Definition by synonymy
We might try, for example, to defi ne words by providing synonyms, in either the same language as the word being defined or in a different one. Thus, one could give mad and furious as English definitions of angry, and kulu as a Warlpiri one. The problem with this strategy is that it is usually possible to challenge the identity between the definiens (the metalanguage word proposed as the definition; Latin ‘defining’) and the definiendum (the object language word for which a definition is required; Latin ‘needing to be defined’). Thus, one could object that neither mad nor furious is really synonymous with angry, since mad also means ‘insane’, which angry does not, and since furious actually means something like ‘very angry’ (similar problems arise for other proposed synonyms, such as cross, livid, irate, enraged, etc.). Similarly, although Warlpiri kulu does often trans late English angry, it has a whole range of other meanings, including ‘mean’ and ‘fight’, which do not correspond to those of angry:
And as (24) exemplifies, Warlpiri does not share the same system of lexical categories as English, having a single category ‘nominal’ which contains words translated into English as both nouns and adjectives. Consequently, many instances of kulu will be translated into English as nouns: as a result, the synonymy with the adjective angry is destroyed. Thus, the provision of synonymy fails both as an extensional and as a cognitive definitional strategy. We will return to the question of synonymy in Section 5.1.5.
QUESTION What types of words are most easily defined through synonymy? For what words is synonymy least satisfactory as a definitional method?
