English Vocabulary as a System. Patterns of Synonymic Sets in Modern English

Lecture 6 English Vocabulary as a System

• Irina S.Kirichenko
• Associate Professor

SYNTAGMATIC relations define the meaning the word possesses when it is used in combination with other words in the flow of speech. E.g. compare the meaning of the verb to get in He got a letter, He got tired, He got to London and He could not get the piano through the door. Syntagmatic relations are based on the influence of the context, on the linear character of speech, they are horizontal

• PARADIGMATIC relations are those that exist between individual lexical items which make up one of the subgroups of vocabulary items, e.g. sets of synonyms, lexico-semantic groups, etc. Paradigmatic relations define the word-meaning through its interrelation with other members of the subgroup in question.
• E.g.: the meaning of the verb to get can be fully understood only in comparison with other items of the synonymic set: get, obtain, receive, etc. Cf. He got a letter, he received a letter, he obtained a letter, etc.

There are four possibilities of paradigmatic relations between pairs of linguistic signs:

1. Their signifier, the phonological or graphemic form, is identical, the signified, the meaning, is different and unrelated. In this case, the two signs, or lexical items, are traditionally called homonyms and the relation between them is labelled HOMONYMY. If the meaning is partly identical, one also speaks of POLYSEMY, or multiple meaning.

• 2. The reverse is given when the signifiers are different, but the signified are almost identical. Such a relation has for a long time been called SYNONYMY.
• 3. Both the signifiers and the signified are different. If the relation is one of oppositeness, one traditionally speaks of ANTONYMY.
• ANTONYMY, in the wider sense is a paradigmatic relation between signs whose content is different but undoubtedly related. The meanings of such signs are opposed in various ways.

4. An inclusion relation between the meanings, which corresponds to a hierarchic relation between the signs, is labelled HYPONYMY. In the case of HYPONYMY the relationship between the contents is of a different kind, not one of oppositeness. In this case, the signs are related in a hierarchic order. The subordinate lexical item is called hyponym, the other one hyperonym, or (less confusingly) superordinate (term), or archilexeme. Such hierarchic relations lead to the postulation of one type of LEXICAL FIELD.

Synonyms: are their meanings the same or different?

"I have always liked you very much, I admire your talent, but, forgive me, — I could never love you as a wife should love her husband." (From The Shivering Sands by V. Holt)

Criteria of synonymy: 1. Conceptual criterion: synonyms are defined as words of the same category of parts of speech conveying the same concept but differing either in shades of meaning or in stylistic characteristics. 2. Semantic criterion: synonyms are defined as words with the same denotation, or the same denotative component, but differing in connotations, or in connotative components.

3. The criterion of interchangeability: synonyms are defined as words which are interchangeable at least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning. E.g. He glared at her (i. e. He looked at her angrily). He gazed at her (i. e. He looked at her steadily and attentively; probably with admiration or interest). He glanced at her (i. e. He looked at her briefly and turned away). He peered at her (i. e. He tried to see her better, but something prevented: darkness, fog, weak eyesight).

SYNONYMS can be defined 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 or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable, at least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning, but differing in morphemic composition, phonemic shape, shades of meaning, connotations, style, valency and idiomatic use.

Words having in their semantic structure a common element are united into synonymic rows. The adjective GREAT simultaneously enters the following rows: 1. Meaning unusually or comparatively large in size or dimensions: