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Abstract
“Synonymy” is a subject that has raised the interest of researchers and thinkers all along the history of linguistics. As a result of the various theoretical approaches, ever since Classical times, different criteria for the delimitation of synonyms have been applied. These criteria have originated a whole range of clearly faced positions, going from those which without doubt defend its existence to those which absolutely deny it. Among the reasons that cause such distinct positions, the similarity of meaning requisite can be specially emphasized. Proposed by several authors as a means for the establishment of synonyms, it has therefore led to a lax definition of synonymy as a similarity of meaning, also designated as parasynonymy, quasisynonymy or partial synonymy. Nevertheless, we believe that the characterization of synonyms from a lexical point of view as meanings that are semantically alike involves a confusion between them and other lexical units, such as parasynonyms or hyperonyms-hyponyms. As a central hypothesis, we maintain that parasynonymy is a lexical relationship between very close semantically meanings, which constitute a non-neutralizable equipollent opposition between its terms. Therefore, the most important aim of our doctoral thesis is to grant parasynonymy, independent of synonymy, an equal status of lexical relationship as the one found in hyperonymy-hyponymy and antonymy. That is why, with the purpose of rendering different approaches to the subject, we have started out from a historiographic revision of both total and partial synonymy, which, on the one hand, has led us to a conceptual and terminological delimitation of parasynonymy and, on the other hand, has allowed us to establish criteria for the definition of this relation. These criteria provide the basis for our own classification of parasynonymic meanings, as can be seen in its application to a representative sample of parasynonyms in the Spanish language.
