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• A dog is an animal that thinks it's human;
• A human is an animal that thinks it's not an animal; • Therefore, a dog is an animal that thinks it's an animal that thinks it's not an animal.
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• Sense relations
– Polysemy – Homonymy(同形异义关系/同音异义关系/同音同形异义关系)
• Homophones Homographs Perfect homonyms
– Synonymy 同义关系
• semantic similarity
synonym 同义词 antomym 反义词
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• Antonymy • Antonomy is concerned with semantic opposition. Antonyms can be defined as words which are opposite in meaning. There are a variety of „oppositeness‟. antonyms can be classified on the basis of
• 4) Coincidence with idiomatic expressions
make up one‘ s mind
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Discrimination of Synonyms •The differences between synonyms boil down to three areas: denotation, connotation, and application.
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absurd, ridiculous, silly – It is ridiculous to judge a foreign culture only by its food. absurd – There was an idea that the earth was flat and motionless. silly – You were very to trust him. accuse, charge, rebuke – The boss rebuked him strongly for his negligence – The police accused him of theft. – The police charged him with murder.
– Rare, non-existent – Absolute synonyms are restricted to highly specialized vocabulary, such as scarlet-fever/ scarlatina in medicine,
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• 2) Relative synonyms, also called near-synonyms, are similar or nearly the same in denotation, but embrace different shades of meaning or different degrees of a given quality.
• Contraries/ Gradable 相对反义词 • Complementaries 互补反义词 • Conversives 换位反义词
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Exercises
• Discrimination of synonyms abolish, cancel, extinguish, eliminate eliminated – The losing team was from further competition. – Firefighters a big fire. extinguished – The meeting has been because of the cancelled flu. – The government the tax on alcohol. abolished
– Or exactly one of two or more words which have the same or very nearly the same essential meaning.
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ቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱ
Types of Synonyms • Synonyms can be classified into two major groups: absolute/complete synonyms and relative synonyms. • 1) absolute/complete synonyms, also known as complete synonyms are words which are identical in meaning in all its aspects, i.e. both in grammatical meaning and lexical meaning, including conceptual and associative meanings.
– Antonymy 反义关系
• semantic opposition
– Hyponymy 上下义关系
• semantic inclusion
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Synonymy
• Synonymy is a relationship of „sameness of meaning‟ that may hold between two words. • Synonym: a word that means the same as another.
– 1) Difference in denotation
• Synonyms may differ in the range and intensity of meaning. Some words have a wider range of meaning than others.
– comprehend / understand – extend / increase / expand – laugh: chortle, chuckle, giggle, guffaw, snicker/snigger, titter
A man changes his habits, alters his conduct, and varies his manner of speaking
–
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• Relative synonyms may be different in the following aspects:
– – – – In degree of a given quality or in shade of meaning; In affective meaning, and stylistic meaning; In collocation and distribution; Some sets of synonyms belong to different dialects of the language
• 2) Dialects and regional English
• railway (BrE) railroad (AmE)
• 3) Figurative and euphemistic use of words
• occupation (profession)
• decide
walk of life (fig)
Chapter VII
SENSE RELATIONS BETWEEN WORDS
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• Words are arbitrary symbols and independent identities so far as their outer facet--- spelling and pronunciation, is concerned. But semantically, all words are related in one way or another. A word which is related to other words is related to them in sense, hence sense relations. • Moreover, the discussion will also cover semantic field, which is commonly felt to be an integral part of sense relations
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• Sources of Synonyms
• 1) Borrowing
– “ the richness of English in synonyms is largely due to the happy mingling of Latin, French and native elements.”(Baugh, 1978) • Native French Latin • ask question interrogate • fast firm secure
A. semantic contrast B. morphological structure
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types of antonyms
• Morphological classification
• root antonyms • derivational antonyms
• Semantic classification
– – – – unlike / dissimilar homely / domestic Look at that lovely little boy. Look at that small boy. Look at that tiny boy.