Synonymy and antonymy in modern English
Synonymy. The problem of its definition. Criteria of synonyms. Ideographic, stylistic, absolute synonyms. Polysemy and synonymy.
Synonyms are defined as words belonging to one part of speech, possessing identical or nearly identical denotational meaning and interchangeable at least in some contexts, but different in morphemic composition, phonemic shape, connotations, pragmatic components and grammatical valency. Synonyms are characterized by either the semantic relations of equivalence or by the semantic relations of proximity.
Semantic equivalence implies full similarity of meaning of two or more language units. The relations of semantic equivalence in words can be illustrated by the phonetic terms “stops” and “plosives”, both used to denote the English sounds [p, b, t, d, k, g]. These terms are defined through the meaning of each other and are semantically equivalent. Nevertheless semantic equivalence seldom occurs in words and is highly unstable tending to turn into the relations of semantic proximity.
Semantic proximity implies that two or more words however different may share certain semantic features, e.g. the words “red” and “green” share the semantic features of “colour”. Besides, words may be graded in semantic proximity, a higher degree of which is conspicuous of synonyms, while a lower degree of proximity provides for broader and less homogeneous semantic groups. For example, the degree of proximity is lower in the words “red and green”, which share the semantic feature of “colour”, than in “red” vs. “scarlet” or “green” vs. “emerald”.
The highest degree of proximity is clearly manifested in the denotative, connotative and pragmatic components of the semantic structure of synonymous words.
The difference in connotation may be illustrated by the words “to peep”, meaning “to look at somebody or something surreptitiously, out of a covering or through a hole or opening” and “to peer” that means “to look at something with difficulty because of poor eyesight or through some obstacle such as fog, darkness”. These synonyms differ in the connotations of manner and attending circumstances.
The difference in the pragmatic value of words is observed in synonymic pairs consisting of a native and a borrowed word. In most cases the borrowed word is more formal, having a learned or abstract air, cf. motherly love – maternal feelings, sunny day – solar energy etc.
According to the difference in the three aspects of their semantic structure synonyms are classified into stylistic, ideographic and ideographic-stylistic.
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Stylistic synonymy implies no interchangeability in context as the speech registers are different, e.g. children – infants, dad – father. Stylistic synonyms are similar in denotation, but different in pragmatic components of meaning.
Ideographic synonymy manifests a still lower degree of semantic proximity and is observed when the connotational and pragmatic components of the meaning are similar, but there are certain differences in the denotative component of the meaning, e.g. forest – wood, apartment – flat, shape – form.
Ideographic-stylistic synonymy is characterized by the lowest degree of semantic proximity. This type of synonyms includes words with difference in all three components of meaning – denotative, connotative and pragmatic, e.g. ask – inquire, expect – anticipate. Even if they have the same patterns of grammatical and lexical valency, they can hardly be interchangeable in context.
Every synonymic group has a synonymic dominant, which is the most general term potentially containing the specific features rendered by all the other members of the synonymic group. For example, in the synonymic group “leave – depart – quit – retire – clear out” the verb “leave” conveying the notion of “abandoning something” in the most general way and being both stylistically and emotionally neutral is considered the synonymic dominant and can substitute for the other four verbs, while the latter can replace “leave” only on condition that some specific semantic component prevails over the general notion. In case when it is necessary to stress the idea of giving up employment “quit” is preferable, because in this verb the connotation of attending circumstances dominates over the more general idea common to all the members of the group.
The dominant synonym possesses the following characteristics:
1) high frequency of usage;
2) broad combinability;
3) broad general meaning;
4) lack of connotations.
Criteria of synonymy. There may be applied several criteria for considering the words synonyms: a) notional; b) semantic; c) the criterion of interchangeability.
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The notional criterion is applied in traditional linguistics, that defines synonyms as words of the same part of speech conveying the same notion but differing in shades of meaning or stylistic characteristics.
The semantic criterion is frequently used in contemporary research. In terms of componential analysis synonyms are words with the same denotation but differing in connotations and pragmatic components of meaning.
The criterion of interchangeability which is sometimes applied in modern research fails to be true in most cases. According to it synonyms are words which are interchangeable at least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning. But either there are very few synonyms or they are not interchangeable.
For example, if we try to substitute for any of the synonymic verbs in the sentences “He glared at her. He gazed at her. He glanced at her. He peered at her. He peeped at her”, we shall see that each of the synonyms creates an entirely new situation which so sharply differs from the others that any attempt at their interchanging can only destroy the utterance.
All this does not mean that no synonyms are interchangeable, as whole groups of words with half-erased connotations can be substituted for one another. Yet, even these words are far from being totally interchangeable without a slight change of meaning, e.g. consider the utterance “I wouldn’t say you’d been exactly pretty as a girl – handsome is what I’d say. You’ve got such strong features.”
Polysemy is the capacity for a sign (such as a word, phrase, or symbol) to have multiple meanings (that is, multiple semes or sememes and thus multiple senses), usually related by contiguity of meaning within a semantic field.
A synonym is a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy.
Antonymy. Types of antonyms.
Antonyms are a class of words grouped together on the basis of the semantic relations of oppositions. Antonyms are words belonging to the same part of speech sharing certain common semantic characteristics and in this respect they are similar to such semantic classes as synonyms, lexical sets, lexico-semantic groupings.
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Structurally, antonyms are divided antonyms of the same root (“to do – to undo, cheerful – cheerless”) and antonyms of different roots (“day – night, cold – hot”).
Semantically, antonyms are classified into contradictories, contraries and incompatibles.
Contradictory antonyms are mutually opposed; they deny one another, forming a privative binary opposition. To use one of the contradictories would mean to contradict the other as they are members of two-term sets; and to use ’not’ before one of them makes it semantically equivalent to the other, e.g. “not dead – alive, not single – married”.
Contraries are antonyms that can be arranged into a series according to the increasing difference in one of their qualities. The most distant elements of this series are classified as contrary notions. So, contraries are gradable antonyms being polar members of a gradual opposition which may have intermediate elements. This is observed in the group of contraries including “cold –hot and cool – warm” which are intermediate members. In this case we regard as antonyms not only “cold” and “hot” but also “cold” and “warm” etc. Contrary antonyms may also be considered in terms of degrees of the quality involved, e.g. it may be cold and very cold, or it may be colder.
Incompatibles are antonyms characterized by the relations of exclusion. Semantic relations of incompatibility are typical of antonyms with a common component of meaning; they may be described as the reverse of hyponymy. Incompatibles differ from contradictories as the former are members of the multiple-term sets, while the latter are members of two-term sets, e.g. to say “night” is to say “not day, not morning, not evening etc”. A relation of incompatibility may also be observed between colour terms, as the use of “back” ensues the exclusion of “red, green, white, orange etc”.
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English phraseology.
Free word-groups and set phrases. Criteria of stability and idiomaticity of phraseological units. The definition of a phraseological unit. Classification of phraseological units suggested by V.V. Vinogradov, A.I. Smirnitsky, N.N. Amosova, A.V. Kunin. Sources of phraseology.
A phraseological unit is usually defined as a ready-made (reproduced) and idiomatic (non-motivated or partially motivated) unit of the language built up according to the model of free word-groups (or sentences, in case of proverbs and sayings) and semantically and syntactically brought into correlation with words. Hence, it is necessary to name the criteria exposing the degree of similarity/ difference between phraseological units and free word-groups, phraseological units and words.
The structural criterion helps to distinguish certain features, which 1) state a certain structural similarity between phraseological units (later referred to as PhU-s) and free word-groups (FWG-s), simultaneously opposing them to separate words, and 2) specify their structural distinctions.
1). A feature common to both PhU-s and FWG-s is the divisibility (раздельнооформленность) of their structure, i.e. they consist of separate structural elements. This feature puts them in opposition to words as structurally integral (цельнооформленные) units. It means that the structural integrity of a word is defined by the presence of a common grammatical form for all constituent elements of this word. For example, the grammatical change in the word ‘shipwreck’ implies that it has a grammatical paradigm typical of a countable noun – the plural is ‘shipwrecks’, while in the word-group ’the wreck of a ship’ each element is subject to the changes of the grammatical paradigm – ‘the wrecks of ships’.
Like in FWG-s, in PhU-s potentially any component may be changed grammatically, but this occurs very rarely and serves mostly for creating a certain stylistic effect, e.g. ‘a black sheep’ (‘a disreputable member of a family”) – “the blackest sheep”.
2). The principal difference between PhU-s and FWG-s manifests itself in the structural invariability of the phraseological units. It suggests no (or rather limited) substitutions of the components, e.g. in the idiom ‘to build a castle in the air’ the following grammatical change is possible – ‘to build castles in the air’; or the component ‘the air’ may be substituted for ‘Spain’ –“to build castles in Spain’. No such substitutions are possible in the phraseological unit ‘to give somebody a cold shoulder’ meaning ‘to treat somebody coldly, to ignore’, as ‘a warm shoulder’ or ‘a cold elbow’ would make no sense.
The semantic criterion helps to state the semantic difference/ similarity between a) PhU-s and FWG-s; 2) PhU-s and words.
1). The meaning in PhU-s is created by mutual interaction of elements and conveys a single concept. The actual meaning of a PhU is transferred (figurative) and is opposed to the literal meaning of the word-group from which it is derived. The transference of the meaning of the initial word-group may be based on simile, metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche, the degree of transference varies and may affect either the whole unit or only one of its constituents, cf.: ‘to skate on thin ice’ in the figurative sense means ‘to take risks’ and the transference of meaning here is complete, while in case of ‘small hours’, which means ‘the early hours of the morning’ the transference of meaning is only partial. However, there are cases of PhU-s where the change of meaning seems to be complete but the basis that gives rise to the transference may be traced diachronically, e.g. the idiom ‘red tape’ originates in the old custom of officials and lawyers to tie up their papers with red tape.
The meaning of a FWG is based on the combined meanings of the words constituting its structure. Each element in a FWG has a much greater semantic independence and stands for a separate concept, e.g. ‘to cut sandwiches, to cat a finger, to eat pies’; besides, every word in a FWG can form additional syntactic ties with other words outside it, retaining its individual meaning at that.
2). The semantic unity makes PhU-s similar to words. The semantic similarity between the two is proved by the fact, that, for example, the idiom ‘to join the majority’ the meaning of which is understood as a whole and not related to the meaning of individual words can be replaced by the word ‘to die’, the idiom ‘out of the blue’ – by the word ‘suddenly’ etc.
The syntactic criterion reveals the close ties between single words and PhU-s as well as FWG-s. Like words and FWG-s, PhU-s may fulfill different syntactic functions in the sentence: the subject (narrow escape, first night, baker’s dozen), the predicate (to have a mind, to call the black white, to cross the Rubicon), an attribute (as ugly as sin, as thick as thieves, quick on the trigger), an adverbial modifier (in full swing, off the record, now and again). According to the syntactical function PhU-s can be classified into substantive, verbal, adjectival, adverbial, and interjectional.
The same as FWG-s, phraseological units can be divided into coordinative (e.g. ‘free and easy, neck and crop’) and subordinative (e.g. ‘a big fish in a little pond, to make bricks without straw’).
Thus, the characteristic features of phraseological units are: ready-made reproduction, structural divisibility, morphological stability, permanence of lexical composition, semantic unity, and syntactic fixity.
8.8. Classification of the phraseological units.
According to the degree of semantic cohesion between the components of a phraseological unit (a classification devised by academician V.V. Vinogradov), that is the degree of idiomaticity, all PhU-s fall into three large groups:
1) phraseological fusions, which show the greater degree of semantic cohesion and are completely non-motivated word-groups, e.g. “as mad as a hatter” – “utterly mad”, “a white elephant” – “a present that involves great expenses for keeping it”, “red tape” – “bureaucracy”;
2) phraseological unities, which show a lesser degree of semantic cohesion and are partially motivated as their meaning can be perceived through the metaphoric meaning of the whole, e.g. “to lose one’s head” – “not to know what to do”, “to ride the high horse” – “to behave in a superior, haughty way”;
3) phraseological collocations which show the lowest degree of semantic cohesion and are not only motivated but contain at least one component used in its direct meaning, e.g. “to meet the demands”, “to be good at something” etc.
Professor A.I. Smirnitsky offered a classification system for phraseological units, which combines the structural and semantic principles, grouping phraseological units according to the number and semantic significance of their constituent parts. Thus, two large groups are distinguished:
1) one-summit units having one meaningful constituent, e.g. “to give up”, “to be tired”;
2) two-summit and multi-summit units having two or more meaningful constituents, e.g. “common sense”, “to fish in troubled waters” etc.
Further on, these groups are classified according to the category of parts of speech of the summit constituent.
Thus, the one-summit units fall into:
a) verbal-adverbial equivalent to verbs in which the semantic and the grammatical centres coincide in the 1st constituent, e.g. “to give up”;
b) units equivalent to verbs having the semantic centre in the 2nd constituent and the grammatical centre in the 1st, e.g. “to be tired”;
c) prepositional-substantive equivalent either to adverbs or to copulas, having their semantic centre in the substantive constituent and no grammatical centre, e.g. “by heart”, “by means of”.
Two-summit and multi-summit phraseological units are classified into:
a) attributive-substantive two-summit units equivalent to nouns, e.g. “black art”, “blue stocking”;
b) verbal-substantive two-summit units equivalent to verbs, e.g. ”to take the floor”, “to take off the hair”;
c) phraseological repetitions equivalent to adverbs, e.g. “now or never”, “time and again”, “by hook or by crook”;
d) adverbial multi-summit units, e.g. “every other day” etc.
The scholar also distinguishes between proper phraseological units, which in his classification system are units with non-figurative meanings, and idioms, which are units with transferred meanings based on metaphor.
The latest achievement in the Russian theory of phraseology is Professor A.V. Kunin’s classification system of phraseological units which is based on the combined structural-semantic principle and also considers the quotient of stability of phraseological units.
According to the function in communication determined by the structural-semantic characteristics phraseological units are divided into four classes:
1) nominative, represented by word-groups which include the ones with one meaningful word, and coordinative phrases of the type “wear and tear”, “well and good”; they also include word-groups with a predicative structure, such as “as the crow flies”, “see how the land lies”, “ships that pass in the night”;
2) nominative-communicative including word-groups of the type “to break the ice’ – “the ice is broken”, i.e. verbal word-groups which are transformed into a sentence when the verb is used in the passive voice;
3) interjectional, e.g. “by Jove!”, “oh my eyes and Betty Button!”;
4) communicative, which are represented by proverbs and sayings, e.g. “He is easiest deceived who wants to be deceived” etc.
Besides, these four classes are divided into subgroups according to their structural type, which in their turn are subdivided according to the kind of relations between the constituents and according to their full or partial transference of meaning.
However, from A.V. Kunin’s point of view, one of the main criteria of a phraseological unit is its stability. If the quotient of phraseological stability in a word-group is not below the minimum, it means that we deal with a phraseological unit; and the structural type, i.e. whether the unit is a combination of words or a sentence, - is irrelevant.
A.V. Kunin also states that the criterion of nomination and communication cannot be applied here either, because there are a considerable number of verbal phraseological units which are word-groups (i.e. nominative units), when the verb is used in the active voice, and sentences (i.e. communicative units), when the verb is used in the passive voice, e.g. “to cross the Rubicon” – “The Rubicon is crossed”, “to shed crocodile tears” – “Crocodile tears are shed”. Hence, if we accept nomination as a criterion of referring this or that unit to phraseology, we shall face an absurd conclusion that such word-groups when with the verb in the active voice are phraseological units, and when the verb is used in the passive, they do not belong to phraseology.
One more argument in favour of A.V. Kunin’s theory is that many phraseological units originate from proverbs, e.g. “the last straw” originates from the proverb “The last straw breaks the camel’s back”, “birds of a feather” from “Birds of a feather flock together” etc.
What is more, some proverbs are easily transformed into phraseological units, e.g. “Don’t put all your eggs into one basket” > “to put all one’s eggs in one basket”; “Don’t cast pearls before swine” > “to cast pearls before swine”.
All this brings us to the conclusion that there is no rigid or permanent borderline between proverbs and phraseological units.
The etymological classification takes into consideration the origin of the phraseological units, dividing them into native and borrowed.
The main sources of native phraseological units are:
1) English customs and traditions, e.g. “baker’s dozen”;
2) English literature, e.g. “the green-eyed monster” – “jealousy” (W. Shakespeare), “how goes the enemy?” – “what is the time?” (Ch. Dickens);
3) superstitions and legends, e.g. “a black sheep” – “a disreputable member of the family” as people believed that a black sheep was marked by the devil;
4) terminological and professional vocabulary, e.g. physics – “centre of gravity”, navigation – “under false colours”, military sphere – “fall into line”;
5) historical facts and events, personalities, e.g. “to do a Thatcher” – “to stay in power as prime minister for three consecutive terms”;
6) phenomena and facts of everyday life, e.g. “to carry coal to Newcastle” etc.
The main sources of borrowed phraseological units are:
1) the holy Script, e.g. “the kiss of Judas”, “the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing”, “a serpent in the tree”;
2) ancient legends and myths belonging to different religious or cultural traditions, e.g. “the Trojan horse”, “an apple of discord”;
3) facts and events of the world history, e.g. “to meet one’s Waterloo” – “to suffer a defeat” (like the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815), “the fifth column” – “the inside enemies” (like those in Madrid in 1938 when it was besieged by four fascist divisions and by the fifth the spies in Madrid were meant);
4) variants of the English language, “be home and hosed” (Australian), “a hole card” (American);
5) other languages, classical and modern, e.g. “second to none” (Latin), “The fair sex” (French), “let the cat out of the bag” (German) etc.
American English
language is a body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation,the same geographical area, or the same cultural tradition
dialect - a variety of a language (specifically, often a spoken variety) that is characteristic of a particular area, community or group, often with relatively minor differences in vocabulary, style, spelling and pronunciation.
Variants of a language are regional varieties of a standard literary language characterised by some minor peculiarities in the sound system, vocabulary and grammar and by their own literary norms. Dialects are varieties of a language used as a means of oral communication in small localities, they are set off from other varieties by some distinctive features of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. The most marked difference between dialects and regional variants in the field of phonetics lies in the fact that dialects possess phonemic distinctions, while regional variants are characterised by phonetic distinctions. In matters of vocabulary and grammar the difference is in the greater number and greater diversity of local peculiarities in the dialects as compared with the regional variants. In the British Isles there exist many speech varieties confined to particular areas
American English is the variety of English spoken in the USA.
The first English-speaking immigrants settled in North America in the 17th century. In this century there were also speakers of the Dutch, French, German, native American, Spanish, Swedish and Finnish languages.
The vocabulary of American English has distinctive features of its own, it comprises whole groups of words which belong to American vocabulary exclusively and constitute its specific features. These words are called Americanisms, which fall into the following groups:
1) historical Americanisms, e.g. ‘fall’- ‘autumn’, ‘to guess’ – ‘to think’, ‘sick’ – ‘unwell, ill’; these words still retain their old meanings whereas in BE these meanings have either changed or fallen out of use;
2) proper Americanisms are words that are not likely to be found in BE as they were coined by the early Americans to give names for the new environment and new conditions of life, e.g. ‘redbud’ – ‘an American tree having small budlike pink flowers, the state tree of Oklahoma’, ‘blue-grass’ – ‘a sort of grass peculiar to North America’. Later proper Americanisms are represented by names of objects which are called differently in the USA and Britain, e.g. BE ‘chemist’s’ – AE ‘drugstore’, BE ‘sweets’ – AE ‘candy’, BE ‘luggage’ – AE ‘baggage’, BE ‘car’ – AE ‘automobile’, BE ‘tram’ – AE ‘street car’;
3) specifically American borrowings reflecting the historical contacts of the Americans with other nations on the American continent, e.g. ‘ranch, canyon, sombrero’ – Spanish borrowings, ‘toboggan, wigwam, canoe, caribou’ – Indian borrowings; besides there are translation loans of Indian origin, such as ‘pale-face, war path, pipe of peace’ etc. Many of the names of places, rivers, lakes, even of states are of Indian origin, e.g. Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky etc.;
4) American shortenings which were produced on American soil, e.g. ‘dorm’ – ‘dormitory’, ‘mo’ – ‘moment’, ‘cert’ – ‘certainty’, ‘b.f.’ – ‘boy-friend’ etc.
Besides this, there are cases when one (or more) lexico-semantic variant(s) is (are) specific to either British English or American English. For example, both BE and AE have the word ‘faculty’, but it is used only in AE in the meaning “all the teachers and other professional workers of a university or college’. As a rule , such words may have analogous oppositions to one of these LSV in another variant of English or in Standard English, e.g. AE ‘faculty’ – BE/SE ‘teaching staff’.
Another case is when one and the same word in one of its LSV is used oftener in BE than in AE, e.g. BE ‘brew’ meaning ‘a cup of tea’ is used in AE in the meaning ‘a beer or coffee drink’.
One more case is that the same words may have different semantic structure in BE and AE, e.g. ‘homely’ in BE means ‘home-loving, domesticated, house-proud’, while in AE it denotes ‘unattractive in appearance’. In some cases the connotational aspect of meaning comes to the fore, e.g. BE ‘politician’ is ‘a person who is professionally involved in politics’, while in AE this word is derogatory, meaning ‘a person who acts in a manipulative and devious way, typically to gain advancement within an organization’.
As for the word derivational peculiarities, besides the typically American shortenings which have been mentioned above, some word building affixes are used more frequently in AE than in BE, e.g. ‘-ee’ –‘draftee’ (‘a young man about to be enlisted’), ‘-ster’ – ‘roadster’, ‘super-’ – ‘supermarket’. AE sometimes favours words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BE uses clipped forms, e.g. AE ‘transportation’ – BE ‘transport’, AE ‘burglarize’ – BE ‘burgle’ (back-formation from ‘burglar’).
In the grammar system of AE we are likely to find even fewer divergencies than in the vocabulary system. They are as follows:
1) the use of the auxiliary verb ‘will’ in the first person singular and plural of the Future Indefinite Tense, where ‘will’ does not imply modality;
2) a tendency to substitute the Past Indefinite Tense for the Present Perfect Tense, especially in oral communication, e.g. AE “I saw this movie” – BE “I’ve seen this film”;
3) the retaining of the old form of the Past Participle of the verb ‘to get’ – ‘gotten’.
American English is marked by certain phonetic peculiarities. Yet, these consist in the way some words are pronounced and the intonation patterns. The system of phonemes is the same as in British English, with the exception of the American retroflexive [r]-sound, and the labialized [h] in such words as ‘what, why, white, wheel’, etc.
The hypothesis of the so-called “American language” has had several champions and supporters, especially in the USA (H. L. Mencken “The American Language”, N.-Y., 1957). But to be a separate language, it is necessary to possess the system of grammar, vocabulary and phonemes of its own. But as we have seen, both AE and BE share the same grammar, vocabulary and phonemes with only few exceptions, which makes us believe that these two languages are nothing but regional varieties of one and the same language.
The other regional varieties of the English language also have distinctive features of their own due to their localization and different contacts with other languages.
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