Kalmyk Homonymic Studies and the Challenge of Compiling a Homonymic Dictionary Revisited

Goals: The paper provides an overview of Kalmyk homonymic studies, determines criteria to differentiate between homonyms and polysemantic words, describes lexical and semantic ties between different variants of one word or different words, examines grammatical and word-forming homonymy. The work is a case study of lexical materials collected through continuous sampling of homonyms contained in the Kalmyk-Russian Dictionary by B. Muniev and the author’s card-catalogue compiled from literary writings, oral folklore texts, and periodicals.
Methods: The study conducts a qualitative and quantitative analysis of pairs of modern Kalmyk lexemes with diverse homonymic ties that proved helpful in identifying types (and kinds) of homonymy.
Results: The study revealed the types of homonyms as follows: lexical, grammatical, and phonetic ones.
Lexical homonyms can be etymologically divided into three groups.
Group 1 includes genetically unrelated homonyms, namely, etymological, historical, and heterogeneous ones. Such etymological homonyms appeared as results of full phonetic and scriptural matches of different words, e. g., өңг ‘color, pigment’ — өңг ‘friend, comrade’, саам ‘milk yield’ — саам ‘period of time’, цоохр ‘starred sturgeon’ — цоохр ‘variegated’.
Group 2 includes genetically related homonyms that have resulted from conversions and split polysemies; those are referred to as semantic of homogenous homonyms. For example, орм ‘place’ — орм ‘trace, trail’, ооср ‘rope’ — ооср ‘dog-collar’, ору ‘estrus’ — ору ‘(spring) flood’.
Group 3 includes homonyms that emerged with the aid of word-forming affixes, such homonyms being referred to as derivative ones. For example, тавта ‘convenient, favorable’ — тавта ‘five-year-old’ — тавта ‘he who is ready (to act)’.
Grammatical homonyms, or homoforms, are words that coincide phonetically and scripturally only in separate grammatical forms but are semantically different, e.g., ке ‘beautiful, elegant’ — ке ‘do’, нар ‘bone, cube’ — нар ‘Come here!’, сур ‘leather bag’ — сур ‘Ask!’.
Another kind of omoforms is conversion when a word of one part of speech functionally acts as that of another. For example, киитн үвл ‘cold winter’ (adj.) — киитн ирв ‘cold has come’ (noun), ноһан альчур ‘green kerchief’ — ноһан шавшна ‘grass trembles’.
There are homonyms similar phonetically but differing scripturally, the latter referred to as homophones. For example, that is the case when a voiced consonant becomes a voiceless one: бордх ‘fatten’ — бортх ‘leather vessel, leather flask (for milk vodka)’, ядх ‘get tired’ — ятх ‘yatkha (a musical instrument)’.
Dialectal differences in the Kalmyk literary language have also given rise to a number of homophones, such as үмсх (Torghut) ‘kiss’ — өмсх (Dorbet) ‘put on’, хүв (Torg.) ‘share’ — хөв (Dorb.) ‘happiness’, төгәх ‘give’ — түгәх ‘infect’.
The Kalmyk lexical system also contains omographs — words that are similar scripturally but differ phonetically, e.g., бод ‘cattle’ — бод(э) ‘think, reflect’, тул ‘taimen (fisg)’ — тул(э) ‘Support!’.
There are a number of coincidences between Kalmyk and loan words that differ by location of stress only, e.g., Kalm. бор(0) ‘grey’ — Rus. бóр ‘pinewood’; Kalm. ад(0) ‘fury’ — Rus. áд ‘hell’; Kalm. хор(0) ‘poison’ — рус. хóр ‘choir’.
Conclusions: The analysis conducted shows that Kalmyk homonyms emerge through a variety of lexical transformations, grouped homonyms to be classified depending upon language contexts.
Thus, the work attempts to semantically describe formation means, types and patterns of homonyms in the Kalmyk literary language.

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