Types of Connotations

I. The connotation of degree or intensity can be traced in such groups of synonyms as to surprise — to astonish — to amaze — to astound;1 to satisfy — to please — to content — to gratify — to de-light — to exalt; to shout — to yell — to bellow — to roar; to like — to admire — to love — to adore — to worship.

II. In the group of synonyms to stare — to glare — to gaze — to glance — to peep — to peer, all the synonyms except to glance de-note a lasting act of looking at somebody or something, whereas to glance describes a brief, passing look. These synonyms may be said to have a connotation of duration in their semantic structure. Other examples are: to flash (brief) — to blaze (lasting); to shud-der (brief) — to shiver (lasting); to say (brief) — to speak, to talk (lasting). All these synonyms have other connotations besides that of dura-tion.

III. The synonyms to stare — to glare — to gaze are differenti-ated from the other words of the group by emotive connotations, and from each other by the nature of the emotion they imply In the group alone — single — lonely — solitary, the adjective lonely also has an emotive connotation.

IV. The evaluative connotation conveys the speaker's attitude to-wards the referent, labelling it as good or bad. So in the group well-known — famous — notorious — celebrated, the adjective notorious bears a negative evaluative connotation and celebrated a positive one.

V. The causative connotation can be illustrated by the examples to sparkle and to glitter given above: one's eyes sparkle with positive emotions and glitter with negative emotions. However, this connota-tion of to sparkle and to glitter seems to appear only in the model "Eyes + Sparkle/Glitter". The causative connotation is also typical of the verbs we have al-ready mentioned, to shiver and to shudder, in whose semantic struc-tures the cause of the act or process of trembling is encoded: to shiver with cold, from a chill, because of the frost; to shudder with fear, hor-ror, etc.

VI. The connotation of manner can be singled out in some groups of verbal synonyms. The verbs to stroll — to stride — to trot — to pace — to swagger — to stagger — to stumble all denote different ways and types of walking, encoding in their semantic structures the length of pace, tempo, gait and carriage, purposefulness or lack of purpose

ing."

The Dominant Synonym

The attentive reader will have noticed that in the previous chapter much use was made of the numerous synonyms of the verb to look, and yet, the verb to look itself was never mentioned. That doesn't seem fair because it is, certainly, a verb which possesses the highest frequency of use compared with its synonyms, and so plays an impor-tant role in communication. Its role and position in relation to its synonyms is also of some importance as it presents a kind of centre of the group of synonyms, as it were, holding it together. Its semantic structure is quite simple: it consists only of denotative component and it has no connotations. All (or, at least, most) synonymic groups have a "central" word of this kind whose meaning is equal to the denotation common to all the synonymic group. This word is called the dominant synonym. Here are examples of other dominant synonyms with their groups:

To surprise — to astonish — to amaze — to astound.

Angry — furious — enraged. Fear — terror — horror.

The dominant synonym expresses the notion common to all syno-nyms 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 typi-cal basic-vocabulary word. Its meaning, which is broad and generalised, more or less "covers" the meanings of the rest of the synonyms, so that it may be substituted for any of them. It seems that here, at last, the idea of interchangeability of synonyms comes into its own. Summing up what has been said, the following characteristic fea-tures of the dominant synonym can be underlined:

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.