According to the criterion of interchangeability in context synonyms are classified into total, relative and contextual.

1. Total synonyms. An extremely rare occurrence. Ulman: “a luxury that language can hardly afford.” M. Breal spoke about a law of distribution in the language (words should be synonyms, were synonyms in the past usually acquire different meanings and are no longer interchangeable). Ex.: fatherland - motherland

2. Contextual synonyms. Context can emphasize some certain semantic trades and suppress other semantic trades; words with different meaning can become synonyms in a certain context. Ex.: tasteless – dull, active – curious, curious – responsive.

Synonyms can reflect social conventions.

Ex.: clever bright brainy

3. Relative synonyms which some authors classify group like: like – love – adore, famous- celebrated -eminentthey denote different degree of the same notion or different shades of meanings and can be substituted only in some context.

Here can also be distinguished dialectical synonyms. Ex.: lift – elevator, queue – line, autumn – fall

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 Borrowing Latin borrowings

to ask to question to interrogate

to end to finish to complete

to rise to mount to ascend

teaching guidance instruction

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.

Synonyms are also created by means of all word-forming processes productive in the language.

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 synonymic differentiation and is so current that is regarded as an inherent law of language development.

A source of synonymy also well worthy of note is the so-called euphemism in which by a shift of meaning a word of more or less ‘pleasant or at least inoffensive connotation becomes synonymous to one that is harsh, obscene, indelicate or otherwise unpleasant.¹ The euphemistic expression merry fully coincides in denotation with the word drunk it substitutes, but the connotations of the latter fade out and so the utterance on the whole is milder, less offensive. The effect is achieved, because the periphrastic expression is not so harsh, sometimes jocular and usually motivated according to some secondary feature of the notion: naked:: in one’s birthday suit pregnant:: in the family way. Very often a learned word which sounds less familiar is therefore less offensive, as in drunkenness:: intoxication; sweat:: perspiration.

The word lavatory has, naturally, produced many euphemisms. Here are some of them: powder room, washroom, restroom, retiring room, (public) comfort station, ladies' (room), gentlemen's (room), water-closet, w.c, public conveniences and even Windsor castle (which is a comical phrase for "deciphering" w.c).

Pregnancy is another topic for "delicate" references. Here are some of the euphemisms used as substitutes for the adjective pregnant: in an interesting condition, in a delicate condition, in the family way, with a baby coming, (big) with child, expecting.

 

2) Antonyms may be defined as two or more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech and to the same semantic field, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and often used together so that their denotative meanings render contradictory or contrary notions.

We use the term antonyms to indicate words of the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meanings, such as hot – cold, light – dark, happiness – sorrow, to accept – to reject, up – down.

If synonyms form whole, often numerous, groups, antonyms are usually believed to appear in pairs. Yet, this is not quite true in reality. For instance, the adjective cold may be said to have warm for its second antonym, and sorrow may be very well contrasted with gaiety.

On the other hand, a polysemantic word may have an antonym (or several antonyms) for each of its meanings. So, the adjective dull has the antonyms interesting, amusing, entertaining for its meaning of "deficient in interest ", clever, bright, capable for its meaning of " deficient in intellect ", and active for the meaning of " deficient in activity ", etc.

Antonymy is not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Most antonyms are adjectives which are only natural because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and contrasted: high – low, wide – narrow, strong – weak, old – young, friendly – hostile.

Verbs take second place, so far as antonymy is concerned. Yet, verbal pairs of antonyms are fewer in number. Here are some of them: to lose – to find, to live – to die, to open – to close, to weep – to laugh.

Nouns are not rich in antonyms, but even so some examples can be given: friend – enemy, joy – grief, good – evil, heaven – earth, love – hatred.

Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided into two groups: a) adverbs derived from adjectives: warmly – coldly, merrily – sadly, loudly – softly; b) adverbs proper: now – then, here – there, ever – never, up – down, in – out.

Antonyms form mostly pairs, not groups like synonyms: above:: below; absent:: present; absence:: presence; alike:: different; asleep:: awake; back:: forth; bad:: good; big:: little, etc.

Contradictory notions are mutually opposed and denying one another, e. g. alive means ‘not dead’ and impatient means ‘not patient’. Contrary notions are also mutually opposed but they are gradable, e. g. old and young are the most distant elements of a series like: old:: middle-aged:: young, while hot and cold form a series with the intermediate cool and warm, which, as F.R. Palmer points out, form a pair of antonyms themselves. The distinction between the two types is not absolute, as one can say that one is more dead than alive, and thus make these adjectives gradable.

Another classification of antonyms is based on a morphological approach: root words form absolute antonyms (right:: wrong), the presence of negative affixes creates derivational antonyms (happy:: unhappy).

Unlike synonyms, antonyms do not differ either in style, emotional colouring or distribution. They are interchangeable at least in some contexts. The result of this interchange may be of different kind depending on the conditions of context. There will be, for instance, no change of meaning if ill and well change places within the sentence in the following: But whether he treated it ill or well, it loved nothing so much as to be near him (Wells). Or a whole sentence receives an opposite meaning when a word is replaced by its antonym, although it differs from its prototype in this one word only: You may feel he is clever:: You may feel he is foolish.

As antonyms do not differ stylistically, an antonymic substitution never results in a change of stylistic colouring.

 

3) Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling, or, at least, in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning.

E. g. bank, n. – a shore;

bank, n. – an institution for receiving, lending, ex-changing, and safeguarding money;

ball, n. – a sphere; any spherical body;

ball, n. – a large dancing party.

English vocabulary is rich in such pairs and even groups of words. Their identical forms are mostly accidental: the majority of homonyms coincided due to phonetic changes which they suffered during their development.

If synonyms and antonyms can be regarded as the treasury of the language's expressive resources, homonyms are of no interest in this respect, and one cannot expect them to be of particular value for communication. Metaphorically speaking, groups of synonyms and pairs of antonyms are created by the vocabulary system with a particular purpose whereas homonyms are accidental creations, and therefore purposeless.

In the process of communication they are more of an encumbrance, leading sometimes to confusion and misunderstanding. Yet it is this very characteristic which makes them one of the most important sources of popular humour.

The pun is a joke based upon the play upon words of similar form but different meaning (i. e. on homonyms) as in the following:

"A tailor guarantees to give each of his customers a perfect fit."

(The joke is based on the homonyms: I. fit, n. – perfectly fitting clothes; II. fit, n. – a nervous spasm.)

Homonyms which are the same in sound and spelling (as the ex-amples given in the beginning of this chapter) are traditionally termed homonyms proper.

The following joke is based on a pun which makes use of another type of homonyms:

"Waiter!" "Yes, sir." "What's this?" "It's bean soup, sir."

"Never mind what it has been. I want to know what it is now."

Bean, n. and been, Past Part, of to be are phones. As the example shows they are the same in sound but different in spelling. Here are some more examples of homophones:

night, n. – knight, n.; piece, n. – peace, n.; scent, n. – cent, n. – sent, v. (Past Indef., Past Part, of to send); rite, n. – to write, v. – right, adj.; sea, n. – to see, v. – С [si:] (the name of a letter).

The third type of homonyms is called homographs. These are words which are the same in spelling but different in sound.

E.g. to bow [bau], v. – to incline the head or body in salutation;

bow [bƏu], n. – a flexible strip of wood for propelling arrows;

tear n [tia] – ‘a drop of water that comes from the eye’;

tear v [tea] – ‘to pull apart by force’.

The two main sources of homonymy are: 1) diverging meaning development of a polysemantic word, and 2) converging sound development of two or more different words. The process of d i v e r g i n g m e a n i n g d e v e l o p m e n t can be observed when different meanings of the same word move so far away from each other that they come to be regarded as two separate units. This happened, for example, in the case of Modern English flower and flour which originally were one word (ME. flour, cf. OFr. flour, flor, L. flos – florem) meaning ‘the flower’ and ‘the finest part of wheat’. The difference in spelling underlines the fact that from the synchronic point of view they are two distinct words even though historically they have a common origin.

C o n v e r g e n t s o u n d d e v e l o p m e n t is the most potent factor in the creation of homonyms. The great majority of homonyms arise as a result of converging sound development which leads to the coincidence of two or more words which were phonetically distinct at an earlier date. For example, OE. ic and OE. еаzе have become identical in pronunciation (MnE. I [ai] and eye [ai]). A number of lexico-grammatical homonyms appeared as a result of convergent sound development of the verb and the noun (cf. MnE. love – (to) love and OE. lufu – lufian).

Words borrowed from other languages may through phonetic convergence become homonymous. ON. ras and Fr. race are homonymous in Modern English (cf. race ¹ [reis] – ‘running’ and race ² [reis] – ‘a distinct ethnical stock’).

From the viewpoint of their origin homonyms are sometimes divided into historical and etymological.

Historical homonyms are those which result from the breaking up of polysemy; then one polysemantic word will split up into two or more separate words, e.g. to bear (терпіти) - to bear (народити); pupil (учень) - pupil (зіниця); plant (рослина) - plant (завод).

Etymological homonyms are words of different origin which come to be alike in sound or in spelling (and may be both written and pronounced alike).

 

4) Most scholars distinguish between the terms development of meaning (when a new meaning and the one on the basis of which it is formed coexist in the semantic structure of the word, as in mill, carriage, etc.) and change of meaning (when the old meaning is completely replaced by the new one, as in the noun meat which in Old English had the general meaning of "food" but in Modern English is no longer used in that sense and has instead developed the meaning "flesh of animals used as a food product").