現代英語には，多くの同音異綴（語） (homophony) のペアがある．異なる語であるとはいえ意味も互いに似ているものが多く，しばしば学習しにくい．以下は，Crystal (81) より持ってきたものだが，いずれも（ほぼ）同音異綴語を含む例文である．各組において，どちらが文脈上・文法上適切な語か指摘できるだろうか．解答はソースHTMLを参照．

　(1a) Did they all accept/except?
　(1b) Everyone accept/except John left?

　(2a) Did we prophecy/prophesy the right result?
　(2b) It was a rotten prophecy/prophesy.

　(3a) Has he made any allusions/illusions to the problem?
　(3b) He's under no allusions/illusions about its difficulty

　(4a) I want to amend/emend what I wrote.
　(4b) I want to amend/emend my ways.

　(5a) She was born/borne through the crowds.
　(5b) She was born/borne in 1568.

　(6a) That will complement/compliment your shirt nicely.
　(6b) Thank you for your complement/compliment.

　(7a) Someone's complained to the council/counsel.
　(7b) You should take some council/counsel about that.

　(8a) You need a new licence/license for that hamster.
　(8b) I'll licence/license it next week.

　(9a) Look at that fantastic lightning/lightening.
　(9b) I think the sky's lightning/lightening now.

　(10a) I need some more stationary/stationery.
　(10b) That car's stationary/stationery.

　(11a) I'm the principle/principal speaker.
　(11b) I'm going to stick to my principles/principals.

　(12a) I'm going to do some sowing/sewing in the sitting room.
　(12b) I'm going to do some sowing/sewing in the long field.

　関連して，「#286. homonymy, homophony, homography, polysemy」 ([2010-02-07-1])，「#2097. 表語文字，同音異綴，綴字発音」 ([2015-01-23-1])，「#2432. Bolinger の視覚的形態素」 ([2015-12-24-1]) を参照．

　・ Crystal, David. The English Language. 2nd ed. London: Penguin, 2002.

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