The variability of synonymic oppositions chior–orb, vechi–bătrîn, copac–pom, mal–țărm and their lexicographic treatment

Dinu Moscal

doi:10.17684/i11a157en

Abstract

The analysis of a series of synonymic oppositions in Romanian aims at pointing to their variation on a diachronic and diatopic level, the relationship between these two levels, as well as how these linguistic realities are treated at a lexicographic level, especially in modern dictionaries of synonyms. The modern dictionaries of synonyms do not pay enough attention to the relationship between synonyms, as their lexicographic entries mainly consist of ordering the synonyms of the title word and occasionally adding examples. This is known as the ``cumulative” method, and it is favoured by an inadequate definition of the synonymic relationship. Therefore, following the analysis of four pairs of synonyms belonging to the basic Romanian vocabulary we have concluded that the approach of synonymic oppositions in two representative Romanian dictionaries of synonyms is merely approximate and at times inappropriate. The structure of the lexicographic entries in these dictionaries often shows an inadequate knowledge of words history and how it is reflected as a variation at the dialectal level. The exemplification method is as well inadequate because the authors deliberately provide examples that are irrelevant for the identification of the differences between the synonyms.

Highlights

Making clear distinctions between entities that have a great degree of similarity represents one of the most important aspects of knowledge
The definition provided by Aristotle for synonymy differs from the current definitions, first and foremost because its objective is different, namely knowledge regarding the world rather than knowledge regarding the language
The primary objective of this study is to examine the lexicographic treatment of synonyms in the contemporary Romanian

Summary

Introduction

Making clear distinctions between entities that have a great degree of similarity represents one of the most important aspects of knowledge Aristotle treated these aspects with priority in Categories, where he provided definitions for homonymy, synonymy and paronymy. A minimum amount of attention paid to the concept of ‘synonymy’ as conceived by Aristotle, as well as to the difference of perspective indicates that the definition of linguistic synonyms should be clearer. Both the definition and the analysis of synonyms should focus on the differences between synonyms rather than on their common nucleus, a different treatment of synonyms in dictionaries, especially in specialized ones.

Dinu Moscal

Conclusions