[Lexicog] Heteronyms in English

[Kenneth C. Hill]

Spanish would abound in "heteronyms" except for the fact that written
accents serve to disambiguate them. A few examples are:

canto 'I sing/singing/edge'  :  cantó '3rd person singular sang'
continuo 'continuous'        :  continúo 'I continue'
cortes 'cuts/courts'         :  cortés 'polite'

Spanish even writes accents to distinguish some homophones, e.g., mas
'but', más 'more'; si 'if', sí 'yes/selves'; se 'self', sé 'I know'; te
'yourself', té 'tea'; tu 'your', tú 'you'.

It is the failure to mark stress in English that provides many of Fritz's
"heteronyms". I bet there are lots of "heteronyms" to be found in
languages which have orthographically unmarked phonemic stress.

--Ken Hill

--- Fritz Goerling <Fritz_Goerling at sil.org> wrote:

> We discussed homonyms in English on this list a while ago.
> English has quite a number of heteronyms, too.
> Here are the first two stanzas from a "Hymn to
> Heteronyms:"
> 
> Please go through the entrance of this little poem.
> I guarantee it will entrance you.
> The content will certainly make you content,
> and the knowledge gained sure will enhance you.
> 
> A boy moped around when his parents refused
> For him a new moped to buy.
> The incense he burned did incense him to go
> On a tear with a tear in his eye.
> 
> To what extent does this phenomenon exist in other languages?
> 
> Fritz Goerling
> 


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