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<DIV><FONT face="Courier New" size=2>John has shown that 'big' and 'large'
are interchangable in only the first 3 senses of the 15 listed in COBUILD.
I find it interesting that it is the first three senses, which perhaps indicates
that the central concept of this pair is the same or very similar, but that the
pair are not synonymous in every case of extended usage. To illustrate the
point, can we come up with any pair of words that are synonymous across 15
senses?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Courier New" size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Courier New" size=2>Would it be useful to say a pair of
words are propositional synonyms when used in the same sense, but allow
that they vary when different senses are used?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Courier New" size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Courier New"><FONT size=2>As a practical question: is it valid
to list words as synonyms in a dictionary when they are interchangable in
what appears to be the primary or achetypal sense, even though they may vary in
extended usage? For example, '</FONT><FONT size=2>pretty' and 'handsome' are
propositional synonyms in their primary sense, but there are extended
uses of pretty that are not interchangable with handsome, as in "Locking
the keys in the car is a <U>pretty stupid</U> thing to do."</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Courier New" size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Courier New" size=2>As an aside, we may agree on synonymous
nouns more easily than other word classes because there may be less
senses. I can only think of one sense for potassium
nitrate:saltpetre.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Courier New" size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Courier New" size=2>Greg Mellow</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Courier New" size=2>Owa Dictionary Project</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=dr_john_roberts@sil.org href="mailto:dr_john_roberts@sil.org">John
Roberts</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com
href="mailto:lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com">lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, April 16, 2005 8:23
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Lexicog] Re: Synonymy</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><BR></DIV><TT>Rudolph Troike
wrote:<BR><BR>> I was interested in Greg Mellow's mention of 'big' and
'large'. Like Greg,<BR>> I would consider them synonyms, but in the past
several years I've had<BR>> occasion to note the use of 'big' in papers by
non-native English speaking<BR>> grad students, and have somewhat
compulsively felt the need to change it<BR>> to 'large', as 'big' seems
stylistically inappropriate for formal writing.<BR><BR>This suggests that
'big' and 'large' are propositional synonyms whose usage <BR>distribution
varies according to the stylistic context: formal or <BR>colloquial. I
disagree. I would analyse 'big' and 'large' as near synonyms <BR>or plesionyms
and not propositional synonyms.<BR><BR>Propositional synonymy is based on the
notion of truth conditions and can be <BR>defined in terms of entailment. If
two lexical items are propositional <BR>synonyms they can be substituted in
any expression with truth-conditional <BR>properties without effect on those
properties. To put things another way, <BR>two sentences which differ only in
that one has one member of a pair of <BR>propositional synonyms where the
other has the other member of the pair then <BR>they are mutually entailing:
'Cedric bought a violin' entails and is <BR>entailed by 'Cedric bought a
fiddle' and 'I heard him tuning his fiddle' <BR>mutually entails 'I heard him
tuning his violin' 'She is going to play a <BR>violin concerto' mutually
entails 'She is going to play a fiddle concerto'. <BR>In the last example
'fiddle' is less normal than 'violin', but the truth <BR>conditions are still
the same for both expressions. 'fiddle' and 'violin' <BR>are propositional
synonyms used in different stylistic contexts. The former <BR>being a more
informal or colloquial expression and the latter a more formal
<BR>expression.<BR><BR>The differences in the meanings of propositional
synonyms, by definition <BR>necessarily involve one or more aspects of the
non-propositional meaning, <BR>such as the following: Expressive synonyms
include items expressing <BR>familiarity, evaluation, euphemism and taboo
subjects. E.g. 'father:daddy' <BR>(familiarity), 'horse:nag' (evaluative).
Stylistic synonyms are used in <BR>formal vs. colloquial contexts. E.g.
'conflagration:fire'. Domain of use <BR>synonyms. E.g. scientific 'potassium
nitrate:saltpetre', medical <BR>'cardiac:heart', dialect 'elevator:lift',
slang 'skint:broke', etc. Some <BR>pairs of lexical items are normally
contrastive and are only synonymous when <BR>the contrast is neutralised. For
example, the words 'pretty' ('female' <BR>presupposed) and 'handsome' ('male'
presupposed) both have the propositional <BR>meaning of 'good-looking'. The
semantic contrast between 'pretty' and <BR>'handsome' is neutralised in an
expression like 'Sam is pretty/handsome', <BR>where you do not know if 'Sam'
is short for 'Samuel' or 'Samantha'.<BR><BR>Some pairs of lexical items, such
as 'big:large', might look like synonyms <BR>on first inspection but when
their semantics are investigated more carefully <BR>it can be seen that they
are not propositional synonyms. When two words are <BR>near synonyms of each
other, if you exchange one for the other in an <BR>expression the truth value
of the expression will be different. Therefore <BR>the rule of mutual
entailment does not apply and they are not propositional
<BR>synonyms.<BR><BR>For example, 'fog:mist' are listed as synonyms in
Chambers Dictionary of <BR>Synonyms and Antonyms. But if you extract their
meanings from a dictionary <BR>like NODE or COBUILD you will see that these
words have a common major <BR>property of meaning but also contrast minor
properties of meaning. <BR>Specifically, 'fog' and 'mist' are adjacent on a
scale of transparency of <BR>atmospheric conditions, as in<BR><BR>least
transparent < smog - fog - mist - haze
> most transparent<BR><BR>Therefore 'There is a thick fog outside' does not
mutually entail 'There is <BR>a thick mist outside'.<BR><BR>A similar analysis
can be conducted for 'large' and 'big'.<BR><BR>The following senses for 'big'
are listed in COBUILD:<BR><BR>1. great in size<BR>a house big/large enough for
family weekends<BR><BR>2. great in number<BR>he got a big/large
majority<BR><BR>3. great in mass<BR>she was a big/large woman in her early
forties<BR><BR>4. = important, significant, serious<BR>I have noticed a
big/*large change in Sue<BR><BR>5. = important, influential<BR>he is
big/*large in publishing<BR><BR>6. = important, great<BR>you are making a
big/*large mistake<BR><BR>7. = grand, successful<BR>in a big/*large
way<BR><BR>8. = confident, proud<BR>big/*large ideas<BR><BR>9. = boast,
brag<BR>talk big/*large<BR><BR>10. = large scale<BR>think
big/*large<BR><BR>11. = successful, famous<BR>made it big/*large<BR><BR>12. =
emphasis<BR>big/*large cheat, big/*large bully<BR><BR>13. = older<BR>his
big/*large brother<BR><BR>14. = uppercase, capital letter<BR>big/*large
letters<BR><BR>15. = difficult<BR>big/*large word<BR><BR>The following senses
for 'large' are listed in COBUILD:<BR><BR>1. great in size<BR>she had
large/big black eyes<BR>large/*big areas of Asia<BR><BR>2. great in
number<BR>a large/?big number of people<BR><BR>3. great in mass
(person)<BR>one of those large/big bossy women<BR><BR>4. great in
quantity<BR>a very large/?big amount of money<BR><BR>5. great in activity,
business<BR>a large/?big advertising company<BR><BR>6. = size in
clothing<BR>small, medium and large/*big<BR><BR>7. = important, vast<BR>the
changes will not be very large/big<BR><BR>8. by and large/*big<BR><BR>9. at
large/*big<BR><BR>10. as large/*big as life<BR><BR>From this you can see that
'large' and 'big' have a common majority meaning <BR>of 'great in size:mass'.
But beyond that there is a divergence in meaning. <BR>Thus 'large' and 'big'
are near synonyms and not propositional synonyms, <BR>i.e. they do not denote
the same meaning. Also none of the English <BR>dictionaries I have consulted
say 'large' is a formal synonym of 'big' nor <BR>vice versa give 'big' as a
colloquial synonym of 'large'.<BR><BR>John Roberts <BR><BR></TT>
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