Литература по учебной дисциплине «Практика устной и письменной речи»

3.1. Synonyms
Synonyms are two or more words of the same language usually belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or similar denotative meanings, interchangeable at least in some contexts, but differing in morphemic structure, phonetic shape, shades of meaning, connotations, style, or idiomatic use. Generally speaking, synonymous words and expressions are semantically similar but stylistically different lexical units.
According to the parts of speech, there can be distinguished:
– synonymous nouns as end, close, termination, conclusion, finish, terminus, stopping, etc.;
– synonymous adjectives as conclusive, ending, final, terminal, completing, ultimate, etc.;
– synonymous verbs as the following: act, play, perform, rehearse, star, mimic, imitate, enact, play a part, etc.;
– synonymous adverbs: surprisingly, unexpectedly, unawares, plump, pop, suddenly, etc.
As any linguistic phenomenon, synonymy can be viewed both from synchronic and diachronic points of view.
Synchronically, we classify synonyms into the following groups.
(1) Ideographic synonyms differ in the denotative component of meaning; they denote different shades of meaning or different degrees of a given quality. E.g., look –seem –appear; beautiful –fine –handsome –pretty. Synonymic groups have a common semantic element and express one notion with different semantic shades or stylistic value. Each synonymic group comprises a synonymic dominant which is the general term potentially containing the specific features of all other members of this group (in the above given examples, the dominants are look and beautiful). The dominant is generally both stylistically and emotionally neutral.
Such synonyms are also called semantic: e.g., glance – glare.
There are synonyms where one expresses continuity of action or state while the other expresses a momentary action of the same nature: e.g., to speak – to say; to remember – to memorize.