Problem of Synonyms in the Translation

MINISTRYOF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
GULISTANSTATE UNIVERSITY
TheEnglish and Literature department.
HaitboevR.’s qualification work on specialty 5220100, English philology on theme:
“Problemof synonyms in the translation”
Supervisor:Qobulov I.
Gulistan-2006

ContentsI. Introduction
1.1.   The purposes of the work
2.1 General definition of synonymy II. The Main Part
2.1 General definition of synonyms and their classification
2.2 The notion of changeability and how the meanings can be substitutedin a language
2.3 Some semanticpeculiarities of synonyms and their functional relationship
2.4 Peculiar distributional features of synonyms
2.5 Peculiarfeatures of semantic combinability of synonyms
2.6 The link ofsynonymy with collocational meaning
2.7 The notionof conceptual synonymy
III. Conclusion
1.3 Summary tothe whole work
2.3 Ways ofapplying of the work
IV.Bibliography
INTRODUCTION
 
1.1.   Thepurposes of the work
The theme of my qualification work sounds asfollowing: “Problem of synonyms of in the translation” This qualification workcan be characterized by the following:
The actuality of this workcaused by several important points. We seem to say that the problem of synonymsis one of the main difficult ones for the English language learners. It can bemost clearly seen in the colloquial layer of a language, which, in its turn athigh degree is supported by development of modern informational technologiesand simplification of alive speech. As a result, a great number of new meaningsof one and the same word appear in our vocabulary. So the significance of ourwork can be proved by the following reasons:
a) The problem of synonymyis one of the developing branches of vocabulary nowadays.
b)      Synonymy reflects the general trend ofenrichment of a language word-stock.
c)       Synonymy is closely connected with thedevelopment of modern informational technologies.
d)      Being a developing branch of linguistics itrequires a special attention of teachers to be adequate to their specializationin English.
Having based upon theactuality of the theme we are able to formulate the general goals of ourqualification work.
a)      To study, analyze, and sum up all the possiblechanges happened in the studied branch of linguistics for the past fifty years.
b)      To teach the problem of synonymy to youngEnglish learners.
c)       To demonstrate the significance of theproblem for those who want to brush up their English.
d)      To mention all the major of linguists’opinions concerning the subject studied.
If we say about the newinformation used within our work we may note that the work studies the problemfrom the modern positions and analyzes the modern trends appeared in thissubject for the last ten years. In particular, the new computer-based meaningsof some habitual words were given.
The practical significanceof the work can be concluded in the following items:
a)      The work could serve as a good source oflearning English by young teachers at schools and colleges.
b)      The lexicologists could find a lot ofinteresting information for themselves.
c)       Those who would like to communicate with theEnglish-speaking people through the Internet will be able to use the up-to-datewords with the help of our qualification work.
Having said about thelinguists studied the material before we can mention that our qualificationwork was based upon the investigations made by a number of well known English,Russian and Uzbek lexicologists as A.I.Smirnitsky, B.A. Ilyish, N.Buranov, V.V.Vinogradov, O.Jespersen and some others.
If we say about themethods of scientific approaches used in our work we can mention that themethod of typological analysis was used.
The newality of the workis concluded in including the modern meanings of habitual words to ourqualification work.
The general structure ofour qualification work looks as follows:
The work is composed ontothree major parts: introduction, main part and conclusion. Each part has itssubdivision onto the specific thematically items. There are two points in theintroductory part: the first item tells about the general content of the workwhile the other gives us the general explanation of the lexicologicalphenomenon of shortening in a language. The main part bears the seven points initself. The first point explains the general definition of synonyms and theirclassification. In the second item of the main part we give the notion ofchangeability and how the meanings can be substituted in a language. The thirditem tells Some semantic peculiarities of synonyms and their functionalrelationship In the fourth item we tale into consideration the Peculiardistributional features of synonyms. The fifth paragraph takes intoconsideration the question of peculiar features of semantic combinability ofsynonyms. The sixth item shows us The link of synonymy with collocationalmeaning. The last paragraph of the main part analyzes the notion of conceptualsynonymy in a language. The conclusion of the qualification work sums up theideas discussed in the main part (the first item) and shows the ways ofimplying of the qualification work (in the second item).
At the end of the qualification work there is thefourth part – bibliography list of the works used for preparing this paper.
1.2 General definition of synonymy
Synonyms (in ancient Greek syn‘συν’ plus and onoma ‘όνομα’ name) aredifferent words with similar or identical meanings and are interchangable. Antonymsare words with opposite or nearly opposite meanings. (Synonym and antonym areantonyms.)
An example of synonyms is thewords cat and feline. Each describes any member of the family Felidae.Similarly, if we talk about a long time or an extended time, long and extendedbecome synonyms. In the figurative sense, two words are often said to be synonymousif they have the same connotation:
“a widespread impression that… Hollywood was synonymous with immorality” (Doris Kearns Goodwin)[1]
Synonyms can be nouns, adverbsor adjectives, as long as both members of the pair are the same part of speech.
More examples of English synonyms:
· baby and infant (noun)
· student and pupil (noun)
· pretty and attractive (adjective)
· sick and ill (adjective)
· interestingand fascinating (adjective)
· quicklyand speedily (adverb)
Note that the synonyms aredefined with respect to certain senses of words; for instance, pupil as the “aperturein the iris of the eye” is not synonymous with student. Similarly, expired as “havinglost validity” (as in grocery goods) it doesn’t necessarily mean death.
Some lexicographers claimthat no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or sociallevels of language) because etymology, orthography, phonic qualities, ambiguousmeanings, usage, etc. make them unique. However, many people feel that thesynonyms they use are identical in meaning for all practical purposes.Different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: felineis more formal than cat; long and extended are only synonyms in one usage andnot in others, such as a long arm and an extended arm. Synonyms are also asource of euphemisms.
The purpose of a thesaurus isto offer the user a listing of similar or related words; these are often, butnot always, synonyms. In a way, hyponyms are similar to synonyms.
In contrast, antonyms (anopposite pair) would be:
· dead and alive (compare tosynonyms: dead and deceased)
· near and far (compare tosynonyms: near and close)
· war and peace (compare tosynonyms: war and armed conflict)
· tremendousand awful (compare to synonyms: tremendous and remarkable)

Main Part
 
2.1 General definition of synonyms andtheir classification
Synonyms are words different in their outer aspects,but identical or similar in their inner aspects. In English there are a lot ofsynonyms, because there are many borrowings, e.g. hearty / native/ — cordial/borrowing/. After a word is borrowed it undergoes desynonymization, becauseabsolute synonyms are unnecessary for a language. However, there are someabsolute synonyms in the language, which have exactly the same meaning andbelong to the same style, e.g. to moan, to groan; homeland, motherland etc. Incases of desynonymization one of the absolute synonyms can specialize in itsmeaning and we get semantic synonyms, e.g. «city» /borrowed/, «town» /native/.The French borrowing «city» is specialized. In other cases native words can bespecialized in their meanings, e.g. «stool» /native/, «chair» /French/.
Sometimes one of the absolute synonyms is specializedin its usage and we get stylistic synonyms, e.g. «to begin»/ native/, «tocommence» /borrowing/. Here the French word is specialized. In some cases thenative word is specialized, e.g. «welkin» /bookish/, «sky» /neutral/.
Stylistic synonyms can also appear by means ofabbreviation. In most cases the abbreviated form belongs to the colloquialstyle, and the full form to the neutral style, e.g. «examination’, «exam».
Among stylistic synonyms we can point out a specialgroup of words which are called euphemisms. These are words used to substitutesome unpleasant or offensive words, e.g. «the late» instead of «dead», «toperspire» instead of «to sweat» etc.
There are also phraseological synonyms, these wordsare identical in their meanings and styles but different in their combiningwith other words in the sentence, e.g. «to be late for a lecture» but «to missthe train», «to visit museums» but «to attend lectures» etc.
In each group of synonyms there is a word with themost general meaning, which can substitute any word in the group, e.g. «piece»is the synonymic dominant in the group «slice», «lump», «morsel». The verb « tolook at» is the synonymic dominant in the group «to stare», «to glance», «topeep». The adjective «red’ is the synonymic dominant in the group «purple»,«scarlet», «crimson».
When speaking about the sources of synonyms, besidesdesynonymization and abbreviation, we can also mention the formation of phrasalverbs, e.g. «to give up» — «to abandon», «to cut down» — «to diminish».Grouping of words is based upon similarities and contrasts and is usuallycalled as synonymic row. Taking up similarity of meaning and contrasts ofphonetic shape we observe that every language has in its vocabulary a varietyof words, kindred in meaning but distinct in morphemic composition, phonemicshape and usage, ensuring the expression of the most delicate shades ofthought, feeling and imagination. The more developed the language, the richerthe diversity and therefore the greater the possibilities of lexical choiceenhancing the effectiveness and precision of speech.
The way synonyms functionmay be seen from the following example: Already in this half-hour ofbombardment hundreds upon hundreds of men would have been violently slain,smashed, torn, gouged, crusted, and mutilated. (ALDINGTON)
The synonymous words smashand crush are semantic-ally very close; they combine to give a forcefulrepresentation of the atrocities of war. Richness and clearness of language areof paramount importance in so far as they promote precision of thought. Eventhis preliminary example makes it obvious that the still very commondefinitions of synonyms as words of the same language having the same meaningor as different words that stand for the same notion are by no means accurateand even in a way misleading. By the very nature of language every word has itsown history, its own peculiar motivation, and its own typical contexts. Andbesides there is always some hidden possibility of different connotation aridwhich is feeling in each of them. Moreover, words of the same meaning would beuseless for communication: they would encumber the language, not enrich it.
If two words exactlycoincide in meaning and use, the natural tendency is for one of them to changeits meaning or drop out of the language. Thus synonyms are words only similarbut not identical in meaning-. This definition is correct but vague. A moreprecise linguistic definition should be based on a workable notion of tiesemantic structure of the word and of the complex nature of every separatemeaning in a polysemantic word. Each separate lexical meaning of a word hasbeen described in Chapter VII as consisting of a denotational componentidentifying the notion or the object and reflecting the essential features ofthe notion named, shades of meaning reflecting its secondary features,additional connotations resulting from typical contexts in which the word isused, its emotional component arid stylistic coloring; connotations are notnecessarily present in every word. The basis of a synonymic opposition isformed by the first of the above named components, i.e. the denotationalcomponent. It will be remembered that the term opposition means therelationship of partial difference between two partially similar elements of alanguage. A common denotational component brings the words together into asynonymic group. All the other components can vary and thus form thedistinctive features of the synonymic oppositions.
Synonyms can therefore bedefined in terms of linguistics as two or more words of the same language,belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical ornearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable, at least in somecontexts, without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning, hutdiffering in morphemic composition, phonemic shape, shades of meaning,connotations, affective value, style, valence and idiomatic use. Additionalcharacteristics of style, emotional coloring and valence peculiar to one of theelements in a synonymic group may be absent in one or all of the others.
The definition is ofnecessity very bulky and needs some commenting upon. By pointing out the factthat synonyms belong to the same part of speech the definition makes it clearthat synonymic grouping is really a special case of lexico-grammatical groupingbased on semantic proximity of words.
To have something tangibleto work upon it is convenient to compare some synonyms within their group, soas to make obvious the reasons of the definition. The verbs experience,undergo, sustain and suffer, for example, come together because all four renderthe notion of experiencing something. The verb and the noun experience indicateactual living through something and coming to know it first hand rather thanfrom hearsay. Undergo applies chiefly to what someone or something bears or issubjected to, as in to undergo an operation, to undergo changes. Compare alsothe following example from L. P. Smith: The French language has undergoneconsiderable and more recent changes since the date when the Normans brought itinto England. In the above example the verb undergo can be replaced by itssynonyms without any change of the sentence meaning. This may be easily provedif a similar context is found for some other synonym in the same group. Forinstance: These Latin words suffered many transformations in becoming French.
The denotational meaningis obviously the same. Synonyms, then, are interchangeable under certainconditions specific to each group. This seems to call forth an analogy withphonological neutralization. Now, it will be remembered that neutralization isthe absence in some contexts of a phonetic contrast found elsewhere or formerlyin the language, as the absence of contrast between final [s] and [z] after[t]. It appears we are justified in calling s e-m antic neutralization thesuspension of an otherwise functioning semantic opposition that occurs in somelexical contexts.
And yet suffer in thismeaning (‘to undergo’), but not in the example above, is characterized byconnotations implying wrong or injury. No semantic neutralization occurs inphrases like to suffer atrocities, to suffer heavy losses. The implication isof course caused by the existence of the main intransitive meaning of the sameword, not synonymous with the group, i. e. ‘feel pain’. Sustain as an elementof this group differs from both in shade of meaning and style. It is an officialword and it suggests undergoing affliction without giving way.
A further illustrationwill be supplied by a group of synonymous nouns: hope, expectation, andanticipation. They are considered to be synonymous because they all three mean‘having something in mind which is likely to happen’. They are, however, muchless interchangeable than the previous group because of more stronglypronounced difference in shades of meaning. Expectation may be either of goodor of evil. Anticipation, as a rule, is a pleasurable expectation of somethinggood. Hope is not only a belief but a desire that some event would happen. Thestylistic difference is also quite marked. The Romance words anticipation andexpectation are formal literary words used only by educated speakers, whereasthe native monosyllabic hope is stylistically neutral. Moreover, they differ inidiomatic usage. Only hope is possible in such set expressions as: to hopeagainst, hope, to lose hope, to pin one’s hopes on smth. Neither expectationnor anticipation could be substituted into the following quotation from T. S.Eliot: You do not know what hope is until you have lost it.
Taking into considerationthe corresponding series of synonymous verbs and verbal set expressions: tohope, for anticipate, to expect, to look forward to, we shall see that separatewords may be compared to whole set expressions. To look forward also worthy ofnote because it forms a definitely colloquial counterpart to the rest. It caneasily be shown, on the evidence of examples, that each synonymic groupcomprises a dominant element. This synonymic dominant is the most general termof its kind potentially containing the specific features rendered by all theother members’ of the group, as, for instance, undergo and hope in the above.
In the series leave,depart, quit, retire, clear out the verb leave, being general and bothstylistically and emotionally neutral, can stand for each of the other fourterms. The other four can replace leave only when some specific semantic componentmust prevail over the general notion. When we want to stress the idea of givingup employment and stopping work quit is preferable because in this word thisparticular notion dominates over the more general idea common to the wholegroup. Some of these verbs may be used transitively, e. g. He has left me…Abandoned me! Quitted me! (BENNETT).[2] In thissynonymic series therefore the dominant term is leave. Other dominants are, forinstance, get, a verb that can stand for the verbs obtain, acquire, gain, win,earn; also ask, the most general term of its group, viz. inquire, question orinterrogate. The synonymic dominant should not be confused with a generic term.A generic term is relative. It serves as the name for the notion of the genusas distinguished from the names of the species. For instance, animal is ageneric term as compared to the specific names wolf, dog or mouse (which arenot synonymous). Dog, in its turn, may serve as a generic term for differentbreeds such as bull-dog, collie, poodle, etc.
The definition on p. 224states that synonyms possess one or more identical or nearly identicalmeanings. To realize the significance of this, one must bear in mind that themajority of frequent words are polysemantic, and that it is precisely thefrequent words that have many synonyms. The result is that one and the sameword may belong in its various meanings to several different synonymic groups.The verb appear in …an old brown cat without a tail appeared from nowhere(MANSFIELD)[3] issynonymous with come into sight, emerge. On the other hand, when Gr. Greenedepicts the far-off figures of the parachutists who …appeared stationary,appeared is synonymous with look or seem, their common component being ‘givethe impression of. Appear, then, often applies to erroneous impressions.
Compare the following.groups synonymous to five different meanings of the adjective fresh, asrevealed by characteristic contexts: To begin a fresh paragraph—fresh:: another:: different :: new.
Fresh air — fresh:: pure :: invigorating.
A freshman —fresh:: inexperienced :: green :: raw.
To be fresh with smb —fresh:: impertinent :: rude.
The semantic structures oftwo polysemantic words sometimes coincide in more than one meaning, but nevercompletely.
Synonyms may also differin emotional coloring which may be present in one element of the group andabsent in all or some of the others. Lonely as compared with alone is emotionalas is easily seen from the following examples: …a very lonely boy lostbetween them and aware at ten that his mother had no interest in him, and thathis father was a stranger. (ALDEIDGE) Shall be alone as my secretary doesn’tcome to-day (M. DICKENS). Both words denote being apart from others, but lonelybesides the general meaning implies longing for company, feeling sad because ofthe lack of sympathy and companionship. Alone does not necessarily suggest anysadness at being by oneself.
If the difference in themeaning of synonyms concerns the notion or the emotion expressed, as was thecase in the groups discussed above, the synonyms are classed as ideographicsynonyms, and the opposition created in contrasting them may be called anideographic opposition. The opposition is formulated with the help of a cleardefinitive statement of the semantic component present in all the members ofthe group. The analysis proceeds as a definition by comparison with thestandard that is thus settled. “It is not enough to tell something about eachword. The thing to tell is how each word is related to others in thisparticular group.” 3 The establishment of differential features proves veryhelpful, whereas sliding from one synonym to another with no definite point ofdeparture creates a haphazard approach with no chance of tracing the system. Inanalyzing the group consisting of the words glance n, look n and glimpse n westate that all three denote a conscious and direct endeavor to see, thedistinctive feature is based on the time and quickness of the action. A glanceis ‘a look which is quick and sudden’ and a glimpse is quicker still, implyingonly momentary sight.
In a stylistic oppositionof synonyms the basis of comparison is again the denotational meaning and thedistinctive feature is the presence or absence of a stylistic coloring whichmay also be accompanied a difference in emotional coloring.
It has become quite atradition with linguists: when discussing synonyms to quote a passage from “AsYou Like It” (Act V, Scene I) to illustrate the social differentiation ofvocabulary and the stylistic relationship existing1 in the English languagebetween simple, mostly native, words and their dignified and elaborate synonymsborrowed from the French. We shall keep to this time-honored convention,Speaking to a country fellow William, the jester Touchstone says: Therefore, youclown, abandon, — which is in the vulgar leave, — the society, — which in theboorish is company, — of this female, — which in the common is woman; whichtogether is abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishes t; orto thy better understanding diets; or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away,translate thy life into death.
· Thegeneral effect of poetic or learned .synonyms when used in prose or in everydayspeech is that of creating alit elevated tone. The point may be proved by thevery first example in this chapter (see p. 223)[4]where the poetic and archaic verb slays is-substituted for the neutral kill. Wemust be on our guard too against the idea that the stylistic effect may existwithout influencing the meaning: in fact it never does. The verb slay not onlylends to the whole a poetical and solemn ring, it also shows the writer’s andhis hero’s attitude to the fact, their horror and repugnance of war and theirfeeling for its victims.
The phrases they arekilled, they are slain, they are made away with may refer to the same event hutthey are different ill meaning, in so far as they reveal a different attitudeto the subject in question on the part of the speaker.
The study of synonyms is aborderline province between semantics and stylistics on the one hand andsemantics arid phraseology on the other because of the synonymic collocationsserving as_ a means of emphasis. The following example from “A Taste of Honey”,j remarkable for the truthfulness of its dialogue, shows how they are used inmodern speech;
Helen: …”The devil looks after his own,” — they say.
2.2 The notion ofchangeability and how the meanings can be substituted in a language
 
Since the exact meaning ofeach synonym is delimited by its interrelatedness with the other elements ofthe same group, comparison plays an important part in synonymic research. Ithas already been tentatively examined in the opening paragraph of this chapter;now we offer a slightly different angle of the same problem. The interchangeabilityand possible neutralization are tested by means of substitution, a procedurealso profitably borrowed by semasiology from phonology. 1 The values of words 2can best be defined by substituting them for one another and observing theresulting changes. When the landlady in John Waif’s “Hurry on down” says to themain personage: And where do you work? I’ve asked you that two or three times,Mr. Lumley, but you’ve never given me any answer, the verb ask has a verygeneral meaning of seeking information. Substituting its synonyms, question orinterrogate, will require a change in the structure of the sentence (theomission of that), which shows the distributional opposition between thesewords, and also ushers in a change in meaning. These words will heighten theimplication that the landlady has her doubts about Lumley and confesses thatshe finds his character suspicious. The verb question would mean that she isconstantly asking her lodger searching questions. The substitution ofinterrogate would suggest systematic and thorough questioning by a personauthorized to do so; the landlady could have used it only ironically and ironywould have been completely out of keeping with her mentality and habits.Observations of this sort can be supported by statistical data. Most frequentcombinations such as teachers question their pupils, fudges interrogatewitnesses and the like also throw light on the semantic difference betweensynonyms.
Synonyms have certaincommon ground within which they are interchangeable without alteration ofmeaning or with a very slight loss in effectiveness. Ask and inquire, forinstance, may be used indiscriminately when not followed by any object 3 as inthe following: “And where do you live now, Mr. Gillespie?” Mrs. Pearson inquiredrather archly and with her head on one side. (PRIESTLEY)
To this connection somemore examples may be cited. The words strange, odd, queer, though different inconnotations, are often interchangeable because they can be applied to definethe same words or words naming similar notions: strange feeling (glance,business)’, queer feeling (glance, business), odd feeling (glance, business).E. g.: It seems the queerest set-up I ever heard of. (WYNDHAM)[5] Compare also: she agreed to stay :: sheconsented to stay; she seems annoyed :: she appears annoyed :: she looksannoyed; to discharge an employee :: to sack an employee :: to fire an employee(a servant, etc.).
It should be borne in mindthat substitution in different contexts has for its object not only probinginterchangeability but bringing into relief the difference in intellectual,emotional and stylistic value of each word. An additional procedure suggestedby Ch. Bally consists in assigning to the words suitable antonyms. Thedifference between firm and hard, for example, is explained if we point outthat firm contrasts with hose and flabby (firm ground:: loose ground, firm chin:: flabby chin), whereas the opposite of hard is soft (hard ground :: softground).
The meaning of each wordis conditioned the meaning of other words forming part of the same vocabularysystem, and especially of those in semantic proximity. High and tall, forinstance, could be defined not only from the point of view of their valence(tall is used about people) but also in relation to each other by stating howfar they are interchangeable and what their respective antonyms are. A buildingmay be high and it may be (all. High is a relative term signifying ‘greatlyraised above the surface or the base’, in comparison with what is usual forobjects of the same kind. A table is high if it exceeds 75 cm; a hill of a hundred meters is not high. The same relativity is characteristic of its antonymlow. As to the word tall, it is used about objects whose height is greatly inexcess of their breadth or diameter and whose actual height is great for anobject of its kind: a tall
man, a tall tree. Theantonym is short.
The area wheresubstitution is possible is very limited and outside it all replacement eitherdestroys the beauty and precision, or, more often, makes the utterance vague,ungrammatical and even unintelligible. This makes the knowledge of where eachsynonym differs from another of paramount importance for correctness of speech.
The distinctions betweenwords similar in meaning are often very fine and elusive, so that some specialinstruction on the use of synonyms is necessary even for native speakers. Thisaccounts for the great number of books of synonyms that serve as guides forthose who aim at good style and precision and wish to choose the mostappropriate terms from the varied stock of the English vocabulary. The study ofsynonyms is especially indispensable for those who learn English as a foreignlanguage because what is the right word in one situation will be wrong in manyother, apparently similar, contexts.
It is often convenient toexplain the meaning of a new word with the help of its previously learnedsynonym. This forms additional associations in the student’s mind, and the newword is better remembered. Moreover, it eliminates the necessity of bringing ina native word. And yet the discrimination of synonyms and words which may beconfused is more important. -The teacher must show that synonyms are notidentical in meaning or use and explain the difference between them bycomparing and contrasting them, as well as by showing in what contexts one orthe other may be most fitly used.
Translation cannot serveas a criterion of synonymy; there are cases when several English words of differentdistribution and valence are translated into Russian by one and the same word.Such words as also, too and as well, all translated by the Russian word mooted,are never interchangeable. A teacher of English should always stress thenecessity of being on one’s guard against mistakes of this kind.
Contextual synonyms aresimilar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions. Theverbs bear, suffer and stand are semantically different and not interchangeableexcept when used in the negative form; can’t stand is equal to can’t bear inthe following words of an officer: Gas. I’ve swallowed too much of the beastlystuff: I can’t stand it any longer. I’m going to the dressing-station.(ALDINGTON)
There are some otherdistinctions to be made with respect to different kinds of semantic similarity.Some authors, for instance, class groups like ask :: beg :: implore or like ::love :: adore, gift :: talent :: genius as synonymous, calling them relativesynonyms. This attitude is open to discussion. In fact the difference indenotative meaning is unmistakable: the words name different notions, notvarious degrees of the same notion, and cannot substitute one another. Anentirely different type of opposition is involved. Formerly we had oppositions basedon the relationships between the members of the opposition, here we deal withproportional oppositions characterized by their relationship with the wholevocabulary system and based on a different degree of intensity of the relevantdistinctive features. We shall not call such words synonymous as they do notfit the definition of synonyms given in the beginning of the chapter.
Totalsynonymy, i.e. synonymy where the members of a synonymic group can replace eachother in any given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative oremotional meaning and connotations, is an extremely rare occurrence. Examplesof this type can be found in special literature among technical terms peculiarto this or that branch of knowledge. Thus, in linguistics the terms noun andsubstantive, functional affix, flections and inflection are identical inmeaning. What is not generally realized, however, is that terms are a peculiartype of words, totally devoid of connotations or emotional coloring, and thattheir stylistic characterization does not vary? That is why this is a veryspecial kind of synonymy: neither ideographic nor stylistic oppositions arepossible here. As to the distributional opposition, it is less marked becausethe great majority of terms are nouns. Their irater change ability is also in away deceptive. Every writer has to make up his mind right from the start as towhich of the possible synonyms he prefers and stick to it throughout his textto avoid ambiguity. Thus, the interchangeability is, as it were, theoreticaland cannot be materialized in an actual text.
Thesame misunderstood conception of interchangeability lies at the bottom ofconsidering different dialect names for the same plant, animal or agriculturalimplement and the like as total (absolute) synonyms. Thus a perennial plantwith long clusters of dotted whitish or purple tubular flowers that thebotanists refer to as genus Digitalis has several dialectal names such asfoxglove, fairy bell, finger/lower, finger root, dead men’s bells, ladies’fingers. But the names are not interchangeable in any particular speaker’sidiolect. 1 The same is true about the cornflower (Centauries yeans), so calledbecause it grows in cornfields; some people call it bluebottle according to theshape and color of its petals. Compare also gorse, furze and whim, differentnames used in different places for the same prickly yellow-flowered shrub.
Thedistinction between synchronistic and dichromatic treatment is so fundamentalthat it cannot be overemphasized, but the two aspects are interdependent andcannot be understood without one another. It is therefore essential after thedescriptive analysis synonymy in present-day English to take up the historicalline of approach and discuss the origin of synonyms and the causes of eitherabundance in English.
The majority of those whostudied synonymy in the past have been cultivating both lines of approachwithout keeping them scrupulously apart, and focused their attention on theprominent part of foreign loan words in English synonymy, e. g. freedom ::liberty or heaven :: sky, where the first elements arc native and the second,French and Scandinavian respectively. O. Jazzperson and many others used tostress that the English language is peculiarly rich in synonyms becauseBritons, Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans fighting and settling upon the soilof the British Isles could not but influence each other’s speech. Britishscholars studied Greek and Latin and for centuries used Latin as a medium forcommunication on-scholarly topics.
Words borrowed from Latinto interrogate abdomen to collect vacuous to complete to ascend instructionNative English words to ask belly to gather empty to end to raise teachingSynonymy has its characteristic patterns in each language. Its peculiar featurein English is the contrast between simple native words stylistically neutral,literary words borrowed from French and learned words of Greco-Latin origin.This results in a sort of stylistically conditioned triple “keyboard” that canbe illustrated by the following: Words borrowed from French to question stomachto assemble devoid to finish to mount guidance English also uses many pairs ofsynonymous derivatives, the one Hellenic and the other Romance, e. g.: periphery:: circumference’, hypothesis :: supposition; sympathy :: compassion; synthesis:; composition.
The pattern of stylisticrelationship represented in the above table, although typical, is by no meansuniversal. For example, the native words dale, deed, fair are the poeticequivalents of their much more frequent borrowed synonyms valley, act or thehybrid beautiful.
This subject of stylisticdifferentiation has been one of much controversy in recent years. It isuniversally accepted, however, that semantic and stylistic properties maychange and synonyms which at one time formed a stylistic opposition only, mayin the course of time become ideographically contrasted as well, and viceversa.
Itwould be linguistically naive to maintain that borrowing re-silts only inquantitative changes or those qualitative changes are purely stylistically. Theintroduction of a borrowed word almost invariably starts some alteration bothin the newcomer and in the seminary tic structure of existing words that areclose to it in meaning. When in the 13th century the word soil (Forsoil, soil) was hour-rowed into English its meaning was ‘a strip of land’. Theupper layer of earth in which plants grow had been denoted since Old English byone of the synonyms: elope, land, folder. All these words had other centralmeanings so (hat the meaning in question was with (hem secondary. Avow, if twowords coincide in meaning and use, the tendency is for one of them to drop outof the language. Folder had the same function and meaning as elope and in thefight for survival the latter won. The polysemantic word land underwent anintense semantic development in a different direction and so dropped out ofthis synonymic series. In this way it became quite natural for soil to fill theobvious lexical gap, receive its present meaning and become the main name forthe corresponding notion, i.e. ‘the mould in which plants grow’. The noun earthretained (his meaning throughout its history, whereas the word ground in whichthis meaning was formerly absent, developed it. As a result this synonymicgroup comprises at present soil, earth and ground.
Thefate of the word folder is not at all infrequent. Many other words now markedin the dictionaries as “archaic” or “obsolete” have dropped out in the same competitionof synonyms: others survived with a meaning more or less removed from theoriginal one. The process is called synonymic differentiation and is so currentthat M. Boreal regarded it as an inherent law of language development. It mustbe noted that -synonyms may influence each other semantically in twodiametrically opposite ways: one of them is dissimilation, the other thereverse process, i. e. assimi1ation. The assimilation of synonyms consists inparallel development. An example of this is furnished by the sense developmentof Middle English adverbs meaning ‘swiftly’, and subsequently ‘immediately’.This law was discovered and described by G. Stern. H. A. Treble and G. H.Villains give as examples the pejorative meanings acquired by the nouns wench,knave and churl which originally meant ‘girl’, ‘boy’ and ‘laborer’respectively, and point out that this loss of old dignity became linguisticallypossible because there were so many synonymous terms to hand. The importantthing to remember is that it is not only borrowings from foreign languages hut,other sources as well that; have made increasing contributions to the stock ofEnglish synonyms. There are for instance words that come from dialects, and, inthe last hundred years, from American English in particular. As a resultspeakers of British English may make use of both elements of the followingpairs, the first element in each pair coming from the USA: gimmick :: trick,dues :: subscription, long distance (telephone) call :: trunk call, radio :: wireless.There are also synonyms that originate in numerous other dialects as, forinstance, clover:: shamrock, liquor ;: whiskey (from Irish), girl :; lass,lassie or charm :: glamour (from Scottish).
The role of borrowingsshould not be overestimated. Synonyms are also created by means of allword-forming processes productive in the language at a given time of itshistory. The words already existing in the language develop new meanings. Newwords may be formed by affixation, or loss of affixes, conversion, compounding,shortening and so on, and being coined, form synonyms to those already in use.
Of special importance forthose who are interested in the present-day trends and characteristicpeculiarities of the English vocabulary are the synonymic oppositions due toshift of meaning, new combinations of verbs with postpositive and compoundnouns formed from them, shortenings, set expressions and conversion.
Set expressions consistingof a verb with a postpositive are widely used in present-day English and may becalled one of its characteristic features. l Many verbal synonymic groupscontain such combinations as one of their elements. A few examples willillustrate this statement: to choose :: to pick out; to abandon :: to give up;to continue :: to go on; to enter :: to come in; to lift :: to pick up; topostpone :: to put off; to quarrel :: to fall out; to return :: to bring back.E.g. By the way, Toby has quite given up the idea of doing those animalcartoons. (PLOMER)
The vitality of theseexpressions is proved by the fact that they really supply material for furtherword-formation. Very many compound nouns denoting abstract notions, persons andevents are correlated with them, also giving ways of expressing notionshitherto named by somewhat lengthy borrowed terms. There are, for instance,such synonymic pairs as arrangement :: layout; conscription :: call-up;precipitation :: fall-out; regeneration :: feedback; reproduction :: playback;resistance :: fight-back; treachery :: sell-out.
An even more frequent typeof new formations is that in which a noun with a verbal stem is combined with averb of generic meaning (have, give, take, get, make] into a set expressionwhich differs from the simple verb in aspect or emphasis: to laugh:: to give alaugh; to sigh:: lo give a sigh; to walk:: to take a walk; to smoke:: to have asmoke; to love:: to fall in love. E.g. now we can all have a good read with ourcoffee. (SIMPSON)[6]
N. N. Amosova stresses thepatterned character of the phrases in question, the regularity of connectionbetween the structure of the phrase and the resulting semantic effect. She alsopoints out that there may be cases when phrases of this pattern have undergonea shift of meaning and turned into phraseological units quite different inmeaning from, and not synonymical with, the verbs of the same root. This is thecase with to give a lift, to give somebody quite a turn, etc.
Quite frequently synonyms,mostly stylistically, hut sometimes ideographic as well, are due to shortening,e. g. memorandum :: memo; vegetables :: vegs; margarine :: merge; microphone ::mike; popular (song] :: pop (song).
One should not overlookthe fact that conversion may also be a source of synonymy; it accounts for suchpairs as commandment:: ceriman, laughter :: laugh. The problem in thisconnection is whether such cases should be regarded as synonyms or as lexicalvariants of one arid the same word. It seems more logical to consider them, aslexical variants. Cf. also cases of different affixation: anxiety ::anxiousness, effectively ;: effectiveness, and loss of affixes: amongst :;among or await :: wait.
Essence of synonymy,synonymous relations between words yore attracted and still attracts theattention of linguists, who develop the problems of semasiology, since decisionof the problems of synonymy is closely connected with antonym and polysemy andthe studying of synonyms is important not only for semasiology, but as well asfor lexicography, literature studying, methodic of teaching the Englishlanguage, etc.
In spite of the existenceof relatively large numbers of the studies, denoted to the opening of thedifferent sides to synonymy, hitherto there is no a unity glance in respect todeterminations of the synonyms, methods of their study, principles of theseparation and categorizations of the synonyms, and borders of the synonymousrow.
The majority of scholarsshare the opinion that synonymy presents by itself the “microcircuit” of thelanguage, which is characterized by their own relations and that it falls intoquality of the component part in lexical system of the language as a whole.
As it concerns thedeterminations of synonymy, there is no existence of the unity among thescholars’ opinions: one researchers come from the generality of the meaning ofsynonyms, while the others — from the correlation of semantic and subject — logical begin in a word, while the thirds try to prove that synonyms aredefined on the base of generality of the structured model of the use and alikecombinability of the words.
Such kind of analysis ofthese determinations happens to in the works of Russian philologists V.A.Pautynskaya, “Review of the literature on question of the synonymy”, V.A. Zvegintsev“Semasiology”, “Questions to theories and histories of the language”,“Theoretical and applied linguistics” and V.T. Valium “About determinations ofthe synonymy and their synonymy in modern English.
Considering the semanticgenerality of the lexical units and their partial interchangeability as thefeatures of synonyms, that is to say, the compatibility of words in onecontextual meaning and the inconsistency in others, we hereunder may confirmthat two words interchangeable in all contexts are not synonyms, because whentwo words are used with no difference, there is no a problem of the choicebetween them
Now let us analyze thisproblem from the viewpoint of the Russian scholar S. Ulman. Citing onAristotel, S. Uliman emphasizes that synonymy of the words — a stylisticcategory and the style always expects the choice between two words, at least,which are compatible or incompatible. Hence it follows that where there are nogrounds for choice between two or more words, there are no grounds for speakingabout synonymy of these words.
Amongst the judgmentsabout correlation of meanings in synonymy and their interchangeable character,there are such, which reduce the synonymy to unlimited interchange. Forinstance, A. Cherch writes that if two names (the question is about the namespresented as combinations of the words) are synonyms (that is they have one andthe same content), it is always possible for a linguist to change one of theminto another. However, example, which A. Cherch gives on this cause, shows thatthe interchangeable character of synonyms is limited. This example looks asfollows:
e.g. Sir Valiter Scott isthe author of “Veverley”
In this example we can seethat though Sir Walter Scott is not a Veverley by its semantic content but SirWalter Scott is Sir Walter Scott, though when we say a word “Veverley” we maymention Walter Scott as the author of the former.
In the linguisticliterature on synonymy we can read that the interchangeable character oflexical units is considered as the effect to generalities of their lexical andgrammatical importance. For support of this idea we can take the works of A.L.Demidova, who, concerning with synonymical pretext, comes to conclusion thatsome synonyms differ in their semantically meaning and cannot be interchangedto each other, while the others are of stylistic shade and can be interchangedinto each other. I agree with A.L. Demidova’s idea is that there also existsthe third group of synonyms, which combines in itself the features of the firsttwo previous groups. And, consequently, such synonyms are interchangeable inone case and not interchangeable in another.
According to conceptsaccepted by me, the synonymy exists only under the two above mentionedconditions of semantic generality, while the words which correspond only to oneof these conditions, are not of synonymic character.
Semantic fields are the answer to theproblem / question of structuring the lexicon of a language. Those who defendthe existence of semantic fields believe that the language is structured. Theysay that the words can be classified in sets, which are related to conceptual fieldsand these words divide the semantic space / domain in different ways. It’s tobe preferred that the label to use here is field rather than theory becausetheories are supposed to be complete and have explicit definitions of thematter in question, and this isn’t what happens in the semantic field approach.We just have ideas of how things seem to be. Moreover, the semantic fieldapproach isn’t formalized and it was born on the basis of just a handful ofideas of how words work.
The basic notion behind any semanticfield approach is the notion of association: words are associated in differentwords. We also have the idea of a mosaic. The words form it in such a way thatfor it to be complete you need all the words in their correct place. We alsohave to distinguish between lexical and semantic fields. Semantic fields havesomething to do with prototypically. One of the main difficulties in thesemantic field approach is to establish the exact number of words that are partof a set. Here is where Prototype Theory enters because it defines the basicfeatures of a category.
Model of focal points.
Martin and Key concluded that thebasic words of a category are very easy to identify by a native speaker butthey say that the interesting point is the area a native speaker doubts whetherto call something A or B. There are concepts which cannot be expressed inwords. From the psychological point of view there are concepts which cannot beverbalized but that really exist in the mind. The aim of this model is toidentify 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 isthe arrangement of words in sets depending on the organizing concepts. Manysemantic linguists say that it’s difficult to think of a word outside asemantic field because if you say that a word is outside a semantic field, yousay it’s outside the lexicon. The problem with this is what happens with wordswhich don’t evoke a concept. Many words in English are meaningful but don’thave a concept
Ex: Even / only
These words clearly make a semanticcontribution to the sentence. It’s not the same to say: Only John drinks milk.Than: Even John drinks milk.2.3 Some semantic peculiarities ofsynonyms and their functional relationship
This chapter is denoted tothe analysis of semantic and functional relationships and words and theirsynonymy in modern English. V.G. Vilyuman, in detail analyzing all signs ofsynonymy, comes to conclusion that necessary and sufficient for confession ofthe words as the synonymical ones features are general for the analyzed wordssemantic and functional signs, but, however, the problem of synonymy accordingto Volume’s opinion is being lead to the discovering of resemblances anddifferences of the meanings and functions of the words on the base of theircombinability. This idea might be truly supported by the investigations ofother linguists such as A.V.Smirnitsky and G.Khidekel.
We must also notion herethat the understanding of the essence of the synonymous relations is closelyconnected with the understanding of the essence and structures of the semanticstructure of a word. We know different ways of interpretations of the semanticstructure of the word in theories of lexicology. Let us give some of thesesuggestions below.
V.G. Viluman defines thesemantic structure of the word as a set of semantic signs, which are revealedat the determination of semantic adjacency of the synonymical words. Accordingto his opinion, one of the possible ways of the determination of semanticadequacy of the words is offered by the analysis of the description of meaningsfor these words in explanatory dictionaries. Two words are considered assemantically correspondent to each other if their vocabulary meaning isexplained one through another. The relationship between two words can also bedirect and mediated. For example, having studied the semantic relationshipbetween verbs which are united by the semantic meaning of “to look”, V.G.Vilyuman builds the matrix of the semantic structures of the synonymical verbsanalyzed. The matrix presentation of the semantic structures serves not only asa demonstrative depiction of the material, but it also creates the picture aunit systems in a language — we mean synonymy, since the semantic structure ofeach word in the matrix is represented by itself as a ranked ensemble ofimportance’s interconnected and opposed to each other.
The deep penetration tothe essence of language phenomena, their nature and laws of the development ispromoted by the collation of these phenomena in two and more languages.
The problems of thecomparative study of lexicon in different languages have found their reflectedimages 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.[7]
Many linguists consider asexpedient to match the small systems between themselves, the members of which aresemantically bound between itself. This enables us to define the lexicalelements of each system by means of investigation, and to note the moments ofthe coincidences between them, as well as to explain why the semantic sidebarsof each word or words, which have the alike subject reference in comparedlanguages, are turned out to be different.
The comparative studiesalso serve as the base for typological investigations, the production of typologicaluniversals, since, as a result of such correspondences, are identically andnon-identically fixed with the determined standpoint elements.
For example, the Russianlinguist M.M. Makovskiy in his article “Typology of Lexical-Semantic Systems”emphasizes that the typological analysis of lexicon must not only be reduced tothe external, mostly available establishments, which are often available for observation,but often casual in coincidences in their lexical and semantically meanings. Inthe course of studies we must necessary realize, if there general structuredlexical-semantic models, common for many languages (Russian and Uzbek areincluded) exist, and if yes, what kind of peculiarities and laws are observedfor this.
Thereby, we see that theproblem of synonymy was studied and is being studied, but, regrettably, themajority of the studies in this area belong to the foreign lexicologists,especially by the Russian ones. In Uzbekistan the studding of the problem ofsynonymy is investigated by a relatively small quantity of lexicologists,except for Prof. Buranov and Prof. Muminov.
The following chapter ofmy qualification work studies the verbal synonymy, which is one of the mostfewly studied problems concerned with linguistics at all and the problems ofsynonymy in particular.

2.4 Peculiardistributional features of synonyms
Synonymic pairs like wear and tear are very numerousin modern English and often used both in everyday speech and in literature.They show all the typical features of idiomatic phrases that ensure theirmemorable ness such as rhythm, alliteration, rhyme and the use of archaic wordsseldom occurring elsewhere.
The examples are numerous:hale and hearty, with might and main, nevertheless and notwithstanding, modesand 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 otherswhich show neither rhyme nor alliteration, and consist of two words equallymodern. They are pleonastic, i. e. they emphasize the idea by just stating ittwice, and possess a certain rhythmical quality which probably enhances theirunity and makes them easily remembered. These are: by leaps and bounds, to pickand choose, pure and simple, stuff and nonsense, bright and shining, far andaway, proud and haughty and many more.
In a great number of casesthe semantic difference between two OP more synonyms is supported by thedifference in valence. Distributional oppositions between synonyms have neverbeen studied systematically, although the amount of data collected is veryimpressive. 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 onlypredicatively while naked occurs both predicatively and attributively. The sameis true about alone, which, irrespectively of referent, is used onlypredicatively, whereas its synonyms solitary and lonely occur in bothfunctions. The function is predicative in the following sentence: you are idle,be not solitary, if you are solitary be not idle. (s. JOHNSON)[8] It has been repeatedly mentioned that beginand commence differ stylistically, ft must be noted, however, that theirdistributional difference is not less important. Begin is generalized in itslexical meaning and becomes a semi-auxiliary when used with an infinitive. Itfollows naturally that begin and not commence is the right word before aninfinitive even in formal style. Seem and appear may be followed by aninfinitive or a that-claw. see whereas look which is stylistically equivalentto them is never used in these constructions. Aware and conscious are followedeither by an o/-phrase or by a subordinate clause, e. g. to be aware of one’sfailure, to be aware that one’s failure is inevitable. Their synonym sensibleis preferably used with an o/-phrase.
Very often thedistributional difference between synonyms concerns the use of prepositions: e.g. to answer a question, but to reply to a question. The adjectives anxious anduneasy are followed by the preposition about, their synonym concerned permits achoice and is variously combined with about, at, for, with. The misuse ofprepositions is one of the most common mistakes not only with foreigners butwith native speakers as well.
Lexical difference indistribution is based on the difference in valence. An example of this isoffered by the verbs win and gain. Both may be used in combination with thenoun victory: to win a victory, to gain a victory. But with the word war onlywin is possible: to win a war. We are here trespassing on the domain of setexpressions, a problem that has already been treated in an earlier chapter.Here it will suffice to point out that the phraseological combiningpossibilities of words are extremely varied.
It has been repeatedlystated that synonyms cannot be substituted into set expressions; as a generalrule each synonym has its own peculiarities of phraseological connections. Thestatement is only approximately correct. A. V. Koenig has shown that setexpressions have special properties as regards synonymy, different from thoseobserved in free phrases. l Some set expressions may vary in their lexicalcomponents without changing their meaning, e. g. cast (fling or throw] smth insmb’s. teeth. Moreover, the meaning may remain unchanged even if theinterchangeable components are not synonymous: to hang on by one’s eyelashes(eyelids, eyebrows),-to bear or show a resemblance. The nouns glance, look andglimpse 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 tocast a glance (a look) or to take a glance (a look) are possible. With theverbs steal, shoot, throw the combining possibilities are further restricted,so that only the noun glance will occur in combination with these. It goeswithout saying that phraseological interchangeability is not frequent.
2.5 Peculiar features ofsemantic combinability of synonyms
The verbs which fall intoone synonymous row, can possess the miscellaneous character of composingrestrictions. The composing restrictions can be of lexical, semantic orreferring character.
The lexical restrictionreveals in the following fact: a synonym can be used only with determinedcircle of words. However, the verbal synonyms practically do not possess suchtype of restrictions, though there are some examples which might be suitable,to some degree, to the given type of restrictions:
For example, if we analyzethe two synonyms — «to creep” and “to crawl”, the latter, is more preferable inusage with the names of animals who are deprived with limbs (e.g. Snakes,gophers, etc.)
Cf: The snakes crawled aroundthe tree.
Contrary to the abovementioned character, the semantic restriction is assigned by denotation ofdetermined semantic feature, which a synonym must possess when correlating insyntactical relationship with the given word.
For instance, in thesynonymic row «to escape”, “to flee”, “to fly”, “to abscond”, “to decamp” inthe meaning of “избегать” the first three synonymspossess a broad combinability, than the last twos. That is, in the case ofsemantic combinability the subject of the corresponding actions are both peopleand animals.
Cf. :His best tow dogsescaped from the camp, the dog fled into the forest.
Meanwhile, the subjectaction of the verbs “to abscond” and “to decamp” are only people.
More complicated than thepreviously mentioned groups are the synonyms with the referring combinabilityrestrictions. The example of such restrictions can be shown on the followingsynonymic row: “to reach” — “to achieve” — “to gain” — “to attain” in themeaning of “добавляться” The following nounexpressions which denote the purpose or the result of the action are of typicalcharacter 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 (anunderstanding, agreement), “to achieve the reputation for being rude”, “to achievethe 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 thatthe last examples the verbs “to gain” and “to attain” mustn’t be substitutedonto the verbs “”to reach”, or “to achieve”, because the noun expression “toreach / to achieve / the attention of the clerk [the confidence of the mountainpeople] 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 thedirect object in the sentences with the verbs “to gain” and “to attain”, butnot as the direct object to the verbs “to reach” and “ to achieve, we maynotice the following interesting peculiar feature of the studied synonymicalphrases: the subject for the state, marked by the words “attention” or“confidence”, do not correspond to the subject of the action, marked by theverbs “to gain” and “ to attain”, i.e. the attention of the clerk is attracted notby the clerk himself, but by the other person, and the confidence ofhighlanders is achieved by someone different from highlanders.
However, the verbs “to gain” and “to attain” arecapable to match with the nouns, marking such conditions (the characteristics,situations), the subjects of which coincide with the subjects of actionscorresponding to these subjects: that is in the case of the verbs “to gain / toattain / 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 restrictionfor the verbs “to reach” and “to achieve”: they cannot be combined with thenames of conditions, the subjects of which do not coincide with the subject ofthe action marked by these conditions.
The similar difference is presented in the pair ofthe synonyms “to condescend” — “ to deign” ( in the meaning of “снисходить”):the first of them is combined both with the name of the action or property, thesubject 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 notcoincide with the subject for the verb “to condescend” (cf.: to condescend tosmb’s folly). Meantime, the verb “to deign” can be combined in its meaning onlywith the names of the proper actions or the characteristics of the subject:
Cf.: He didn’t deign to smile, he didn’t deign to theirfolly.
The differences incombinability between the synonyms can, like constructive differences, bemotivated or non-motivated.
Let us take intoconsideration, for instance, the synonyms “to surprise” — “удивлять” and “to amaze”, “to astound” — изумлять”,”поражать”. They differ, in particular, on the feature of degree of afeeling. All the three synonyms can be combined with the adverbial modifiers ofmeasure, but the verb “to surprise” can be combined with any circumstance ofthis class (cf.: he was a little [not a little, very much] sup), while “toamaze” and “to astound” can be combined only with those adverbial modifiers ofmeasure, which mark the super high or the maximal degree of property, conditionor feeling.
At least once unusualunless absolutely anomalous, word-combinations.
In the above mentionedcase the differences in combinability are naturally removed from thedifferences in the meanings of synonyms. However, even the differences incombinability can be semantically non-motivated.
Below we shall take intoconsideration some more several examples of differences in combinabilitybetween the synonyms.
The verb “gather” “собираться” differs from their synonyms “toassemble” and “to congregate” by the following: the subject for the verbs “toassemble” and “to congregate” can only be (in stylistically neutral text) onlythe living beings, but the subject for the verb “to gather” — can be expressedby any moving things: e.g. The clouds are gathering, it will rain.
The verbs “to ponder”, “tomeditate» and “to ruminate” in the meaning of “размышлять” are combinable with the names of situation,characteristic, products of thoughts as object (the theme) of reflections:
cf.: to ponder / tomeditate/ upon the course of actions; to ruminate over the past; to ponder / tomeditate, to ruminate/ the point.
The verbs “to ponder” and“to meditate” are combinable with the names of the person as object forreflections; the latter is characterized for the verb “to ruminate”:
cf.: to ponder on modernyoung men, he meditated on all those people and the things they represented inhis life.
The verbs “to depress”,“to oppress” and “to weigh down (upon)” in the meaning of “угнетать” can be combined with the names offeelings, actions, characteristics, etc. as the reasons for the oppressedcondition:
cf.: a feeling ofisolation 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 samemeaning, which is not characteristic for the phrasal verb “to weigh down(upon)”:
Cf.: the dim roomdepressed / oppressed / her, she depressed me.[9]
The problems of semanticson — former call the rapt attention to themselves by the leading scientists ofthe whole world. At the modern stage of development of linguistically sciencethe important meaningfulness is gained both in the questions of thedetermination and revision of the background notions of semasiology, and thenarrower problems of the concrete studies which are finally also directed onsolving of the global philosophical problems of the correlation between thelanguage, thinking and reality.
We analyze this chapterfrom the viewpoint of the Russian philologist E.V.Drozd. According to this workE.V. Drozd has denoted the study of the semantics and the peculiarities of thecombinability of the English verbs “to amuse”, “to entertain”, “to grip”, “tointerest”, “to thrill”
The given group of verbswas chosen not accidentally. The verbs “to amuse”,” to entertain”, “to grip”,“to interest”, “to thrill” reflects the important social and psychologicalnotions, connected with intellectual — cognitive and emotional sphere of humanactivity and this group differs in a rather big frequency of its usage. Theinterest to this group is also undutiful from the purely a linguisticallystandpoint because of its extent semantic structure, and the variouspossibilities for combinability.
Proceeding with theconcrete procedure of analysis of semantic composition of the given verb, weput the following problems before ourselves:
1)      clearly delimit and describe the verbal wordas a nominative and structured unit of the language, to analyze thepeculiarities of the semantic structure of each verb and match them;
2)      to install on the base of semantic compositionwhat the subject of the name comprises in itself: only the main verbal componentof action, condition, motion or it comprises the accompanying features: themanner, the source, the purpose — and to compare the verbs on this parameters.
In our study we used themethod of vocabulary definition, by means of which the set of seams of thegiven lexical importance was analyzed, and any vocabulary mark was taken forinstruction on semantic component. The observations show that the vocabulary definitioncomprises in itself, on the one hand, the instruction on attribute to the moregeneral semantic area, but, on the other hand, — the enumeration of individualsemantic features of a word. Uniting the synonymous, (excluding the rare casesof usage) we have got the set of components for the meaning of eachinvestigated verb (See: Table 1).
The Analysis shows thatthe general component for all the investigating verbs is a seam “to affect theemotions”, which gives us, as we seem, the right to refer the considered verbsto the category of the emotional ones. It is Interesting to note that no evenone of the dictionaries, describing the meaning of the verbs “to amuse” and “toentertain”, gives the word “emotion” as such, but the presence of the component“joy”, “happiness”, “revelry” (purely emotional features) allows us to fix thepresence of the component “to affect the emotions” in these verbs as well.
The general component forfour from five considered verbs a was the following: “ to engage” and “keep theattention”. According to the investigations, this element in miscellaneousdegrees is expressed in the meanings of the analyzed words in the followingnumber: for “to amuse” it is fixed in 14, for “to entertain” — 11, for “togrip” — 19, for “to interest” — in 25 dictionaries. The component of meaning ofthe verb “to excite” is met in four from five verbs, that puts the verb “totrill” in somewhat specific position. The other components are of purelyspecific character.
As conclusion, we may saythat the verb, as no other part of speech, has a broad set of differentialfeatures, vastly complicating the semantics of it.
In the meaning of a verbthere might be a denotation to the specifying of the denoted actions, to theconditions of persons, subjects, ways, types of the action, correlations to itscommunicators, modality of the content assignment of the utterance, time of thespeech act, etc.
So, we say that two words aresynonymous if substituting one for the other in all contexts does not changethe truth value of the sentence where the substitution is made. Synonymydictionaries include something that native speakers have very clear intuitionsabout. They have the intuition that a number of words may express the sameidea.
Ex: You can find ‘kill’ as a synonymof ‘murder’, and ‘strong’ as a synonym of ‘powerful’, but not the other wayround:
When you say they A and B aresynonymous because they express the same object, you expect also that if A issynonymous of B, B is also synonymous of A. but this isn’t reflected indictionaries. If A is a synonym of B and B is a synonym of A, these are true orabsolute synonyms. They are interchangeable. But there are no absolutesynonyms, it’s an intellectual creation. Native speakers feel that some pairsof synonyms are more synonymous than others. This gives us the idea of a scaleof synonymy. Obviously, the idea behind synonymy is that of sharing meaningthat is that two words share (part of) their meaning. It has become a problemto establish how much overlapping do we need for two words for being consideredsynonyms.
Ex: truthful: honest they aresynonyms although they share only part of their meaning; truthful: purple theyare not at all synonyms.
E. Cruse says that an important thinghere is contrast. When a speaker uses them indistinctively, he emphasizes theirsimilarities not their differences.
Ex: kill: murder they share part oftheir meaning
The greater the number of featurestwo words share, the more synonyms they are.
A and B share almost allof their meaning components.
Ex: — creature animal dog+ Alsatian philosophy tree cat Spaniel.
Alsatian’ and ‘Spaniel’ share moreatoms of meaning than creature’ and ‘philosophy’ but they are not synonyms. Sothis claim is wrong, because we need two things for synonymy: we needoverlapping of meaning and, at the same time, the two words do not have to becontrastive.
Cruse says that synonymsmust not only share high degree of semantic overlapping but also a low degreeof implicit contractiveness. So, a high degree of semantic overlap results in alow 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’ aresynonyms, while ‘murdered’ and executed’ are contrastive synonyms
Arthur’s got himself a dog-or more exactly, a cat.
The inherent relationshipbetween ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ is that of contrast, for that reason this sentence isodd.
It is impossible to put an end in the scale ofsynonyms.
Ex: + rap: tap rap: knock rap: thwack — rap: bang
They are not prototypical synonyms. They areperipheral synonyms
Behind any study ofsynonymy is the idea of the quest for the establishment of true synonyms. Crusereviews some apparently true synonyms.
Ex: begin: commence munch: chew hate: loathe
Cruse takes into account the question of thecontextual relations. For two words to be true synonymous we need twoconditions: equivalence of meaning and equivalence of contextual relations.This is highly problematic because words don’t behave like that. They tend tospecialize 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’llwatch it with you.
Johnny, tell Mummy when Playschool commences andshe’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 totake into account
Syntax: two syntactic terms have to behavesyntactically 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 correctsense of the word if you want to prove that two words are synonymous.
Ex: Arthur’s more recent car is anold 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 synonymywith collocational meaning
Theyhave been considered similar in meaning but never fully synonyms. They belongto the same categorical concept
Collocationsby Leech: girl, boy, woman, flower, pretty garden, color, village, etc.
Boy,man, car, vessel, handsome overcoat, airliner, typewriter, etc.
Collocationsfound 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, ConnorWinslow, 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.
Thisis the first division we could make but there are more differences. It cannotbe based on terms of male / female words.
Theidea, then, is that if an adjective tends to collocate to certain nouns meansthat its partner is slightly different to it. So when they are applied to thesame noun, the same rule is applied.
Ex: pretty: handsome
Mary is a pretty woman
Mary is a handsome woman
A handsome woman is moreelegant that a pretty woman. She also has stronger facial features. A handsomewoman isn’t a pretty woman at the same time and vice versa. So they areexclusive terms.Pretty Street’but ‘handsome avenue’
If they are exclusiveterms, they are nor synonyms but co-hyponyms
If two items are closelysynonymous, a coordination test will lead to a tautology.
Ex: Scientists have so farfailed to find for this deadly and fatal disease.
However if we coordinate ‘pretty’and ‘handsome’ what we have is a contradiction:That woman ispretty and handsome
(Photocopy of definitionsof ‘deep’, ‘profound’, ‘handsome’, ‘lovely’ and ‘beautiful’)
Some of the dictionariesspecialize it more deeply than others.
Profound’ in the Longman isdefined as deep but not vice versa. This also happens in ‘lovely’ and ‘beautiful’.
Uninformative; it doesn’tgive really the sense of the words.
This isn’t correct because‘profound’ emphasizes stronger that ‘deep’ and this isn’t true. There is acontradiction there.
Introduction of the notionof ‘delicacy’ for defining a pretty woman.
This is the onlydictionary which says that something pretty isn’t something beautiful. Theyexclude 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 actuallythe definition given for ‘beautiful’, so it’s the generic word for the fourwords. ‘Lovely’ is slightly more intense than ‘beautiful’. (It’s the samerelationship ‘deep’ and ‘profound’ have)
This shows how languageestablishes degrees of intensity.

2.7 The notion ofconceptual synonymy
Words are felt to besynonymous independently of their contextual relations. Leech makes thedistinction between synonymy and conceptual synonymy. The equivalence ofmeaning of synonymy has to adhere to the equivalence of concepts, independentlyfrom the stylistic overtones.
Ex: Steed (poetic) Horse(general) Nag (slang) Gee-gee (baby language)[10]
The concept ‘horse’ is evoked bythese words. So these words are synonymous although they are different in theirstylistic overtones. This has been strongly criticized because to prove that weall have the same concept is very doubted. Our system of conceptualization maybe different from one speaker to other. The most evident example of this isbaby language. When a baby says gee-gee he may be saying it to any animal thatmoves.
So conceptual synonymy is alright butit has faults and objections.
Warwick says that it isn’t possibleto distinguish semantic meaning and factual meaning. Her lexicographicdescriptions are very lengthy because she has into account all knowledge of theworld that is, the habitat, size, appearance, behavior, and relation to people…
Componential analysis of conceptualsynonymy.
It is an analysis very popular in the1970’s and turned itself to be very useful in the identification of atoms ofmeaning of words. One of the applications of componential analysis is in theidentification of synonyms, because if two words share atoms of meaning, theyare synonymous.
Ex: John is a bachelor
John is an unmarried man
Componential analysis serves quitewell for the analysis of fairly uncompleted words (nouns, adjectives, someverbs), but there are whole areas of the vocabulary of the language that don’tlend themselves for componential analysis.
Barbara Warren makes a distinctionbetween synonyms and variants. She says that we have synonyms if the words havesimilar meaning and if they are interchangeable without affecting meaning insome context or contexts. Variants are words which have similar meaning butwithout the interchangeability in some contexts.
Ex: extending Deep far below;profound the surface.
‘Deep’ and ‘profound’ has always beenconsidered synonyms and it’s true they are interchangeable but it’s also truethat in some contexts one cannot replace the other.
He had a deep / profoundunderstanding of the matter
This river is deep / profound. Theyare 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 andin the other you use the other one.
Human 1) lady adult woman 2) female’
The point here is to try and provethat synonyms exist. The result of this research is quiet distressing. There areno synonyms following Warren’s definition. What Person did was to scrutinizethe use of ‘deep’ and ‘profound’. His research is especially valid because hebases his research on lexicographic words, corpus data and importance. The widerange 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 withdifferent words. Deep tends to collocate with words of affection, conviction,feeling, regret, satisfaction, sorrow… Whereas ‘profound’ tends to collocatewith words of difference, distaste, effect, failure, influence… They enterdifferent collocations because they mean slightly different things. Theyspecialize in certain areas of meaning and that makes them slightly different.He also talks about metaphorical status. Metaphorically speaking, they can meanposition on the one hand or quality of depth on the other. Only ‘deep’ entersfor the position metaphor, but the quality of depth can be expressed by both ofthem.
Ex: deep structure (profoundstructure)
He was deep (profound) in thought
It was deep (profound) in the MiddleAges
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 degreeof depth and intensity of these words. ‘Profound’ is deeper that ‘deep’. Whenboth are possible, then there is a distinction.
Ex: He has a deep understanding ofthe matter (‘pretty good’)
He has a profound understanding ofthe matter (‘very good’)[11]
English words associations give us avery useful way to prove this. There are nouns whose inherent meaning issuperlative. With such a noun you can only have ‘profound’ because it meansdeeper.
Ex: profound distaste *deep distaste
Profound repugnance *deep repugnance
Of course in terms oftruth-conditions one entails the other one but not vice versa, that is ‘profound’includes ‘deep’ but not vice versa.
Ex: His profound insight into humannature has stood the test of centuries
His deep insight into human naturehas stood the test of centuries.
His deep insight into human naturehas stood the test of centuries. *
His profound insight into humannature has stood the test of centuries
Synonymy is understood within mutualentailment (A-B) but ‘deep’ and ‘profound’ doesn’t correspond to this. Nativespeakers feel that ‘profound’ is stylistically more elevated or more formalthat deep? So with all this evidence it is impossible to say that they aresynonymous. This is why Person gives the following figure as the analysis forthem.
Concrete ‘situated, coming abstract;abstract from, or extending intellectual; emotive far below the strongly; surfaceemotive.
Stylistic Attributes (SA): informalSA; formal.
In Person’s model we have threecategories: CC, TA, SA. The thing is that not all words include SA box, so it’sleft open. Person also reviewed other examples analyzed by Warren.
Ex: child / brat child CC brat TA
Child’ and ‘brat’ are an example ofconnotative variant in Warren. They are given as variants but if we apply thetest of hyponymy we see that it works. ‘Brat’ is a kind of ‘child’ but not viceversa. ‘Brat’ includes ‘child’ plus the feature ‘bad-mannered. Person finds thecollocation in which ‘brat’ appears; it tends to appear with adjectives thatreinforces 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 alady.
She is a lady, but she is not a woman
Person questions the fact that twowords can be synonymous out of the blue. He defends contextual information asthe key to determine if two words are synonymous or not.
Ex: readable: legible
At to what extent can we say thatthey are synonyms?
•        readable:
(of handwriting or point) able to beread easily’
pleasurable or interesting to read’
•        legible:
(of handwriting or print) ‘able to beread easily’
They are only synonymous when theymean ‘able to be read easily’
“The child, quite obviously, wouldnot be expected to produce a composition, but would be expected to know thealphabet, 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 memoryshould have faded, especially as she wrote a most readable / *legibleautobiography which went quickly through several editions.”
Legible; readable; able to withpleasure; 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 arefully interchangeable, but we have also to take into account their stylisticfeature and the register.
In principle, scientific words havediscrete meanings.
Ex: mercury: quicksilver
They appear as full synonyms becausethey 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 bothwords. Native speakers and corpora of data give us what we have in thefollowing figure:
Mercury: formal, quicksilver;scientific whitish; fluid informal; metal.
Mercury formal, scientific (Romanceorigin): Quicksilver informal (Saxon origin)
However something peculiar hashappened with this words. The popular word ‘quicksilver’ is starting todisappear and what usually happens is that the formal words are the one thatdisappears. But in this case, it is the contrary.
Cigarette: fag
Cigarette fag
Tube with
General tobacco in slang’
It for smoking’ ‘narrow, made offinely cut tobacco rolled in thin paper’
This figure contains not only CC buttypical attributes too.
CONCLUSION
 
3.1 SUMMARY TO THE WHOLEWORK
 
So, the conclusion is that some wordsof a language don’t lend themselves well to the analysis in terms of semanticfields. 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 withthe structuring of words of a language. A set is a close set. A word can belongto several fields depending on the organizing concept. Speakers of the languageclearly identify the central example but not the peripheral ones. This doesn’tmean that it would never happen that. The degree of flexibility in thediscrepancy 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. Heretwo races’ refers to ‘two types of rice’
The idea behind this is that thedynamic character of a vocabulary cannot be reflected in the static characterof the semantic fields, which are a static way of organizing the vocabulary ofa language.
3.2WAYS OF APPLYING THE WORK
Havinganalyzed the problem of synonymy in Modern English we could do the followingconclusions:
a)The problem of synonymy in Modern English is very actual nowadays.
b)There are several kinds of analysis of synonyms: semantical, stylistic andcomponentional.
c)A number of famous linguists dealt with the problem of synonymy in ModernEnglish. In particular, Profs. Ullmann and Broal emphasized the social reasonsfor synonymy, L. Lipka pointed out non-binary contrast or many-member lexicalsets and gave the type which he called directional opposition, V.N. Comissarovand Walter Skeat proved the link of synonymy with other kinds of lexicaldevices.
d)The problem of synonymy is still waits for its detail investigation.
Havingsaid about the perspectives of the work we hope that this work will find itsworthy way of applying at schools, lyceums and colleges of high education byboth teachers and students of English. We also express our hopes to take thiswork its worthy place among the lexicological works dedicated to synonymy.
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