The term "synonym" of ancient Greek origin, means "eponymous". Synonyms are words that are close or identical in meaning, but different in sound and spelling. The imagery and richness of a language is determined by the number of synonyms in it. A speech will be monotonous if only one word corresponds to each concept in the language.
Synonyms are a kind of palette of the language, the use of synonyms in oral and literary speech makes it bright, expressive, logical and informative.
Synonymous series
A synonymic series includes words of the same semantic meaning, each next word is more expressive and stronger emphasizes the meaning of the previous one. The structure of the series is governed by the rules, the first is the word of neutral meaning. It is called the dominant, or the defining word of a series, used in all styles of speech and does not bear any emotional assessment.
So, the synonymous series of the word "large" is as follows: large - huge - huge - giant - gigantic.
Functions of synonyms in speech
- Allow to express the attitude in the subject, give him an emotional assessment.
- Enhance the imagery and expressiveness of speech.
- Serve for comparison and even contrast.
Synonyms in Russian are classified as follows:
- By structure: single-root and multi-root. By the word "big" one-root synonym: big. Different root: awesome. Different root synonyms prevail in the Russian language.
- By value: full and partial. By the word "big" full synonym can not be selected. A typical example of a complete synonym is the words strike and strike.
- By use: linguistic and contextual. There are no language synonyms for the word "big". By the word "tremendous": huge, huge. The contextual synonym for the word “big” in the sentence “He had a big soul - kind and sympathetic, resolute and fearless” will be adjectives kind, sympathetic, resolute, fearless.