‘philanthropy is a superior quality’, where neti, a cannot be substituted or the meaning of the sentence is changed as in the sentences avan uyarnta manitan “He is a man of superior qualities' and avan neti, a manitan ‘He is a tall man”. Complete or integral synonyms which are interchangeable in all the contexts in which they occur. eg. col and kuuru both have the same meaning ‘to say in common," Partial synonyms which are interchangeable in some contexts but not in others. In the examples given, uyan rita, has meaning “tall' and “long’. Both the words are synonyms. A polysemic word can be synonymous with two different words with rcfcrc ncc t • • 1 ts «liflcrcnt mea nings. The word uyarnta is synonymous with netiya with reference to its meaning “tall' and it is synonymous with meel in its meaning ‘superior' as in the phrases uyarnta caati, meel caati ‘superior castes’. Therefore a study of synonyms should bring out the similarities and differences between the synonyms. Synonyms show different patterns with referance to their distribution. Further, synonyms are used for stylistic purposes by writers and poets. Tamil synonyms will be studied here with reference to these different aspects. Complete or integral synonyms are rare in ordinary language. But they are commonly found in scientific technical nomenclature (cf. Ullmann, 1964: 141). In Tamil text books of Science English terms (in Tamil script), newly coined or translated Tamil terms and borrowings from Sanskrit are freely used without change of meaning. The words col and kuuru ‘to say” referred to constitute a set of complete synonyms used in ordinary language other then technical nomenclature. As seen earlier, substitution test will reveal the differences and similarities between partial synonyms. The following can be added to the examples given above : 243
