Synonymy in English and Arabic with Reference to the Holy Qur'an: A Contrastive Study

Abstract—This is a contrastive linguistic study the primary purpose of which is to shed light on the concept of synonymy as employed semantically in Arabic from one side and English from the other. The study highlights the controversy that surrounds synonymy as debated by classical and modern Arab scholars comparing that to the various opinions held by modern and contemporary English linguists.Since the study is theoretical and qualitative in nature, the researchers relied mainly on different linguistic sources especially those in the field of semantics in the data collection process.Such sources included specialized dictionaries, linguistic encyclopedias, scholarly books in addition to the Arabic and English- translated versions of the Holy Qur'an. The major findings of the study revealed that synonymy is a universal phenomenon that is not limited to Arabic or English, there is no such things as absolute synonymy but rather near synonymy exists at best, there is a clear controversy that exists among classical and modern Arab linguists concerning the existence or absence of synonymy in language. Finally, Absolute synonymy in the Holy Qur'an is simply an illusion and it does not exist at all. What exists is simply near synonymy which appears to be synonymous at first glance but reveals different and distinct semantic meanings upon deeper semantic analysis of the vocabulary items that are generally regarded to be synonymous at the surface. Index Terms—general synonymy, absolute synonymy, near synonymy, Qur'anic synonymy, affirmation o