An analysis of medical synonyms: The word-structure of preferred terms

This paper attempts to clarify the types of terms which are likely to be preferred among synonyms. We regard the term referred to by the other synonyms in a dictionary as the dominant term among synonyms. More than 2,000 pairs of Japanese synonymous terms for diseases are extracted from a standard medical dictionary, and their word-structures are analysed in relation with the preferred and non-preferred terms. It was found that the terms which include person names or virus names are likely to be dominant and that the terms which include place names or suffixes are not likely to be dominant. The relation between the concept which should be conveyed by the term and the one which is actually conveyed through the word-structure is discussed.