Why do some words mean two different things in spanish?
I mean not the accents but when you use certain words in a different context they can mean different things like "ave" means 'bird' but "¡Ave María Purísima!" means 'Saints save us!'
Why is that? its been nagging me for the past week now!!! O.o
4 Answers
The same thing happens in English- check out this wikipedia article regarding homonyms:
In linguistics, a homonym is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings (in other words, are both homographs and homophones), usually as a result of the words having different origins. The state of being a homonym is called homonymy. Examples of homonyms are the pair stalk (part of a plant) and stalk (follow/harass a person) and the pair left (opposite of right) and left (past tense of leave).
Heteronyms are dangerous to be sure:
My friend had a road named after him. It was called Lane Lane.
I bought my wife a weapon for her birthday. I put a bow on the bow.
My friend had a bass that played the bass.
In less than a minute you can become minute.
The burning of incense cannot help but to incense me!
Darn those Spaniards for cornering the market on heteronyms!
In less than a minute you can become minute.
Now if you want to do sentences with heteronyms (words spelled the same but pronounced differently), here are a few more:
A garden will produce produce.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
He was present to present the present.
I did not object to the object.
I had to subject the subject to questioning.
I intimate this to you, my most intimate friend.
I shed a tear when I saw the tear in the dress.
I wound the bandage around the wound.
Ice cream is a great dessert in the desert, if you desert your diet.
Please don't read me the signs; I've already read them myself.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
Someone had tied a large red bow on the ship's bow.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
The dove dove out of sight.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The farmer taught his sow to sow, and his wife taught the sow to sew.
The insurance was invalid because the invalid had no symptoms.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
We must polish the Polish furniture.
There was a bigmouth bass painted on the bass drum.
Check out English homophones.
