6
votes
Accepted
How do contronyms (aka auto-antonyms) arise?
I would guess each of these words has a different history and therefore the reason for the existence of antonyms is not unique. For example, sanction comes from a Latin root that meant "to decree, ...
- 1,215
5
votes
Accepted
How long in a language several words for the same notion can coexist?
Every language is chock full of synonyms—hundreds or thousands of them.
Usually, those synonyms have some difference. They might:
… have slightly different connotations (usually "baby" includes ...
- 2,625
4
votes
What is the difference between taurus and bovine?
Taurus is a proper name with little synchronic connection to cattle apart from usage of Latin in English for biological nomenclature and astrology, but bovine is an adjective which plainly means "...
- 81.9k
4
votes
Are synonyms evidence of cultural merges between ethnicities?
In Sanskrit there are dozens and dozens of synonyms for 'sun', none of them a loanword. The same goes about other notions, too, generally speaking Sanskrit has very few loanwords, mostly names of ...
- 17.7k
3
votes
Etymological reason behind Lao's many seeming variants for "stairs"?
My best guess is that the final syllable is from the Khmer word for to walk. It makes sense based on how the Khmer word for stairs is spelled. At least I cannot find any other good explanation as I do ...
- 31
3
votes
Are synonyms belonging to different dialects "absolute synonyms"?
Well, those are among the first candidates to be called absolute synonyms if we do accept the existence of absolute synonyms, but there are always arguments for the opposite idea. For example, autumn ...
2
votes
What are the processes and mechanisms that create homo(graphs/phones/semes)?
This answer only really addresses homophones and not the question of synonyms, as I don't know as much about them. I will note however that true synonyms are extremely rare, and tend to lead to ...
- 6,547
2
votes
How is "complexity" calculated on thesaurus.com?
After a little bit of testing I've noticed a couple things.
The most complex words seem not to be labeled as common.
The number of words making up a synonym increase as complexity increases
The word ...
- 221
1
vote
Are alternative pronunciations (with or without alternative spellings) different word forms from each other?
Attempts to rigorously define "word" as distinct from other word-like combinations of morphemes have not been successful in the field. So the short answer is, there's no way to tell; the slightly ...
- 81.9k
1
vote
Accepted
Is There A Text Reducing Tool Via Synonyms?
These are precisely what I was looking for:
https://tiny.tw/
https://apps.techglimpse.com/tweetshort/
- 405
1
vote
Natural Language Processing Meta-Super-Dictionary
You have two input choices: 1. analyze dictionaries (wordnet, worknik or wiktionary), 2. use word embeddings (word2vec, glove, elmo).
Use this data with a WSD (word sense disambiguation) solution. ...
- 664
1
vote
Do absolute synonyms exist?
Synonymy is a spectrum
Two words can be regarded as synonymous just due to a relation in meaning. Though usually, words referred to as "synonyms" are those who mean the same thing. Thing is, ...
- 205
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