ON HOMONONIMY, SYNONIMY AND PARONIMY
(Rodrigo Peñaloza, May 2014)

The Organon is Aristotle’s logical masterpiece. Its first part is the book called κατηγορίαι (Categories), which medieval philosophers translated as “praedicamenta”. Actually, the first one to translate it into Latin was Boethius.

The κατηγορίαι is divided into three parts. Chapters 1 thru 4 deal with ante-praedicamenta. Chapters 5 thru 9 deal with praedicamenta, in which he presents the ten categories: substance (οὐσία), quantity (ποσόν), quality (ποιόν), relation (πρός τι), place (ποῦ, which means “where”), time (πότε, “when”), position (κεῖσθαι, which is the infinitive of the corresponding verb), state (ἔχειν, which means to have), action (ποιεῖν, to do), and affection (πάσχειν, to suffer). Chapters 10 thru 15 deal with post-praedicamenta, which are opposition, priority, the simultaneous, motion and habit (the “habere”).

Henri Bergson wrote his doctorate thesis about Aristotle’s notion of position and place (“Quid Aristoteles de loco senserit”), to which the Categories, as well as his Physics, are the sole source and very important books for the understanding of Bergson’s phaenomenology.

In chapter 1 of the Categories, Aristotle speaks of three important definitions: equivocation (or homononimy), univocation (or synonimy) and denomination (or paronimy), which I here synthesize.

(1) Ὁμώνυμα λέγεται ὧν ὄνομα μόνον κοινόν, ὁ δὲ κατὰ τοὔνομα λόγος τῆς οὐσίας ἕτερος. TRANSLATION: Homonymous is said of the things which have in common only the name whereas the notion of the substance (οὐσία) according to this name is different. COMMENTARY: Aristotle gives the simple example of a real man and a picture of this man. Both are called “animal”. We refer to both a man and his picture as “animal”, but their essences are diverse. Medieval commentators, after Boethius, used the Latin term “aequivoca” (neuter plural nominative) to refer to its Greek counterpart ὁμώνυμα. Indeed, Boethius’s translation is “aequivoca dicuntur quorum nomen solum commune est, secundum nomen vero substantiae ratio diversa”. In sum, homonymous things have their names in common, but not their very notion, their lógos (λόγος). A simpler example is Roma, which may refer to the Eternal City and also to the Italian restaurant Roma where I used to have lunch with my father when I was a child. It is important to realize that what is equivocous is the term, not the concept it refers to. This was something emphasized by the Scholastics. William of Ockham wrote a whole book on terms. An equivocation occurs when you are talking with someone about some other person and all of the sudden you ask, “are we talking about the same person?”

(2) συνώνυμα δὲ λέγεται ὧν τό τε ὄνομα κοινὸν καὶ ὁ κατὰ τοὔνομα λόγος τῆς οὐσίας ὁ αὐτός. TRANSLATION: Synonymous is said of the things which have in common the name and for which the notion of the substance according to the name is the same. COMMENTARY: Aristotle’s example is “man and ox”, both of which are animals. If we ask about the essence of animal, we will give the same definition, no matter we apply “animal” to the man or to the ox. Medieval commentators used the term “univoca” for the Greek term συνώνυμα.

(3) παρώνυμα δὲ λέγεται ὅσα ἀπό τινος διαφέροντα τῇ πτώσει τὴν κατὰ τοὔνομα προσηγορίαν ἔχει. TRANSLATION: Paronymous is said of the things which, differing one from the other in ending, have the appellation according to the name. COMMENTARY: A grammarian gets his name from grammar. Medieval commentators used the term “denominativa”. Boethius translated this sentence as “Denominativa vero dicuntur quaecumque ab aliquo, solo differentia casu, secundum nomen habent appellationem”. προσηγορία has to do with familiarity, the appellation.