WEB-ресурс научно-практических конференций

Tokariuk K.D.

Ukraine

FUNCTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ACCEPT- / REJECT-SYNONYMIC GROUPS IN W.S. MAUGHAM’S NOVEL “THEATRE”

The question of synonymic and antonymic relations of the lexical units within the language system has always been in the focus of the linguistic studies. Yet the problem of revealing contextual synonyms as well as contextual antonyms raises the suggestion of possibility to set the synonymic groups and antonymic pairs different from those suggested by the dictionaries. Moreover, no complex methodology of defining synonymic groups or setting antonymic pairs for many classes of the lexical units within an author's discourse has been worked out yet and that stipulates the topicality of the investigation.

Objective of the investigation is to set antonymic pairs in the author's discourse through defining two entire opposite synonymic groups of the verbs to accept and to reject correspondently and comparing their functional properties: their morphological and semantic combinability. The investigation is done on the material of the W.S. Maugham’s novel “Theatre”.

The synonymic groups of the verbs to accept and to reject correspondently are structured through the procedure of comparing the data of different modern thesauruses. The verb to accept has the following synonyms: to allow, to choose, to acquire, to admit, to agree, to receive, to greet, to acknowledge, to consent, to support, to say yes) and such synonyms as to refuse, to deny, to decline, to dismiss, to divert, to give up, to say no, to despise, to turn down, to disclaim, to retreat, to protest, to ignore are related to the verb to reject.

The frequency of usage of to accept-synonymic group verbs and correspondently their opposites in W. S. Maugham's discourse "Theatre" is determined. Synonyms of the verbs to accept and to reject are discriminated through the contextual analysis. The corresponding synonymic groups are compiled: to accept - to allow, to choose, to acquire, to admit, to agree, to receive, to greet, to acknowledge, to consent, to say yes, to support; the following verbs of the reject- synonymic group are: to refuse, to deny, to decline, to dismiss, to divert, to give up, to say no, to despise, to turn down, to disclaim, to retreat, to protest, to ignore.

The results of the etymological analysis make it possible to say that almost all the verbs of both synonymic groups are of Latin origin. Only such verbs as to choose, to greet, to acknowledge, to say yes of the “accept” synonymic group and to turn down, to say no, to despise and to give up of that of “reject” come from Old German.

Having done the calculations of the using separate representatives of synonymic groups we can see the verbs to accept and to refuse take the leader’s position. The first one is used 21 times and the second one – 20 times. For example:

He was not vain of his good looks, he knew he was handsome and accepted compli­ments, not exactly with indifference, but as he might have accepted a compliment on a fine old house that had been in his family for generations [3, p. 2] .

Julia showed him as clearly as she knew how, and this was very clearly indeed, that she was quite willing to become his mistress, but this he refused [3, p. 16] .

The most rarely used representatives of the synonymic groups under study are the verbs to support and to ignore. The examples are as follows:

With that refuge always at hand she could support anything [3, p. 85] .

The book reviews she ignored ; she could never understand why so much space was wasted on them [3, p. 27] .

The total quantity of the verbs of accept -synonymic group is 87; the number of verbs of the opposite synonymic group that is of reject is 56. So, we can draw a conclusion that the author uses assertion in the discourse more often than negation. That reflects a certain inner world of the characters of the discourse, their emotions, feelings, wishes and likes.

An interesting fact is that Somerset Maugham in his discourse “Theatre” doesn’t use the verb to reject at all . This is very odd in terms of the fact that the given verb can be found in most thesauruses as the domain antonym of the entire correspondent synonymic group.

One of the tasks of our investigation was to define typical distributional patterns of reject- / accept- synonymic group units. According to the results of quantitative analysis the most frequently used patterns are V+N in the accept- synonymic group and V+Pron in that of reject. For example:

Julia accepted the flowers with which Dolly de Vries filled her flat and her dressing-room, she was properly delighted with the presents she gave her, bags, vanity cases, strings of beads in semi-precious stones, brooches [3, p. 26] .

Charles had never refused her anything, and with tact she was certain that she could wheedle him into proposing Tom for one of those to which he belonged [3, p. 74] .

The results of the analysis of the semantic compatibility of synonymic group predicatives with their objects enable us to state that the verbs representing both synonymic groups tend to combine with abstract nouns more than with the others.

So, we can draw the conclusion the structuring of the synonymic groups and the interrelation of the lexical units within them are rather subjective in the author’s discourse and can deviated significantly from those suggested by the dictionaries.

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