The emergence of synonyms: the four main ways

The strength of the language lies in its ability to helpa person is clear and diverse express ideas, describe the world, processes, feelings. Synonyms are the treasure of any language. They allow you to more accurately expound the idea, to convey the subtlest semantic nuance of thought, to give speech artistic beauty and variability, to avoid repetition, stamps, stylistic missteps.

Absolutely all great writers used anduse in their works a huge pictorial potential of synonyms. Without synonyms speech and texts become dry, colorless and monotonous. For example, you can always call the cloudless sky blue in the text, but how much more imaginative and versatile will be the perception of the word "sky" with synonyms for the word "blue", such as azure, turquoise, indigo, blue, sapphire, cornflower blue.

Language is constantly evolving, enriched with new synonymous constructions. The emergence of synonyms - a natural and continuous process to realize it, you need to know what a synonym is.

Synonyms and synonyms

The word "synonym" comes from the Greek wordsynonymos, which literally translates as "eponymous". Synonyms are words that differ in writing and sound, but are close or even identical in meaning. There are two types of synonyms:

1. Complete, they are called absolute, they completely coincide in importance.

For example: boundless - boundless; a seafarer is a navigator; chromogenic - lame; linguistics - linguistics.

2. Incomplete, which are divided into:

a) Stylistic, coinciding in meaning, such synonyms refer to different styles of speech, for example: to fall - to crash - to overturn; house - the palace - the hovel; beautiful - splendid - cool.

b) Semantic, also calledideographic, these synonyms are very close in meaning, but not identical, as complete, for example: silence - silence - silence; angry - angry; lightning fast.

c) Semantic-stylistic, mixed synonyms, in them simultaneously there are semantic and stylistic nuances, for example: food - the puppy - the food - the food - the food; ask - beg for - beg.

Synonyms are joined in synonymous series,consisting of two or more elements. Only words that belong to one part of speech can enter the ranks. In addition, they include both single words and phrases. Synonymic series begin with a keyword, called the dominant one. Examples of series:

• red - purple - scarlet - purple - rdyanoy - bloody - crimson;

• to run away - to flee - to be carried away - to give squeak - to tear claws - to drape - to lubricate the heels - to unwind.

Reasons for the emergence of synonyms

The causes and mechanisms of the emergence of synonyms inEnglish, like in Spanish, Chinese, Russian, are identical. The development of language is based on the desire of people to deeper and more clearly describe being and their own ideas, to share thoughts and information, and synonyms are one of the best tools for this purpose. They help to formulate and convey the subtlest nuances of meanings and emotions. Therefore, synonymic series are constantly replenished with new words. There are four main ways of the origin of synonyms in the Russian language.

Borrowing from other languages

The Russian language does not live apart, it is activeabsorbs successful words from other languages, the emergence of synonyms based on similar foreign words significantly expands the expressive capabilities of the language. For example, in the following pairs, the first word penetrated from another language and perfectly coexisted in Russian: preventive - preliminary; agrarian - land; import - import; preamble - introduction; memoirs - memories; sphere - area; the embryo is the embryo; vacancy - leave; meeting - meeting.

Word formation

Sometimes the emergence of synonyms becomesthe result of the appearance of new words. As a rule, the root does not change, suffixes and prefixes vary, as a result a new word-synonym with a different semantic nuance is obtained. Examples: rigging - equipment; innocent - innocent; digging - digging; Catholicism - Catholicism; timekeeping - timekeeping; pilotage - piloting.

Splitting the meaning of a word

Sometimes the lexical meaning of the word splits,one word becomes an element of different synonymous series. For example, the word "dashing" can be used in the meaning of bold - selfless - brave in the phrase "dashing warrior" or in the meaning difficult - heavy - dangerous in the phrase "dashing year". There are "higher layers of society", and there are "layers of cake or berry pie". There is a kind - benevolent - heart person, and there is a good - quality - a good horse.

Dialectal and professional words

One of the most common waysthe emergence of synonyms is the penetration of words from all sorts of slang, professionalisms, jargon, dialects. It is an inexhaustible source for the emergence of synonyms. Examples: a rogue; steering wheel - steering wheel; nauskivat - customize; lips - lips; Buryak-beetroot; gutarit - to speak; attribute is a property; overlay - error; stubble - stubble.

The disappearance of synonyms

Language is mobile and economical, it gets rid of words,which cease to be used or their meaning loses relevance, for example, a phenomenon or object can completely disappear from the surrounding world. This also happens with synonyms, some words gradually drop out of synonymous pairs and series. Almost completely disintegrated pairs of identical synonyms, like a helmet - a shell, a sweet - a malt. Disappear from ordinary speech the first synonyms in pairs: the cheeks - cheeks; finger-finger; The belly is the abdomen.