Synonyms and Language Structures

The readings this week by Atkins and Levin, Haspelmath and Slobin are focused on the topics of semantic meaning and morphology. My favourite part of the readings is Atkins and Levin’s analysis of synonyms, as the use of electronic media has significantly changed our grasp of synonyms. As synonyms are more and more readily suggested by computer programs, the appropriateness of using different words in different contexts comes into question. Although humans have a fairly intuitive sense of which words should be used in different sentences, computers do not. For example, take the sentence: the quick fox jumps over the lazy dog. To use Microsoft Word synonyms, the same sentence can be changed to: the bright confuse obstructions concluded the slothful trail. This second sentence is entirely nonsensical. Furthermore, I find the topic extremely interesting as the ramifications of the use of computers to provide us with synonyms is the shrinking of our vocabularies.

Other parts of the reading that were very thought provoking are Slobin’s discussion of differently oriented languages. For example, some languages are S-languages (satellite framed) and some are V-languages (verb framed). In V-languages the sentence is communicated predominantly by the verb. In S-languages, such as English, it is not the verb itself but the words that are associated with the given verbs that define the meaning of the sentences. As an international student who has been exposed to different languages going up, I find this particularly relevant.