I capitonimi, omonimi che differiscono per iniziale maiuscola o minuscola

Abstract

This paper investigates a special kind of homonymy that occurs between words – called capitonyms in English – that differ in their capital or lowercase initial, as in Italian cancro ‘tumor’ and Cancro ‘zodiac sign’. Although capitonymy is almost ignored outside ludolinguistics, it is a complex form of lexical ambiguity, whose definition and description raises questions of theoretical interest as well. The purpose of this paper is to provide a general analysis of the phenomenon, with the aim of deepening its definition and outlining a typology of capitonyms and a first inventory of cases in Italian.