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Studia Romanica et Anglica Zagrabiensia : Revue publiée par les Sections romane, italienne et anglaise de la Faculté des Lettres de l’Université de Zagreb, Vol. 56 No. -, 2011.

Original scientific paper

Synonymy in Idiomatic Expressions.

Vlatko Broz
Mirna Glavan

Full text: english pdf 328 Kb

page 45-70

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Abstract

This paper examines the paradigmatic semantic relationship of synonymy in several
sets of different idiomatic expressions with similar meaning. It starts from the hypothesis
that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning in all contexts or on all
socio-cultural levels of language, and that corrective mechanisms operate to prevent
absolute synonymy (such as one of the lexical units falling into disuse or acquiring
different connotations in terms of stylistic markedness or register). One of the ways
to test this hypothesis is to conduct a survey of native speakers, asking them whether
selected idiomatic expressions are synonymous or not, as well as in which contexts
and uses their meanings differ. The paper presents the results of this survey, in which
25 native speakers of English participated.

Keywords

phrasal; synonymy; idiom; idiomatic expression; metaphor

Hrčak ID:

101800

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/101800

Publication date:

2.5.2012.

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