Diachronic features of English synonyms

Abstract

The development of a language is stimulated by linguistic, historical and social causes and it results in changes at all language levels. Language contact and loanwords cause the formation of synonyms (Rayevska 1979, Palmer 1981, Crystal 1995, Cruse 2004, Riemer 2010). As far as English synonyms are concerned, they not only vary etymologically, but also exhibit a variety of semantic changes which they underwent to be anchored in the English vocabulary. This article addresses the question if there is a causal relation (1) between the type of semantic change which synonymous words undertook in their historical development and the origin of the words and (2) between the said semantic change and the period of time when the words became part of the English language. Is the relation direct and causal, or are the semantic and diachronic features of synonyms not interdependent? To test this relationship, the most frequently used twenty- three headwords of the English language were chosen from the word- list in the British National Corpus. The twenty-three synonymic groups made total of 122 words. The aim of the research - to set the patterns of the development of meaning of words within a synonymic group - was pursued by employing qualitative and quantitative research methods. The words were analyzed diachronically and seman- tically. Chi Square and ANOVA quantitative methods were used to test the validity of the obtained results. The analysis of the chosen English synonyms revealed some archetypal patterns of forming synonymic groups in English; however, the obtained data did not ascertain the fact that the semantic changes of the English synonyms were directly related to the origin of the words. The historical period when the words entered the English vocabulary appeared to be statistically more significant [...]