A study on semantic and lexical variation: examining the competition between near-synonyms

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to examine the competition between the following nearsynonyms from a diachronic perspective: fear/terror/trepidation, guard/ward, beck/stream and napkin/serviette. For this purpose a general overview of both lexical and semantic change will be provided in sections 2 and 3 so as to place the competition of these nearsynonyms in a broader context. When dealing with lexical change, special attention will be paid to the process of lexical expansion known as ‘borrowing’, since the near-synonyms mentioned above have come to exist in the English vocabulary precisely through borrowing from different languages. Further, the notion of semantic change will be described, since it is closely connected to lexical borrowing, often taking place as a consequence of it. This process will be explained in order to give an understanding of why and how changes in meaning occur in view of the fact that some members of the pairs or trios of near-synonyms will inevitably have undergone some type of semantic change at some point in the history of English to differentiate them. In section 4 the aforementioned near-synonyms will be analyzed in detail, by taking into account their etymology and history on the basis of the information provided in the Oxford English Dictionary, among others. By doing so I will try to make clear how and when they entered English, but also try to trace their development in the language. In the last section of the dissertation a practical part will be included where the selected nearsynonyms will be investigated in terms of usage by making use of the British English 2006 and American English 2006 corpora. This will be done to see how each member of the pairs or trios of near-synonyms are employed by English speakers today and whether they show differences ‘in meaning, connotation, nuance or register’, as Samuels (1972: 62) states, or if they can be employed interchangeably.