Some comments on the origin of homonymy in the Slavic languages*

Abstract

In this paper we shall focus our attention. on several aspects of the ongm and nature of homonymy, drawing examples from Russian and Serbo-Croatian and other Slavic languages. We shall first view this from a diachronic perspective noting some of the reasons for the appearance of homonyms. Then we shall examine the phenomenon at the synchronic level employing a variant of Serbo-Croatian in which important phonetic changes now in pro­ cess have given rise to new homophones. We may begin by turning to the ancestor of both Russian and Serbo-Croatian, Common Slavic. Homonymy appears to be a linguistically universal phenomenon, and it is safe to assu­ me that there were homonyms in Common Slavic. One pair of such words was undoubtedly the infinitive pasti 'to graze' (pasq) and ' to fall' (padq) which has its reflexes in most of the modern Slavic languages, e. g. Serbo-Croatian pásti and pȁsti or Russian pastí and past' and Ukrainian pásty.