Heteronym (linguistics)

A heteronym (also known as a heterophone) is a word that has a different pronunciation and meaning from another word but the same spelling. These are homographs that are not homophones. Thus, "lead" (a metal element) and "lead" (a leash or halter to direct an animal) are heteronyms, but "mean" (intend) and "mean" (average) are not, since they are pronounced the same. Heteronym pronunciation may vary in vowel realisation, in stress pattern, or in other ways.
Description.
A heteronym is a homograph that is not a homophone, a word that has a different pronunciation and meaning from another word with the same spelling. Heteronym pronunciation may vary in vowel realisation, in stress pattern, or in other ways.
"Heterophone" literally just means "different sound", and this term is sometimes applied to words that are just pronounced differently, irrespective of their spelling. Such a definition would include virtually every pair of words in the language, so "heterophone" in this sense is normally restricted to instances where there is some particular reason to highlight the different sound. For example, puns normally involve homophones, but in the case of heterophonic (or imperfect) puns, the two words sound different, and yet similar enough for one to suggest the other (for example, "mouth" and "mouse").
Types.
Most heteronyms are doubles. Triple heteronyms are extremely rare in English; three examples, "sin", "mobile" and "does", are listed below.
Proper nouns can sometimes be heteronyms. For example, the final syllable of Oregon is pronounced like the word "in" by residents of that state in the United States, while in the name of the village of Oregon in Wisconsin, the final syllable is pronounced like the word "on". Other examples include local pronunciations of Cairo, Georgia; Versailles, Kentucky; and Milan, Tennessee—compared to the more well-known Cairo, Versailles, and Milan—or the difference between the pronunciation of Louisville, Kentucky () and the town of Louisville, New York ().
There are also pairs which ignore case and include both initialisms and regular words, e.g., "US" and "us".
Heteronyms can also occur in non-alphabetic languages. For example, the Chinese character 行 can be pronounced "háng", meaning "profession", or "xíng", meaning "OK".
Examples.
Heteronyms with definitions.
English.
In some of these cases, American and British English pronunciations differ. One systematic case appears in the stress pattern of some deverbal nouns.
For a longer list, see wikt:Category:English heteronyms.
French.
In French, most heteronyms result from certain endings being pronounced differently in verbs and nouns. In particular, "-ent" as a third person plural verb ending is silent while as an adjective ending, it is pronounced .
Modern Greek.
Modern Greek spelling is largely unambiguous, but there are a few cases where a word has distinct learned and vernacular meaning and pronunciation, despite having the same root, and where <ia> is pronounced /ja/ vs. /i.a/; there are also a few cases where the different readings of <μπ> and <ντ> give different words. Some of these distinctions are being neutralized in modern speech.
Italian.
Italian spelling is often unambiguous, thouɡh there are a number of exceptions:
When stress is on the final, the vowel is written with an accent: mori 'mulberries' and morì 'he/she died'. Some monosyllabic words are also differentiated with an accent: e /e/ 'and' and è /ɛ/ 'he/she is'. These cases are not heteronyms.
Some common cases:
Dutch.
Dutch has heteronyms which vary in stress position, known as "klemtoonhomogramen" 'stress homograms', such as "appel": /ˈɑpəl/ 'apple' "vs." /ɑˈpɛl/ 'appeal' (formerly written "appèl"). Other examples include "beamen", "bedelen", "hockeyster", "kantelen", "misdadiger", "overweg", "verspringen", "verwerpen".
The word "plant" is generally pronounced /plɑnt/, but may be pronounced /plɛnt/ in the sense 'he/she plans'.
German.
German has few heteronyms, for example: