Homonyms which are nearly antonyms

[alice]

One which comes to mind is /raiz/ in English, which can be either "raise" or "raze".

[sangi39]

(Not so much homonyms here but...)

While it's a reconstructed 'lang, PIE has a few interesting ones such as *mel- "good" vs. *mel- "harm, argue, contend". If you stretch it to near homophones which are antonyms you get *mel- "good" vs. *melo- "bad" (itself apparently from *mel- "harm"). There's also *sed- "to sit down" vs. *sed- "to go" and *h1erh1- "quiet, at rest" vs. h1erh1- "row". There mentioned in The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World by Mallory and Adams.

[finlay]

One which comes to mind is /raiz/ in English, which can be either "raise" or "raze".

/reɪz/, not /raɪz/ (which is 'rise')

[alice]

One which comes to mind is /raiz/ in English, which can be either "raise" or "raze".

/reɪz/, not /raɪz/ (which is 'rise')

Oops! There's a spelling pronuncation for you.

[jal]

Iirc, the Thai words for "hit" and "miss" (as in a target, used e.g. when playing darts or the like) only differ in tone.


JAL

[Rui]

Iirc, the Thai words for "hit" and "miss" (as in a target, used e.g. when playing darts or the like) only differ in tone.


JAL

Oh god, Mandarin is full of these. Well, maybe not full, but I can think of at least two off the top of my head:

买，卖 (mai4, mai3), meaning 'sell' and 'buy' respectively.
那，哪 (na4, na3), meaning 'there' and 'where' respectively.

The buy/sell example reminds me of German kaufen/verkaufen for buy/sell.

[jal]

The buy/sell example reminds me of German kaufen/verkaufen for buy/sell.

Same as in Dutch, "kopen" vs. "verkopen", but I wouldn't call that good examples, because then English "probable"/"improbable" etc. would also count.


JAL

[Risla]

All the hypo-/hyper- pairs. I imagine that's especially bad in non-rhotic dialects.

[finlay]

You have to get around it by saying /ˌhaiˌpou-/ rather than /ˌhaipə-/ for the first one.

[Rui]

The buy/sell example reminds me of German kaufen/verkaufen for buy/sell.

Same as in Dutch, "kopen" vs. "verkopen", but I wouldn't call that good examples, because then English "probable"/"improbable" etc. would also count.


JAL

I'm not sure if they are the same case, because ver- doesn't really have a definitive meaning in German (maybe it's different in Dutch). The prefix meaning "un-," "dis-," "in-" etc. in German verbs is usually ent-...but there is no word *entkaufen.

However, I'll agree that they aren't so fit for lists of near-homophones because they are pretty distinct. I was just reminded of how they both have the same "kaufen" root.

[brandrinn]

You have to get around it by saying /ˌhaiˌpou-/ rather than /ˌhaipə-/ for the first one.

In what dialect would /ˌhaipə-/ ever be an acceptable pronunciation for "hypo?" Would people really say "hyp-uh-alergenic?"

[finlay]

Uh, no. But it'd be acceptable in "hypoglycaemic", for example.

Oh, one near homonym that annoys me is illegal/legal, because so many people pronounce 'illegal' with a barely-audible /ɪ/ which is more of a syllabic lengthening of the /l/. Something like [l̩ːiːgəl] (ignoring other allophony of /l/). I often have to turn around and ask (or be asked) "[ˈɪl.liːgəl] or [ˈliːgəl]?"

[Terra]

"can" and "can't", since the [t] often disappears. Even in careful speech they can be difficult to discern.

[finlay]

"can" and "can't", since the [t] often disappears. Even in careful speech they can be difficult to discern.

Argh, I hate this, because in my own accent I usually have [kan] and [kanʔ], and I don't have much way around it other than to repeatedly ask "did you just say [kan] or [kantʼ]?" – some other scottish folk have the form 'cannae' (something like [kani] or [kane]) instead of 'can't', and most english folk have [kɑːnt] for 'can't'...

(the other big clue is that, crossdialectally, 'can' is often unstressed [kən] and 'can't' is always stressed, but if you want to put emphasis on 'can', it screws up)

[Shrdlu]

The only one in Swedish I can think of is gift which means both poison/merry

[jmcd]

With legal/illegal and can/can't, I think a good way to discern them is to lengthen them into separate words: "Did you mean legal or not legal?" And the same with "can not".

[Jipí]

I'm not sure if they are the same case, because ver- doesn't really have a definitive meaning in German

Hm, it's got a variety of meanings in fact, yeah: http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/ver-. I think in the case of verkaufen it's hardly reversible or irreversible change of state, as in their 4th example, rather than:

The prefix meaning "un-," "dis-," "in-" etc. in German verbs is usually ent-...but there is no word *entkaufen.

*Entkaufen could indeed be literally translated as *disbuy or *debuy, but to me that doesn't make much sense in English either, because nothing is undone, severed or taken back by the act of buying, which seem to be the meanings of dis- and de- respectively, at least in some words I can think of. *Entkaufen would involve a reversal or a detachment of or by the action of buying I think.

DISCLAIMER: I have not checked this with textbooks or other academic research; instead this statement is based on intuition alone, which I'm aware is very uninformed, imprecise and unscholarly, therefore void.

[faiuwle]

You mean homophones, right? Also, obligatorily we have to talk about "inflammable". I know that "inflammable" = nonflammable is technically not a real thing, but it looks pretty damn real.

[Qwynegold]

The only one in Swedish I can think of is gift which means both poison/merrymarried

[Shrdlu]

Tackar, men kommer du på några fler för här har det tvärdött?

[Rui]

"can" and "can't", since the [t] often disappears. Even in careful speech they can be difficult to discern.

This is why phonemic {-tensing dialects are superior

[k{n] vs. [ke@n?] are very different from each other. "can" is frequently reduced to [kn=] imd, though.

[Rui]

I'm not sure if they are the same case, because ver- doesn't really have a definitive meaning in German

Hm, it's got a variety of meanings in fact, yeah: http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/ver-. I think in the case of verkaufen it's hardly reversible or irreversible change of state, as in their 4th example, rather than:

The prefix meaning "un-," "dis-," "in-" etc. in German verbs is usually ent-...but there is no word *entkaufen.

*Entkaufen could indeed be literally translated as *disbuy or *debuy, but to me that doesn't make much sense in English either, because nothing is undone, severed or taken back by the act of buying, which seem to be the meanings of dis- and de- respectively, at least in some words I can think of. *Entkaufen would involve a reversal or a detachment of or by the action of buying I think.

DISCLAIMER: I have not checked this with textbooks or other academic research; instead this statement is based on intuition alone, which I'm aware is very uninformed, imprecise and unscholarly, therefore void.

Yeah, what I meant was that there is no single meaning of ver-, rather than a prefix like ent-, which universally means undoing something, or zer- which means destroying something.

And yeah, I knew the ent- prefix was somewhat productive (I remember hearing the German version of a Wicked song, where the Wicked Witch of the West says entgrünifizieren with reference to making her skin normal colored rather than green)

[brandrinn]

infamous El Guapo
in famous El Guapo

[Yng]

infamous El Guapo
in famous El Guapo

not homonyms or even syntactically confusable

[Abi]

Would "affect" vs "effect" count?