Antonyms Name an adjective and ask your child to come up with a word with the opposite meaning. Then, with the help of general movements and facial expressions, depict one of the states just named. So, for a pair of words "sour" and "sweet" you can show such

Two words in one Give the child an example of how two words can be combined into one. To do this, ask the question: “Who flies?”, And then answer it yourself, making a short pause in the middle of the word: “Airplane.” Invite the child to independently combine two words into one.

First words Prepare 5-8 toys that the baby constantly plays with and knows their names. Show the child a familiar toy. When he is interested in it and wants to pick it up, say: “Say: “Give it!” Show the child a familiar toy and ask: “What is this?” If

Baby's Words In addition to understanding your verbal and body language, your baby is expanding his own repertoire. Although his sounds are still mostly staccato, he surprises you from time to time by changing the inflection and intonation of his

First words Many children at this stage of development do not say many new words, perhaps because they devote most of their energy to walking skills. As soon as the child masters the steps, they begin to beat the key of the word. By 15 months, the average child can read

The Importance of Saying “No” Parents should say “no” to their child so that later the child can say “no” to himself. All children—and some adults—find it hard to put off enjoyment until later. “I want now” is a powerful impulse, especially for a child in

In many languages ​​of the planet there is such a thing as homonymy. It is based on the fact that words and morphemes that are the same in sound and spelling have different meanings. They are called "homonyms". Examples of them are found all over the place. We use them very often in ordinary speech.

Homonyms

Examples confirming this phenomenon are known to many. These are common words:

• "bow" in the meanings of plant and weapon;
• "escape", in one case denoting a young branch, and in another - unauthorized hasty departure.

Out of context, it is difficult to determine exactly what meaning these homonyms are used in. Example sentences with words will demonstrate this phenomenon clearly.

• Green onions are especially good in vegetable salads.
• The boy was given a toy bow and arrow for his birthday.
• The apple tree gave a young shoot, but the gardener pruned it in the fall.
• The Count of Monte Cristo escaped from prison in a creative way, replacing the prisoner's corpse with himself.

Examples of phrases will help to understand what homonyms mean:

• "green onions" and "accurate onions";
• "maiden spit" and "river spit";
• "three apples" and "three rag stain".

This phenomenon is quite entertaining, therefore it is often used by Russian language teachers as an entertaining technique in studying the subject, a way to expand the vocabulary and horizons of students.

Games with homonyms in the classroom and extracurricular activities

To conduct this competition, you should prepare pairs of words that have the same pronunciation and spelling, but completely different meanings. Only meanings are offered to players, and the words themselves (you can use the same spelling for both) are hidden under a cardboard picture that will serve as a point token, for example, a pattern of a tree leaf, an apple, a gold ingot. The participant who correctly named the homonyms receives this emblem after the correct answer as a point. At the end of the game, token points are counted up and a winner is chosen.

Homonyms are suitable for the competition, examples of which may be as follows (it should be recalled that only pictures are presented to participants and viewers, the words themselves are closed):

• "shop" as a piece of furniture and a medium-sized outlet;
• the word "lama", acting in one sense as an animal, and in another - as a Tibetan monk.

At the lesson, you can offer students one or two pairs of words. This task will take only a few minutes, and the benefits will be huge. Indeed, in addition to the above, this type of activity generates and strengthens interest in the study of the Russian language.

Homonymy and polysemy

Many words have more than one meaning. Coinciding in spelling, they differ lexically. It is necessary to distinguish between homonyms and polysemantic words. Examples of polysemy are also quite common. For example, two words pronounced as "key" can act as homonyms in the following way:

• spring and device for opening.

But in the meanings of “violin”, “wrench”, “from the door lock”, “device for rolling cans”, “key” is one word. This is an amazing linguistic feature, which should already be considered as a phenomenon of polysemy. Indeed, in each of the listed options, the ability of the key to open something appears: a musical string or some object. It is one word with different meanings, not different homonyms.

There are a great many examples of such polysemantic words in Russian speech. Sometimes it is quite difficult to separate them from homonyms.

Polysemy sometimes comes from the transition of the name by external resemblance. This is

• "sleeve" - ​​a separate riverbed and part of the shirt;
• "tape" - a device for a girl's hairstyle and a long road, a moving part of the conveyor.

The ambiguity of these words arose from the outward similarity of some features. For example, a sleeve in clothing is separated from a common large object. And the branching of the channel resembles the same phenomenon. Actually, the word “trouser leg” could have appeared in this version, but for some reason the Russian people chose the “sleeve”.

The tape is a narrow long object. Apparently, the person who invented the conveyor saw the similarity of its moving part with a device for a girl's hairstyle. This is how the name transition, the phenomenon of polysemy, took place.

Etymological homonymy

A group of words refers to homonyms unambiguously, since their very origin is already different. Therefore, in the task “Give examples of homonyms that differ etymologically”, you need to pick up such words that came into Russian speech from different languages. To do this, look into the etymological dictionary.

These are the word "boron", denoting a chemical element, and its homonym - a pine forest. The first noun came into Russian speech from the Persian language, where it sounded like "borax", that is, a compound of boron. The name of the pine forest is of Slavic origin.

Some linguists believe that the existence of the phenomenon of homonymy should be recognized only where the very etymology of words differs.

The same linguists do not see homonymy in the noun "ether" as an organic substance and in the meaning of "broadcasting and television". After all, historically both words have a common etymology. They came from the ancient Greek root αἰθήρ, which means "mountain air". And if the task says: “Give examples of homonyms,” and the respondent uses the word “ether” in two meanings, then these scientists will consider the answer incorrect.

Disputes of linguists about polysemy and homonymy

However, not everyone can offhand determine the historical origin of words. Often this requires special dictionaries. Therefore, most people see that the meanings of the word "ether" are completely different and classify them as homonyms. Therefore, some linguists also do not see ambiguity here. The explanatory dictionary also refers them to different words with different meanings.

Examples of homonyms that cause controversy among linguists are as follows:

• “braid” in the meaning of a hairstyle and a mowing tool, since some argue that there is a transition of the name here according to external similarity (thin and long);
• "pen" as a tool for writing, a device for opening, turning on, since some people determine polysemy by the fact that they have something in common in the mode of action (they write and open with their hands);
• "feather" in the sense of "pen" and as a skin horn formation of birds and some dinosaurs, considering that the first meaning came to the word from the historical way of writing with bird feathers.

Some linguists refer to homonymy all words in which polysemy can be traced. They consider polysemy only a special case.

Full homonyms

Linguists divide words that have the same pronunciation and spelling and have different meanings into two groups. Full lexical homonyms belonging to the same grammatical category are allocated to one category. Examples of these: "scythe", "tongue", "escape", "key" and others. In all their forms, these words coincide both in spelling and in pronunciation.

Incomplete or partial homonyms

There are also words that coincide only in some forms. These are grammatical homonyms. Examples of this phenomenon often refer to different parts of speech:

• “three” is a verb of the 2nd person singular imperative with the initial form “rub” and “three” is a cardinal number;
• “oven” is a verb in an indefinite form and “oven” is a feminine singular noun;
• "saw" is a feminine singular past tense verb and "saw" is a feminine singular noun.

Grammatical homonymy is also observed in words belonging to the same part of speech. For example, the verbs of the 1st person singular of the present tense "fly". The first word is defined as an action related to medicine. Already the infinitive will sound like "treat". And the second verb has the initial form "to fly" and denotes the action of making a flight.

Partial homonymy is observed in words of the same grammatical category. This happens when words differ in only one form. For example, two nouns "weasel" - an animal and a manifestation of tenderness - do not coincide only in the genitive plural. These homonyms will look like “weasels” and “weasels” in this form.

Homonyms and homophones

Some confuse the phenomenon of homonymy with others. For example, homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings but are spelled differently. These are not homonyms! Examples of words that are homophones show this feature.

• “Cat” is a pet, and “code” is most often a certain set of characters or sounds.

Everyone will notice that these words should be written in different ways. But by ear to catch the difference is almost impossible. The word "code" must be pronounced with a stunning final consonant. This is where the sound similarity comes from.

Homonymy and homography

There are other linguistic phenomena similar to the one we are considering. For example, homographs are interesting because they are the same in spelling, but are pronounced differently, most often due to stress. They are also not homonyms. Examples of homograph words are as follows:

• gate - gate;
• castle - castle;
• smell - smell.

Homographs are also interesting for composing tasks for contests and games. With the help of picture riddles in which homographs are encrypted, linguistic activities can be diversified.