[Lexicog] Heteronyms in English

[Andrew Dunbar]

Spanish is full of heteronym even with identical accent. My favourite is "papa":

papa 1 m. (Latin papas, from Greek. πάππας): pope
papa 2 f. (Quechua papa): potato
papa 3 f. (Latin pappa): pap

Being a proud new owner of a used current RAE and an active contributor
to Wiktionary, I have seen many others which don't spring quickly to mind.

Andrew Dunbar.


On 4/5/06, Kenneth C. Hill <kennethchill at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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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