Types of connotations:

• Degree or intense;

• Duration;

• Emotive;

• Evaluative;

• Causative;

• Manner;

• Describing human’s beauty;

• Stylistic C.

Synonymy (S) is the words which are different in outer aspects, but identical or similar in their internal aspects. Big number of synonymy is caused by borrowings. Also, synonyms are defined as words with extensive semantic similarity. The peculiar feature of English synonymy is the contrast between simple native words which are stylistically neutral, literary borrowed words from French, Latin, Greek and other languages. S is context-context depend. S ignores word’s connotation and recognizes only their denotation; also it ignores stylistic aspects of the word. List of synonyms can be looked up in thesaurus, which is dictionary where words with similar meanings are grouped together.

Dominant synonym – the central word in the group of synonyms, which is meaning is equal to the denotation common to all synonymic group. The dominant synonym expresses the notion common to all synonyms of the group in the most general way, without contributing any additional information as to the manner, intensity, duration or any attending feature of the referent. So, any dominant synonym is a typical basic-vocabulary word.

Characteristic features of the dominant synonym:

I. High frequency of usage.

II. Broad combinability, i. e. ability to be used in combinations with various classes of words.

III. Broad general meaning.

IV. Lack of connotations. (This goes for stylistic con notations as well, so that neutrality as to style is also a typical feature of the dominant synonym).

Sources of S:

• Borrowings, desynonymization and abbreviation;

• Formation of phrasal words;

Classification of S by V.V. Vinogradov:

• Ideographic (words which are conveying the same concept but different is shades of meanings);

• Stylistic (differs in stylistic characteristics);

• Absolute (coinciding in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic characteristics);

5. Word meaning in syntagmatics and paradigmatics. The semantic field theory.

The semantic field (SF) theory

This theory holds that words do not exist in isolation but form so-called SF with other semantically related words. Since the 1980s, however, the more recent approach of cognitive semantics sees language as part of our cognitive ability through which we organise and classify all aspects of our experience. This view is based on the assumption that meaning is linked to the way we group all kinds of perceptions and phenomena into conceptual categories. Categorisation and conceptualisation are based on the comparison of new things with ones we already know and the resulting cognitive construction of similarities between different entities. Fuzziness of this kind is characteristic of the human conceptual system.Many concepts do not only have fuzzy boundaries, their members can also be graded according to their typicality.

Prototypes are cognitive reference points. Due to the important role prototypes play in cognitive semantics, the term prototype semantics is sometimes used as an alternative. There is core of the SF (prototype) and periphery.