[Lexicog] Heteronyms in English

[Fritz Goerling]

Andrew,

 

Just out of interest: How would Spanish speakers distinguish between

“Pope” and “Daddy?” Same question for Italian.

Isn’t “Il Pápa” (the Pope) accented on the first syllable?

 

Fritz Goerling

 

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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