问答题 Do you think there are true synonyms in English? Why?(厦门大学2010研)
【正确答案】正确答案:Synonymy is the technical name for the sameness relation. It is used to mean sameness or close similarity of meaning. Total synonymy is rare. The so-called synonyms are all context dependent. They all differ in one way or another. When you consider the meaning of a word, you need to consider both its denotation and its connotation. The denotation is the primary, literal meaning of a word. The connotation is the suggested or implied meaning of a word. Connotations usually come from experience or associations. Seeing a word used repeatedly in certain contexts gives the word a different color than it gets in the dictionary. There are no real synonyms, because two or more words named synonyms are expected without exception to differ from one another in one of the following aspects: (1)in shade of meaning(finish, complete, close, conclude); (2)in stylistic meaning(father, dad); (3)in emotive(or affective)meaning(smart, crafty); (4)in range of use or collocative meaning(accuse, charge);(5)in British and American English usages(autumn, fall). For example, they may differ in style. In the context "Little Tom______a toy bear" , here buy is more appropriate than purchase. Because purchase is more formal than buy.
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