Translation cannot serve as a criterion of synonymy; there are cases when several English words of different distribution 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 the necessity of being on one's guard against mistakes of this kind.
Contextual synonyms are similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions. The verbs bear, suffer and stand are semantically different and not interchangeable except when used in the negative form; can't stand is equal to can't bear in the following words of an officer: Gas. I've swallowed too much of the beastly stuff: I can't stand it any longer. I'm going to the dressing-station. (ALDINGTON)
There are some other distinctions 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 relative synonyms. This attitude is open to discussion. In fact the difference in denotative meaning is unmistakable: the words name different notions, not various degrees of the same notion, and cannot substitute one another. An entirely different type of opposition is involved. Formerly we had oppositions based on the relationships between the members of the opposition, here we deal with proportional oppositions characterized by their relationship with the whole vocabulary system and based on a different degree of intensity of the relevant distinctive features. We shall not call such words synonymous as they do not fit the definition of synonyms given in the beginning of the chapter.
Total synonymy, i.e. synonymy where the members of a synonymic group can replace each other in any given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative or emotional meaning and connotations, is an extremely rare occurrence. Examples of this type can be found in special literature among technical terms peculiar to this or that branch of knowledge. Thus, in linguistics the terms noun and substantive, functional affix, flections and inflection are identical in meaning. What is not generally realized, however, is that terms are a peculiar type of words, totally devoid of connotations or emotional coloring, and that their stylistic characterization does not vary? That is why this is a very special kind of synonymy: neither ideographic nor stylistic oppositions are possible here. As to the distributional opposition, it is less marked because the great majority of terms are nouns. Their irater change ability is also in a way deceptive. Every writer has to make up his mind right from the start as to which of the possible synonyms he prefers and stick to it throughout his text to avoid ambiguity. Thus, the interchangeability is, as it were, theoretical and cannot be materialized in an actual text.
The same misunderstood conception of interchangeability lies at the bottom of considering different dialect names for the same plant, animal or agricultural implement and the like as total (absolute) synonyms. Thus a perennial plant with long clusters of dotted whitish or purple tubular flowers that the botanists refer to as genus Digitalis has several dialectal names such as foxglove, fairy bell, finger/lower, finger root, dead men's bells, ladies' fingers. But the names are not interchangeable in any particular speaker's idiolect. 1 The same is true about the cornflower (Centauries yeans), so called because it grows in cornfields; some people call it bluebottle according to the shape and color of its petals. Compare also gorse, furze and whim, different names used in different places for the same prickly yellow-flowered shrub.
The distinction between synchronistic and dichromatic treatment is so fundamental that it cannot be overemphasized, but the two aspects are interdependent and cannot be understood without one another. It is therefore essential after the descriptive analysis synonymy in present-day English to take up the historical line of approach and discuss the origin of synonyms and the causes of either abundance in English.
The majority of those who studied synonymy in the past have been cultivating both lines of approach without keeping them scrupulously apart, and focused their attention on the prominent 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 to stress that the English language is peculiarly rich in synonyms because Britons, Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans fighting and settling upon the soil of the British Isles could not but influence each other's speech. British scholars studied Greek and Latin and for centuries used Latin as a medium for communication on-scholarly topics.
Words borrowed from Latin to interrogate abdomen to collect vacuous to complete to ascend instruction Native English words to ask belly to gather empty to end to raise teaching Synonymy has its characteristic patterns in each language. Its peculiar feature in 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 can be illustrated by the following: Words borrowed from French to question stomach to assemble devoid to finish to mount guidance English also uses many pairs of synonymous derivatives, the one Hellenic and the other Romance, e. g.: periphery :: circumference', hypothesis :: supposition; sympathy :: compassion; synthesis :; composition.
The pattern of stylistic relationship represented in the above table, although typical, is by no means universal. For example, the native words dale, deed, fair are the poetic equivalents of their much more frequent borrowed synonyms valley, act or the hybrid beautiful.
This subject of stylistic differentiation has been one of much controversy in recent years. It is universally accepted, however, that semantic and stylistic properties may change and synonyms which at one time formed a stylistic opposition only, may in the course of time become ideographically contrasted as well, and vice versa.
It would be linguistically naive to maintain that borrowing re-silts only in quantitative changes or those qualitative changes are purely stylistically. The introduction of a borrowed word almost invariably starts some alteration both in the newcomer and in the seminary tic structure of existing words that are close to it in meaning. When in the 13th century the word soil (For soil, soil) was hour-rowed into English its meaning was `a strip of land'. The upper layer of earth in which plants grow had been denoted since Old English by one of the synonyms: elope, land, folder. All these words had other central meanings so (hat the meaning in question was with (hem secondary. Avow, if two words coincide in meaning and use, the tendency is for one of them to drop out of the language. Folder had the same function and meaning as elope and in the fight for survival the latter won. The polysemantic word land underwent an intense semantic development in a different direction and so dropped out of this synonymic series. In this way it became quite natural for soil to fill the obvious lexical gap, receive its present meaning and become the main name for the corresponding notion, i.e. `the mould in which plants grow'. The noun earth retained (his meaning throughout its history, whereas the word ground in which this meaning was formerly absent, developed it. As a result this synonymic group comprises at present soil, earth and ground.
The fate of the word folder is not at all infrequent. Many other words now marked in the dictionaries as “archaic” or “obsolete” have dropped out in the same competition of synonyms: others survived with a meaning more or less removed from the original one. The process is called synonymic differentiation and is so current that M. Boreal regarded it as an inherent law of language development. It must be noted that -synonyms may influence each other semantically in two diametrically opposite ways: one of them is dissimilation, the other the reverse process, i. e. assimi1ation. The assimilation of synonyms consists in parallel development. An example of this is furnished by the sense development of 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 linguistically possible because there were so many synonymous terms to hand. The important thing 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 of English synonyms. There are for instance words that come from dialects, and, in the last hundred years, from American English in particular. As a result speakers of British English may make use of both elements of the following pairs, 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, for instance, clover:: shamrock, liquor ;: whiskey (from Irish), girl :; lass, lassie or charm :: glamour (from Scottish).
The role of borrowings should not be overestimated. Synonyms are also created by means of all word-forming processes productive in the language at a given time of its history. The words already existing in the language develop new meanings. New words 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 for those who are interested in the present-day trends and characteristic peculiarities of the English vocabulary are the synonymic oppositions due to shift of meaning, new combinations of verbs with postpositive and compound nouns formed from them, shortenings, set expressions and conversion.
Set expressions consisting of a verb with a postpositive are widely used in present-day English and may be called one of its characteristic features. l Many verbal synonymic groups contain such combinations as one of their elements. A few examples will illustrate 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; to postpone :: 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 animal cartoons. (PLOMER)
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