Crossing Functional-Syntactical Homonymy: Its Essence, Role and Place in the Language System

Abstract

The article describes crossing functional-syntactical homonymy of prepositions, which is a subtype of grammatical homonymy. Only non-derived simple prepositions are analysed here, since prepositions constituting this subclass are the most promising in relation to homonymy according to a number of characteristics. Prepositions are studied in terms of their functioning in three syntactical structures as types of context: syntaxeme (nearest context), word combination (middle context) and utterance (broad context). The study is based on a synthesis of ideas of structuralism, functionalism and cognitivism. The source of practical material is the Russian National Corpus. The paper emphasizes the hierarchical nature of the cognitive semantics of prepositions, which includes up to 4–5 levels. The study found that crossing homonymy is deep in nature; therefore, in order to identify and describe it, one needs to analyse the lowest layers of semantic hierarchy. Since homonymy does not manifest itself (neutralizes) at the upper level or levels, it can be described as non-absolute (incomplete). It is noted that crossing homonymy is closely related to polysemy. The author considers it more appropriate to proceed not from the idea of strict differentiation of these two categories, but from the idea of their correlation, comparison by a number of criteria, of which the functional-syntactical criterion is the most significant: the difference in semantico-syntactical functions performed by prepositions indicates homonymy. Further, it is revealed that adverbial relations make the biggest contribution to homonymy, followed by objective and attributive relations. Prepositional homonymy is found in both different-case and same-case syntaxemes; in different-case syntaxemes it normally lies deeper in the semantic hierarchy. The study allows us to draw a general conclusion about the importance of crossing homonymy in terms of linguistic economy, which is especially relevant nowadays, considering the constantly growing volumes of data transmitted.