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

Summary of Chapter One
A great number of scientific articles and research works were 
dedicated to the issues of synonymy which deal with various aspects of this 
phenomenon and yet there is no work which can present a more or less 
comprehensive and generally acceptable interpretation of the specific common 
and opposing features of this phenomenon, which in its turn accounts for the 
topicality of the present research. As has been stated above, the is s ues o f the
s yno nymic fie lds and distinction between t he m have bee n s tud ied in 
a number o f res earches
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but s till re pres ent ver y much an unsolved 
question, as the scientific discussion in the theoretical literature focuses 
mostly on clear-cut examples and avoids the broader issue.
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The main aim of the present research is to investigate into the origin of 
synonymy as a language phenomena and into the peculiarities of its correlation 
with similar words in other languages.
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Carnap 1956. – p. 59 ) 
40
See the bibliography
41
Utt J. , Pado S. Ontology-based distinction between polysemy and homonymy, at website 
: 
http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W11-0128

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Our aim was to answer a number of questions, including what rules 
govern appearance of synonyms and their development and vocabulary 
enlargement, on which language levels, as well as in what areas. 
In this chapter we could present general view on synonymy and 
synonyms, define the content of the term 
“synonymy” 
and outline the 
distinctive features of this notion and give a brief survey of the theoretical 
foundations for comparative interpretations of this notion in linguistics.
The concept of synonymy is inherent in languages. Given the complexity 
of meaning, a person searching for an alternative word must be sure that the 
synonym chosen is accurate and precise. 
In its strict sense, a 
synonym
is a word with a meaning identical or very 
similar to that of another word. In fact, it is often said that there is no such thing 
as an absolute synonym for any word, that is, a form that is identical in every 
aspect of meaning so that the two can be applied interchangeably. According to 
this extreme view, the only true synonyms are terms having precisely the 
same 
denotation, connotation, and range of applicability
.
 
As it turns out, these so-called true synonyms are frequently technical 
terms and almost always concrete words coming from linguistically disparate 
sources. Good examples of such pairs are 
celiac
(from Greek) and 
abdominal
(from Latin); and 
car
(from Latin) and 
automobile
(from French). These meet 
the criteria for true synonymy: they have precisely the same denotations, 
connotations, and range of applicability, and they are used in identical contexts. 
Synonyms can be nouns, adverbs or adjectives, as long as both members 
of the pair are of the same part of speech. Traditionally, synonymy can only hold 
between words, and, more precisely, between words belonging to the same part 
of speech; for example: ‘enormous’ = ‘huge’; ‘gaze’ = ‘stare’. This is the classic 
form of synonymy, covered by, for instance, synonym dictionaries. 

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