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boarder bolder dyer fisher fryer
grosser hanger higher leaver meatier
rigger saver seller sucker tenner
Other examples of two-morpheme and single-morpheme homo-phones are bridal, bridle; chilly, chilli; lessen, lesson.
In two-morpheme homophones there is often a difference in the location of the morpheme boundary: tax+{plural} and
taxi+{plural} are both for some speakers (though as not for others). Consider the following
radio news item:
Both parties are using to capture the floating voter.
Does this mean taxis or taxes?
Other examples are:
banded bandied eyelet islet fallacies phalluses
leased least pitted pitied poses posies
studded studied tided tidied verdure verger
Though these may be homophones for some BrE speakers, pairs such as tided tidied may be different for the growing
number of speakers who have rather than in final open unstressed syllables: (or /+Yd/) .
In polysyllabic words homophones may result from the reduction of different underlying vowels to /Y/:
confirmation conformation interpellation interpolation
literal littoral vacation vocation
veracious voracious
Particularly where one of the words has an spelling, careful speakers aware of the possible confusion may have an
unreduced vowel ( , ) to maintain the difference. Some broadcasters
pronounce guerrilla with /e/, rather than the normal /a/, in reporting events in Africa, where  attacked by gorillas is a
remote, if unrealistic, possibility.
Phonetic reductions that might cause confusion in the weak forms of function words are avoided. The preposition on does
not usually reduce to /an/ because of possible confusion with and in a phrase such as . However, it does not
matter that both the auxiliaries is and has are homophones when reduced to /s/ or /z/, since the verb form that follows is
distinctive: /s/ in Jack s gone, Jack s going, /z/ in Jill s gone, Jill s going. Context should also distinguish there, their and
they re, but in practice these three are frequently mis-spelt.

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EXERCISES
8.7 Homophones may come about in non-rhotic accents simply because /r/ has been lost in one of the words, finally or
before a consonant. Such a pair would not be homophones in rhotic accents, since one word would have /r/ and the other
not. So in AmE or Scottish and Irish English alms and arms are not homophones. Nonrhotic accents will have homophones
for the following words with a letter in the spelling. Give examples.
alms area awe bawd beta calve
caught caulk cause cawed cheetah coma
cornea curricula father flaw formally fought
lava law manna nebula panda paw
peninsula raw rota sauce saw schema
sought spa stalk talk tuba uvula
8.8 Some homophones result from an empty letter in correspondences such as a"/n/, a"/w/, a"/h/,
a"/r/, a"/g/ and a"/m/. The words will not form homo-phones in all accents. Note the homophones
that lack the empty letter of the following words.
knave knead knew knight knot know
whale wheel whether which while whine
whither whole wrap wreak wreck wrest
wretch wright write wring wrote wrung
gauge guild guilt climb jamb plumb
The in dam, damn and the in sine, sign are inert rather than empty letters: they have a phoneme correspondence
in damnation, signature.
8.9 Homophones are frequently found with variant vowel spellings. Particularly common are homophones with the long
vowels , . Together they account for well over a hundred homophone pairs. Suggest a suitable
homophone for each of the following words. Some may not provide homophones in all accents of English. Due to a
transitional [Y] glide between and a following  dark /l/, some speakers do not distinguish file, phial or vile, vial. This was
the basis for a slogan protesting against a new airport runway at Styal, Cheshire:  A new runway is not our Styal.
beach, sealing, creek, discrete, heel, meat, piece, suite.
beer, deer, hear, peer, tier.
/eY/ bare, fair, flair, hare, pare, stair, their.
dye, giro, lyre, sight, sleight, style, tire.
groan, lode, lone, row, road, roll, sew, sole, toe, yolk.
aural, fourth, hoard, horse, course, worn, ball, haul, mall, nought.

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Other long vowels provide fewer examples:
bough, fowl, flower.
heart, balmy.
pleural, route, troop, through.
dew, hue, revue. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]