Seminar 4: Synonymy, antonymy. homonymy
Learn the basic definitions and principal concepts for the dictation or oral questioning
Synonyms - are two or more words of the same meaning, belonging to the same part of speech, possessing one or more identical meaning, interchangeable at least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning, but differing in morphemic composition, phonemic shape, shades of meaning, connotation, affective value, style, emotional coloring and valence peculiar to one of the elements in a synonymic group.
Ideographic synonyms – synonyms which differ in denotative components.
Stylistic synonyms - words that are similar in their denotative meaning but different in their connotations or (and) stylistic sphere of application.
Absolute synonyms – words coinciding in all their shades of meaning and stylistic characteristics.
The synonymic dominant expresses notion common to all synonyms of the group in the most general way without contributing any additional information to the manner or intensity of the referent.
Antonyms are two or more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech and to the semantic field identical in style and nearly identical in distribution associated and used together so that their denotative meaning renders opposite notions.
Contradictory antonyms express mutually opposed and denying one another notions.
Contrary antonyms are so opposed to each other that the language admits possibilities between and beyond them. The denial of one member of the contrary opposition does not necessarily imply the assertion of the other.
Contextual antonyms become opposite only in certain distribution.
Homonyms are the words, different in meaning and either identical both in sound and spelling or identical only in spelling or sound.
Homographs – words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling.
Homophones - words identical in sound but different in spelling and meaning.
Full homonyms – words that are homonyms in all their forms.
Be ready to answer the following questions:
- Synonymy:
1) How are synonyms traditionally defined?
2) What is the most comprehensive and full definition of synonymy? What drawback does it have?
3) What are the main sources of synonymy in English?
4) What is V.V. Vinogradov’s classification system for synonyms?
5) What is classification system for synonyms suggested by G.B. Antrushina?
6) What synonyms re called contextual?
7) What are the main characteristics of a synonymic dominant?
- Antonymy :
1) How are antonyms traditionally defined? Why is the traditional definition open to criticism?
2) What is V.N.Comissarov’s treatment of the problem?
3) How are antonyms classified according to the type of notion they express?
4) What is John Lyons’s classification of antonyms?
5) What’s the difference between antonyms proper and contextual antonyms?
- Homonymy:
1) What words are called “homonyms”?
2) What are the sources of homonyms?
3) What is the most widely accepted classification of homonyms?
4) What is A.I. Smirnitsky’s classification of homonyms?
Tasks and exercises
1. The sentences given below contain synonyms. Find them and explain the difference .
1. a) While Kitty chatted gaily with her neighbours she watched Walter. b) Ashenden knew that R. had not
sent for him to talk about weather and crops. c) As he spoke he rose from the bed. d) He is said to be honest. e) He'll tell you all about himself. f) If you wish to converse with me define your terms.
2. a) She felt on a sudden a cold chill pass through her limbs and she shivered. b) Her lips trembled so that she could hardly frame the words. c) I was shaking like a leaf when I came here. d) He shuddered with disgust.
3. a) He gave his wrist-watch a glance. b) Tommy gave her a look out of the corner of his eye. c) But her abstract gaze scarcely noticed the blue sea and the crowded shipping in the harbor. d) Let me have just one peep at the letter.
4. a) Bessie gets up and walks towards the window. b) He did nothing from morning till night but wander at random. c) I saw a man strolling along. d) The men sauntered over to the next room.
5. a) I began to meditate upon writer's life. b) You had better reflect a little. c) The more he thought of it the less he liked the idea. d) I'm sure that a little walk will keep you from breeding.
6. a) The next witness was Dr. Burnett, a thin middle-aged man. b) The woman was tall with reddish curly hair and held a scarlet kimono round her slender figure. c) The girl was slim and dark. d) Studying him, Mrs. Page saw a spare young man with high cheekbones and blue eyes.
7. a) There was a fat woman, who gasped when she talked. b) She came in like a ship at full sail, an imposing creature, tall and stout. c) She was twenty-seven perhaps plump, and in a coarse fashion pretty. d) He was a person of perhaps forty, red-faced, cheerful, and thick.
2. Find the synonymic dominant in the following groups of words:
1) exact, precise, accurate
2) savage, uncivilized, barbarous
3) agree, approve, consent
4) cry, weep, scream, shriek
5) lazy, indolent, idle, vain
6) clever, able, intelligent, keen, sharp
7) ignorant, illiterate, uneducated, misinformed
8) agile, nimble, alert, quick, brisk, active
3. Find antonyms for the words given below.
Good, adj.;
deep, adj.;
narrow, adj.;
clever, adj.;
young, adj.;
to love» v.;
to reject, v.;
to give, v.;
strong, adj.;
to laugh, v.;
joy, n.;
evil, п .;
up, adv.,
slowly, adj.;
black, adj.;
sad, adj.;
to die,v.;
to open, v.;
clean, adj.;
darkness, n.;
big, adj.
- Identify the following words as a) antonyms proper, b) complementary antonyms, c) conversives, d) reversives:
1) Children begin by loving their parents. After a time the judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. (O. Wilde) 2) It is a woman’s business to get married as soon as possible, and a man? To keep unmarried as long as he can. (G.B. Shaw) 3) If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue; Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much… (R. Kipling) 4) Diana: “Is the man your sister’s going to marry rich?” Dick: “Not much! Every time mother talks about the wedding father says “poor man”!” (English humor) 5) All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. (L. Tolstoy)
5. Find the homonyms in the following extracts. Classify them into homonyms proper, homographs and homophones.
1. "Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. "It is a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; "but why do you call it sad?"
2. a) My seat was in the middle of a row. b) "I say, you haven't had a row with Corky, have you?"
3. a) Our Institute football team got a challenge to a match from the University team and we accepted it. b) Somebody struck a match so that we could see each other.
4. a) It was nearly December but the California sun made a summer morning of the season, b) On the way home Crane no longer drove like a nervous old maid.
5. a) She loved to dance and had every right to expect the boy she was seeing almost every night in the week to take her dancing at least once on the weekend. b) "That's right," she said.
6. a) Do you always forget to wind up your watch? b) Crane had an old Ford without a top and it rattled so much and the wind made so much noise.
7. a) In Brittany there was once a knight called Eliduc. b) She looked up through the window at the night.
8. a) He had a funny round face. b) — How does your house face? — It faces the South.
9. a) So he didn't shake his hand because he didn't shake cowards' hands, see, and somebody else was elected captain. b) Mel's plane had been shot down into the sea.
10. a) He was a lean, wiry Yankee who knew which side his experimental bread was buttered on. b) He had a wife of excellent and influential family, as finely bred as she was faithful to him.
11. a) He was growing progressively deafer in the left ear. b) I saw that I was looking down into another cove similar to the one I had left.
12. a) Iron and lead are base metals. b) Where does the road lead?