Abstract: The subject of the study is lexical homonyms in the modern Mari language. The material of the scientific work was the data of the 10-volume dictionary of the Mari language, the Mari-Russian dictionary, the author's card file, compiled by selecting materials from Mari works of art, oral folk art and periodicals. The aim of the work is to distinguish lexical homonyms from other groups of homonyms and to determine their conceptual and semantic relationship. At the first stage, a selection of words that belong to the category of lexical homonyms was carried out. At the next stage of the study, all lexical material was analyzed, this group of homonyms was divided into categories, and a quantitative analysis of lexical homonyms was performed. The research method was the analysis of homonyms based on lexicographic sources. A special contribution of the author to the study of the topic is the appeal to a wide range of works and the multidimensional nature of the study of the issue. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that lexical homonyms in the Mari language are analyzed for the first time.
The result of the study lies in the conclusion that lexical homonyms are the most common group of homonyms in the Mari language, they can be divided into full and incomplete lexical homonyms, as well as substantive, verbal, adjectival, participial, adverbial and several examples with imitative words were distinguished by their relation to parts of speech.
Lexical homonymy occurs among words of the same parts of speech. At the same time, two or more lexical homonyms (full or partial) have an absolute identity of the sound and spelling complex.