Jak się ma krawat do kravat’, dywan do divan czy kawior do kavior, czyli o polsko-rosyjskiej homonimii międzyjęzykowej

This paper deals with Polish-Russian interlingual homonymy. Interlingual homonyms are understood as words which have similar pronunciation but do not share the same meaning in different languages. The investigated homonyms come from two dictionaries, Rosyjsko-polski słownik paraleli leksykalnych by W. Dubiczynski, M. Grabska and E. Komorowska (in preparation) and Rosyjsko-polski słownik homonimów międzyjęzykowych by K. Kusal. Taking the formal criterion into consideration, the analysis reveals the existence of complete homonyms (e.g. Russian ..Ó. ‘lesson’ and Polish UROK ‘charm’) and partial homonyms (e.g. Russian ...Á. ‘sofa’ and Polish DYWAN ‘carpet’). Semantically speaking, it is possible to distinguish homonyms with opposite meanings (e.g. Russian .......A... ‘remembering’ and Polish ZAPOMINANIE ‘forgetting’), homonyms with different scopes of meaning (e.g. Russian ...É.. ‘week’ and Polish NIEDZIELA ‘Monday’) and homonyms sharing the same root (e.g. Russian .... ‘laziness’ and Polish LEŃ ‘lazy person’).