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From: dcs@houxa.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: triple (quadruple, etc) homonyms
Message-ID: <244@houxa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Sep-83 10:32:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: houxa.244
Posted: Mon Sep 12 10:32:50 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Sep-83 01:36:39 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 11

>> As an aside, is English unusual in the number of homonyms it has?

No!  French has 5-tuple homonyms, e.g.,
	{sent, sens (verb, not noun), sans, sang, cent}
French verbs routinely give rise to 6-tuple homonyms, e.g.,
	{chanter, chante', chante'e, chante's, chante'es, chantai}

Chinese and Japanese are also renowned for having many homonyms, even if
one demands that two Chinese homonyms have the same tone, but my knowledge
of both languages is too sketchy for me to give examples without a
dictionary.