Meaning of homosemy | Babel Free

Definitions

The state or quality (of a word, term, phrase, or clause) of having identical meaning to another.

uncountable

Examples

“Near-synonyms: (precisely differentiable) synonymy, synonymity, synonymousness; cognitive synonymy”

“A situation is a specific state of affairs perceived by a Speaker independently of how he wants to communicate it. For example, if a Speaker perceives the following situation: ‘Mary causes the flat part of her hand to come⟳ violently into contact⟳ with Peter's face⟳’, he can express⟳ this situation by saying Mary slapped Peter in the face⟳. For the same situation, another Speaker might say⟳ Peter was slapped in the face⟳ by Mary, It was in the face⟳ that Mary slapped Peter, etc.—depending on how he wants to express⟳ this situation. For all these different sentences the situation expressed remains the same. The meaning that corresponds to a situation will be called situational meaning (see⟳ also Mel’čuk et al., 1992:11). Two sentences with the same situational meaning will be called homosemous, or said to be linked by a relation of homosemy. The term ‘homosemous’ is proposed instead of the term ‘synonymous’, which we consider⟳ distinct from the former. X is synonymous to Y means ‘X is homosemous to Y and X has the same Semantic-Communicative Structure⟳ as Y’. Let⟳ us now compare⟳ sentences (1a) and (1b): (1) a. Peter killed the cat by strangling it. b. The cat died because Peter strangled it.”

CEFR level