There is a difference in the degree of depth and intensity of these words. `Profound' is deeper that `deep'. When both are possible, then there is a distinction.
Ex: He has a deep understanding of the matter (`pretty good')
He has a profound understanding of the matter (`very good') Maurer D.W. , High F.C. New Words - Where do they come from and where do they go. American Speech., 1982.p.171
English words associations give us a very useful way to prove this. There are nouns whose inherent meaning is superlative. With such a noun you can only have `profound' because it means deeper.
Ex: profound distaste *deep distaste
Profound repugnance *deep repugnance
Of course in terms of truth-conditions one entails the other one but not vice versa, that is `profound' includes `deep' but not vice versa.
Ex: His profound insight into human nature has stood the test of centuries
His deep insight into human nature has stood the test of centuries.
His deep insight into human nature has stood the test of centuries. *
His profound insight into human nature has stood the test of centuries
Synonymy is understood within mutual entailment (A-B) but `deep' and `profound' doesn't correspond to this. Native speakers feel that `profound' is stylistically more elevated or more formal that deep? So with all this evidence it is impossible to say that they are synonymous. This is why Person gives the following figure as the analysis for them.
Concrete `situated, coming abstract; abstract from, or extending intellectual; emotive far below the strongly; surface emotive.
Stylistic Attributes (SA): informal SA; formal.
In Person's model we have three categories: CC, TA, SA. The thing is that not all words include SA box, so it's left open. Person also reviewed other examples analyzed by Warren.
Ex: child / brat child CC brat TA
Child' and `brat' are an example of connotative variant in Warren. They are given as variants but if we apply the test of hyponymy we see that it works. `Brat' is a kind of `child' but not vice versa. `Brat' includes `child' plus the feature `bad-mannered. Person finds the collocation in which `brat' appears; it tends to appear with adjectives that reinforces this feature of bad-mannered what proves that that atom of meaning (…)
The same happens with `woman' and `lady'.
Ex: She is a woman, but she is not a lady.
She is a lady, but she is not a woman
Person questions the fact that two words can be synonymous out of the blue. He defends contextual information as the key to determine if two words are synonymous or not.
Ex: readable: legible
At to what extent can we say that they are synonyms?
* readable:
(of handwriting or point) able to be read easily'
pleasurable or interesting to read'
* legible:
(of handwriting or print) `able to be read easily'
They are only synonymous when they mean `able to be read easily'
“The child, quite obviously, would not be expected to produce a composition, but would be expected to know the alphabet, where the full stops and commas are used, and be able to write in a readable / legible manner, something like, `The cat sat on the mat'.”
“It is not easy to see why her memory should have faded, especially as she wrote a most readable / *legible autobiography which went quickly through several editions.”
Legible; readable; able to with pleasure; be read' and /or; interest.
They share senses number 1 but to `readable' it's also added sense number 2. This claims that in some contexts they are fully interchangeable, but we have also to take into account their stylistic feature and the register.
In principle, scientific words have discrete meanings.
Ex: mercury: quicksilver
They appear as full synonyms because they say that their relationship is that of mutual inclusion (A-B)
Conceptually, the concept `mercury' can be expressed with both words. However, style draws the line between both words. Native speakers and corpora of data give us what we have in the following figure:
Mercury: formal, quicksilver; scientific whitish; fluid informal; metal.
Mercury formal, scientific (Romance origin): Quicksilver informal (Saxon origin)
However something peculiar has happened with this words. The popular word `quicksilver' is starting to disappear and what usually happens is that the formal words are the one that disappears. But in this case, it is the contrary.
Cigarette: fag
Cigarette fag
Tube with
General tobacco in slang'
It for smoking' `narrow, made of finely cut tobacco rolled in thin paper'
This figure contains not only CC but typical attributes too.
CONCLUSION
3.1 SUMMARY TO THE WHOLE WORK
So, the conclusion is that some words of a language don't lend themselves well to the analysis in terms of semantic fields. Other important idea is the difficulty of finding finite sets of words. In any case, there's an internal contradiction between the ideas of a set with the structuring of words of a language. A set is a close set. A word can belong to several fields depending on the organizing concept. Speakers of the language clearly identify the central example but not the peripheral ones. This doesn't mean that it would never happen that. The degree of flexibility in the discrepancy of the categorization of words is smaller.
Ex: Please give me some more tables (`Table' is here a mass noun meaning `space in a table').
E.G. Two races are grown in India. Here two races' refers to `two types of rice'
The idea behind this is that the dynamic character of a vocabulary cannot be reflected in the static character of the semantic fields, which are a static way of organizing the vocabulary of a language.
3.2 WAYS OF APPLYING THE WORK
Having analyzed the problem of synonymy in Modern English we could do the following conclusions:
a) The problem of synonymy in Modern English is very actual nowadays.
b) There are several kinds of analysis of synonyms: semantical, stylistic and componentional.
c) A number of famous linguists dealt with the problem of synonymy in Modern English. In particular, Profs. Ullmann and Broal emphasized the social reasons for synonymy, L. Lipka pointed out non-binary contrast or many-member lexical sets and gave the type which he called directional opposition, V.N. Comissarov and Walter Skeat proved the link of synonymy with other kinds of lexical devices.
d) The problem of synonymy is still waits for its detail investigation.
Having said about the perspectives of the work we hope that this work will find its worthy way of applying at schools, lyceums and colleges of high education by both teachers and students of English. We also express our hopes to take this work its worthy place among the lexicological works dedicated to synonymy.
1. Ginzburg R.S. et al. A Course in Modern English Lexicology. M., 1979 pp.72-82
2.Buranov A. Muminov J. Readings on Modern English Lexicology T. O'qituvchi 1985 pp. 34-47
3. Arnold I.V. The English Word M. High School 1986 pp. 143-149
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5. Jespersen ,Otto. Growth and Structure of the English Language. Oxford, 1982 pp.246-249
5. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. Oxford 1964., pp.147, 167, 171-172
6.V.D. Arakin English Russian Dictionary M., Russky Yazyk 1978 pp. 23-24, 117-119, 133-134
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13. Canon G. Historical Changes and English Wordformation: New Vocabulary items. N.Y., 1986. p.284
15. Halliday M.A.K. Language as Social Semiotics. Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. Lnd., 1979.p.53,112
17. Schlauch, Margaret. The English Language in Modern Times. Warszava, 1965. p.342
19. Maurer D.W. , High F.C. New Words - Where do they come from and where do they go. American Speech., 1982.p.171
20. Aпресян Ю.Д.Лексическая семантика. Синонимические средства языка. М.1974. стр.46
21. Беляева Т.М., Потапова И.А. Английский язык за пределами Англии. Л. Изд-во ЛГУ 1971Стр. 150-151
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28. World Book Encyclopedia NY Vol. 8 1993 p.321
29 Internet: http://www.wikipedia.com/English/articles/synonyms.htm
30. Internet: http://www mpsttu.ru/works/english philology/ Э. М. Дубенец. Курс лекций и планы семинарских занятий по лексикологии английского языка.htm
31. Internet:http://www.freeessays.com/english/E.Cruse Quantiitive and Qualitive synonymy.htm
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