SYNONYMS IN AMAIYI DIALECT OF IGBO

Abstract

Sense relation refers to how the meanings of individual words are either similar or different. Many scholars have studied how the meanings of words are interrelated. Some words have similar meanings, some others are quite different. These similarities and differences range from close to distant relationship. Upon these varying degrees of relationships, words are sorted out using different criteria. Sense relation is one area of language to which we can continually add throughout our lives because we are always learning new words and their meanings. Speakers of a language as part of the knowledge of their language have also mastered the words and the kinds of relationship they have with one another. Again, the vocabulary of a language is not an unrelated aggregate of words rather there are systematic relations between the words of a language and it becomes part of the burden of a linguistic account of lexical meaning to provide a characterisation of the relations.(Anagbogu et al 2010). Synonymy is a term used in semantics to refer to the major types of sense relation between lexical items. Lexical items which have the same meaning are synonyms. For two items to be synonyms, does not mean that they should be identical in meaning that is interchangeable in all contexts and with identical connotations. This unlikely possibility is sometimes referred to as absolute synonymy. Synonyms can be said to occur if items are close enough in their meaning to allow a choice to be made between them in some contexts, without there being any difference for the meaning of the sentence as a whole. Linguistic studies of synonymy have emphasised the importance of context in deciding whether a set of lexical items is synonymous. Synonymy is distinguished from such other sense relations as antonym, hyponymy and incompatibility etc. (Anagbogu et al 2010). The aim of this research is to examine synonyms, how to test synonyms, reasons for synonym and some list of synonyms in Amaiyi dialect. This will enable one to ascertain whether there are real synonyms in Amaiyi dialect or not. Amaiyi dialect is a member of Nwaozuzu's (2006) East Niger group of dialects. The research work is divided into five sections, the first is introduction, the second section is definitions of the topic of the research, third section is the reasons for synonyms, and synonyms in Amaiyi dialect and the fourth section is the findings and conclusion.