Just imagine for a moment that there are no words in Russian that are close in meaning. For example, there would be only a neutral verb "to go", and that's it. So try after that to tell the reader how the person walked: he trudged, wandered or paced. It is precisely in order to avoid repetitions of the same word, in order to be able to express emotions or characterize a phenomenon, that there are antonyms and synonyms in our language. They will be discussed.
Similar in meaning
Translated from Greek, synonyms (of the same name) are words that:
- do not match in sound;
- are identical in meaning;
- have the same grammatical features;
- often vary in style.
For example: husband - spouse, friend - comrade, fatherland - homeland.
Synonyms are combined into rows that can change significantly over time. This is due to the fact that the language is constantlydevelops, words lose old and acquire new meanings. Consider the poetry of the 19th century. Even in Pushkin one could come across a “dream”, which denoted a thought, and the definition of “scrupulous” was equal to “haberdashery”.
To use language riches in practice, you can refer to special dictionaries that explain what synonyms and antonyms are in specific cases, their semantic series are brought together. It is from them that one can learn: why "rose" and "flower" are not close in meaning, just as "house" with "apartment" cannot be in the same chain.
Synonyms, in a row
Several words with similar meanings form a semantic nest. Compare: road - path - direction - highway - freeway - gravel road - concrete. Or maybe a synonymous series consists only of single-root words: a boy is a boy, a boy.
How to correctly build a semantic chain, knowing what synonyms and antonyms are? First of all, the dominant (dominant) should be in the first place in the row, that is, the key word that has a neutral stylistic coloring. All the rest follow him, clarifying and expanding his meanings, giving him an emotional characteristic. For example: beloved - dear, desired, dear, dear, beloved.
Phraseologisms (stable combinations, winged expressions) and words in the prepositional case form (with a preposition) can be included in the synonymic series: greedy - stingy, everything is not enough, raking hands, you can’t beg for snow in winter, etc.
Russian vocabularyso great and stylistically flexible that all antonyms, synonyms and homonyms in it do not have a frozen and strict use, they are constantly changing, making speech lively and figurative.
Typology by similarity
Words that are close in meaning have their own classification according to the degree of semantic analogy.
- Doublets are complete synonyms. As a rule, they are associated with scientific terms, with their parallel designations: orthoepy - pronunciation, predicative - predicate. Some of the same-root words also belong to them: neglect - neglect.
- Ideographic (semantic) synonyms differ in shades of meaning: wet - wet, damp. It is worth noting that the characteristic in these examples manifests itself in different ways, that is, the degree of liquid content in the characteristic is not the same.
- Style synonyms and antonyms are distinguished by expression and emotional evaluation. Examples: forehead (neutral) - forehead (high) - forehead (lowered).
- Words that are similar in meaning but differ in both style and semantics are semantic-stylistic synonyms. It is they who predominate in Russian.
- Within the same text, sentences can be found expressions that are close in meaning only here. These are contextual synonyms (they are also called situational or author's). For example, in a poem by Anna Akhmatova, in one quatrain, separated by commas, there are “versts”, “miles”, “kilometers”. It is clear that these words mean different distances, but in this context they have the same meaning - measurementspace.
What are synonyms and antonyms from a functional point of view
As mentioned above, without the ambiguity of meanings, our speech would be dull and uninteresting. It is synonyms and antonyms that allow you to accurately express the thought and attitude to any phenomena. Let's take a closer look at how we manage to do this with the help of words that are close in meaning.
- Clarify or just add the missing meaning: He walked quietly, or rather, trudged.
- Replacing. Thus, we avoid tautology (repetition of the same word): A neighbor entered the room, the woman looked depressed.
- Euphemizing. There is a need for inaccurate designation of real things. We often hear that the director is “delayed” (but we understand that he is simply late). Sometimes it is easier to say that a person is “not far off” than to directly assess: “stupid.”
- We oppose. This technique emphasizes the difference: He did not run, but rushed like an arrow.
Opposite meaning
We have described in sufficient detail what synonyms are, and now it will be easier to understand antonyms. First of all, they appear in paired use, only in this case their opposite essence is revealed.
Antonymic relations are based on the lexical meaning of concepts that are in the same circle of phenomena. If a word has multiple meanings, it means that there can be as many opposite meanings to it.
Antonyms cannot have:
- proper names and specific nouns: notebook, apartment, institute;
- most pronouns and numerals;
- gender designations (gender): girl and boy, daughter and son, grandfather and grandmother;
- words with a pronounced stylistic coloring: cheeks, motherland, pearl.
Structure, types and use of antonyms
The opposite meaning can be expressed by words that have the same root: entered - left, will - captivity, as well as with completely different ones: evil - kind, dark - light.
There are two types of antonyms:
- linguistic, which are in the vocabulary: morning - evening, sick - he althy;
- contextual-speech (author's), when the opposite is found only within the framework of a given sentence: it is better to seem like a fool than an enemy.
Uses Russian synonyms and antonyms in all styles of speech, they are most necessary for colloquial and artistic. Very often proverbs and sayings are built on them, they can be found in the titles of works.
Such stylistic figures as antithesis and oxymoron are based on opposition and comparison of antonymic meanings. We find the first expressive means in the title of Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons" or Chekhov's story "Thick and Thin", also remember Tolstoy's "War and Peace".
The second figure is built on the combination of the incompatible: loud silence, deafness from silence. The oxymoron is also found in the titles of works of art: "The Living Corpse" by Tolstoy, "Dead Souls" by Gogol.
Except for synonyms andantonyms, there are also paronyms and homonyms in our language. They are no less interesting and expressive. But more on that next time.
