words gesund - 'healthy' and sund - 'swimming' were separate words both in form and in meaning. In the course of time they have changed their meaning and phonetic form, and for latter accidentally coincided: OE sund in ME sound 'strait . The group was joined also accidentally by the noun sound 'what is or may be heard' with the corresponding verb that developed from French and ultimately the Latin word sonus , and the verb sound 'to measure the depth' of dubious etymology. The coincidence is purely accidental. Unlike the homonyms case and sound all the homonyms of the box group due to disintegration or split of polysemy are etymologically connected. The sameness of form is not accidental but based on genetic relationship. They are all derived from one another and are all ultimately traced to the Latin buxus . The Concise Oxford Dictionary has five separate entries for box: 1.box n. - 'A kind of small evergreen shrub';
. box n. 'Receptacle made of wood, cardboard, metal, etc. and usually provided with a lid ';
. box v. 'To put into a box';
. box n. 'Slap with the hand on the ear';
. boxt v. a sport term meaning 'to fight with fists in padded gloves'. [10] homonyms may be partly derived from one another but their common point of origin lies beyond the limits of the English language. In these with the appearance of a new meaning, very different from the devious one, the semantic structure of the parent word splits. The new meaning receives a separate existence and starts a new semantic structure of its own. It must be noted, however, that though the number of examples in which a process of this sort could be observed is considerable, it is difficult to establish exact criteria by which disintegration of polysemy could be detected. The whole concept is based on stating whether there is any connection between the meanings or not, and is very subjective. Whereas in the examples dealing with phonetic convergence, ie when we said that case1 and case2 are different words because they differ in origin, we had definite linguistic criteria to go by, in the case of disintegration of polysemy there are none to guide us; we can only rely on intuition and individual linguistic experience. For a trained linguist the number ...
