomorphemes- various morphemes (parts of the word - prefixes, roots, suffixes, endings), which are the same in spelling and pronunciation, but have different meanings. A good example of this is "a". Can be the ending of a noun plural(city), noun ending in genitive case(I'm at home today), the end of the verb in the past tense (accepted).
- Paronyms Words that sound the same but have different meanings. Addressee-addresser, blood-blood, subscriber-subscription.
Homonyms are divided into:
- Complete - words that have the same all forms. Note that homographs differ from this type of homonyms in that they can be different parts of speech.
- Partial - not all absolutely forms of the word coincide.
- Grammatical - one or more forms match.
Homophones in other languages
Examples of homophone words can be found not only in the Russian dialect:
- The French language is distinguished by the fact that it is extremely rich in homophones. The reason for this is that the vast majority of the final letters in it are not readable. Such a homophonic chain can line up: ver - verre - vers - vert.
- English learners, too, often had to be in a quandary due to frequent encounters with homophones. This comes from the fact that sounds heard in the same way in this dialect are indicated in writing by completely different letters. For example: knew - new, bear - bare, whole - hole.
So, homophones are words that we pronounce the same way, but we write differently, and we put a radically different meaning into each of them. It is difficult for native speakers to get lost in this kind of phonetic ambiguity, but for Russian learners, homophones can be a serious problem.
In order to determine what homophones are, first of all, you need to know what homonyms are.
Homonyms are words that can have completely different meanings, but can sound the same and even be spelled the same.
Homophones are words that sound the same in oral speech, but are spelled differently and have different meanings (phonetic twins).
That is, they are phonetic homonyms, and a homonym (translated from Greek) is "the same sound."
When pronouncing these words, even whole phrases, we can understand them only by their meaning and distinguish them only in writing. Apart from the sound coincidence, these words have nothing in common. Some homophones can have multiple meanings.
Example
How does this happen?
- Voiced consonants are stunned (find a paired consonant sound) at the end of a word
- Voiced consonants are stunned if they come before another voiceless consonant.
- Unstressed vowels can also reduce (change).
- In some phrases, all letters may coincide, but when written, they differ in the presence of spaces between words.
Give me a sock - Give me juice.
- The presence of the letter "b".
Touch - musical beat. Mascara - cosmetics.
- Pre- and prefix Applies the meaning of a word.
In foreign languages
Often there are homophones in English language. They may also sound the same, but are drastically different when written. This is a historical phenomenon that contains a different designation in the letter of the same sound.
Along with homonyms, that is, homonymous words, there are homomorphemes, that is, homonymous morphemes, that is, parts of words (prefixes, suffixes, roots, endings) that coincide in spelling and pronunciation, but have different meanings. For example, ending - A in Russian means:
plural nouns of the second declension ( city - cities),
genitive case of nouns ( house - Houses),
feminine past tense verbs ( began - start).
Homonyms, homophones, homographs and homoforms
Homonyms are words that sound the same at the same time. And in spelling but different in meaning.
Homophones (phonetic homonyms) are words that sound the same but are different in spelling and meaning.
Homographs (graphic homonyms) are words that have the same spelling but are different in sound and meaning.
Homoforms (grammatical homonyms) are different words, coinciding in separate grammatical forms. For example, the verbs fly and treat coincide in the form of the 1st person singular of the present tense - I fly. Homoform examples.
Homonymy in taxonomy[edit | edit wiki text]
According to their morphological structure, homonyms are simple, or non-derivative, and derivative. Non-derivative homonyms are most found in the circle of nouns. Homonymy derivative is especially common among verbs (cf .: backfillA be- fall asleep and backfillA be- fill with something loose, etc.).
The so-called homoforms, homophones and homographs, which are similar to lexical homonymy, but characterize the phenomenon of so-called stylistic homonymy in the broad sense of the word, should not be confused with lexical homonyms: 1) the coincidence of the sound and spelling of one or more forms of words - homoforms(cf. roadsO th- them. n. masculine adjective and roadsO th- genus, date, suggestion cases of adjective feminine); 2) the same pronunciation, but different spelling of words and phrases - homophones(cf. eye - voice; could - wet); 3) the same spelling, but different pronunciation of words - homographs(cf. hA mok And deputyO To).
Such phenomena can be used, along with proper lexical homonymy, for various stylistic purposes: to create expressiveness of speech, in puns, jokes, etc.
See, for example, Y. Kozlovsky in the poem "The Bear and the Wasps" from the series of poems "About the words diverse, the same, but different":
Carried a bear walking to the market ,
For sale to honey pot .
Suddenly on the bear - here attack ! -
The wasps took it into their heads attack .
Teddy bear with an army aspen
Fought torn aspen .
Could he be furious fall into ,
If the wasps climbed into the mouth ,
Stung where horrible ,
them for this and horrible .
Homonymous words, along with polysemantic ones, also form certain groups, internally connected by the unity of semantically different words, similar in spelling, pronunciation, and coincidence of grammatical forms. Consequently, they, too, falling out of the system of words that are semantically close or opposite, nevertheless represent formally united syntagmas, i.e. elements of a common language system.
Note. Words should not be confused with homonymous words - paronyms(gr. para - near + onima - name), which differ in meaning, but are similar in pronunciation, grammatical affiliation, and often the relationship of roots. For example, subscription - subscriber, weekday - everyday, offensive - touchy, provide - present and many others. etc. (See more about this: Vishnyakova O.V. Paronymy in the Russian language. M., 1984.)
