A brief survey on syntactical synonymy

Abstract

The issues of grammatical synonymy in general and syntactical synonymy specifically are timely in modern linguistics; they draw attention of many scientists. Grammatical studies of the past decade take a growing interest in the problem of synonymy. It should be noted that in linguistic literature the term 'synonymy' is increasingly frequently used in relation to different language elements: sounds, word forms, morphemes, syntactical constructions. The phenomenon of synonymy is multifold, it can be found in all aspects of the language, is closely related to problems of speech culture, stylistics, etc. Synonymy with ever increasing frequency is examined not only in vocabulary but also in syntax, which is explained by the possibilities provided by the studies of syntactical synonymy for onomasiological description of the language, transformational analysis. The aim of our study is to observe briefly approaches of different linguists to define 'syntactical synonym' and to find out main criteria of synonymity.