[Lexicog] Law of Synonyms

Wed Oct 15 22:17:28 UTC 2008

Fritz, do Germans believe in the power of the American dollar, or in German synonyms? I want one single answer.
Scott
--- On Wed, 10/15/08, Fritz Goerling <Fritz_Goerling at sil.org> wrote:

From: Fritz Goerling <Fritz_Goerling at sil.org>
Subject: RE: [Lexicog] Law of Synonyms
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, October 15, 2008, 6:03 PM

Scott,

When it comes to connotation of so-called “synonyms” we seem to agree in theory that there are none. But then you mention I lost my cool. || I could wring his neck. || Emotions are running high. || The room is at a boiling point. || If he even looks at me cross-eyed.. . || It galls me! || She's really hot under the collar. || He went ballistic. || He's fit to be tied. || She went through the roof as synonyms of being “angry.” Do they not all differ in connotation? One would find such lists in Roget’s Thesaurus. I would call them “synonyms” only in a very wide sense because all would be used in different contexts.
As a Bible translation consultant I am interested in precision and to  help our translators find the best equivalent of source language words in their respective receptor language. If Greek or Hebrew have different words like surprised, amazed, astounded, shocked, dumbfounded, thunderstruck, startled, caught unawares, flabbergasted, taken aback, stunned, awestruck, which to me express fine nuances, I help them to exploit their language to find at least some equivalences; sometimes they have even more words in a semantic domain than the source languages. 

A tool which I recommend to Bible translators is:

Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains
Author: Louw, Johannes P.; Nida, Eugene A.
Publisher: United Bible Societies
Publication Date: 1996 
Read more about print editions 

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Louw-Nida Greek Lexicon is a modern Greek lexicon using the concept of "semantic domains." This lexicon differs from other lexicons in that it does not arrange words alphabetically and it does not give one listing of a word with all of that word's meanings after it. Instead, it breaks words down by their various shades of meaning. It then groups all of those entries together and organizes them by topics and sub-topics. It shows the nuances in word meanings and explains difficult expressions and idiomatic usages of words, and even provides advice on how words might be translated under various conditions. Since it groups words by meanings, it shows distinctions in meaning between similar words, and also between differences in one word's meaning in different contexts, as well as showing the overlaps between word meanings.
Maybe you have something like that in mind?
Best,
Fritz Goerling

Fritz, I've considered your observation of the impossibility of there being a true "synonym," too. This is why I'm disappointed in standard dictionaries lacking listings of connotation, frequency, and context -- which could quite easily be identified in digital format. As to the general concept of synonyms, though, I think there are true synonyms -- which are exhibited in divergent phrasing, not necessarily in divergent meaning or connotation. 
Notice the different grammatical form -- including tense, person, and mood -- in the following phrases, which all mean essentially "angry." -- I lost my cool. || I could wring his neck. || Emotions are running high. || The room is at a boiling point. || If he even looks at me cross-eyed.. . || It galls me! || She's really hot under the collar. || He went ballistic. || He's fit to be tied. || She went through the roof. 
By the way, Fritz, did you hear about the German truck that was loaded with thesauruses yesterday? It crashed into a dictionary publishing company building. The bystanders were surprised, amazed, astounded, shocked, dumbfounded, thunderstruck, startled, caught unawares, flabbergasted, taken aback, stunned, awestruck, caught with heir pants down, ... 
It must be a human aversion to cliche that makes humanity come up with synonyms. Maybe the answer is in that simple principle.

Fritz, do Germans have synonyms?

Scott Nelson

--- On Wed, 10/15/08, Fritz Goerling <Fritz_Goerling@ sil.org> wrote:
From: Fritz Goerling <Fritz_Goerling@ sil.org>
Subject: RE: [Lexicog] Law of Synonyms
To: lexicographylist@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Wednesday, October 15, 2008, 12:45 PM

Is there a law of synonyms? I don’t believe in synonyms. No two words are exactly “synonymous” from the point of view of connotation.
Concerning your example from the computer domain, let me mention another example, given to me by a computer specialist. Who speaks of ‘jump drive’ or ‘pen drive’ any more? It’s probably between ‘flash drive’ and ‘thumb drive’ nowadays. And who knows what will come up next.
When two or more expressions come up at about the same time and compete, ‘brevity (punch)’ is one factor IMO that makes the winner.

Brevity is the soul of wit (Shakespeare, Hamlet 2, 86-92), 
Fritz Goerling 

Law of Synonyms 
There must be a law of synonyms somewhere (of phrasal synomyms 
in particular). Dictionaries and thesauruses (thesauri) seem too 
arbitrary & random too trust for this purpose. Of course, corpora 
listings are easy for words. I've been wondering for years what the 
world would gravitate toward -- "laptop" or "notebook" 
computer. "Portable computer" seems quaint, but... The reason I'm 
fishing in this pond is that I would hate wading through 
dissertations or theses looking for synonym principles (must be lazy 
or something). The only simple, quick source for finding phrasal 
frequency comparisons seems to be google-counting. "Laptop" (computer
(s)) wins on this one, generally by 22%-30%. But we're dealing with 
the `phrase' "notebook computer" and "laptop computer." 
Googling "notebook" alone skews the results. 
Has anyone done, or seen, research about how one term (or 
phrase) tends to predominate over others -- when two or more 
expressions begin at about the same time? Is is there a phonetic 
(e.g. reduplicative, length, ease-of-pronunciati on) influence? Is 
there a "great-man" influence, according to coiner? First come, first 
served? Regional? Or is it truly unpredicable? 
This is an open-ended question.... Any ideas?

Scott Nelson

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