“The First Question”: People have differed over whether homonymous expressions exist in the language. Some affirm their existence, while others deny it.

He says:

“The preferred position is that their occurrence is possible. As for rational discourse, nothing precludes a single person from assigning an expression more than one meaning. Nor is it impossible for one tribe to assign a name to one meaning and another tribe to assign it to a different meaning, neither knowing what the other has assigned it to. Both usages then become widespread, while their origin remains obscure.”

He says: “This is the more likely explanation.”

He says:

“As for establishing their actual occurrence, the argument is that, if homonymous expressions did not occur in the language, most things named would lack names denoting them, despite the need for such names. This is because effects are infinite, whereas names are finite, since they are necessarily composed of a finite set of letters. Such a lack is impossible.”

He says:

“This argument is unsound. Although names are composed of a finite set of letters, it does not follow that the names themselves are finite unless the combinations produced by repeated compounding are also finite. Nor do we concede that mutually opposed and distinct things named—those in relation to which an expression would be homonymous—are infinite.

“Even if they are infinite, assigning names to their referents requires each referent to be individually intended in the act of naming, which is impossible with an infinite number of things. Even if we concede that this is not impossible, it still does not follow that such names have actually been assigned. Thus, many meanings arise for which the Arabs have assigned no expressions to denote them, whether through homonymy or preference, such as kinds of smells and many qualities.”