[Lexicog] Synonymy

[fwgcnews]

Hello, I'm quite new to the list. I'm a PhD student working on 
linguistic ressources (including synonyms lists). 

Like Christopher, I used to believe that real synonyms do not exist, 
while there's always some "little detail" that differentiates the two 
words. It can be geographical or sociological, but I never met any 
words that could be used in the same context by the same person 
without changing the style or content of the sentence.

Untill a few months ago...

One of my collegue PhD students, Davy Weissenbacher, published a 
paper about the synonymic relations in genome studies and how to 
detect those synonyms.

I cite from the resume: "Besides a gene canonical name, one can find 
various abbreviation forms, typographic variants and synonyms." 
Further in the text he gives the example of (in translation) "Hcph 
has a minimum of 6 synonymes". 

So real synonyms really exist, but maybe not in the way we thought 
they did. Maybe they only exist in special languages.

Article cited: Weissenbacher Davy. "La relation de synonymie en 
génomique". In Actes RECITAL Fes (Maroc) 19-22 avril 2004, pp. 298-
303.


Frederik Cailliau
SINEQUA – http://www.sinequa.com
LIPN - http://www-lipn.univ-paris13.fr/~cailliau




--- In lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com, "Christopher Brewster" 
<C.Brewster at d...> wrote:

> What I really feel is that there are only words which sometimes 
overlap in
> meaning to a greater or lesser extent.
>  
> But real/complete synonyms whether within or across languages never 
exists.
>  
> For some reason this position is incomprehensible to most people I 
work
> with.
>  
> Christopher Brewster






------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater?
Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/TzSHvD/SOnJAA/79vVAA/HKE4lB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/