[Lexicog] Synonymy

[John Roberts]

> JR:
> "But to get at what are the most common distinguishing domains of semantic
> contrast in synonyms you would need to examine many sets of synonyms in
> many
> languages."

> RM:
> This is precisely what I believe we as a lexicographic community need to
> do.
<snip>
> I propose
> that we pick some representative languages that have a good classified
> dictionary, and study the semantics of each domain.

JR:
For English, why not start with the 'Longman Language Activator' dictionary?
The main semantic domains for distinguishing synonyms seem to be already set
out in this dictionary. Indeed the purpose of this dictionary is to show a
learner of English where s/he should use one word instead of another word
with a very similar meaning.

'big' is a keyword in this dictionary and the semantic domains of 'bigness'
include expressions for 'big in size' BIG, 'tall in height' TALL PERSON,
'tall building, tree, mountain, etc.' HIGH, 'big from one side to another'
WIDE, 'a large number amount or amount of' LOT ..., 'important' IMPORTANT,
'fat' FAT.

Under 'BIG' as an entry word are a range of expressions for 'big in size'.
These are divided into 14 'usages'. For example, 1. has words for describing
an object, building, animal, organization, etc. that is big. This set can be
distinguished from 5. for example, which has words for describing extremely
large places, areas or distances. So the difference in synonymy here is that
expressions under 1. are used to describe a three-dimensional object and
those under 5. a two-dimensional expanse. It is also noted under 'big' that
"'big' is slightly more informal than 'large'" and under 'large' that
"'large' is slightly more formal than 'big'". (So 'Activator' has already
worked out what we debated on this list!) Syntactic differences between
synonyms are also noted in this dictionary. For example, it is noted that
'little' [adj] occurs only before a noun, whereas there is no such
restriction for 'small' [adj]. (In addition 'smaller, smallest' are
exceptable but 'littler, littlest' are not. But 'Activator' doesn't seem to
record this.)

So it seems to me that a lot of the hard work for comparing synonyms in
English has already been done in the 'Longman Language Activator'
dictionary. It just needs someone to work through it and pick out the
details. But we would still need this type of analysis doing for other
languages to make a comparison with.

John Roberts






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