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Lexicon-based changes include changes made by substituting words with their synonyms or closely related words without significantly altering the sentence structure. An example could be changing "quick" to "fast" in a sentence, where both adjectives convey a similar speed attribute.
Semantics studies meaning in language, which is limited to the meaning of linguistic expressions. It concerns how signs are interpreted and what information they contain. An example is the meaning of words provided in dictionary definitions by giving synonymous expressions or paraphrases, like defining the meaning of the term ram as adult male sheep. [22]
Synonym list in cuneiform on a clay tablet, Neo-Assyrian period [1] A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. [2] For example, in the English language, the words begin, start, commence, and initiate are all synonyms of one another: they are ...
A thesaurus (pl.: thesauri or thesauruses), sometimes called a synonym dictionary or dictionary of synonyms, is a reference work which arranges words by their meanings (or in simpler terms, a book where one can find different words with similar meanings to other words), [1] [2] sometimes as a hierarchy of broader and narrower terms, sometimes simply as lists of synonyms and antonyms.
In Words and Rules, Steven Pinker shows this process at work with regular and irregular verbs: we collect the former, which provide us with rules we can apply to unknown words (for example, the "‑ed" ending for past tense verbs allows us to decline the neologism "to google" into "googled"). Other patterns, the irregular verbs, we store ...
The higher the number of synonyms a word has, the higher the degree of ambiguity. [1] Like other kinds of ambiguity, semantic ambiguities are often clarified by context or by prosody. One's comprehension of a sentence in which a semantically ambiguous word is used is strongly influenced by the general structure of the sentence. [2]
Generally, words coming from French often retain a higher register than words of Old English origin, and they are considered by some to be more posh, elaborate, sophisticated, or pretentious. However, there are exceptions: weep , groom and stone (from Old English) occupy a slightly higher register than cry , brush and rock (from French).
The advice in this guideline is not limited to the examples provided and should not be applied rigidly. If a word can be replaced by one with less potential for misunderstanding, it should be. [1] Some words have specific technical meanings in some contexts and are acceptable in those contexts, e.g. claim in law.