Synonym. Problem of definition

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. Additional characteristics of style, emotional colouring and valency peculiar to one of the elements in a synonymic group may be absent in one or all of the others.

The definition is of necessity very bulky and needs some commenting upon.

To have something tangible to work upon it is convenient to compare some synonyms within their group, so as to make obvious the reasons for the definition. The verbs experience, undergo, sustain and suffer, for example, come together, because all four render the notion of experiencing something. The verb and the noun experience indicate actual living through something and coming to know it first-hand rather than from hearsay. Undergo applies chiefly to what someone or something bears or is subjected to, as in to undergo an operation, to undergo changes. Compare also the following example from L.P. Smith: The French language has undergone

considerable and more recent changes since the date when the Normans brought it into England. In the above example the verb undergo can be replaced by its synonyms suffer or experience without any change of the sentence meaning. The difference is neutralised.

Synonyms, then, are interchangeable under certain conditions specific to each group. This seems to call forth an analogy with phonological neutralisation. Now, it will be remembered that neutralisation is the absence in some contexts of a phonetic contrast found elsewhere or formerly in the language. It appears we are justified in calling semantic neutralisation the suspension of an otherwise functioning semantic opposition that occurs in some lexical contexts.

And yet suffer in this meaning (‘to undergo’), but not in the example above, is characterised by connotations implying wrong or injury. No semantic neutralisation occurs in phrases like suffer atrocities, suffer heavy losses. The implication is of course caused by the existence of the main intransitive meaning of the same word, not synonymous with the group, i.e. ‘to feel pain’. Sustain as an element of this group differs from both in shade of meaning and style. It is an official word and it suggests undergoing affliction without giving way.

A further illustration will be supplied by a group of synonymous nouns: hope, expectation, anticipation. They are considered to be synonymous, because they all three mean ‘having something in mind which is likely to happen’. They are, however, much less interchangeable than the previous group because of more strongly pronounced difference in shades of meaning. Expectation may be either of good or of evil. Anticipation, as a rule, is a pleasurable expectation of something good. Hope is not only a belief but a desire that some event would happen. The stylistic difference is also quite marked. The Romance words anticipation and expectation are formal literary words used only by educated speakers, whereas the native monosyllabic hope is stylistically neutral. Moreover, they differ in idiomatic usage. Only hope is possible in such set expressions as: hope against hope, lose hope, pin one’s hopes on sth. Neither expectation nor anticipation could be substituted into the following quotation from T.S. Eliot: You do not khow what hope is until you have lost it.

Taking into consideration the corresponding series of synonymous verbs and verbal set expressions: hope, anticipate, expect, look forward to, we shall see that separate words may be compared to whole set expressions. Look forward to is also worthy of note, because it forms a definitely colloquial counterpart to the rest. It can easily be shown, on the evidence of examples, that each synonymic group comprises a dominant element. This synonymic dominant is the most general term of its kind potentially containing the specific features rendered by all the other members of the group, as, for instance, undergo and hope in the above.

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