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, which we will devote this article to.
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 and have very different meanings.
- Phonetic (sound) ambiguity.
- Phonetic homonyms (from Greek - "the same sounds").
Homophones in Russian are formed thanks to the following sources:
- Changing the sound of a vowel in an unstressed position.
- Stunning consonants when they are placed at the end of a word or before another consonant.
To make it clearer what we are talking about, here are specific examples of homophones.
Homophones: examples of words and phrases
Let's get acquainted with the different types of this phonetic phenomenon. Examples of homophone words:
- Stunning consonants: meadow-bow, rod-pond, cat-code, threshold-vice, opened-boiled, case-fall, cry-cry.
- Merge with the second consonant: ball-point.
- Vowel reduction: give-betray, ghost-ghost.
- Coincidence of the sound of the verb in the infinitive and the 3rd person of the present or simple future tense: you need 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;
- carry different things - awkward things;
- in place - together;
- manure - for cart;
- for the cause - hurt;
- from the hatch - and the evil one.
In context it looks like this:
- This warrior could stand up for his entire family. In a public place, you need to cover your mouth when you yawn.
- He was always drawn to the sea, Pavel said that this was his element. In this sad hour, I write poetry to you.
- What does it have to do with what I once told you? I am already navigating the 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 reread her mother's letter again.
- I was again drawn to green meadows, noisy waterfalls, unexplored forests, brown rocks. No matter what he said, it seems that his speech is woven with a pun.
- Every day I walk the same path, but I carry different things. She just couldn't wrap her head around these truly absurd things.
Origin of the concept
Homophone is a loan word. 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".
Similar concepts
Do not confuse homophones with related terms:
- Homonyms are completely identical both in sound and in writing morphemes, words and other units of the language; 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. Lock with accent on the first syllable and lock with accent on the second.
- Homoforms are 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 are different morphemes (parts of a word - prefixes, roots, suffixes, endings), which are the same in spelling and pronunciation, but have different meanings. A good example of this is "a". May be the ending of a plural noun (cities), endingnoun in the genitive case (I'm at home today), the end of the verb in the past tense (accepted).
- Paronyms are words that have a similar sound and morphemic composition, but different meanings. Addressee-addresser, blood-blood, subscriber-subscription.
Homonyms are divided into:
- Full - 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 word forms match.
- Grammar - one or more forms match.
Homophones in other languages
Examples of homophone words can be found not only in the Russian dialect:
- French 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. The following homophonic chain can line up: ver - verre - vers - vert.
- English learners also often had to be in a quandary due to frequent encounters with homophones. This comes from the fact that the same vowels and consonants heard in this adverb in writing are indicated 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 confused in this kind of phonetic ambiguity, but forlearners of Russian homophones can become a serious problem.
