Ministry of the higher and secondary special education of the republic of uzbekistan state world languages university

 

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63 
 
 
Chapter III: Semantic and pragmatic analysis of SMART 
synonymic sets in English and Uzbek
 
3.1. Various approaches to semantic groupings in the vocabulary 
The first step to approach the analysis of the synonymic set is to have a 
clear idea of the core meaning of the headword, which is being chosen as the 
dominant word, or the identifier of the word chain. As has been mentioned 
before, in a synonymic group we can see “synonymic dominant”, the most 
general, neutral word, whose denotative meaning serves as an umbrella for the 
other words in the set. Denotation of a lexeme is a relation that holds between 
the given lexeme and classes of entities in the external world.
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Going back to the cognitive interpretation of synonyms, we keep in mind 
that words of the same denotation are synonyms. However the in each 
particular contexts in their dialects they have different connotations: the pail 
can be made of wood or of metal, but not of plastic. So, in core meaning they 
they are the same, but in non-core different, as they belong to two different 
frames or domains of experience.
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A lexeme outside the context has sense and 
denotation but when it is used in the context reference arises. It is the relation 
between the lexeme used in the context and the exact entity which is being 
talked about, called the referent.
One more remark is to be made though, before we start our investigation 
into the depth of the semantic magic of this highly fashionable word.
The question really is whether we compare the lexical entries for a 
lexeme or a unit smaller than the lexeme. This is closely related to the 
problems of the definition of 
lexeme
and the tricky business of distinguishing 
65
Lyons J. Lyons, J. Linguistic Semantics, CUP, Cambridge. 1996.-- p. 79. 
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Evans V. and Green M. Cognitive Linguistics: An Introductio. Edinburgh Univ Press, 2006.- p. 210-211 

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between synonymy, polysemy and homonymy.
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At this point we just remind 
of the distinction first made in Cruse, namely that between a 
lexeme
and a 
lexical unit.
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Cruse defines the 
lexical unit
as "the union of a lexical form and 
a single sense" and the 
lexeme
as "a family of lexical units". For him, the 
lexeme
is the appropriate unit for the lexicographer, since dictionaries contain 
an alphabetical list of the lexemes of a language. He defines 
sense
as "the 
meaning aspect of a lexical unit".
Cruse rightly claims that "semantic relations" (i.e. the 
sense-relations
in 
the terminology of Lyons), "hold between lexical units", not between lexemes. 
I will follow this terminological usage, namely the distinction between 
lexeme 
and lexical unit,
in the remainder of my book.It has to be noted here that the 
introduction of the concept 
lexical unit 
(although within the restricted technical 
language of linguistics) is itself an illustration of the concept-forming power of 
the word. Many linguists (e.g. Hansen et al. 
2
1985, Glaser 1986, Schneider 
1988) make a clear distinction between the