Homographs vs Senses?

[Sadek Husein]

Dear All,

Peace be upon you!
In FieldWorks, why we need homographs and senses? What are they differences between  Homographs and Senses?

If a word has serval meanings, can't we add the meanings by insetting senses?

Thank you very much in advance!

[Andreas_Joswig]

Dear Sadek,

The difference is made to allow to distinguish between situations where two different meanings relate to the same word, and situations where the two words are truly different and only share the same word form by coincidence. The first situation can be exemplified by English cook, which can have a meaning as a verb ('prepare a meal'), and another meaning as a noun ('person who cooks'). Both meanings are related, and they go back to the same root - so this is a case of two senses of the same word. The other situation is exemplified by bank 'finance institution' and bank 'edge of a river' - both words are spelled the same, but they traveled two completely different ways into the English language, and are in no way related to each other. Also the meanings are not in any way related.

Of course this distinction cannot always be made with confidence. When you know that two lexical units go back to the same root, you treat them as different senses. When you know they are truly different words, you treat them as homographs. But when you are not so sure, it is usually best to also treat them as homographs.

Of course you can choose to ignore this distinction entirely for the purposes of your dictionary, and treat all lexical units as senses of the same entry, or you can even treat all units as separate entries.

Best wishes,

Andreas

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[Jim Roberts]

Hi Sadek,

 

Maybe another example of a slightly different sort would be helpful to point out the difference between separate words (homographs) and separate senses of a single word (polysemy). In English we have the spelling <lead> but that spelling actually is used for two completely separate words (like Andreas’ examples of bank vs. bank). In this example, though, the two separate words are even PRONOUNCED differently, and yet they are spelled the same. (They are homographs but not homophones.)

 

<lead> (1) is pronounced [lɛd] and is a type of metal.

<lead> (2) is pronounced [li:d] and has several senses: as a verb, it means a) to go in front of or b) to direct; as a noun, it may mean c) the first place or d) an initial bit of information to be pursued in further research.

 

So we have both homography and polysemy here. Between lead(1) and lead(2) we have completely separate words, with no semantic connection between them, and they are even pronounced differently, although unfortunately in English they are written (spelled) identically.

For lead(2) we have a single word with multiple senses (even different parts of speech), but between all these senses there is a thread of meaning that connects them. And if you think some more you may come up with additional senses for lead(2) that you might like to distinguish, but they should all have some semantic connection between them. In no case will there ever be any semantic connection to a type of metal (lead(1)).

 

By the way, in many African languages that do not represent phonological tone in the orthography, we often find different words that are spelled the same (homographs) even though they are pronounced differently and have completely distinct meanings. The meanings of the two words should not be combined into one entry in the dictionary, since they are clearly separate words. On the other hand, the different (but connected) senses of a single word (polysemy) should in fact be joined into a single dictionary entry.

 

Jim

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[Sadek Husein]

Thank you so much. It is very helpful.
God bless both of you! 

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