Introduction. The article presents a corpus of linguistic knowledge and skills necessary for students of philology to understand and comprehend one of the difficult, but very important problems of the modern Russian language — the problem of differentiating functional homonyms. Two-term and polynomial series of homonyms are considered, in which one of the members of the series is an adverb. The choice for the analysis of this particular part of speech is dictated by the diversity of the adverb: on the one hand, the adverb is included in the homonymous paradigmatic series with almost all parts of speech, on the other hand, the adverb itself serves as the basis for the formation of new homonyms (derived prepositions, conjunctions, particles). The linguistic facts of the functioning of homonyms are presented, the signs of their differentiation are considered. The purpose of the publication is to consider conversion in the system of the modern Russian language as a way of word formation, to present an adverb as a part of speech, capable not only of entering into homonymous relations with other parts of speech, but also being a base in the field of enriching the lexical composition at the expense of the internal reserves of the language.

Materials and methods. The main research methods were the analysis of scientific literature, descriptive and comparative analyzes. The material for the analysis was university textbooks on the modern Russian language.

Results. The necessity of understanding the essence of transition processes, the results of transposition in the system of parts of speech is formulated; the possibilities of the adverb as a derivative — motivated and productive — motivating unit are determined. The necessary signs of differentiation of the adverb and other parts of speech (significant and official) are indicated.

Discussion. An important condition for the formation of linguistic competence is the improvement of methods and techniques aimed at the formation of students' cognitive activity. The use of methods and techniques for analyzing the functioning of homonyms in the modern language and their differentiation, the ability to translate knowledge in practical activities are the goal of linguistic competence.

Conclusion. The adverb is the most difficult part of speech for learners to master. The process of delimiting adverbs from other parts of speech is extremely difficult, since an adverb enters into homonymous relations with almost all parts of speech, either as a derivative, that is, a motivated unit, or as a productive, that is, motivating. The problem of delimiting adverbs from homonymous words of other parts of speech arises before students when studying both adverbs and almost all other parts of speech. The same problem must be solved when parsing words by composition, in morphological and syntactic analysis, when choosing a continuous or separate spelling.

The content of linguistic competence by students of philology includes:

Knowledge of the section “Morphology of the modern Russian language”;

The ability to determine the part-of-speech belonging of a word;

Knowledge of the system of shaping of a word;

Understanding the essence of word-formation processes in the field of parts of speech, in particular, transposition processes;

Application of the principles of differentiation of homonyms in the text.

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