Практично-семінарське заняття

THEME: SYNONYMS

Recommended Reading
1. Соловйова Л. Ф. Сніховська, І. Е. Теорія сучасної англійської мови. Навчально-
методичний посібник. – Житомир: Вид-во ЖДУ ім. Івана Франка, 2014. – 232 с.
2. Довідник словотвірних елементів англійської мови / уклад. О. В. Вознюк. –
Житомир : ЖВІРЕ, 2003. – 96 с.
3. Crystal D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language. – Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005. – 499 p.
4. Brinton, Laurel J. & Donna M. Brinton. 2010. The linguistic structure of Modern English,
2nd edn. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
5. Hopper, Paul J. 1999. A short course in grammar. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
6. Huddleston, Rodney. 1984. Introduction to the grammar of English. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as
another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language,
the words begin, start, commence, and initiate are all synonyms of one another: they are
synonymous. The standard test for synonymy is substitution: one form can be replaced by
another in a sentence without changing its meaning. Words are considered synonymous in only
one particular sense: for example, long and extended in the context long time or extended time
are synonymous, but long cannot be used in the phrase extended family.
Synonyms with exactly the same meaning share a seme or denotational sememe, whereas
those with inexactly similar meanings share a broader denotational or connotational sememe and
thus overlap within a semantic field. The former are sometimes called cognitive synonyms and
the latter, near-synonyms, plesionyms or poecilonyms.

Some lexicographers claim that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all
contexts or social levels of language) because etymology, orthography, phonic qualities,
connotations, ambiguous meanings, usage, and so on make them unique. Different words that are
similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: feline is more formal than cat; long and extended
are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a long arm is not the same as an
extended arm). Synonyms are also a source of euphemisms.

Metonymy can sometimes be a form of synonymy: the White House is used as a synonym
of the administration in referring to the U.S. executive branch under a specific president. Thus a
metonym is a type of synonym, and the word metonym is a hyponym of the word synonym.

The analysis of synonymy, polysemy, hyponymy, and hypernymy is inherent to taxonomy

and ontology in the information-science senses of those terms. It has applications in pedagogy
and machine learning, because they rely on word-sense disambiguation.

Sources

Synonyms are often some from the different strata making up a language. For example, in
English, Norman French superstratum words and Old English substratum words continue to
coexist.[9] Thus, today we have synonyms like the Norman-derived people, liberty and archer,
and the Saxon-derived folk, freedom and bowman. For more examples, see the list of Germanic
and Latinate equivalents in English.
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 Loanwords are another rich source of synonyms, often from the language of the dominant
culture of a region. Thus most European languages have borrowed from Latin and ancient Greek,
especially for technical terms, but the native terms continue to be used in non-technical contexts.
In East Asia, borrowings from Chinese in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese often double native
terms. In Islamic cultures, Arabic and Persian are large sources of synonymous borrowings.

For example, in Turkish, kara and siyah both mean 'black', the former being a native
Turkish word, and the latter being a borrowing from Persian. In Ottoman Turkish, there were
often three synonyms: water can be su (Turkish), âb (Persian), or mâ (Arabic): "such a triad of
synonyms exists in Ottoman for every meaning, without exception". As always with synonyms,
there are nuances and shades of meaning or usage.[10]

In English, similarly, we often have Latin and Greek terms synonymous with Germanic
ones: thought, notion (L), idea (Gk); ring, circle (L), cycle (Gk). English often uses the Germanic
term only as a noun, but has Latin and Greek adjectives: hand, manual (L), chiral (Gk); heat,
thermal (L), caloric (Gk). Sometimes the Germanic term has become rare, or restricted to special
meanings: tide, time/temporal, chronic.

Many bound morphemes in English are borrowed from Latin and Greek and are synonyms
for native words or morphemes: fish, pisci- (L), ichthy- (Gk).

Another source of synonyms is coinages, which may be motivated by linguistic purism.

Thus the English word foreword was coined to replace the Romance preface. In Turkish, okul
was coined to replace the Arabic-derived mektep and mederese, but those words continue to be
used in some contexts.

Uses

Synonyms often express a nuance of meaning or are used in different registers of speech or
writing.

Different technical fields may appropriate synonyms for specific technical meanings.

Some writers avoid repeating the same word in close proximity, and prefer to use
synonyms: this is called elegant variation. Many modern style guides criticize this.
Examples

Synonyms can be any part of speech, as long as both words belong to the same part of
speech. Examples:

noun: drink and beverage

verb: buy and purchase
adjective: big and large
adverb: quickly and speedily
preposition: on and upon

Synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words: pupil as the aperture in the
iris of the eye is not synonymous with student. Similarly, he expired means the same as he died,
yet my passport has expired cannot be replaced by my passport has died.

A thesaurus or synonym dictionary lists similar or related words; these are often, but not
always, synonyms/

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 The word poecilonym is a rare synonym of the word synonym. It is not entered in most
major dictionaries and is a curiosity or piece of trivia for being an autological word because of its
meta quality as a synonym of synonym.
Antonyms are words with opposite or nearly opposite meanings. For example: hot ↔
cold, large ↔ small, thick ↔ thin, synonym ↔ antonym
Hypernyms and hyponyms are words that refer to, respectively, a general category and a
specific instance of that category. For example, vehicle is a hypernym of car, and car is a
hyponym of vehicle.
Homophones are words that have the same pronunciation but different meanings. For
example, witch and which are homophones in most accents (because they are pronounced the
same).
Homographs are words that have the same spelling but different meanings. For example,
one can record a song or keep a record of documents.
Homonyms are words that have the same pronunciation and spelling but different
meanings. For example, rose (a type of flower) and rose (past tense of rise) are homonyms.

Prepare the multimedia presentation on the basis of our lectures, the

material given above and Iriskulov's book "Theoretical grammar of
English"