ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1 we distinguished between sentences and the propositions they express. Since several sentences can express the same proposition, sometimes the sentences stating a valid syllogism in ordinary language have more than three distinct terms. In that case, you need to reduce the syllogism to standard form by:
• Eliminating synonyms
• Eliminating complementary terms (antonyms)
If two or more terms in an argument are synonyms, you can reduce the number of terms by substituting one synonym for another.