Homophony (linguistic)

See also: Homophony

In Grammar, the homophony is a variety of Homonymie indicating the relationship between two Mot S different having the same pronunciation - cf Phonétique. Homophony is distinguished in that from the Homographie , which it, indicates the relationship between two different words having same the Orthographe. Homophony is very frequent in French (because it can occur with the near total of the words, same most current) and is the source of faults of very frequent Orthographe:

For example in French, the verb “closes” (conjugation “to close” at the present indicative to third person plural) and the male name “close” (homophonous “closing” verb) are homographs but not homophonous, while the words “sea”, “mother” and “mayor” are homophonous but not homographs.
the case more the current of homophony in French occurs with the agreements with female and/or of many words (whose names, adjectives and participles), because these agreements, even if they are different orthographiquement, are not different always phonetically. Homophony (not homograph) is also very frequent in the combined forms of the same verb (in particular with all the regular verbs of the first or second group).
the vowels transcribed in French `E' and `E' are generally homophonous (some make however hear a small phonetic difference, that well little can differentiate).
the vowels transcribed in French `I', `I' and `I' are generally homophonous, just as `U', `U' and `U' (the use of the dieresis and the circumflex accent tends to disappear and the dieresis even obligatory any more nor is not recommended on the `I' and the `U', in almost all the cases where that does not create new a homonymous).
the vowels transcribed in French `has' and “with” are always homophonous.

Two different words which are at the same time homophonous and homographs are homonymous true:

For example in French, “am” indicates two true homonyms because it can be the combined form of the two different verbs “being” and “follow” (at the present indicative and the first or the second nobody of the singular), but it is also a homophon of the two true homonyms “follows” (resulting from the same verbs conjugated however with the third nobody), as well as a homophon of “Suie”, the female common noun.

One sometimes also speaks about homophony between two or several words (or expressions) when these words (or expressions) have normally different phonetically but sufficiently close pronunciations ( paronyms ) to be sometimes confused phonologiquement according to the regional accents or when they are pronounced in another language which does not make a clear difference between several phonemes, or when the pronunciation of the C-W communication is dubious in this language. But one should rather speak in this case about paraphonia :

It is the case often of certain foreign proper names such as the paronyms Holland, Holland, Åland and Öland in French, who is often paraphonic, and whose orthography can vary because of normally unknown letters in purely French orthography, according to various models of Francization, which leads then to very different pronunciations without one being able to know which name is really marked.
Of other cases of paraphonia in French occurs for example with the male names “chechmate” and “farmhouse” (the pronunciation of this last varies according to the speakers, some making the difference by pronouncing the `final and others not, or by pronouncing the second with a `' closed).
a case of paraphonia related to the evolution of the phonetics of the French language occurs between the conjugated verbs paronyms “sang” and “sang” (this last normally was pronounced like the homophons “sung” and “to sing”, to indicate here to the preterit code to the first anybody of the singular, but is now generally confused as with the homophons “sang”, “sang” and “sang”, which indicate the imperfect code and of which the first is also combined with the first anybody of the singular). This case then produces an easy confusion of times and is the cause of rather current spelling errors.
the same case of paraphonia reproduces in French between the conditional present and the future code, for example with the paronyms “would sing” (or its true homophons “would sing” and “would sing” all deliveries like “chanterè”) and “will sing” (normally marked like “chanteré”), and produces the same confusion of times.
Enfin, the phonetic distinctions between the `O' open and the `O' closed, or between the `' opened and the `' closed tend to disappear phonetically in current French with the profit from the open vowel, transforming a paronymy into homophony (for example between the normally marked adjective “tired” closed, but often pronounced like “it” and “there”, two true homophons always open deliveries), which can produce ambiguities of comprehension (for example “I tired”, am closed, indicates my tiredness but if it is pronounced open, one confuses the sentence with “I am there ” which indicates my presence in a place).

Literature

Certain writers, like Raymond Roussel or Alphonse Allais, or the members of the Oulipo made homophony either a principle of fictional construction (Roussel, in Impressions of Africa, or Oulipo, in Troll of tram), or a poetic play (Went and its distiches homophonic or poems holorimes), or still a displacement in another semantic universe (cf the prayer Our Auber which are Jussieu of Herve Tellier).

See too

Rhyme

Simple: Homophon

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