25. Synonymy. Types of synonyms.

A synonym – is a word of similar or identical meaning to one or more words in the same language.

They’re no two absolutely identical words because connotations, ways of usage, frequency of an occurrence are different.

Classification:

1. Total synonyms - an extremely rare occurence

Ex.: бегемот – гиппопотам

2. Ideographic synonyms bear the same idea but not identical in their referential content.

Ex.: to ascent – to mount – to climb

To happen – to occur – to befall – to chance

Look – appearance – complexion – countenance

3. Dialectical synonyms.

Ex.: lift – elevator

Queue – line

Autumn – fall

4. Contextual synonyms.

Context can emphasize some certain semantic trades & suppress other semantic trades; words with different meaning can become synonyms in a certain context.

Ex.: tasteless – dull

Active – curious

Curious – responsive

5. Stylistic synonyms.

Belong to different styles:

Typology of synonyms: child(neutral); infant(bookish); kid(colloquial)

- cognitive synonyms – s. which differ in respect of the varieties of discourse in which they appear; the distinction between such items lies not so much in their inner lexical meaning, but in the sphere of their actual application or usage, as besides the referential basis (referential meaning – q.v.) the actual meanings of the words as found in utterances reflect relations which hold between lexical items within the communicative space, i.e. the functional differentiation of discourse.

- contextual/context-dependent synonyms – similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions, when the difference between the meanings of two words is contextually neutralized: e.g. buy and get;

- dialectal synonyms – pertaining to different variant of language from dialectal stratification point of view;

- functional synonyms – the term is not lexicological proper as it refers to different syntactic units capable of performing one and the same syntactic function (e.g. Subordinate Object Clause and Complex Object constructions are functional synonyms;

- ideographic synonyms – differ in shades of meaning, i.e. between which a semantic different is statable;

- stylistic synonyms– are distinguished stylistically, i.e. in all kinds of emotional, expressive and evaluative overtones without explicitly displaying semantic difference;

- referential synonyms – a vague term, concerns coreferential expressions, when one denotatum can be defined differently from different points of view and in different aspects: e.g. names Walter Scott and the author of 'Ivanhoe' are coreferential because they refer to one and the same denotatum – Sir Walter Scott;

- terminological synonyms – two existing terms for one denotatum: e.g. borrowing and loan-word; concept and notion (the difference between them is not discriminated by some linguists);

• total synonyms - can replace each other in any given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative or emotional meaning and connotations (e.g. noun and substantive, functional affix, flection and inflection); is a rare occasion.