Synonymy and linguistic sign

• Published in: La Linguistique (Paris. 1965) 1972-01, Vol.8 (2), p.5-38
• Main Author: Schogt, Henry G
• Format: Article
• Language: fre
• ISSN: 0075-966X

Synonymy presupposes several factors: (1) It takes place at the level of lexical units, or at the sentence level, not grammatical endings; (2) Two free variants with little phonic difference are not synonyms. For lexical units, the signifies are either totally identical or they are not. In addition to common elements, they have elements which are not shared or one of them has elements which are not shared. For those who accept the latter as synonymity, the question is to decide at what stage it will stop. The semantic unit is determined by two complementary methods: in the speech chain, or within the system. Syntagmatic analysis can never be exhaustive; the number of utterances is infinite. A limited corpus can lead to very rare occurrences of the term studied. Paradigmatic analysis presupposes the identification of the terms in the system through syntagmatic analysis. Thus, syntagmatic analysis of occurrences including the same term is the only possibility. This leads to a crystallization of the concept, which progressively becomes independent of contexts. According to Heger's theory, the sign, at the level of the system, is composed of semes which are not all used in any given utterance; at the speech level, the signal represents the sign. Synonymy, then, takes place at the speech level, and not at the level of isolated units. However, when it comes to analyzing a term, the isolation of semes is next to impossible. The speaker's choice of terms depends on: (1) the experience to which the message refers; (2) the speaker's attitude regarding the denotatum; (3) the speaker's attitude toward the listener; and (4) the linguistic devices at the speaker's disposal. The problem of phonic expressivity has been dealt with by Bloomfield and Weinreich, but these authors have neglected some of its more universal aspects. Connotation, association, and phonic expressivity have a subjective character which prevents objective description. The question of subjectivity loses much of its abstractness when one goes from the isolated word to complete utterances. Prieto establishes the fact that if the formal aspect of the message does not count, then synonymy is possible, but if the terms have non-denotative functions, synonymy is impossible. Word order is a syntactico-semantic problem. Inflectional languages have more or less free word order but often permutation of two elements which keep their function leads to a change in meaning. At the level of utterances, a new problem