Towards an explication and description of synonymy in English
The thesis begins by arguing for an a posteriori approach to synonymy, according to which synonymy should be treated as an empirical phenomenon which it is the task of linguistic semantics to explicate. Arguments are presented against the a priori approach often underlying treatments of synonymy, which makes it possible to define synonymy out of existence. A distinction is then drawn between three possible levels of synonymy (i.e. lexeme-synonymy, sense-synonymy and occurrence-synonymy), and it is argued that all three should be treated as legitimate levels - occurrence-synonymy as the basic level and the other two chiefly as a means of stating synonymy-relations more economically, where appropriate. This is followed by the establishment of two criteria of synonymy for ail three levels. After discussion and (in some cases) re-definition of various types of acceptability and anomaly, the interchangeability criterion is defined as the mutual substitutability of words without causing either grammatical or collocational anomaly. The sameness of meaning criterion is based on the distinctions between pragmatic and analytic equivalence and between performance and judgement equivalence, and is defined in terms of
Chi Wei, Tze
Linguistics
Towards an explication and description of synonymy in English. The thesis begins by arguing for an a posteriori approach to synonymy, according to which synonymy should be treated as an empirical phenomenon which it is the task of linguistic semantics to explicate. Arguments are presented against the a priori approach often underlying treatments of synonymy, which makes it possible to define synonymy out of existence. A distinction is then drawn between three possible levels of synonymy (i.e. lexeme-synonymy, sense-synonymy and occurrence-synonymy), and it is argued that all three should be treated as legitimate levels - occurrence-synonymy as the basic level and the other two chiefly as a means of stating synonymy-relations more economically, where appropriate. This is followed by the establishment of two criteria of synonymy for ail three levels. After discussion and (in some cases) re-definition of various types of acceptability and anomaly, the interchangeability criterion is defined as the mutual substitutability of words without causing either grammatical or collocational anomaly. The sameness of meaning criterion is based on the distinctions between pragmatic and analytic equivalence and between performance and judgement equivalence, and is defined in terms of
towards explication description synonymy english begin argue posteriori synonymy accord synonymy treat empirical phenomenon task linguistic semantics explicate arguments present priori often underlying treatment synonymy make_possible define synonymy existence distinction_drawn possible level synonymy lexeme synonymy sense synonymy occurrence synonymy argue treat legitimate level occurrence synonymy basic level chiefly mean state synonymy relations economically appropriate follow establishment criterion synonymy three_level discussion case definition various_type acceptability anomaly criterion define mutual word without cause either grammatical collocational anomaly sameness mean criterion_base distinction pragmatic analytic equivalence performance judgement equivalence define_term