Лексикология английского языка

C. Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech which are identical only in their corresponding forms. E.g. to lie (lay, lain), v – to lie (lied,lied),v – лгать.


4. Sources of homonyms
1). One source of homonyms are phonetic changes which words undergo in the course of their historical development. As a result of such changes, two or more words which were formely pronounced differently may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms. Night (ночь) and knight (рыцарь), for instance, were not homonyms in Old English as the initial k in the second word was pronounced, and not dropped as it is in its modern sound form.

2) Borrowing is another source of homonyms. A borrowed word may duplicate in form either a native word or another borrowing. So, in the group of homonyms rite, n (обряд) – to write, v – right, adj. the second and third words are of native origin whereas rite (обряд) is a Latin borrowing.

3). Word-building also contributes significantly to the growth of homonymy, and the most important type in this respect is conversion. Such pairs of words as comb, n (гребень) – to comb, v (расчёсывать); to make, v (делать) – make, n (работа) are numerous in the vocabulary. Homonyms of this type, which are the same in sound and spelling but refer to different categories of parts of speech, are called lexico-grammatical homonyms.

4). Shortening is a further type of word-building which increases the number of homonyms. E.g. fan, n in the sense of “an admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer” is a shortening produced from fanatic. Its homonym is a Latin borrowing fan, n which denotes an implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current of air.