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 'quick' into the sentence: It is absurd to have hard and fast rules about anything (Wilde), or think that fast rules here are 'rules of diet'. Combinations when two or more meanings are possible are either deliberate puns, or result from carelessness. Both meanings of liver, i.e. 'a living person' and 'the organ that secretes bile' are, for instance, intentionally present in the following play upon words: "Is life worth living?" "It depends upon the liver." Сf.: "What do you do with the fruit?" "We eat what we can, and what we can't eat we can."
  Very seldom can ambiguity of this kind interfere with understanding. The following example is unambiguous, although the words back and part have several homonyms, and maid and heart are polysemantic:
 Maid of Athens, ere we part,
 Give, oh give me back my heart (Byron).
  Homonymy exists in many languages, but in English it is particularly frequent, especially among monosyllabic words. In the list of 2540 homonyms given in the "Oxford English Dictionary" 89% are monosyllabic words and only 9.1 % are words of two syllables. From the viewpoint of their morphological structure, they are mostly one-morpheme words.
  Classification of Homonyms. The most widely accepted classification is that recognising homonyms proper, homophones and homographs. Homonyms proper are words identical in pronunciation and spelling, like fast and liver above. Other examples are: back n 'part of the body' : : back adv 'away from the front' : : back v 'go back'; ball n 'a round object used in games' : : ball n 'a gathering of people for dancing'; bark n 'the noise made by a dog' : : bark v 'to utter sharp explosive cries' : : bark n 'the skin of a tree' : : bark n 'a sailing ship'; base n 'bottom' : : base v 'build or place upon' : : base a 'mean'; bay n 'part of the sea or lake filling wide-mouth opening of land' : : bay n 'recess in a house or a room' : : bay v 'bark' : : bay n 'the European laurel'. The important point is that homonyms are distinct words: not different meanings within one word.
  Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning: air : : heir; arms : : alms; buy : : by; him : : hymn; knight : : night; not: : knot; or: : oar; piece : : peace; rain: : reign; scent: : cent; steel : : steal; storey : : story; write : : right and many others.
  In the sentence The play-wright on my right thinks it right that some conventional rite should symbolise the right of every man to write as he pleases the sound complex [rait] is a noun, an adjective, an adverb and a verb, has four different spellings and six different meanings. The difference may be confined to the use of a capital letter as in bill and Bill, in the following example: "How much is my milk bill?11 "Excuse me, Madam, but my name is John.11 On the other hand, whole sentences may be homophonic: The sons raise meat : : The sun's rays meet. To understand these one needs a wider context. If you hear the second in the course of a lecture in optics, you will understand it without thinking of the possibility of the first.
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  Homographs аrе words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling: bow [bou] : : bow [bau]; lead [li:d] : : lead [led]; row [rou] : : row [rau]; sewer ['souэ] : : sewer [sjuэ]; tear [tiэ] : : tear [tea]; wind [wind] : : wind [waind] and many more.
  It has been often argued that homographs constitute a phenomenon that should be kept apart from homonymy as the object of linguistics is sound language. This viewpoint can hardly be accepted. Because of the effects of education and culture written English is a generalised national form of expression. An average speaker does not separate the written and oral form. On the contrary he is more likely to analyse the words in terms of letters than in terms of phonemes with which he is less familiar. That is why a linguist must take into consideration both the spelling and the pronunciation of words when analysing cases of identity of form and diversity of content.
  Various types of classification for homonyms proper have been suggested.
  A comprehensive system may be worked out if we are guided by the theory of oppositions and in classifying the homonyms take into consideration the difference or sameness in their lexical and grammatical meaning, paradigm and basic form. For the sake of completeness we shall consider this problem in terms of the same mapping technique used for the elements of vocabulary system connected with the word sound.
  As both form and meaning can be further subdivided, the combination of distinctive features by which two words are compared becomes more complicated - there are four features: the form may be phonetical and graphical, the meaning - lexical and grammatical, a word may also have a paradigm of grammatical forms different from the basic form.
  The distinctive features shown in the table on p. 186 are lexical meaning (different denoted by A, or nearly the same denoted by A), grammatical meaning (different denoted by B, or same by B), paradigm (different denoted by C, or same denoted by C), and basic form (different D and same D).
  The term "nearly same lexical meaning" must not be taken too literally. It means only that the corresponding members of the opposition have some important invariant semantic components in common. "Same grammatical meaning" implies that both members belong to the same part of speech.
  Same paradigm comprises also cases when there is only one word form, i.e. when the words are unchangeable. Inconsistent combinations of features are crossed out in the table. It is, for instance, impossible for two words to be identical in all word forms and different in basic forms, or for two homonyms to show no difference either in lexical or grammatical meaning, because in this case they are not homonyms. That leaves twelve possible classes.
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 Homonyms
 
 Table II
 
 
 Difference and Identity in Words A Different lexical meaning A Nearly same lexical meaning В Different grammatical meaning Partial Homonymy Patterned Homonymy D Same basic form
  light, -s n light, -er, -est a flat, -s n flat, -er, -est a for prp for cj before prp before adv before cj eye, -s n eye, -s, -ed, -ing v
 
  might n may-might v thought n thought v (Past Indefinite Tense of think) D Different basic form В Same grammatical meaning axis, axes n axe - axes n bat-butted v butt-butted v Synonyms
 
  lie-lay-lain
 V
 lie - lied - lied v Full Homonymy
 spring, -s n spring, -s n spring, -s n Polysemy
 Variants of the same polysemantic word D Same basic form С
 Different paradigm С
 Same paradigm or no changes С
 Different paradigm The 12 classes are:
  ABCD. Members of the opposition light n 'the contrary of darkness' : : light a 'not heavy' are different in lexical and grammatical meaning, have different paradigms but the same basic form. The class of partial homonymy is very numerous. A further subdivision might take into consideration the parts of speech to which the members belong, namely the oppositions of noun : : verb, adjective : : verb, n : : adjective, etc.
 186
 
  ABCD. Same as above, only not both members are in their basic form. The noun (here might 'power') is in its basic form, the singular, but the verb may will coincide with it only in the Past Tense. This lack of coincidence between basic forms is not frequent, so only few examples are possible. Compare also bit n 'a small piece' and bit (the Past Indefinite Tense and Participle II of bite).
  ABCD. Contains pairs of words belonging to the same part of speech, different in their basic form but coinciding in some oblique form, e. g. in the plural, or in the case of verbs, in the Past Tense. Axe - axes, axis - axes. The type is rare.
  ABCD. Different lexical meaning, same basic form, same grammatical meaning and different paradigm: lie - lay - lain and lie - lied - lied. Not many cases belong to this group.
  ABCD. Represents pairs different in lexical and grammatical meaning but not in paradigm, as these are not changeable form words. Examples: for prp contrasted to for cj.
  ABCD. The most typical case of full homonymy accepted by everybody and exemplified in every textbook. Different lexical meanings, but the homonyms belong to the same part of speech: spring1 n 'a leap' :: spring2 'a source' :: spring3 n 'the season in which vegetation begins'.
  ABCD. Patterned homonymy. Differs from the previous (i.e. ABCD) in the presence of some common component in the lexical meaning of the members, some lexical invariant: before prp, before adv, before cj, all express some priority in succession. This type of opposition is regular among form words. .
  ABCD. Pairs showing maximum identity. But as their lexical meaning is only approximately the same, they may be identified as variants of one polysemantic word.
  ABCD. Contains all the cases due to conversion: eye n : : eye v. The members differ in grammatical meaning and paradigm. This group is typical of patterned homonymy. Examples of such noun-to-verb or verb-to-noun homonymy can be augmented almost indefinitely. The mean-ing of the second element can always be guessed if the first is known.
  ABCD. Pairs belonging to different parts of speech and coinciding in some of the forms. Their similarity is due to a common root, as in thought n : thought v (the Past Indefinite Tense of think).
  ABCD. Similarity in both lexical and grammatical meaning combined with difference in form is characteristic of synonyms and hyponyms.
  ABCD. The group is not numerous and comprises chiefly cases of double plural with a slight change in meaning such as brother - brothers : : brother - brethren.
  It goes without saying that this is a model that gives a general scheme. Actually a group of homonyms may contain members belonging to different groups in this classification. Take, for example, fell1 n 'animal's hide or skin with the hair'; fell2 n 'hill' and also 'a stretch of North-English moorland'; fell3 a 'fierce' (poet.); fell4 v 'to cut down
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 trees' and as a noun 'amount of timber cut'; fell5 (the Past Indefinite Tense of the verb fall). This group may be broken into pairs, each of which will fit into one of the above described divisions. Thus, fell1 : : fell2 may be characterised as ABCD, fell1 : : fell4 as ABCD and fell4 : : fell5 as ABCD.
 § 10.2 THE ORIGIN OF HOMONYMS
  The intense development of homonymy in the English language is obviously due not to one single factor but to several interrelated causes, such as the monosyllabic character of English and its analytic structure.
  The abundance of homonyms is also closely connected with such a characteristic feature of the English language as the phonetic identity of word and stem or, in other words, the predominance of free forms among the most frequent roots. It is quite obvious that if the frequency of words stands in some inverse relationship to their length, the monosyllabic words will be the most frequent. Moreover, as the most frequent words are also highly polysemantic, it is only natural that they develop meanings which in the course of time may deviate very far from the central one. When the intermediate links fall out, some of these new meanings lose all connections with the rest of the structure and start a separate existence. The phenomenon is known as disintegration or split of polysemy.
  Different causes by which homonymy may be brought about are subdivided into two main groups:
  1) homonymy through convergent sound development, when two or three words of different origin accidentally coincide in sound; and
  2) homonymy developed from polysemy through divergent sense development. Both may be combined with loss of endings and other morphological processes.
  In Old English the words zesund 'healthy' and sund 'swimming' were separate words both in form and in meaning. In the course of time they have changed their meaning and phonetic form, and the latter accidentally coincided: OE sund>ModE sound 'strait'; OE зesund>ModE sound 'healthy'. The group was joined also accidentally by the noun sound 'what is or may be heard' with the corresponding verb that developed from French and ultimately from the Latin word sonus, and the verb sound 'to measure the depth' of dubious etymology. The coincidence is purely accidental.
  Two different Latin verbs: cadere 'to fall' and capere 'to hold' are the respective sources of the homonyms case1 'instance of thing's occurring' and case2 'a box'. Indeed, case1  188
 
 Unlike the homonyms case and sound all the homonyms of the box group due to disintegration or split of polysemy are etymologically connected. The sameness of form is not accidental but based on genetic relationship. They are all derived from one another and are all ultimately traced to the Latin buxus. "The Concise Oxford Dictionary" has five entries for box: box1 n 'a kind of small evergreen shrub'; box2 n 'receptacle made of wood, cardboard, metal, etc. and usually provided with a lid'; box3 v 'to put into a box'; box4 n 'slap with the hand on the ear'; box5 v - a sport term meaning 'to fight with fists in padded gloves'.
  Such homonyms may be partly derived from one another but their common point of origin lies beyond the limits of the English language. In these words with the appearance of a new meaning, very different from the previous one, the semantic structure of the parent word splits. The new meaning receives a separate existence and starts a new semantic structure of its own. Hence the term disintegration or split of polysemy.
  It must be noted, however, that though the number of examples in which a process of this sort could be observed is considerable, it is difficult to establish exact criteria by which disintegration of polysemy could be detected. The whole concept is based on stating whether there is any connection between the meanings or not.1 Whereas in the examples dealing with phonetic convergence, i.e. when we said that case1 and case2 are different words because they differ in origin, we had definite linguistic criteria to go by; in the case of disintegration of polysemy there are none to guide us, we can only rely on intuition and individual linguistic experience. For a trained linguist the number of unrelated homonyms will be much smaller than for an uneducated person. The knowledge of etymology and cognate languages will always help to supply the missing links. It is easier, for instance, to see the connection between beam 'a ray of light' and beam 'the metallic structural part of a building' if one knows the original meaning of the word, i.e. 'tree' (OE beam||Germ Baum), and is used to observe similar metaphoric transfers in other words. The connection is also more obvious if one is able to notice the same element in such compound names of trees as hornbeam, whitebeam, etc.
  The conclusion, therefore, is that in diachronic treatment the only rigorous criterion is that of etymology observed in explanatory dictionaries of the English language where words are separated according to their origin, as in match1 'a piece of inflammable material you strike fire with' (from OFr mesche, Fr meche) and match2 (from OE gem?cca 'fellow').
  It is interesting to note that out of 2540 homonyms listed in "The Oxford English Dictionary" only 7% are due to disintegration of polysemy, all the others are etymologically different. One must, however, keep in mind that patterned homonymy is here practically disregarded.
  This underestimation of regular patterned homonymy tends to produce a false impression. Actually the homonymy of nouns and verbs due to the processes of loss of endings on the one hand and conversion
 1 See p. 192 where a formal procedure is suggested.
 189
 
 on the other is one of the most prominent features of present-day English. The process has been analysed in detail in the chapter on conversion. It may be combined with semantic changes as in the pair long a : : long v. The explanation is that when it seems long before something comes to you, you long for it (long a   The opposite process of morphemic addition can also result in homonymy. This process is chiefly due to independent word-formation with the same affix or to the homonymy of derivational and functional affixes. The suffix -er forms several words with the same stem: trail - trailer1 'a creeping plant' : : trailer2 'a caravan', i.e. 'a vehicle drawn along by another vehicle'.
  In summing up this diachronic analysis of homonymy it should be emphasised that there are two ways by which homonyms come into being, namely convergent development of sound form and divergent development of meaning (see table below).
 The first may consist in
 (a) phonetic change only,
 (b) phonetic change combined with loss of affixes,
  (c) independent formation from homonymous bases by means of homonymous affixes.
 The second, that is divergent development of meaning may be
 (a) limited within one lexico-grammatical class of words,
  (b) combined with difference in lexico-grammatical class and therefore difference in grammatical functions and distribution,
  (c) based on independent formation from the same base by homonymous morphemes.
 Table III
 Origin of Homonyms
 
  Convergent development of sound form Divergent semantic development Independent of morphological changes OE zет?пе 'common' Lat medianus mean 'average' OE т?пап 'think' chest 'large box' OE cest
  chest 'part of human body' Combined with morphological changes OE lufu n love n, v OE lufian v wait v ME waiten v wait n silence n Lat silentium n silence v 190
 
  The process can sometimes be more complicated. Thus, according to COD, the verb stick developed as a mixture of ME stiken   In the course of time the number of homonyms on the whole increases, although occasionally the conflict of homonyms ends in word loss.
 § 10.3 HOMONYMY TREATED SYNCHRONICALLY
  The synchronic treatment of English homonyms brings to the forefront a set of problems of paramount importance for different branches of applied linguistics: lexicography, foreign language teaching and information retrieval. These problems are: the criteria distinguishing homonymy from polysemy, the formulation of rules for recognising different meanings of the same homonym in terms of distribution, and the description of difference between patterned and non-patterned homonymy. It is necessary to emphasise that all these problems are connected with difficulties created by homonymy in understanding the message by the reader or listener, not with formulating one's thoughts; they exist for the speaker though in so far as he must construct his speech in a way that would prevent all possible misunderstanding.
  All three problems are so closely interwoven that it is difficult to separate them. So we shall discuss them as they appear for various practical purposes. For a lexicographer it is a problem of establishing word boundaries. It is easy enough to see that match, as in safety matches, is a separate word from the verb match 'to suit'. But he must know whether one is justified in taking into one entry match, as in football match, and match in meet one's match 'one's equal'.
  On the synchronic level, when the difference in etymology is irrelevant, the problem of establishing the criterion for the distinction between different words identical in sound form, and different meanings of the same word becomes hard to solve. Nevertheless the problem cannot be dropped altogether as upon an efficient arrangement of dictionary entries depends the amount of time spent by the readers in looking up a word: a lexicographer will either save or waste his readers' time and effort.
  Actual solutions differ. It is a widely spread practice in English lexicography to combine in one entry words of identical phonetic form showing similarity of lexical meaning or, in other words, revealing a lexical invariant, even if they belong to different parts of speech. In our country a different trend has settled. The Anglo-Russian dictionary edited by V.D. Arakin makes nine separate entries with the word right against four items given in the dictionary edited by A.S. Hornby.
  The truth is that there exists no universal criterion for the distinction between polysemy and homonymy.
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 The etymological criterion may lead to distortion of the present-day situation. The English vocabulary of today is not a replica of the Old English vocabulary with some additions from borrowing. It is in many respects a different system, and this system will not be revealed if the lexicographer is guided by etymological criteria only.
  A more or less simple, if not very rigorous, procedure based on purely synchronic data may be prompted by analysis of dictionary definitions. It may be called explanatory transformation. It is based on the assumption that if different senses rendered by the same phonetic complex can be defined with the help of an identical kernel word-group, they may be considered sufficiently near to be regarded as variants of the same word; if not, they are homonyms.
 Consider the following set of examples:
 1. A child's voice is heard (Wesker).
 2. His voice ... was ... annoyingly well-bred (Cronin).
  3. The voice-voicelessness distinction ... sets up some English consonants in opposed pairs ...
  4. In the voice contrast of active and passive ... the active is the unmarked form.
  The first variant (voice1) may be defined as 'sounds uttered in speaking or singing as characteristic of a particular person', voice2 as 'mode of uttering sounds in speaking or singing', voice3 as 'the vibration of the vocal chords in sounds uttered'. So far all the definitions contain one and the same kernel element rendering the invariant common basis of their meaning. It is, however, impossible to use the same kernel element for the meaning present in the fourth example. The corresponding definition is: "Voice - that form of the verb that expresses the relation of the subject to the action". This failure to satisfy the same explanation formula sets the fourth meaning apart. It may then be considered a homonym to the polysemantic word embracing the first three variants. The procedure described may remain helpful when the items considered belong to different parts of speech; the verb voice may mean, for example, 'to utter a sound by the aid of the vocal chords':
  This brings us to the problem of patterned homonymy, i.e. of the invariant lexical meaning present in homonyms that have developed from one common source and belong to various parts of speech.
  Is a lexicographer justified in placing the verb voice with the above meaning into the same entry with the first three variants of the noun? The same question arises with respect to after or before - preposition, conjunction and adverb.
  English lexicographers think it quite possible for one and the same word to function as different parts of speech. Such pairs as act n - act v, back n - back v, drive n - drive v, the above mentioned after and before and the like, are all treated as one word functioning as different parts of speech. This point of view was severely criticised. It was argued that one and the same word could not belong to different parts of speech simultaneously, because this would contradict the definition of the word as a system of forms.
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 This viewpoint is not faultless either; if one follows it consistently, one should regard as separate words all cases when words are countable nouns in one meaning and uncountable in another, when verbs can be used transitively and intransitively, etc. In this case hair1 'all the hair that grows on a person's head' will be one word, an uncountable noun; whereas 'a single thread of hair' will be denoted by another word (hair2) which, being countable, and thus different in paradigm, cannot be considered the same word. It would be tedious to enumerate all the absurdities that will result from choosing this path. A dictionary arranged on these lines would require very much space in printing and could occasion much wasted time in use. The conclusion therefore is that efficiency in lexicographic work is secured by a rigorous application of etymological criteria combined with formalised procedures of establishing a lexical invariant suggested by synchronic linguistic methods.
  As to those concerned with teaching of English as a foreign language, they are also keenly interested in patterned homonymy. The most frequently used words constitute the greatest amount of difficulty, as may be summed up by the following jocular example: I think that this "that" is a conjunction but that that "that" that that man used was a pronoun.
  A correct understanding of this peculiarity of contemporary English should be instilled in the pupils from the very beginning, and they should be taught to find their way in sentences where several words have their homonyms in other parts of speech, as in Jespersen's example: Will change of air cure love? To show the scope of the problem for the elementary stage a list of homonyms that should be classified as patterned is given below:
  Above, prp, adv, a; act n, v; after prp, adv, cj; age n, v; back n, adv, v; ball n, v; bank n, v; before prp, adv, cj; besides prp, adv; bill n, v; bloom n, v; box n, v. The other examples are: by, can, case, close, country, course, cross, direct, draw, drive, even, faint, flat, fly, for, game, general, hard, hide, hold, home, just, kind, last, leave, left, lie, light, like, little, lot, major, march, may, mean, might, mind, miss, part, plain, plane, plate, right, round, sharp, sound, spare, spell, spring, square, stage, stamp, try, type, volume, watch, well, will.
  For the most part all these words are cases of patterned lexico-grammatical homonymy taken from the minimum vocabulary of the elementary stage: the above homonyms mostly differ within each group grammatically but possess some lexical invariant. That is to say, act v follows the standard four-part system of forms with a base form act, an s-form (act-s), a Past Indefinite Tense form (acted) and an ing-form (acting) and takes up all syntactic functions of verbs, whereas act n can have two forms, act (sing.) and acts (pl.). Semantically both contain the most generalised component rendering the notion of doing something.
  Recent investigations have shown that it is quite possible to establish and to formalise the differences in environment, either syntactical or lexical, serving to signal which of the several inherent values is to be ascribed to the variable in a given context. An example of distributional analysis will help to make this point clear.
 13 И. В. Арнольд 193
 
 The distribution of a lexico-semantic variant of a word may be represented as a list of structural patterns in which it occurs and the data on its combining power. Some of the most typical structural patterns for a verb are: N+V+N, N+V+prp+N, N+V+A, N+V+adv, N+ V+to+V and some others. Patterns for nouns are far less studied, but for the present case one very typical example will suffice. This is the structure: article+A+N.
  In the following extract from "A Taste of Honey" by Shelagh Delaney the morpheme laugh occurs three times: I can't stand people who faugh at other people. They'd get a bigger laugh, if they laughed at themselves.
  We recognise laugh used first and last here as a verb, because the formula is N+laugh+prp+N and so the pattern is in both cases N+ V+prp+N. In the beginning of the second sentence laugh is a noun and the pattern is article+A+N.
  This elementary example can give a very general idea of the procedure which can be used for solving more complicated problems.
  We may sum up our discussion by pointing out that whereas distinction between polysemy and homonymy is relevant and important for lexicography it is not relevant for the practice of either human or machine translation. The reason for this is that different variants of a polysemantic word are not less conditioned by context than lexical homonyms. In both cases the identification of the necessary meaning is based on the corresponding distribution that can signal it and must be present in the memory either of the pupil or the machine. The distinction between patterned and non-patterned homonymy, greatly underrated until now, is of far greater importance. In non-patterned homonymy every unit is to be learned separately both from the lexical and grammatical points of view. In patterned homonymy when one knows the lexical meaning of a given word in one part of speech, one can accurately predict the meaning when the same sound complex occurs in some other part of speech, provided, of course, that there is sufficient context to guide one.
 | 10.4 SYNONYMS
  Taking up similarity of meaning and contrasts of phonetic shape, we observe that every language has in its vocabulary a variety of words, kindred in meaning but distinct in morphemic composition, phonemic shape and usage, ensuring the expression of most delicate shades of thought, feeling and imagination. The more developed the language, the richer the diversity and therefore the greater the possibilities of lexical choice enhancing the effectiveness and precision of speech.
  Thus, slay is the synonym of kill but it is elevated and more expressive involving cruelty and violence. The way synonyms function may be seen from the following example: Already in this half-hour of bombardment hundreds upon hundreds of men would have been violently slain, smashed, torn, gouged, crushed, mutilated (Aldington).
  The synonymous words smash and crush are semantically very close, they combine to give a forceful representation of the atrocities of war. Even this preliminary example makes it obvious that the still very common
 194
 
 definitions of synonyms as words of the same language having the same meaning or as different words that stand for the same notion are by no means accurate and even in a way misleading. By the very nature of language every word has its own history, its own peculiar motivation, its own typical contexts. And besides there is always some hidden possibility of different connotation and feeling in each of them. Moreover, words of the same meaning would be useless for communication: they would encumber the language, not enrich it. If two words exactly coincide in meaning and use, the natural tendency is for one of them to change its meaning or drop out of the language.
  Thus, synonyms are words only similar but not identical in meaning. This definition is correct but vague. E. g. horse and animal are also semantically similar but not synonymous. A more precise linguistic definition should be based on a workable notion of the semantic structure of the word and of the complex nature of every separate meaning in a polysemantic word. Each separate lexical meaning of a word has been described in Chapter 3 as consisting of a denotational component identifying the notion or the object and reflecting the essential features of the notion named, shades of meaning reflecting its secondary features, additional connotations resulting from typical contexts in which the word is used, its emotional component and stylistic colouring. Connotations are not necessarily present in every word. The basis of a synonymic opposition is formed by the first of the above named components, i.e. the denotational component. It will be remembered that the term opposition means the relationship of partial difference between two partially similar elements of a language. A common denotational component forms the basis of the opposition in synonymic group. All the other components can vary and thus form the distinctive features of the synonymic oppositions.
  Synonyms can therefore 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
 13* 195
 
 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.
  The synonymic dominant should not be confused with a generic term or a hyperonym. A generic term is relative. It serves as the name for the notion of the genus as distinguished from the names of the species - hyponyms. For instance, animal is a
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 generic term as compared to the specific names wolf, dog or mouse (which are called equonyms). Dog, in its turn, may serve as a generic term for different breeds such as bull-dog, collie, poodle, etc.
  The recently introduced term for this type of paradigmatic relation is hyponymy or inclusion, for example the meaning of pup is said to be included in the meaning of dog, i.e. a more specific term is included in a more generic one. The class of animals referred to by the word dog is wider and includes the class referred to by the word pup. The term inсlusiоn is somewhat ambiguous, as one might also say that pup includes the meaning 'dog'+the meaning 'small', therefore the term hyponym is preferable. We can say that pup is the hyponym of dog, and dog is the hyponym of animal, dog, cat, horse, cow, etc. are equonyms and are co-hyponyms of animal. Synonymy differs from hyponymy in being a symmetrical relation, i.e. if a is a synonym of b, b is the synonym of a. Hyponymy is asymmetrical, i.e. if a is a hyponym of b, b is the hyperonym of a. The combining forms hypo- and hyper-come from the Greek words hypo- 'under' and hyper- 'over' (cf. hypotonic 'having less than normal blood pressure' and hypertonic 'having extreme arterial tension').
  The definition on p. 195 states that synonyms possess one or more identical or nearly identical meanings. To realise the significance of this, one must bear in mind that the majority of frequent words are polysemantic, and that it is precisely the frequent words that have many synonyms. The result is that one and the same word may belong in its various meanings to several different synonymic groups. The verb appear in ... an old brown cat without a tail appeared from nowhere (Mansfield) is synonymous with come into sight, emerge. On the other hand, when Gr. Greene depicts the far-off figures of the parachutists who ...appeared stationary, appeared is synonymous with look or seem, their common component being 'give impression of'. Appear, then, often applies to erroneous impressions.
  Compare the following groups synonymous to five different meanings of the adjective fresh, as revealed by characteristic contexts:
 A fresh metaphor - fresh : : original : : novel : : striking.
 To begin a fresh paragraph - fresh : : another : : different : : new.
 Fresh air - fresh : : pure : : invigorating.
 A freshman - fresh : : inexperienced : : green : : raw.
 To be fresh with sb - fresh : : impertinent : : rude.
  The semantic structures of two polysemantic words sometimes coincide in more than one meaning, but never completely.
  Synonyms may also differ in emotional colouring which may be present in one element of the group and absent in all or some of the others. Lonely as compared with alone is emotional as is easily seen from the following examples: ... a very lonely boy lost between them and aware at ten that his mother had no interest in him, and that his father was a stranger. (Aldridge). I shall be alone as my secretary doesn't come to-day (M.Dickens). Both words denote being apart from others, but lonely besides the general meaning implies longing for company, feeling sad because of the lack of sympathy and companionship. Alone does not necessarily suggest any sadness at being by oneself.
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  If the difference in the meaning of synonyms concerns the notion or the emotion expressed, as was the case in the groups discussed above, the synonyms are classed as ideоgraphiс synonyms,1 and the opposition created in contrasting them may be called an ideographic opposition. The opposition is formulated with the help of a clear definitive statement of the semantic component present in all the members of the group. The analysis proceeds as a definition by comparison with the standard that is thus settled. The establishment of differential features proves very helpful, whereas sliding from one synonym to another with no definite points of departure created a haphazard approach with no chance of tracing the system.
  "The Anglo-Russian Dictionary of Synonyms" edited by J.D. Apresyan analyses semantic, stylistic, grammatical and distributional characteristics of the most important synonymic groups with great skill and thoroughness and furnishes an impressive array of well-chosen examples. The distinctive features evolved in describing the points of similarity and difference within groups deserves special attention. In analysing the group consisting of the nouns look, glance, glimpse, peep, sight and view the authors suggest the following distinctive features: 1) quickness of the action, 2) its character, 3) the role of the doer of the action, 4) the properties and role of the object. The words look, glance, glimpse and peep denote a conscious and direct endeavour to see, the word glance being the most general. The difference is based on time and quickness of the action. A glance is 'a look which is quick and sudden'. A glimpse is quicker still, implying only momentary sight. A peep is 'a brief furtive glimpse at something that is hidden'. The words sight and view, unlike the other members of the group, can describe not only the situation from the point of one who sees something, but also situations in which it is the object - that what is seen, that is most important, e. g. a fine view over the lake. It is also mentioned that sight and view may be used only in singular. What is also important about synonyms is that they differ in their use of prepositions and in other combining possibilities. One can, for instance, use at before glance and glimpse (at a glance, at a glimpse) but not before look.
  In a stylistic opposition of synonyms the basis of comparison is again the denotational meaning, and the distinctive feature is the presence or absence of a stylistic colouring which may also be accompanied by a difference in emotional colouring.
  It has become quite a tradition with linguists when discussing synonyms to quote a passage from "As You Like It" (Act V, Scene I) to illustrate the social differentiation of vocabulary and the stylistic relationship existing in the English language between simple, mostly native, words and their dignified and elaborate synonyms borrowed from the French. We shall keep to this time-honoured convention. Speaking to a country fellow William, the jester Touchstone says: Therefore, you
  1 The term has been introduced by V.V. Vinogradov.
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 clown, abandon, - which is in the vulgar leave, - the society, - which in the boorish is company, - of this female, - which in the common is woman; which together is abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishest; or to thy better understanding diest; or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death.
  The general effect of poetic or learned synonyms when used in prose or in everyday speech is that of creating an elevated tone. The point may be proved by the very first example in this paragraph (see p. 194) where the poetic and archaic verb slay is substituted for the neutral kill. We must be on our guard too against the idea that the stylistic effect may exist without influencing the meaning; in fact it never does. The verb slay not only lends to the whole poetical and solemn ring, it also shows the writer's and his hero's attitude to the fact, their horror and repugnance of war and their feeling for the victims.
  The study of synonyms is a borderline province between semantics and stylistics on the one hand and semantics and phraseology on the other because of the synonymic collocations serving as a means of emphasis.
  Synonymic pairs like wear and tear, pick and choose are very numerous in modern English phraseology and often used both in everyday speech and in literature. They show all the typical features of idiomatic phrases that ensure their memorableness such as rhythm, alliteration, rhyme and the use of archaic words seldom occurring elsewhere.
  The examples are numerous: hale and hearty, with might and main, nevertheless and notwithstanding, stress and strain, rack and ruin, really and truly, hue and cry, wane and pale, act and deed. There are many others which show neither rhyme nor alliteration, and consist of two words equally modern. They are pleonastic, i.e. they emphasise the idea by just stating it twice, and possess a certain rhythmical quality which probably enhances their unity and makes them easily remembered. These are: by leaps and bounds, pure and simple, stuff and nonsense, bright and shining, far and away, proud and haughty and many more.
  In a great number of cases the semantic difference between two or more synonyms is supported by the difference in valency. The difference in distribution may be syntactical, morphological, lexical, and surely deserves more attention than has been so far given to it. It is, for instance, known that bare in reference to persons is used only predicatively, while naked occurs both predicatively and attributively. The same is true about alone, which, irrespectively of referent, is used only predicatively, whereas its synonyms solitary and lonely occur in both functions. The function is predicative in the following sentence: If you are idle, be not solitary, if you are solitary, be not idle (S. Johnson). It has been repeatedly mentioned that begin and commence differ stylistically. It must be noted, however, that their distributional difference is not less important. Begin is generalised in its lexical meaning and becomes a semi-auxiliary when used with an infinitive. E. g.: It has begun to be done - it has been begun. If follows naturally that begin and not commence is the right word before an infinitive even in formal style. Seem and appear may be followed by an infinitive or
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 a that-clause, a hill of a hundred metres is not high. The same relativity is characteristic of its antonym low. As to the word tall, it is used about objects whose height is greatly in excess of their breadth or diameter and whose actual height is great for an object of its kind: a tall man, a tall tree. The antonym is short.
  The area where substitution is possible is very limited and outside it all replacement makes the utterance vague, ungrammatical and even unintelligible. This makes the knowledge of where each synonym differs from another of paramount importance for correctness of speech.
  The distinction between words similar in meaning are often very fine and elusive, so that some special instruction on the use of synonyms is necessary even for native speakers. This accounts for the great number of books of synonyms that serve as guides for those who aim at good style and precision and wish to choose the most appropriate terms from the varied stock of the English vocabulary. The practical utility of such reference works as "Roget's International Thesaurus" depends upon a prior knowledge of the language on the part of the person using them. N.A. Shechtman has discussed this problem on several occasions. (See Recommended Reading.)
  The study of synonyms is especially indispensable for those who learn English as a foreign language because what is the right word in one situation will be wrong in many other, apparently similar, contexts.
  It is often convenient to explain the meaning of a new word with the help of its previously learned synonyms. This forms additional associations in the student's mind, and the new word is better remembered. Moreover, it eliminates the necessity of bringing in a native word. And yet the discrimination of synonyms and words which may be confused is more important. The teacher must show that synonyms are not identical in meaning or use and explain the difference between them by comparing and contrasting them, as well as by showing in what contexts one or the other may be most fitly used.
  Translation cannot serve as a criterion of synonymy: there are cases when several English words of different distribution and valency are translated into Russian by one and the same word. Such words as also, too and as well, all translated by the Russian word тоже, are never interchangeable. A teacher of English should always stress the necessity of being on one's guard against mistakes of this kind.
  Contextual or context-dependent synonyms are similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions. It may happen that the difference between the meanings of two words is contextually neutralised. E. g. buy and get would not generally be taken as synonymous, but they are synonyms in the following examples offered by J. Lyons: I'll go to the shop and buy some bread : : I'll go to the shop and get some bread. The verbs bear, suffer and stand are semantically different and not interchangeable except when used in the negative form; can't stand is equal to can't bear in the following words of an officer: Gas. I've swallowed too much of the beastly stuff. I can't stand it any longer. I'm going to the dressing-station (Aldington).
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  There are some other distinctions to be made with respect to different kinds of semantic similarity. Some authors, for instance, class groups like ask : : beg : : implore; like : : love : : adore or gift : : talent : : genius as synonymous, calling them relative synonyms. This attitude is open to discussion. In fact the difference in denotative meaning is unmistakable: the words name different notions, not various degrees of the same notion, and cannot substitute one another. An entirely different type of opposition is involved. Formerly we had oppositions based on the relationships between the members of the opposition, here we deal with proportional oppositions characterised by their relationship with the whole vocabulary system and based on a different degree of intensity of the relevant distinctive features. We shall not call such words synonymous, as they do not fit the definition of synonyms given in the beginning of the chapter.
  Total synonymy, i.e. synonymy where the members of a synonymic group can replace each other in any given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative or emotional meaning and connotations, is a rare occurrence. Examples of this type can be found in special literature among technical terms peculiar to this or that branch of knowledge. Thus, in linguistics the terms noun and substantive; functional affix, flection and inflection are identical in meaning. What is not generally realised, however, is that terms are a peculiar type of words totally devoid of connotations or emotional colouring, and that their stylistic characterisation does not vary. That is why this is a very special kind of synonymy: neither ideographic nor stylistic oppositions are possible here. As to the distributional opposition, it is less marked, because the great majority of terms are nouns. Their interchangeability is also in a way deceptive. Every writer has to make up his mind right from the start as to which of the possible synonyms he prefers, and stick to it throughout his text to avoid ambiguity. Thus, the interchangeability is, as it were, theoretical and cannot be materialised in an actual text.
  The same misunderstood conception of interchangeability lies at the bottom of considering different dialect names for the same plant, animal or agricultural implement and the like as total (absolute) synonyms. Thus, a perennial plant with long clusters of dotted whitish or purple tubular flowers that the botanists refer to as genus Digitalis has several dialectal names such as foxglove, fairybell, fingerflower, finger-root, dead men's bells, ladies' fingers. But the names are not interchangeable in any particular speaker's ideolect.1 The same is true about the cornflower (Centaurea cyanus), so called because it grows in cornfields; some people call it bluebottle according to the shape and colour of its petals. Compare also gorse, furze and whim, different names used in different places for the same prickly yellow-flowered shrub.
 § 10.6 SOURCES OF SYNONYMY
 The distinction between synchronic and diachronic treatment is so fundamental that it cannot be overemphasised, but the two aspects
 1 Ideolect - language as spoken by one individual.
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 are interdependent. It is therefore essential after the descriptive analysis of synonymy in present-day English to take up the historical line of approach and discuss the origin of synonyms and the causes of their abundance in English.
  The majority of those who studied synonymy in the past have been cultivating both lines of approach without keeping them scrupulously apart, and focused their attention on the prominent part of foreign loan words in English synonymy, e. g. freedom : : liberty or heaven : : sky, where the first elements are native and the second, French and Scandinavian respectively. O. Jespersen and many others used to stress that the English language is peculiarly rich in synonyms, because Britons, Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans fighting and settling upon the soil of the British Isles could not but influence each other's speech. British scholars studied Greek and Latin and for centuries used Latin as a medium for communication on scholarly topics.
  Synonymy has its characteristic patterns in each language. Its peculiar feature in English is the contrast between simple native words stylistically neutral, literary words borrowed from French and learned words of Greco-Latin origin. This results in a sort of stylistically conditioned triple "keyboard" that can be illustrated by the following:
 
 Native English
 words Words borrowed
 from French Words borrowed
 from Latin to ask to question to interrogate belly stomach abdomen to gather to assemble to collect empty devoid vacuous to end to finish to complete to rise to mount to ascend teaching guidance instruction English also uses many pairs of synonymous derivatives, the one Hellenic and the other Romance, e. g. periphery : : circumference; hypothesis : : supposition; sympathy : : compassion; synthesis : : composition.
  The pattern of stylistic relationship represented in the above table, although typical, is by no means universal. For example, the native words dale, deed, fair are the poetic equivalents of their much more frequent borrowed synonyms valley, act or the hybrid beautiful.
  This subject of stylistic differentiation has been one of much controversy in recent years. It is universally accepted, however, that semantic and stylistic properties may change and synonyms which at one time formed a stylistic opposition only may in the course of time become ideographically cognitively contrasted as well, and vice versa.
  It would be linguistically naive to maintain that borrowing results only in quantitative changes or that qualitative changes are purely stylistical. The introduction of a borrowed word almost invariably starts some alteration both in the newcomer and in the semantic structure of existing words that are close to it in meaning. When in the 13th century the word soil (OFr soil,
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 soyil) was borrowed into English its meaning was 'a strip of land'. The upper layer of earth in which plants grow had been denoted since Old English by one of the synonyms: eor?e, land, folde. The development of the group has been studied by A.A. Ufimtseva. All these words had other central meanings so that the meaning in question was with them secondary. Now, if two words coincide in meaning and use, the tendency is for one of them to drop out of the language. Folde had the same function and meaning as eor?e and in the fight for survival the latter won. The polysemantic word land underwent an intense semantic development in a different direction but dropped out of this synonymic series. In this way it became quite natural for soil to fill the obvious lexical gap, receive its present meaning and become the main name for the corresponding notion, i.e. 'the mould in which plants grow'. The noun earth retained this meaning throughout its history, whereas the word ground in which this meaning was formerly absent developed it. As a result this synonymic group comprises at present soil, earth and ground.
  The fate of the word folde is not at all infrequent. Many other words now marked in the dictionaries as "archaic" or "obsolete" have dropped out in the same competition of synonyms; others survived with a meaning more or less removed from the original one. The process is called synonymic differentiation and is so current that M. Breal regarded it as an inherent law of language development. It must be noted that synonyms may influence each other semantically in two diametrically opposite ways: one of them is dissimilation, the other the reverse process, i.e. assimi1atiоn. The assimilation of synonyms consists in parallel development. This law was discovered and described by G. Stern. H.A. Trebe and G.H. Vallins give as examples the pejorative meanings acquired by the nouns wench, knave and churl which originally meant 'girl', 'boy' and 'labourer' respectively, and point out that this loss of old dignity became linguistically possible, because there were so many synonymous terms at hand.
  The important thing to remember is that it is not only borrowings from foreign languages but other sources as well that have made increasing contributions to the stock of English synonyms. There are, for instance, words that come from dialects, and, in the last hundred years, from American English in particular. As a result speakers of British English may make use of both elements of the following pairs, the first element in each pair coming from the USA: gimmick : : trick; dues : : subscription; long distance (telephone) call : : trunk call; radio : : wireless. There are also synonyms that originate in numerous dialects as, for instance, clover : : shamrock; liquor : : whiskey (from Irish); girl : : lass, lassie or charm : : glamour (from Scottish).
  The role of borrowings should not be overestimated. Synonyms are also created by means of all word-forming processes productive in the language at a given time of its history. The words already existing in the language develop new meanings. New words may be formed by affixation or loss of affixes, by conversion, compounding, shortening and so on, and being coined, form synonyms to those already in use.
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  Of special importance for those who are interested in the present-day trends and characteristic peculiarities of the English vocabulary are the synonymic oppositions due to shift of meaning, new combinations of verbs with postpositives and compound nouns formed from them, shortenings, set expressions and conversion.
  Phrasal verbs consisting of a verb with a postpositive are widely used in present-day English and may be called one of its characteristic features. (See p. 120 ff.) Many verbal synonymic groups contain such combinations as one of their elements. A few examples will illustrate this statement: choose : : pick out; abandon : : give up; continue : : go on; enter : : come in; lift : : pick up; postpone : : put off; quarrel : : fall out; return : : bring back. E.g.: By the way, Toby has quite given up the idea of doing those animal cartoons (Plomer).
  The vitality of these expressions is proved by the fact that they really supply material for further word-formation. Very many compound nouns denoting abstract notions, persons and events are correlated with them, also giving ways of expressing notions hitherto named by somewhat lengthy borrowed terms. There are, for instance, such synonymic pairs as arrangement : : layout; conscription : : call-up; precipitation : : fall-out; regeneration : : feedback; reproduction : : playback; resistance : : fight-back; treachery : : sell-out.
  An even more frequent type of new formations is that in which a noun with a verbal stem is combined with a verb of generic meaning (have, give, take, get, make) into a set expression which differs from the simple verb in aspect or emphasis: laugh : : give a laugh; sigh : : give a sigh; walk : : take a walk; smoke : : have a smoke; love : : fall in love (see p. 164). E. g.: Now we can all have a good read with our coffee (Simpson).
  N.N. Amosova stresses the patterned character of the phrases in question, the regularity of connection between the structure of the phrase and the resulting semantic effect. She also points out that there may be cases when phrases of this pattern have undergone a shift of meaning and turned into phraseological units quite different in meaning from and not synonymical with the verbs of the same root. This is the case with give a lift, give somebody quite a turn, etc.
  Quite frequently synonyms, mostly stylistic, but sometimes ideographic as well, are due to shortening, e. g. memorandum : : memo; vegetables : : vegs; margarine : : marge; microphone : : mike; popular (song) : : pop (song).
  One should not overlook the fact that conversion may also be a source of synonymy; it accounts for such pairs as commandment : : command] laughter : : laugh. The problem in this connection is whether such cases should be regarded as synonyms or as lexical variants of one and the same word. It seems more logical to consider them as lexical variants. Compare also cases of different affixation: anxiety : : anxious- ness; effectivity : : effectiveness, and loss of affixes: amongst : : among or await : : wait.
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 § 10.7 EUPHEMISMS
  A source of synonymy also well worthy of note is the so-called euphemism in which by a shift of meaning a word of more or less 'pleasant or at least inoffensive connotation becomes synonymous to one that is harsh, obscene, indelicate or otherwise unpleasant.1 The euphemistic expression merry fully coincides in denotation with the word drunk it substitutes, but the connotations of the latter fade out and so the utterance on the whole is milder, less offensive. The effect is achieved, because the periphrastic expression is not so harsh, sometimes jocular and usually motivated according to some secondary feature of the notion: naked : : in one's birthday suit] pregnant : : in the family way. Very often a learned word which sounds less familiar is therefore less offensive, as in drunkenness : : intoxication; sweat : : perspiration.
  Euphemisms can also be treated within the synchronic approach, because both expressions, the euphemistic and the direct one, co-exist in the language and form a synonymic opposition. Not only English but other modern languages as well have a definite set of notions attracting euphemistic circumlocutions. These are notions of death, madness, stupidity, drunkenness, certain physiological processes, crimes and so on. For example: die : : be no more : : be gone : : lose one's life : : breathe one's last : : join the silent majority : : go the way of alt flesh : : pass away : : be gathered to one's fathers.
  A prominent source of synonymic attraction is still furnished by interjections and swearing addressed to God. To make use of God's name is considered sinful by the Church and yet the word, being expressive, formed the basis of many interjections. Later the word God was substituted by the phonetically similar word goodness: For goodness sake\ Goodness gracious] Goodness knows! Cf. By Jovel Good Lord! By Gum! As in:
 His father made a fearful row.
 He said: "By Gum, you've done it now." (Belloc)
  A certain similarity can be observed in the many names for the devil (deuce, Old Nick). The point may be illustrated by an example from Burns's "Address to the Devil":
 О thou! Whatever title suit thee,
 Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie ...
  Euphemisms always tend to be a source of new synonymic formations, because after a short period of use the new term becomes so closely connected with the notion that it turns into a word as obnoxious as the earlier synonym.
 § 10.8 LEXICAL VARIANTS AND PARONYMS
  There are many cases of similarity between words easily confused with synonymy but in fact essentially different from it.
 1 For a diachronic analysis of this phenomenon see p.p. 73 ff.
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  Lexical variants, for instance, are examples of free variation in language, in so far as they are not conditioned by contextual environment but are optional with the individual speaker. E. g. northward / norward; whoever / whosoever. The variation can concern morphological or phonological features or it may be limited to spelling. Compare weazen/weazened 'shrivelled and dried in appearance', an adjective used about a person's face and looks; directly which may be pronounced [di'rektli] or [dai'rektli] and whisky with its spelling variant whiskey. Lexical variants are different from synonyms, because they are characterised by similarity in phonetical or spelling form and identity of both meaning and distribution.
  The cases of identity of stems, a similarity of form, and meaning combined with a difference in distribution should be classed as synonyms and not as lexical variants. They are discussed in many books dedicated to correct English usage. These are words belonging to the same part of speech, containing identical stems and synonymical affixes, and yet not permitting free variation, not optional. They seem to provoke mistakes even with native speakers. A few examples will suffice to illustrate the point. The adjectives luxurious and luxuriant are synonymous when meaning 'characterised by luxury'. Otherwise, luxuriant is restricted to the expression of abundance (used about hair, leaves, flowers). Luxurious is the adjective expressing human luxury and indulgence (used about tastes, habits, food, mansions). Economic and economical are interchangeable under certain conditions, more often, however, economic is a technical term associated with economics (an economic agreement). The second word, i.e. economical, is an everyday word associated with economy; e. g. economical stove, economical method, be economical of one's money.
  Synonyms of this type should not be confused with paronyms, i.e. words that are kindred in origin, sound form and meaning and therefore liable to be mixed but in fact different in meaning and usage and therefore only mistakenly interchanged.
  The term paronym comes from the Greek para 'beside' and onoma 'name', it enters the lexicological terminology very conveniently alongside such terms as synonyms, antonyms, homonyms and allonyms.1
  Different authors suggest various definitions. Some define paronyms as words of the same root, others as words having the same sound form, thus equalising them with word-families or homonyms. Any definition, however, is valuable only insofar as it serves to reflect the particular conception or theory of the subject one studies and proves useful for the practical aims of its study. As the present book is intended for the future teachers of English, it is vital to pay attention to grouping of words according to the difficulties they might present to the student. That is why we take the definition given above stressing not only the phonetic and semantic similarity but also the possible mistakes in the use
  1 Allоnуm is a term offered by N.A. Shechtman denoting contextual pairs semantically coordinated like slow and careful, quick and impatient.
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 of these "hard words". This is the case with the adjectives ingenious and ingenuous. The first of these means 'clever' and may be used both of man and of his inventions and doings, e. g. an ingenious craftsman, an ingenious device. Ingenuous means 'frank', 'artless', as an ingenuous smile.
  The likeness may be accidental as in the verbs affect and effect. The first means 'influence', the second - 'to produce'. These come from different Latin verbs. The similarity may be also due to a common source. It is etymologically justified in alternate 'succeeding each other' and alternative 'providing a choice', or consequent 'resulting' and consequential 'important', or continuance 'an uninterrupted succession' and continuation which has two distinct meanings 'beginning again' and 'sequel' as the continuation of a novel.
 § 10.9 ANTONYMS AND CONVERSIVES
  Antonyms may be defined as two or more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech and to the same semantic field, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and often used together so that their denotative meanings render contradictory or contrary notions.
  Contradictory notions are mutually opposed and denying one another, e. g. alive means 'not dead' and impatient means 'not patient'. Contrary notions are also mutually opposed but they are gradable, e. g. old and young are the most distant elements of a series like: old : : middle-aged : : young, while hot and cold form a series with the intermediate cool and warm, which, as F.R. Palmer points out, form a pair of antonyms themselves. The distinction between the two types is not absolute, as one can say that one is more dead than alive, and thus make these adjectives gradable.
  Another classification of antonyms is based on a morphological approach: root words form absolute antonyms (right : : wrong), the presence of negative affixes creates derivational antonyms (happy : : unhappy).
  The juxtaposition of antonyms in a literary text emphasises some contrast and creates emotional tension as in the following lines from "Romeo and Juliet" (Act I, Scene V):
 My only love sprang from my only hate\ Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
  One of the features enhancing the pathetic expressiveness of these lines is contrast based on such pairs as love : : hate; early : : late; unknown : : known. The opposition is obvious: each component of these pairs means the opposite of the other. The pairs may be termed antonymic pairs.
  Antonyms have traditionally been defined as words of opposite meaning. This definition, however, is not sufficiently accurate, as it only shifts the problem to the question of what words may be regarded as words of opposite meaning, so we shall keep to the definition given at the beginning of the present paragraph.
 14 И. В. Арнольд 209
 
  The important question of criteria received a new and rigorously linguistic treatment in V.N. Komissarov's work. Keeping to the time-honoured classification of antonyms into absolute or root antonyms (love : : hate) and derivational antonyms, V.N. Komissarov breaks new ground by his contextual treatment of the problem. Two words, according to him, shall be considered antonymous if they are regularly contrasted in actual speech, that is if the contrast in their meanings is proved by definite types of contextual co-occurrence.
  Absolute antonyms, then, are words regularly contrasted as homogenous sentence members connected by copulative, disjunctive or adversative conjunctions, or identically used in parallel constructions, in certain typical contexts.
  In the examples given below we shall denote the first of the antonyms - A, the second - B, and the words they serve to qualify - X and Y, respectively.
  1. If you've obeyed all the rules good and bad, and you still come out at the dirty end ... then I say the rules are no good (M. Wilson).
 
 The formula is:
 
 A and (or) В = all
 
 
 not A but (on the contrary) В
 2. He was alive, not dead (Shaw). The formula is:
 
 3. You will see if you were right or wrong (Cronin).
 
 The formula is:
 
 A or В
 
 4. The whole was big, oneself was little (Galsworthy). The formula is: X is A, and Y, on the contrary, В
  A regular and frequent co-occurrence in such contexts is the most important characteristic feature of antonyms. Another important criterion suggested by V.N. Komissarov is the possibility of substitution and identical lexical valency. This possibility of identical contexts is very clearly seen in the following lines:
 There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, That it hardly becomes any of us To talk about the rest of us (Hock).
  Members of the same antonymic pair reveal nearly identical spheres of collocation. For example the adjective hot in its figurative meaning of 'angry' and 'excited' is chiefly combined with names of
 210
 
 unpleasant emotions: anger, resentment, scorn, etc. Its antonym cold occurs with the same words.
  The diagnostic force of valency is weaker than that of regular cooccurrence.
  Unlike synonyms, antonyms do not differ either in style, emotional colouring or distribution. They are interchangeable at least in some contexts. The result of this interchange may be of different kind depending on the conditions of context. There will be, for instance, no change of meaning if ill and well change places within the sentence in the following: But whether he treated it ill or well, it loved nothing so much as to be near him (Wells). Or a whole sentence receives an opposite meaning when a word is replaced by its antonym, although it differs from its prototype in this one word only: You may feel he is clever : : You may feel he is foolish.
  As antonyms do not differ stylistically, an antonymic substitution never results in a change of stylistic colouring.
  The possibility of substitution and identical valency show that semantic polarity is a very special kind of difference implying a great deal of sameness.
  In dealing with antonymic oppositions it may be helpful to treat antonyms in terms of "marked" and "unmarked" members. The unmarked member can be more widely used and very often can include the referents of the marked member but not vice versa. This proves that their meanings have some components in common. In the antonymic pair old : : young the unmarked member is old. It is possible to ask: How old is the girl? without implying that she is no longer young. W.C. Chafe says that we normally talk about a continuum of wideness as width and not about a continuum of narrowness. Thus, the usual question is: How wide is if? and not How narrow is it? which proves the unmarked vs marked character of wide vs narrow. In the antonymic opposition love : : hate, there is no unmarked element.
  Some authors, J.Lyons among them, suggest a different terminology. They distinguish antonyms proper and complementary antonyms. The chief characteristic feature of antonyms proper is that they are regularly gradable. Antonyms proper, therefore, represent contrary notions. Grading is based on the operation of comparison. One can compare the intensity of feeling as in love - attachment - liking - indifference - antipathy - hate. Whenever a sentence contains an antonym or an antonymic pair, it implicitly or explicitly contains comparison.
  The important point to notice is this - the denial of the one member of antonymic opposition does not always imply the assertion of the other - take, for instance W.H. Auden's line: All human hearts have ugly little treasures. If we say that our hearts' treasures are neither ugly nor little, it does not imply that they are beautiful or great.
  It is interesting to note that such words as young : : old; big : : small; good : : bad do not refer to independent absolute qualities but to some-implicit norm, they are relative. Consider the following portrait of an elephant:
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 The Elephant
 When people call this beast to mind, They marvel more and more
 At such a little tail behind
 So large a trunk before.
  The tail of an elephant is little only in comparison with his trunk and the rest of his body. For a mouse it would have been quite big. J. Lyons discusses an interesting example of antonyms also dealing with elephants: A small elephant is a large animal. The implicit size-norm for elephants is not the same as that for all animals in general: the elephant which is small in comparison with other elephants may be big in comparison with animals as a class.
  This example may also serve to show the difference and parallelism between antonymy proper and complementarity (expressing contradictory notions).

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