Model of focal points.

Martin and Key concluded that the basic words of a category are very easy to identify by a native speaker but they say that the interesting point is the area a native speaker doubts whether to call something A or B. There are concepts which cannot be expressed in words. From the psychological point of view there are concepts which cannot be verbalized but that really exist in the mind. The aim of this model is to identify the relationship between the lexical fields and the semantic fields. And there are fields where the relationship doesn't exist.

The idea behind semantic fields is the arrangement of words in sets depending on the organizing concepts. Many semantic linguists say that it's difficult to think of a word outside a semantic field because if you say that a word is outside a semantic field, you say it's outside the lexicon. The problem with this is what happens with words which don't evoke a concept. Many words in English are meaningful but don't have a concept

Ex: Even / only

These words clearly make a semantic contribution to the sentence. It's not the same to say: Only John drinks milk. Than: Even John drinks milk.

2.3 Some semantic peculiarities of synonyms and their functional relationship

This chapter is denoted to the analysis of semantic and functional relationships and words and their synonymy in modern English. V.G. Vilyuman, in detail analyzing all signs of synonymy, comes to conclusion that necessary and sufficient for confession of the words as the synonymical ones features are general for the analyzed words semantic and functional signs, but, however, the problem of synonymy according to Volume's opinion is being lead to the discovering of resemblances and differences of the meanings and functions of the words on the base of their combinability. This idea might be truly supported by the investigations of other linguists such as A.V.Smirnitsky and G.Khidekel.

We must also notion here that the understanding of the essence of the synonymous relations is closely connected with the understanding of the essence and structures of the semantic structure of a word. We know different ways of interpretations of the semantic structure of the word in theories of lexicology. Let us give some of these suggestions below.

V.G. Viluman defines the semantic structure of the word as a set of semantic signs, which are revealed at the determination of semantic adjacency of the synonymical words. According to his opinion, one of the possible ways of the determination of semantic adequacy of the words is offered by the analysis of the description of meanings for these words in explanatory dictionaries. Two words are considered as semantically correspondent to each other if their vocabulary meaning is explained one through another. The relationship between two words can also be direct and mediated. For example, having studied the semantic relationship between verbs which are united by the semantic meaning of “to look”, V.G. Vilyuman builds the matrix of the semantic structures of the synonymical verbs analyzed. The matrix presentation of the semantic structures serves not only as a demonstrative depiction of the material, but it also creates the picture a unit systems in a language - we mean synonymy, since the semantic structure of each word in the matrix is represented by itself as a ranked ensemble of importance's interconnected and opposed to each other.

The deep penetration to the essence of language phenomena, their nature and laws of the development is promoted by the collation of these phenomena in two and more languages.

The problems of the comparative study of lexicon in different languages have found their reflected images in the works of such kind famous lexicologists as A.V. Scherba, R.A. Budagov, V.G. Gak, B.A. Uspensky, V.N. Yartseva, Sh. Balley, S. Uliman, U. Veinrich, A.V.Smirnitsky and the others. Âèíîãðàäîâ Â. Â. Ëåêñèêîëîãèÿ è ëåêñèêîãðàôèÿ. Èçáðàííûå òðóäû. Ì. 1977 ñòð 119-122

Many linguists consider as expedient to match the small systems between themselves, the members of which are semantically bound between itself. This enables us to define the lexical elements of each system by means of investigation, and to note the moments of the coincidences between them, as well as to explain why the semantic sidebars of each word or words, which have the alike subject reference in compared languages, are turned out to be different.

The comparative studies also serve as the base for typological investigations, the production of typological universals, since, as a result of such correspondences, are identically and non-identically fixed with the determined standpoint elements.

For example, the Russian linguist M.M. Makovskiy in his article “Typology of Lexical-Semantic Systems” emphasizes that the typological analysis of lexicon must not only be reduced to the external, mostly available establishments , which are often available for observation, but often casual in coincidences in their lexical and semantically meanings. In the course of studies we must necessary realize, if there general structured lexical-semantic models, common for many languages (Russian and Uzbek are included) exist, and if yes, what kind of peculiarities and laws are observed for this.

Thereby, we see that the problem of synonymy was studied and is being studied, but, regrettably, the majority of the studies in this area belong to the foreign lexicologists, especially by the Russian ones. In Uzbekistan the studding of the problem of synonymy is investigated by a relatively small quantity of lexicologists, except for Prof. Buranov and Prof. Muminov.

The following chapter of my qualification work studies the verbal synonymy, which is one of the most fewly studied problems concerned with linguistics at all and the problems of synonymy in particular.

2.4 Peculiar distributional features of synonyms

Synonymic pairs like wear and tear are very numerous in modern English and often used both in everyday speech and in literature. They show all the typical features of idiomatic phrases that ensure their memorable ness such as rhythm, alliteration, rhyme and the use of archaic words seldom occurring elsewhere.

The examples are numerous: hale and hearty, with might and main, nevertheless and notwithstanding, modes and manners, stress and strain, rack and ruin, really and truly, hue and cry, wane and pale, without let or hindrance, act and deed. There are many others which show neither rhyme nor alliteration, and consist of two words equally modern. They are pleonastic, i. e. they emphasize the idea by just stating it twice, and possess a certain rhythmical quality which probably enhances their unity and makes them easily remembered. These are: by leaps and bounds, to pick and choose, pure and simple, stuff and nonsense, bright and shining, far and away, proud and haughty and many more.

In a great number of cases the semantic difference between two OP more synonyms is supported by the difference in valence. Distributional oppositions between synonyms have never been studied systematically, although the amount of data collected is very impressive. The difference in distribution maybe syntactical, morphological, lexical, and surely deserves more attention than has been so far given to it. It is, for instance, known that bare in reference to persons is used only predicatively while naked occurs both predicatively and attributively. The same is true about alone, which, irrespectively of referent, is used only predicatively, whereas its synonyms solitary and lonely occur in both functions. The function is predicative in the following sentence: you are idle, be not solitary, if you are solitary be not idle. (s. JOHNSON) Akhmanova O.S. Lexicology: Theory and Method. M. 1972 pp. 59-66 It has been repeatedly mentioned that begin and commence differ stylistically, ft must be noted, however, that their distributional difference is not less important. Begin is generalized in its lexical meaning and becomes a semi-auxiliary when used with an infinitive. It follows naturally that begin and not commence is the right word before an infinitive even in formal style. Seem and appear may be followed by an infinitive or a that-claw. see whereas look which is stylistically equivalent to them is never used in these constructions. Aware and conscious are followed either by an o/-phrase or by a subordinate clause, e. g. to be aware of one's failure, to be aware that one's failure is inevitable. Their synonym sensible is preferably used with an o/-phrase.

Very often the distributional difference between synonyms concerns the use of prepositions: e. g. to answer a question, but to reply to a question. The adjectives anxious and uneasy are followed by the preposition about, their synonym concerned permits a choice and is variously combined with about, at, for, with. The misuse of prepositions is one of the most common mistakes not only with foreigners but with native speakers as well.

Lexical difference in distribution is based on the difference in valence. An example of this is offered by the verbs win and gain. Both may be used in combination with the noun victory: to win a victory, to gain a victory. But with the word war only win is possible: to win a war. We are here trespassing on the domain of set expressions, a problem that has already been treated in an earlier chapter. Here it will suffice to point out that the phraseological combining possibilities of words are extremely varied.

It has been repeatedly stated that synonyms cannot be substituted into set expressions; as a general rule each synonym has its own peculiarities of phraseological connections. The statement is only approximately correct. A. V. Koenig has shown that set expressions have special properties as regards synonymy, different from those observed in free phrases. l Some set expressions may vary in their lexical components without changing their meaning, e. g. cast (fling or throw] smth in smb's. teeth. Moreover, the meaning may remain unchanged even if the interchangeable components are not synonymous: to hang on by one's eyelashes (eyelids, eyebrows),-to bear or show a resemblance. The nouns glance, look and glimpse are indiscriminately used with the verbs give and have: to give a look (a glance, a glimpse), to have a look (a glance, a glimpse). With (he verbs “cast arid take the word glimpse is not used, so that only the expressions to cast a glance (a look) or to take a glance (a look) are possible. With the verbs steal, shoot, throw the combining possibilities are further restricted, so that only the noun glance will occur in combination with these. It goes without saying that phraseological interchangeability is not frequent.

2.5 Peculiar features of semantic combinability of synonyms

The verbs which fall into one synonymous row, can possess the miscellaneous character of composing restrictions. The composing restrictions can be of lexical, semantic or referring character.

The lexical restriction reveals in the following fact: a synonym can be used only with determined circle of words. However, the verbal synonyms practically do not possess such type of restrictions, though there are some examples which might be suitable, to some degree, to the given type of restrictions:

For example, if we analyze the two synonyms - «to creep” and “to crawl”, the latter, is more preferable in usage with the names of animals who are deprived with limbs (e.g. Snakes, gophers, etc.)

Cf: The snakes crawled around the tree.

Contrary to the above mentioned character, the semantic restriction is assigned by denotation of determined semantic feature, which a synonym must possess when correlating in syntactical relationship with the given word.

For instance, in the synonymic row «to escape”, “to flee”, “to fly”, “to abscond”, “to decamp” in the meaning of “èçáåãàòü” the first three synonyms possess a broad combinability, than the last twos. That is, in the case of semantic combinability the subject of the corresponding actions are both people and animals.

Cf. :His best tow dogs escaped from the camp, the dog fled into the forest.

Meanwhile, the subject action of the verbs “to abscond” and “to decamp” are only people.

More complicated than the previously mentioned groups are the synonyms with the referring combinability restrictions. The example of such restrictions can be shown on the following synonymic row: “to reach” - “to achieve” - “to gain” - “to attain” in the meaning of “äîáàâëÿòüñÿ” The following noun expressions which denote the purpose or the result of the action are of typical character for these three synonyms:

To reach / to achieve, to gain, to attain /one's aim ( e,g. the abject of one's desires, success, fame, glory), “to reach (an understanding, agreement), “to achieve the reputation for being rude”, “to achieve the realization of a dream”, “to gain / to attain / the attention of the clerk [ the confidence of the mountain people]. It should be borne in the mind that the last examples the verbs “to gain” and “to attain” mustn't be substituted onto the verbs “”to reach”, or “to achieve”, because the noun expression “to reach / to achieve / the attention of the clerk [the confidence of the mountain people] are wrong (and not only somewhat different in the meaning).

Supervising more attentively to the nouns “attention” and “confidence”, which are capable to enter in the place of the direct object in the sentences with the verbs “to gain” and “to attain”, but not as the direct object to the verbs “to reach” and “ to achieve, we may notice the following interesting peculiar feature of the studied synonymical phrases: the subject for the state, marked by the words “attention” or “confidence”, do not correspond to the subject of the action, marked by the verbs “to gain” and “ to attain”, i.e. the attention of the clerk is attracted not by the clerk himself , but by the other person, and the confidence of highlanders is achieved by someone different from highlanders.

However, the verbs “to gain” and “to attain” are capable to match with the nouns, marking such conditions (the characteristics, situations), the subjects of which coincide with the subjects of actions corresponding to these subjects: that is in the case of the verbs “to gain / to attain / one's aim [success, glory]” the subject of the action of “to gain / attain” is one and the same person.

So now we can formulate the referring restriction for the verbs “to reach” and “to achieve”: they cannot be combined with the names of conditions, the subjects of which do not coincide with the subject of the action marked by these conditions.

The similar difference is presented in the pair of the synonyms “to condescend” - “ to deign” ( in the meaning of “ñíèñõîäèòü”): the first of them is combined both with the name of the action or property, the subject of which coincides with the subject for the verb “ to condescend” (e.g. he condescend smile); and with the name or state the subject of which does not coincide with the subject for the verb “to condescend” (cf.: to condescend to smb's folly). Meantime, the verb “to deign” can be combined in its meaning only with the names of the proper actions or the characteristics of the subject:

Cf.: He didn't deign to smile, he didn't deign to their folly.

The differences in combinability between the synonyms can, like constructive differences, be motivated or non-motivated.

Let us take into consideration, for instance, the synonyms “to surprise” - “óäèâëÿòü” and “to amaze”, “to astound” - èçóìëÿòü”,”ïîðàæàòü”. They differ, in particular, on the feature of degree of a feeling. All the three synonyms can be combined with the adverbial modifiers of measure, but the verb “to surprise” can be combined with any circumstance of this class (cf.: he was a little [not a little, very much] sup), while “to amaze” and “to astound” can be combined only with those adverbial modifiers of measure, which mark the super high or the maximal degree of property, condition or feeling.

At least once unusual unless absolutely anomalous, word-combinations.

In the above mentioned case the differences in combinability are naturally removed from the differences in the meanings of synonyms. However, even the differences in combinability can be semantically non-motivated.

Below we shall take into consideration some more several examples of differences in combinability between the synonyms.

The verb “gather” “ñîáèðàòüñÿ” differs from their synonyms “to assemble” and “to congregate” by the following: the subject for the verbs “to assemble” and “to congregate” can only be (in stylistically neutral text) only the living beings, but the subject for the verb “to gather” - can be expressed by any moving things: e.g. The clouds are gathering, it will rain.

The verbs “to ponder”, “to meditate» and “to ruminate” in the meaning of “ðàçìûøëÿòü” are combinable with the names of situation, characteristic, products of thoughts as object (the theme) of reflections:

cf.: to ponder / to meditate/ upon the course of actions; to ruminate over the past; to ponder / to meditate, to ruminate/ the point.

The verbs “to ponder” and “to meditate” are combinable with the names of the person as object for reflections; the latter is characterized for the verb “to ruminate”:

cf.: to ponder on modern young men, he meditated on all those people and the things they represented in his life.

The verbs “to depress”, “to oppress” and “to weigh down (upon)” in the meaning of “óãíåòàòü” can be combined with the names of feelings, actions, characteristics, etc. as the reasons for the oppressed condition:

cf.: a feeling of isolation depressed / oppressed / her, she was oppressed by fear, oppressed / weighed down / by the heat. Besides, the verbs “to depress” and “to oppress” can be combined with the names of the concrete things and living beings in same meaning, which is not characteristic for the phrasal verb “to weigh down (upon)”:

Cf.: the dim room depressed / oppressed / her, she depressed me. Abayev V.I. Synonyms and their Semantical Features T. O'qituvchi 1981 pp. 4-5, 8, 26-29

The problems of semantics on - former call the rapt attention to themselves by the leading scientists of the whole world. At the modern stage of development of linguistically science the important meaningfulness is gained both in the questions of the determination and revision of the background notions of semasiology, and the narrower problems of the concrete studies which are finally also directed on solving of the global philosophical problems of the correlation between the language, thinking and reality.

We analyze this chapter from the viewpoint of the Russian philologist E.V.Drozd. According to this work E.V. Drozd has denoted the study of the semantics and the peculiarities of the combinability of the English verbs “to amuse”, “to entertain”, “to grip”, “to interest”, “to thrill”

The given group of verbs was chosen not accidentally. The verbs “to amuse”,” to entertain”, “to grip”, “to interest”, “to thrill” reflects the important social and psychological notions, connected with intellectual - cognitive and emotional sphere of human activity and this group differs in a rather big frequency of its usage. The interest to this group is also undutiful from the purely a linguistically standpoint because of its extent semantic structure, and the various possibilities for combinability.

Proceeding with the concrete procedure of analysis of semantic composition of the given verb, we put the following problems before ourselves:

1) clearly delimit and describe the verbal word as a nominative and structured unit of the language, to analyze the peculiarities of the semantic structure of each verb and match them;

2) to install on the base of semantic composition what the subject of the name comprises in itself: only the main verbal component of action, condition, motion or it comprises the accompanying features: the manner, the source, the purpose - and to compare the verbs on this parameters.

In our study we used the method of vocabulary definition, by means of which the set of seams of the given lexical importance was analyzed, and any vocabulary mark was taken for instruction on semantic component. The observations show that the vocabulary definition comprises in itself, on the one hand, the instruction on attribute to the more general semantic area, but, on the other hand, - the enumeration of individual semantic features of a word. Uniting the synonymous, (excluding the rare cases of usage) we have got the set of components for the meaning of each investigated verb (See: Table 1).

The Analysis shows that the general component for all the investigating verbs is a seam “to affect the emotions”, which gives us, as we seem, the right to refer the considered verbs to the category of the emotional ones. It is Interesting to note that no even one of the dictionaries, describing the meaning of the verbs “to amuse” and “to entertain”, gives the word “emotion” as such, but the presence of the component “joy”, “happiness”, “revelry” (purely emotional features) allows us to fix the presence of the component “to affect the emotions” in these verbs as well.

The general component for four from five considered verbs a was the following: “ to engage” and “keep the attention”. According to the investigations, this element in miscellaneous degrees is expressed in the meanings of the analyzed words in the following number: for “to amuse” it is fixed in 14, for “to entertain” - 11, for “to grip” - 19, for “to interest” - in 25 dictionaries. The component of meaning of the verb “to excite” is met in four from five verbs, that puts the verb “to trill” in somewhat specific position. The other components are of purely specific character.

As conclusion, we may say that the verb, as no other part of speech, has a broad set of differential features, vastly complicating the semantics of it.

In the meaning of a verb there might be a denotation to the specifying of the denoted actions, to the conditions of persons, subjects, ways, types of the action, correlations to its communicators, modality of the content assignment of the utterance, time of the speech act, etc.

So, we say that two words are synonymous if substituting one for the other in all contexts does not change the truth value of the sentence where the substitution is made. Synonymy dictionaries include something that native speakers have very clear intuitions about. They have the intuition that a number of words may express the same idea.

Ex: You can find `kill' as a synonym of `murder', and `strong' as a synonym of `powerful', but not the other way round:

When you say they A and B are synonymous because they express the same object, you expect also that if A is synonymous of B, B is also synonymous of A. but this isn't reflected in dictionaries. If A is a synonym of B and B is a synonym of A, these are true or absolute synonyms. They are interchangeable. But there are no absolute synonyms, it's an intellectual creation. Native speakers feel that some pairs of synonyms are more synonymous than others. This gives us the idea of a scale of synonymy. Obviously, the idea behind synonymy is that of sharing meaning that is that two words share (part of) their meaning. It has become a problem to establish how much overlapping do we need for two words for being considered synonyms.

Ex: truthful: honest they are synonyms although they share only part of their meaning; truthful: purple they are not at all synonyms.

E. Cruse says that an important thing here is contrast. When a speaker uses them indistinctively, he emphasizes their similarities not their differences.

Ex: kill: murder they share part of their meaning

The greater the number of features two words share, the more synonyms they are.

A and B share almost all of their meaning components.

Ex: - creature animal dog + Alsatian philosophy tree cat Spaniel.

Alsatian' and `Spaniel' share more atoms of meaning than creature' and `philosophy' but they are not synonyms. So this claim is wrong, because we need two things for synonymy: we need overlapping of meaning and, at the same time, the two words do not have to be contrastive.

Cruse says that synonyms must not only share high degree of semantic overlapping but also a low degree of implicit contractiveness. So, a high degree of semantic overlap results in a low degree of implicit contrast.

Ex: - John is honest

John is truthful

He was cashiered, that is to say, dismissed.

He was murdered, or rather executed

Cashiered' and `dismissed' are synonyms, while `murdered' and executed' are contrastive synonyms

Arthur's got himself a dog -or more exactly, a cat.

The inherent relationship between `cat' and `dog' is that of contrast, for that reason this sentence is odd.

It is impossible to put an end in the scale of synonyms.

Ex: + rap: tap rap: knock rap: thwack - rap: bang

They are not prototypical synonyms. They are peripheral synonyms

Behind any study of synonymy is the idea of the quest for the establishment of true synonyms. Cruse reviews some apparently true synonyms.

Ex: begin: commence munch: chew hate: loathe

Cruse takes into account the question of the contextual relations. For two words to be true synonymous we need two conditions: equivalence of meaning and equivalence of contextual relations. This is highly problematic because words don't behave like that. They tend to specialize in their contextual relations.

Ex: Begin and `commence' mean exactly the same but in terms of contextual relations they are not.

Johnny, tell Mummy when Playschool begins and she'll watch it with you.

Johnny, tell Mummy when Playschool commences and she'll watch it with you.

Arthur is always chewing gum (+)

Arthur is always munching gum (-)

I don't just hate him, I loathe him (+)

I don't just loathe him, I hate him (-)

Apart from this there are minus aspects we have to take into account

Syntax: two syntactic terms have to behave syntactically the same

Ex: Where is he hiding?

Where is he concealing?

Conceal' needs an argument (DO)

Johnny, where have you hidden Daddy's slippers? (+)

Johnny, where have you concealed Daddy's slippers? (-)

Sense: you have to choose the correct sense of the word if you want to prove that two words are synonymous.

Ex: Arthur's more recent car is an old one (+)

Arthur's most recent car is a former one (-)

He had more responsibility in his old job

He had more responsibility in his former job

2.6 The link of synonymy with collocational meaning

They have been considered similar in meaning but never fully synonyms. They belong to the same categorical concept

Collocations by Leech: girl, boy, woman, flower, pretty garden, color, village, etc.

Boy, man, car, vessel, handsome overcoat, airliner, typewriter, etc.

Collocations found in the Lob and the British Corpora:

Pretty, Batman, Case, Co-ed, Dress, Headdresses, Girl, Piece of seamanship, Quilt, Range of pram sets, Shoe, Shop, Sophie

Street: Teacher (female ref.), Trick, Woman, Handsome, Cocktail cabinet, Connor Winslow, Face (male ref.), Man, Mayor, Offer, Pair of salad servers, Person (male ref.),(Red brocade) curtains, Son, Staircase, Sub-Alpine gloom, Trees, Vessel, Volume (book), Woman, `pretty' female nouns, `handsome' male nouns.

This is the first division we could make but there are more differences. It cannot be based on terms of male / female words.

The idea, then, is that if an adjective tends to collocate to certain nouns means that its partner is slightly different to it. So when they are applied to the same noun, the same rule is applied.

Ex: pretty: handsome

Mary is a pretty woman

Mary is a handsome woman

A handsome woman is more elegant that a pretty woman. She also has stronger facial features. A handsome woman isn't a pretty woman at the same time and vice versa. So they are exclusive terms.

Pretty Street' but `handsome avenue'

If they are exclusive terms, they are nor synonyms but co-hyponyms

If two items are closely synonymous, a coordination test will lead to a tautology.

Ex: Scientists have so far failed to find for this deadly and fatal disease.

However if we coordinate `pretty' and `handsome' what we have is a contradiction:

That woman is pretty and handsome

(Photocopy of definitions of `deep', `profound', `handsome', `lovely' and `beautiful')

Some of the dictionaries specialize it more deeply than others.

Profound' in the Longman is defined as deep but not vice versa. This also happens in `lovely' and `beautiful'.

Uninformative; it doesn't give really the sense of the words.

This isn't correct because `profound' emphasizes stronger that `deep' and this isn't true. There is a contradiction there.

Introduction of the notion of `delicacy' for defining a pretty woman.

This is the only dictionary which says that something pretty isn't something beautiful. They exclude each other. `Grand' is a feature of `handsome'.

handsome -`making a pleasant

lovely - impression on the pretty

senses' -beautiful

Here, `beautiful' and `pretty' appear as co-hyponyms so they have to exclude each other. The CC is actually the definition given for `beautiful', so it's the generic word for the four words. `Lovely' is slightly more intense than `beautiful'. (It's the same relationship `deep' and `profound' have)

This shows how language establishes degrees of intensity.

2.7 The notion of conceptual synonymy

Words are felt to be synonymous independently of their contextual relations. Leech makes the distinction between synonymy and conceptual synonymy. The equivalence of meaning of synonymy has to adhere to the equivalence of concepts, independently from the stylistic overtones.

Ex: Steed (poetic) Horse (general) Nag (slang) Gee-gee (baby language) “World Book Encyclopedia S part” Macmillan Publisher 1996 p 134

The concept `horse' is evoked by these words. So these words are synonymous although they are different in their stylistic overtones. This has been strongly criticized because to prove that we all have the same concept is very doubted. Our system of conceptualization may be different from one speaker to other. The most evident example of this is baby language. When a baby says gee-gee he may be saying it to any animal that moves.

So conceptual synonymy is alright but it has faults and objections.

Warwick says that it isn't possible to distinguish semantic meaning and factual meaning. Her lexicographic descriptions are very lengthy because she has into account all knowledge of the world that is, the habitat, size, appearance, behavior, and relation to people…

Componential analysis of conceptual synonymy.

It is an analysis very popular in the 1970's and turned itself to be very useful in the identification of atoms of meaning of words. One of the applications of componential analysis is in the identification of synonyms, because if two words share atoms of meaning, they are synonymous.

Ex: John is a bachelor

John is an unmarried man

Componential analysis serves quite well for the analysis of fairly uncompleted words (nouns, adjectives, some verbs), but there are whole areas of the vocabulary of the language that don't lend themselves for componential analysis.

Barbara Warren makes a distinction between synonyms and variants. She says that we have synonyms if the words have similar meaning and if they are interchangeable without affecting meaning in some context or contexts. Variants are words which have similar meaning but without the interchangeability in some contexts.

Ex: extending Deep far below; profound the surface.

`Deep' and `profound' has always been considered synonyms and it's true they are interchangeable but it's also true that in some contexts one cannot replace the other.

He had a deep / profound understanding of the matter

This river is deep / profound. They are not interchangeable in this context.

Ex: Sweet: candy dialectal variants

Decease: pop off stylistic variants

Lady: woman connotative variants

In one context you use one word and in the other you use the other one.

Human 1) lady adult woman 2) female'

The point here is to try and prove that synonyms exist. The result of this research is quiet distressing. There are no synonyms following Warren's definition. What Person did was to scrutinize the use of `deep' and `profound'. His research is especially valid because he bases his research on lexicographic words, corpus data and importance. The wide range of sources and the number of them is what makes this valid.

The conclusions: `Deep' and `profound' show a difference in collocability, that is, they tend to collocate with different words. Deep tends to collocate with words of affection, conviction, feeling, regret, satisfaction, sorrow… Whereas `profound' tends to collocate with words of difference, distaste, effect, failure, influence… They enter different collocations because they mean slightly different things. They specialize in certain areas of meaning and that makes them slightly different. He also talks about metaphorical status. Metaphorically speaking, they can mean position on the one hand or quality of depth on the other. Only `deep' enters for the position metaphor, but the quality of depth can be expressed by both of them.

Ex: deep structure (profound structure)

He was deep (profound) in thought

It was deep (profound) in the Middle Ages

Deep / profound learning

Deep / profound sleep

Intellectual - emotive dichotomy: `deep' and `profound' tend to relate respectively to intellectual and emotive words. The idea is that `deep' tends to collocate with emotive nouns, whereas `profound' tends to collocate with intellectual words.

There is a difference in the degree of depth and intensity of these words. `Profound' is deeper that `deep'. When both are possible, then there is a distinction.

Ex: He has a deep understanding of the matter (`pretty good')

He has a profound understanding of the matter (`very good') Maurer D.W. , High F.C. New Words - Where do they come from and where do they go. American Speech., 1982.p.171

English words associations give us a very useful way to prove this. There are nouns whose inherent meaning is superlative. With such a noun you can only have `profound' because it means deeper.

Ex: profound distaste *deep distaste

Profound repugnance *deep repugnance

Of course in terms of truth-conditions one entails the other one but not vice versa, that is `profound' includes `deep' but not vice versa.

Ex: His profound insight into human nature has stood the test of centuries

His deep insight into human nature has stood the test of centuries.

His deep insight into human nature has stood the test of centuries. *

His profound insight into human nature has stood the test of centuries

Synonymy is understood within mutual entailment (A-B) but `deep' and `profound' doesn't correspond to this. Native speakers feel that `profound' is stylistically more elevated or more formal that deep? So with all this evidence it is impossible to say that they are synonymous. This is why Person gives the following figure as the analysis for them.

Concrete `situated, coming abstract; abstract from, or extending intellectual; emotive far below the strongly; surface emotive.

Stylistic Attributes (SA): informal SA; formal.

In Person's model we have three categories: CC, TA, SA. The thing is that not all words include SA box, so it's left open. Person also reviewed other examples analyzed by Warren.

Ex: child / brat child CC brat TA

Child' and `brat' are an example of connotative variant in Warren. They are given as variants but if we apply the test of hyponymy we see that it works. `Brat' is a kind of `child' but not vice versa. `Brat' includes `child' plus the feature `bad-mannered. Person finds the collocation in which `brat' appears; it tends to appear with adjectives that reinforces this feature of bad-mannered what proves that that atom of meaning (…)

The same happens with `woman' and `lady'.

Ex: She is a woman, but she is not a lady.

She is a lady, but she is not a woman

Person questions the fact that two words can be synonymous out of the blue. He defends contextual information as the key to determine if two words are synonymous or not.

Ex: readable: legible

At to what extent can we say that they are synonyms?

* readable:

(of handwriting or point) able to be read easily'

pleasurable or interesting to read'

* legible:

(of handwriting or print) `able to be read easily'

They are only synonymous when they mean `able to be read easily'

“The child, quite obviously, would not be expected to produce a composition, but would be expected to know the alphabet, where the full stops and commas are used, and be able to write in a readable / legible manner, something like, `The cat sat on the mat'.”

“It is not easy to see why her memory should have faded, especially as she wrote a most readable / *legible autobiography which went quickly through several editions.”

Legible; readable; able to with pleasure; be read' and /or; interest.

They share senses number 1 but to `readable' it's also added sense number 2. This claims that in some contexts they are fully interchangeable, but we have also to take into account their stylistic feature and the register.

In principle, scientific words have discrete meanings.

Ex: mercury: quicksilver

They appear as full synonyms because they say that their relationship is that of mutual inclusion (A-B)

Conceptually, the concept `mercury' can be expressed with both words. However, style draws the line between both words. Native speakers and corpora of data give us what we have in the following figure:

Mercury: formal, quicksilver; scientific whitish; fluid informal; metal.

Mercury formal, scientific (Romance origin): Quicksilver informal (Saxon origin)

However something peculiar has happened with this words. The popular word `quicksilver' is starting to disappear and what usually happens is that the formal words are the one that disappears. But in this case, it is the contrary.

Cigarette: fag

Cigarette fag

Tube with

General tobacco in slang'

It for smoking' `narrow, made of finely cut tobacco rolled in thin paper'

This figure contains not only CC but typical attributes too.

CONCLUSION

3.1 SUMMARY TO THE WHOLE WORK

So, the conclusion is that some words of a language don't lend themselves well to the analysis in terms of semantic fields. Other important idea is the difficulty of finding finite sets of words. In any case, there's an internal contradiction between the ideas of a set with the structuring of words of a language. A set is a close set. A word can belong to several fields depending on the organizing concept. Speakers of the language clearly identify the central example but not the peripheral ones. This doesn't mean that it would never happen that. The degree of flexibility in the discrepancy of the categorization of words is smaller.

Ex: Please give me some more tables (`Table' is here a mass noun meaning `space in a table').

E.G. Two races are grown in India. Here two races' refers to `two types of rice'

The idea behind this is that the dynamic character of a vocabulary cannot be reflected in the static character of the semantic fields, which are a static way of organizing the vocabulary of a language.

3.2 WAYS OF APPLYING THE WORK

Having analyzed the problem of synonymy in Modern English we could do the following conclusions:

a) The problem of synonymy in Modern English is very actual nowadays.

b) There are several kinds of analysis of synonyms: semantical, stylistic and componentional.

c) A number of famous linguists dealt with the problem of synonymy in Modern English. In particular, Profs. Ullmann and Broal emphasized the social reasons for synonymy, L. Lipka pointed out non-binary contrast or many-member lexical sets and gave the type which he called directional opposition, V.N. Comissarov and Walter Skeat proved the link of synonymy with other kinds of lexical devices.

d) The problem of synonymy is still waits for its detail investigation.

Having said about the perspectives of the work we hope that this work will find its worthy way of applying at schools, lyceums and colleges of high education by both teachers and students of English. We also express our hopes to take this work its worthy place among the lexicological works dedicated to synonymy.

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