1.2 Synonymic Patterns

The synonymic resources of a language tend to form certain characteristic and fairly consistent patterns.

1) Synonyms in English are organized according to 2 basic principles - double and a triple scales. In English there are countless pairs of synonyms where a native term is opposed to one borrowed from French, Latin, and Greek. In most cases the native word is more spontaneous, more informal and unpretentious whereas the foreign one often has a learned, abstract air.

The native words are usually colloquial. We quote a few examples of synonymic patterns double scale.

Adjectives: bodily - corporal, brotherly - fraternal, heavenly - celestial, inner - internal, learned - erudite, sharp - acute.

Nouns: fiddle - violin, friendship - amity, help - aid, wire - telegram, world - universe.

Verbs: answer - reply, read - peruse, buy - purchase.

Side-by-side with this main pattern there exists in English a pattern based on a triple scale of synonyms:

NATIVE FROM FRENCH FROM LATIN

to ask [1] to question [2] to interrogate [3]

belly stomach abdomen

to end finish complete

to gather to assemble collect

to rise to mount to ascent

teaching guidance instruction

The infiltration of British English by Americanisms also results in the formation of synonyms pairs, one being a traditional Briticism and the other - a new American loan: Leader - editorial; autumn - fall; government - administration; luggage - baggage; wireless -radio; lorry - truck; tin - can; long distance (telephone) call - trunk call; stone - rock; team -squad.

As a rule the Americanisms have a lower frequency index than the British counterparts. Thus, tin is more common than can, team - than squad. But luggage - baggage, lorry - truck, leader -editorial are used sometimes interchangeably.

In a few cases the American synonym has a higher frequency than its British counterpart as in the pair: commuter - a season ticket holder (Br. ).

Very often 2 synonyms differ stylistically. British synonym is stylistically neutral while the Americanism is stylistically marked (usually as colloquial or slang): intellectual – egghead; excuse – alibi; angry – mad; averse - allergic.

2) Another source of synonymy is the so-called euphemism, when a harsh word indelicate or unpleasant or least inoffensive connotation. Thus the denotational meaning of drunk and merry may be the same. The euphemistic expression merry coincides in denotation with the word it substituted but the connotation of the latter faded out and so the utterance on the whole is milder and less offensive.

Very often a learned word which sounds less familiar and less offensive or derogative: for example “drunkenness” – “intoxication”, “sweat” – “perspiration” (cf. Russian terms “экспроприация”, “раскулачивание”). The effect is achieved because the periphrastic expression is not so harsh, sometimes jocular: poor - underprivileged; pregnant - in the family way; lodger - paying guest.

3) Many wordsdenoting abstract notions, persons and events are correlated with set expressions consisting of a verb with a postpositive ( phrasal verbs ). They are widely used in present day English: to choose - pick out, abandon - give up, postpone - put off, return - come back, quarrel - fall out, arrangement – lay out, reproduction – play back.

Even more frequent are, for instance, such set expressions which differ from simple verbs in aspect or emphasis: to laugh - to give a laugh, to sign - to give a sign, to smoke - to have a smoke, to love - to fall in love.

4) There are also phraseological synonyms, these words are identical in their meanings and styles but different in their combinability with other words in the sentence: to visit museums but to attend lectures; teachers question their pupils, judges interrogate witnesses.

5) There are also contextual synonyms which are similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions: buy and get are not synonyms out of context but they are synonyms in the following examples: I‘ll go to the shop and buy some bread and I‘ll go to the shop and get some bread.

6) In each group of synonyms there is a word with the most general meaning, which can substitute any word in the group. Such words are called synonymic dominants: piece is the synonymic dominant in the group slice, lump, morsel.

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