Classification of Synonyms

a) According to whether the difference is in denotational or connotational component synonyms are classified into ideographic into stylistic.

Ideographic synonyms denote different shades of meaning or different degrees of a given quality. They are nearly identical in one or more denotational meanings and interchangeable at least in some contexts, e.g. beautiful - fine -handsome -pretty. Beautiful conveys, for instance, the strongest meaning; it marks the possession of that quality in its fullest extent, while the other terms denote the possession of it in part only. Fineness, handsomeness and prettiness are to beauty as parts to a whole.

Stylistic synonyms differ not so much in denotational as in emotive value or stylistic sphere of application.

Pictorial language often uses poetic words, archaisms as stylistic alternatives
of neutral words, e.g. maid for girl, bliss for happiness, steed for horse, quit for
leave.

In many cases a stylistic synonym has an element of elevation in its meaning, e.g. face - visage, girl - maiden.

Along with elevation of meaning there is the reverse process of degradation: to begin - to fire away, to eat - to devour, to steal ~ to pinch, face - muzzle.

b) According to the criterion of interchangeability in context synonyms are

classified into total, relative and contextual.

Total synonyms are those members of a synonymic group which can replace each other in any given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative meaning or emotional meaning and connotations. They are very rare. Examples can be found mostly in special literature among technical terms and others, e.g. fatherland - motherland, suslik - gopher, noun - substantive, functional affix - flection, inflection.

Relative Synonyms.

Some authors class groups like ask - beg - implore, or like - love - adore, famous — celebrated — eminent as relative synonyms, as they denote different degree of the same notion or different shades of meaning and can be substituted only in some contexts.

Contextual or context-dependent synonyms are similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions. It may happen that the difference between the meanings of two words is contextually neutralized, e.g. buy and get would not generally be taken as synonymous, but they are synonyms in the

following examples: ГII go to the shop and buy some bread. I'll go to the shop and get some bread.

The verbs bear, suffer, stand are semantically different and not interchangeable except when used in the negative form: I can't stand it, I can't bear it.

One of the sources of synonymy is borrowing. Synonymy has its characteristic patterns in each language. Its peculiar feature in English is the contrast between simple native words stylistically neutral, literary words borrowed from French and learned words of Greco-Latin origin.

Native English French Borrowings Latin borrowings

to ask to question to interrogate

to end to finish to complete

to rise to mount to ascend

teaching guidance instruction

belly stomach abdomen

There are also words that came from dialects, in the last hundred years, from American English, in particular, e.g. long distance call AE - trunk call BE, radio AE — wireless BE.

Synonymic differntiation. Synonymic assimilation.
It must be noted that synonyms may influence each other semantically in
two diametrically opposite ways: one of them is dissimilation or differentiation, t he
other - the reverse process, i.e. assimilation.

Many words now marked in the dictionaries as "archaic" or "obsolete" have dropped out of the language in the competition of synonyms, others survived with a meaning more or less different from the original one. This process is called synonumic differentiation and is so current that is regarded as an inherent law of language development.

The assimilation of synonyms consists in parallel development.

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