POLYSEMY AND HOMONYMY IN THE IGBO LANGUAGE

Abstract

Lexical relation is a profitable way to analyse the meanings of words in language. This lexical relationship may appear in terms of similarities and differences in meaning; nearness or multiplicity in meaning, etc. This study, ‘Polysemy and Homonymy in the Igbo Language, is an attempt to explicitly explain this relationships. Hence, the aim of this work is to explain what polysemy and homonymy are and to find out polysemous and homonymous words in the Igbo language. It will further, distinguish between polysemy and homonymy. In addition, this work will bring out the similarities in polysemy and homonymy. The study used the descriptive method in the data analysis. The data contained in the study consist of sample sentences from the language of study, indigenous Igbo speakers and also the researchers’ intuitive knowledge of the language played a major role in the generation and analysis of data. It was discovered that polysemy and homonymy both refer to words that have the same form in spelling and pronunciation; these lexemes have two or more meanings. In the same vein, the discovery showed that in polysemy, these meanings are related even though it does not obtain the same way in homonymy. This study will benefit lexicographers, linguists and scholars as they try to expand the scope of their knowledge.