Seminar 4 (2.

2)
Meaning Variation. Sense Relations
1. Ambiguity and vagueness in English.
Ambiguity is a term used to characterise phenomena that have more than only one meaning. These meanings are
distinct from each other and have no close schema in common. That is why a single expression may lead to multiple
interpretations. In natural language many words, strings of words and sentences are ambiguous, simply because of the
fact that numerous words cover several distinct meanings, or specific structural elements give rise to different
readings. That means that “an expression or utterance is ambiguous if it can be interpreted in more than one way”
(Löbner 2002: p. 39). However, disregarding puns (see 1.5), in every linguistic situation only one meaning of an
ambiguous expression can be used. There are several forms of ambiguity to be distinguished – according to their
trigger:
Lexical Ambiguity

Lexical ambiguity is concerned with multiple interpretations of lexemes. A word is ambiguous if it involves two
lexical items that have identical forms, but have distinct, i.e. unrelated meanings. There are numerous examples of
lexical ambiguity. A clear-cut one is the lexeme ball. This word may either denote the round object which is used for
several sports, like football, volleyball or basketball, or it can be used to refer to a large formal dancing party. Both
forms are identically written and pronounced but just accidentally share the same form: ball in the sense of the round
object originates in the Old Norse word ‘ballr’, whereas ball as the formal event comes from Greek ‘ballizar’
(meaning ‘to dance’) and was first attested in the English language in the 1630s being introduced through Old French.
(Online Etymological Dictionary) Another example by Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1993) is the following
sentence: You should have seen the bull we got from the Pope. The sentence is ambiguous, because the word bull may
stand for several distinct things – either a male animal of different kinds, a swearword or an official order or statement
from the Pope. As ambiguity is context dependent lexical disambiguation (knowing which word meaning has been
used) is quite easy in most cases when considering previous expectations and context (p. 32).

The most classical example of lexical ambiguity is bank, which may either denote an organisation providing financial
services, or the side of a river – just to mention two of the lexeme’s possible meanings.

Further examples of lexical ambiguity are:

bright - a bright (intelligent) person vs. bright (sunny) weather

file - arranged collection of papers vs. metal tool

Tuggy (1993) offers a classical definition of vagueness. He characterises it as a linguistic phenomenon, where “two or more meanings associated with a

given phonological form are […] united as non-distinguished subcases of a single, more general meaning” (p. 167). That means that vagueness involves “a

lexeme with a single but nonspecific meaning” (ibid., p. 168).

Typical examples of vagueness are kinship terms, e.g. child, as well as lexemes with flexible boundaries, e.g. gradable adjectives like tall (cf. Löbner 2002: p.

45). An utterance like “It’s my child’s birthday tomorrow.” is vague, because the lexeme child is vague. There are two possible instantinations, namely [a

female human under 18] and [a male human under 18]. When receiving such an uttereance it is much more likely that the common schema [a human under

18] is activated instead of its instantiations.

The lexeme tall in the statement “He is a tall man.” is vague as well. Tall belongs to the group of gradable adjectives. Therefore, the boundaries of the

category tall are flexible depending on the context it is used in. From the perspective of a little child, a 5-foot-tall man will be considered tall. But the same
 man will not be considered with the same quality – tall – from the perspective of a 6-foot-tall woman. Thus, categorisations of this kind are always matter of

norms (cf. Löbner 2002: p. 195).

2. Polysemy in contemporary English, its nature and types.

It is generally known that most words convey several concepts and thus possess the corresponding number of meanings. A
word having several meanings is called polysemantic, and the ability of words to have more than one meaning is described
by the term polysemy.

Most English words are polysemantic. It should be noted that the wealth of expressive resources of a language largely
depends on the degree to which polysemy has developed in the language.

The number of sound combinations that human speech organs can produce is limited. Therefore, at a certain stage of
language development the production of new words by morphological means becomes limited, and polysemy becomes
increasingly important in providing the means for enriching the vocabulary.

The semantic structure of a polysemantic word is treated as a system of meanings. For example, the main meanings of the
noun bar (any kind of barrier to prevent people from passing\the profession of barrister\in a public hose or hotel a counter or
room where drinks are served).

When analyzing the semantic structure of a polysemantic word, it is necessary to distinguish between two levels of analysis.
On the first level, the semantic structure of a word is treated as a system of meanings. For example, the semantic structure
of a noun fire could be presented by the following most frequent meanings (flame\an instance of destructive burning\burning
material in a stove\fire place, etc). The first meaning presents the center of the semantic structure of the word holding it
together is called the main meaning of the word. Others are secondary meanings.

The scheme of the semantic structure of the polysemantic word shows that it is not a mere system of meanings, for each
separate meaning is subject to further subdivision and possesses an inner structure of its own.

It is very important to distinguish between the lexical meaning of a word in speech and its semantic structure in language.
The meaning in speech is contextual.

Polysemy does not interfere with the communicative function of the language because in every case the situation and
context cancel all the unnecessary meanings and make speech unambiguous.

Types of meaning of a polysemantic word according to V.V. Vinogradov

1. nominative

2. nominative-derivative

3. colligationally conditioned

4. collocationally conditioned

5. phraseologically bound

The nominative meaning denotes the objects of extralinguistic reality in direct and straightforward way, reflecting their actual
relations. Thus, for example: to carry whose nominative meaning is “to support the weight of and move from place to place”
normally combines with nouns like a box, a chair, a heavy stone, a baby, etc. The nominative meaning is the basic of all the
other meanings of the word. It is said to be “free”. The word may have several “free” meanings but they all depend on the
nominative one: that is why they are called “nominative-derivative”, for example: sweet in the nominative-derivative meaning
of “pleasant, attractive” goes with face, voice, singer, little boy, temper, etc.

Side by side with the “free” meanings of the word there are linguistically conditioned (or “bound”) meanings which can be of
two kinds: colligationally conditioned and collocationally conditioned.

The former can be illustrated by the uses of the verb to keep. When used with nouns like hens, bees, pigs, etc. the verb
means “own or manage especially for profit”. The verb to keep has altogether different meaning, namely “continue doing
something” when it is used with a gerund, for example: Keep smiling!

The colligationally conditioned meaning is determined by the morphosyntactic combinability of the word, while the
collocationally conditioned meaning depends on its lexical-phraseological ties, e.g. the verb to love in the expression I’d love
to meet them.
3. The semantic structure of polysemantic words (primary/secondary, main/derived, direct/figurative senses).

 It is not in every polysemantic word that such a centre can be found. Some semantic structures are arranged on a
different principle. In the following list of meanings of the adjective “dull" one can hardly hope to find a generalized
meaning covering and holding together the rest of the semantic structure.

Dull, adj.

1.                A dull book, a dull film - uninteresting, monotonous, boring.

2.                A dull student - slow in understanding, stupid.

3.                Dull weather, a dull day, a dull colour - not clear or bright.

4.                A dull sound - not loud or distinct.

5.                A dull knife - not sharp.

6.                Trade is dull - not active.

7.                Dull eyes (arch.) - seeing badly.

8.                Dull ears (arch.) - hearing badly.

There is something that all these seemingly miscellaneous meanings have in common, and that is the implication of deficiency, be it of colour (m.
III), wits (m. II), interest (m. I), sharpness (m. V), etc. The implication of insufficient quality, of something lacking, can be clearly distinguished in
each separate meaning.

Dull, adj.

1.                Uninteresting - deficient in interest or excitement.

2.                Stupid - deficient in intellect.

3.                Not bright - deficient in light or colour.

4.                Not loud - deficient in sound.

5.                Not sharp - deficient in sharpness.

6.                Not active - deficient in activity.

7.                Seeing badly - deficient in eyesight.

8.                Hearing badly - deficient in hearing.

The transformed scheme of the semantic structure of “dull" clearly shows that the centre holding together the complex semantic structure of this
word is not one of the meanings but a certain component that can be easily singled out within each separate meaning.

On the second level of analysis of the semantic structure of a word: each separate meaning is a subject to structural analysis in which it may be
represented as sets of semantic components.

The scheme of the semantic structure of “dull" shows that the semantic structure of a word is not a mere system of meanings, for each separate
meaning is subject to further subdivision and possesses an inner structure of its own.

Therefore, the semantic structure of a word should be investigated at both these levels:

1) of different meanings,

2) of semantic components within each separate meaning. For a monosemantic word (i. e. a word with one meaning) the first level is naturally
excluded.

4. The main types of semantic transfer: metaphor and metonymy.

 Metaphor is the semantic process of associating two referents, one of which in some way resembles the other. Metaphors
may be based on similarity of shape, size, position, function, etc.

In various languages metaphoric meanings of words denoting parts of the human body are most frequent,

e.g. the eye of a needle "hole in the end of a needle", the neck of a bottle, the heart of a cabbage - the metaphoric meaning
has developed through similarity of the shape of two objects; the foot of the hill - this metaphoric change is based on the
similarity of position; the hand of the clock, the Head of the school - the metaphoric meaning is based on similarity of
function.

A special group of metaphors comprises proper nouns that have become common nouns,

e.g. a Don Juan - "a lady-killer" , a vandal - "one who destroys property, works of art" (originally "Germanic tribe that in the
4th-5th c. ravaged Gaul, Spain, N. Africa, and Rome, destroying many books and works of art").

Metonymy is a semantic process of associating two referents which are somehow connected or linked in time or space.
They may be connected because they often appear in the same situation,

e.g. bench has developed the meaning "judges" because it was on benches that judges used to sit,

or the association may be of material and an object made of it, etc.,

e.g. silver – 1) certain .precious metal; 2) silver coins; 3) cutlery; 4) silver medal,

or they may be associated because one makes part of the other,

e.g. factory/farm hands "workers" (because strong, skillful hands are the most important part of a person engaged in
physical labour).

Common nouns may be derived from proper names through metonymic transference,

e.g. Wellingtons "high boots covering knees in front" (from the 1st Duke of Wellington, Br. general and statesman, who
introduced them in fashion).

4.4. Results of semantic change may be observed in the changes of the denotative component and the connotative
component of word meaning

5. Homonymy in contemporary English: its nature, sources and classification. Homonymy vs polysemy.
Paronyms.

Homonyms are words identical in sound and spelling, but different in meaning, distribution and, in many cases, origin.

Sources of homonyms:

1. Convergent sound development. Word of different origin, due to undergoing certain sound changes, eventually
accidentally coincide in their sound-form (knight – night).

2. Divergent meaning development. Two meanings of one polysemous word become too far from each other and
any connections are lost.

3. Heteronyms – after conversion (google – to google)

4. Shortening – rep (reputation, representative).

5. Sound imitation – bang, n (a loud, sudden, explosive noise) – bang, n (a fringe of hair combed over the forehead).

Classifications:

Formal:

1. homophones – words identical in sound form but different in spelling // son : : sun, sea : : see
 2. homographs  – words identical in spelling but different in sound form and meaning // lead [li:d] ‘guide’ – lead [led]
‘soft, easily melting metal’

3. proper homonyms (full, absolute) - words identical in sound and graphic form but different meaning // case – 1.
smth that happens, 2. a box

Semantic:

1. lexical homonyms - words of the same part of speech, differing in their lexical meanings: bank 1 : : bank 2, ball 1 : :
ball 2; piece : : peace, knight : : night, air : : heir and many others.

2. lexico-grammatical homonyms differ in lexical and part-of-speech meanings, i.e. they belong to different parts of
speech: sea, n. : : see, v., red, a. : : read, v., mean, a. : : mean, v., paw, n. : : pour, v. etc.

3. grammatical homonyms - word-forms belonging to the same paradigm, differing in their grammatical meanings:
brothers, pl. - brother's, sing. possessive case - brothers', pl. possess.

6. Semantic relations and lexical relations 

Any relationship between two or more words based on the meaning of the words.

- The main types of semantic relations between meanings.

Lexicon is a system that exists in the mind of the speaker. The Ws divide the semantic space between themselves.

Thesaurus: Ws are grouped according to some common concepts.

Types of relations:

1. Inclusion

 implies that the meaning of 1 word contains the semantic features of another word

2. proximity (a kind of similarity – closest mngs, partially similar)

 similarity of meaning. Always partial. It leads to synonymy. Synonymic dominant is the central, most neutral & general
term of a synonymic set.

3. Opposition

 leads to antonymy.

4. equivalence (strictly speaking doesn’t exist)

Lexical semantics (also known as lexicosemantics), is a subfield of linguistic semantics. The units of analysis in lexical semantics are
lexical units which include not only words but also sub-words or sub-units such as affixes and even compound words and phrases. Lexical
units include the catalogue of words in a language, the lexicon. Lexical semantics looks at how the meaning of the lexical units correlates
with the structure of the language or syntax. This is referred to as syntax-semantic interface. [1]
The study of lexical semantics looks at:

 the classification and decomposition of lexical items

 the differences and similarities in lexical semantic structure cross-linguistically
 the relationship of lexical meaning to sentence meaning and syntax.
Lexical units, also referred to as syntactic atoms, can stand alone such as in the case of root words or parts of compound words or they
necessarily attach to other units such as prefixes and suffixes do. The former are called free morphemes and the latter bound morphemes.
[2]
 They fall into a narrow range of meanings (semantic fields) and can combine with each other to generate new denotations.

7. Types of paradigmatic relations:

      - synonymy (classifications; sources; synonymic differentiation)
      - antonymy (classifications; contronyms)
      - hyponymy and hyperonymy
       - meronymy and holonymy

Paradigmatic relations, on the other hand, concern substitution, and relates entities that do not co-occur in the text; it is a relation in absentia.
Paradigmatic relations hold between linguistic entities that occur in the same context but not at the same time, like the words “hungry” and “thirsty” in
the sentence “I am [hungry|thirsty]”. Paradigmatic relations are substitutional relations, which means that linguistic entities have a paradigmatic relation
when the choice of one excludes the choice of another. A paradigm is thus a set of such substitutable entities.

8. Other types of sense relations

      - derivational sense relations (as manifested in word families)
      - lexical (semantic) fields and their subcategorizations
      - other lexical groupings
9. Euphemisms. Political correctness.
uphemia that enables to substitute taboo words with adequate accuracy is one of the main instruments of the up-to-date
politically correct behaviour. In this article the usage of euphemisms that observe political correctness is studied. The
basis for the article analysis were the euphemisms selected from American and British publicistic articles.
Euphemisms both usual and occasional ones are considered in the article from the linguoculturological perspective. As
a result of the investigation, the total of 467 politically correct euphemisms were detected, which forms 1,5% of all
word usages, and also 144 units of the still-in-use politically incorrect lexical units were detected that can be
substituted by corresponding existent euphemisms. The author selected the following main criterion for euphemism
detection: denotative correlation is the common indication of a euphemism and a direct naming unit, and indirect
nature of nomination and positive connotation or neutral characteristics distinguish a euphemism from a direct naming
unit, which in this case has a negative connotation. It appears reasonable to divide the whole modern euphemistic
vocabulary of the English language into two layers - static and dynamic. The static, or fixed, layer includes the lexical
elements connected with the following euphemistic spheres: preternatural powers, death, diseases, human body and its
separate parts, physiology, pregnancy, gender relations; the dynamic, or mobile, layer includes the lexical naming
units that started to fulfill the euphemistic function in connection with the establishment of political correctness. Such
euphemistic processes covered almost all the spheres of society's life, having formed herewith corresponding
euphemistic types. Politically correct euphemisms divide into the following most widely spread types, and,
correspondingly, subtypes: euphemisms connected with the naming of physical and mental disorders (physical
disorders, mental disorders, age, appearance); gender euphemisms (gender, sex minorities); ethnic euphemisms (race,
nationality); social euphemisms (financial status, second-rate professions, morality, military activities, economy,
ecology, religion); commercial euphemisms. The research has shown that the most widely spread formation means of
euphemisms are the following: periphrases, reinterpretation, word composition and word blending, affixation, and
transfer of meaning. However, combined formation means of politically correct euphemisms also occur. The author
also lists the most common usage features of euphemisms in the English language with the focus on quantitative data.
Despite the fact that euphemisms account for only 1,5 % of the whole volume of the analysed material, the English
language is supposed to be influenced by them and will continue to be influenced, as the big thematic variety of
politically correct euphemisms indicates their constantly growing social importance and their ability to reflect changes
in the interpretation of a particular social phenomenon and to give it a new mental and ethic assessment.

Key words: ambiguity and vagueness; polysemy, chain polysemy, radial polysemy, a

lexical-semantic variant, sememe, seme, lexical entry, semantic derivation,
secondary nomination, primary and secondary meaning, main and derived
meaning, direct and figurative meaning, metaphor, metonymy, euphemism,
political correctness, homonymy, homonym, homograph, homophone,
paronymy;
paradigm, paradigmatic relations, synonymy, a synonymic dominant,
ideographic synonyms (near-synonyms), stylistic synonyms (variants),
absolute synonyms, relative synonyms, contextual synonyms, antonymy,
contraries (antonyms proper), complementaries,  conversives, directional
opposition, a contronym, inclusion relations, a hyperonym, a hyponym, an
equonym, a co-hyponym, quasi-hyponymy, meronymy, holonymy, a word
family, a lexical (semantic) field, a lexical gap, a thesaurus
READING ASSIGNMENTS
I. Revise Chapter 5 on meaning variation in Murphy M. Lynne. Lexical meaning / M. Lynne Murphy.
(Cambridge textbooks in linguistics). Cambridge University Press, 2010. – P. 83-104), which you had to
read for the second lecture in this module, and answer the following questions:
What tests can help tell us the difference between vague and ambiguous expressions? 
Definition testHowever, the first indication thatfrienddoes not have two separate senses is theease with which we can make a
single definition that covers both of the casesin (1): ‘a person with whom one has a relationship of mutual affection.’
So,according to the definition test,friendis vague, not ambiguous.Contrast testsIffriendis vague, then in some contexts it may
refer to a person who happensto be female and in other contexts to a person who happens to be male. If thiswere not the
case, that is, iffriendhad two gender-specific senses instead of onegeneral sense, it would make sense to say something like
(2) in order to mean(3):(2)# I have both friends and friends.(3)I have both male friends and female friends. Compare (2) to (4), in
which one can easily understandbatsto mean two differentthings: a type of animal and a type of sporting equipment. (4)I
collect things that begin with B, so I have both bats and bats.Because the two instances ofbatshave the same form, you cannot tell
whetherthe first or the second refers to the animal (unless you can read the mind of theperson who said (4)), but you can tell
that there are two distinct senses here. Sobecause the two uses ofbatin (4) are not simply repetitive of each other, wecan say
that they semantically contrast, and therefore are ambiguous. Since twomeanings offrienddo not contrast in (2), we can
conclude that it isvague.Another way to test whether the word has two contrasting senses is to see if(in a single situation)
one can answer either “yes” or “no” to questions like (5),depending upon which way the word is interpreted. Imagine that a
coach is tryingto organize a team to play baseball but the equipment hasn’t arrived. The coachasks: (5)Are there any bats here?
86lexical meaningChances are that the players will answer “no” without even looking into the skyto see if any small flying
mammals are about. But if they did notice the bats inthe sky, they could answer: (6)Yes, there are bats, but not bats.On the other
hand, if a child says (7) to you,(7)Grace and Penny are my friends. Do you have any friends?you would not assume that there are
two sex-specific senses offriendseventhough the child only referred to female friends. It would thus be strange to say: (8)#
No, I don’t have any friends [=‘female friends’], but Mark and Paul aremy friends [=‘male friends’]. So, sincefriendcannot be used to
contrast withfriend, we conclude that it isvague, not ambiguous.
Zeugma testAnother way to tell the difference between ambiguity and vagueness is the zeugmatest. Azeugma(orsyllepsis)
is a sentence in which two different senses of anambiguous word are “activated” at the same time. Zeugmas sound weird
becauseof the inherent conflict in the word that has to incorporate both senses, as in (9)and (10).
Why do polysemantic words and homonyms have a separate status?
Vaguenessis a property that a sense of a single lexeme can have, thatis, the property of generality
.Polysemyis a relation between senses associated with a single lexeme.
Homonymyis a relation between different lexemes that are coinci-dentally similar in form.
What is systemic polysemy?
Regular polysemyA variety of polysemy that gets a fair amount of linguistic attention isregular(also calledsystematic)
polysemy. This refers to word senses that are distinct,but which follow a general pattern or rule in the language. For
example, words1The ‘on an animal’ sense is difficult to get in this sentential context, since if a coat is separatedfrom an animal, we tend to call it
apeltor ahide. Substitutedogfordeskin this sentence, and youcan see another two- or three-way ambiguity.
90lexical meaningfor containers can generally refer to both a kind of container and the contents ofthe container, as can be seen
in (19):(19)‘container’ sense: I put some sand into a box/bottle/tin/canister.‘contents’ sense:I dumped the whole box/bottle/tin/canister
onto the floor.The relation between the ‘container’ and ‘contents’ senses is completely regular,which is to say it is entirely
predictable. If we invent a new kind of container,we can be certain that the name of the container will also be able to denote
itscontents in some situations. Other cases of regular polysemy can vary in theirregularity, however. For instance, the names
of dances can also name a piece ofmusic that accompanies such dances for some cases, as shown in (20), but not somuch for
others, as in (21)

What kinds of problems have led some to reject a firm distinction between homonymy, polysemy, and
vagueness?
How does meaning variation occur in language?
Why is there so much meaning variation in language? Some of itserves particular purposes, and some of it is accidental.
Vagueness exists becauseit is useful for us to have general ways of referring to things: the only way not to bevague would
be to have a unique name for everything in the world, which wouldmean that we’d spend our whole lives learning our
vocabulary and we wouldnot be able to generalize about things by using words to refer to all membersof the same
category (since every word would denote a category of exactly onething). So, most words (except for proper names) start
out with some allowancefor vagueness. Polysemy exists because it is fruitful to use old words in newways, rather than
having to learn new words all the time. We can usually extendwords’ meanings in predictable ways, using a number of
processes that we’lldiscuss below, and thus people hearing an old word that is used in a new waywill be able to appreciate
the newly created meaning. Homonymy can developthrough accident or through more severe processes in change of
meaning. Thefollowing subsections consider the processes that give rise to homonymy andpolysemy, starting with “co-
incidental” sources of homonymy, and moving on tomore regular processes of meaning extension.
What is the principle distinction between monosemy and polysemy approaches to meaning?
Generally speaking, monosemy approaches explain the relationsbetween the senses of a polysemous word by stating that
those senses are derived“on-line” from a single semantic representation of the word. This may be done ina number of ways,
but we’ll look at how it is done in Generative Lexicon theory(Pustejovsky1995).
Polysemy, homonymy, and vagueness99As its name suggests, Generative Lexicon theory holds that new senses can
be“generated” from existing ones in the lexicon via a number of types of semantictransformations. As discussed in§4.3, GL
represents lexical senses through acomplex of structures, including argument structure and qualia, and these in turnbuild
phrasal meanings. The lexical entry for a word gives specific informationabout what type of event or thing it describes.
These entries may beunder-specified, in that they leave out some information that needs to be filled in bycontext,
oroverspecified, that is, containing information that is relevant to differ-ent senses of the word, but not necessarily to all
senses of the word. Pustejovsky(1995:62) says his approach “enable[s] us to conflate different word senses into
asinglemeta-entry,” and he calls these lexical “meta-entries”lexical-conceptualparadigms(lcps).
While monosemy approaches hold that multiple senses can be pre-dictably derived from a single semantic representation,
polysemy approacheshold that each different sense of a polyseme requires its own semantic represen-tation.
Unsurprisingly, then, while monosemy approaches tend to highlight sensevariations that are part of regular patterns,
polysemy approaches tend to highlightthe more irregular cases – such as those created through metaphor.An increasingly
common way of approaching these irregular cases is to viewconcepts as complex mental representations that can be
viewed from differentperspectives or with different conceptual “filters” that allow focus onto just certainaspects of these
complex mental representations
II. Read thoroughly the chapters from below and be prepared to discuss the following issues in class.
1) Murphy M. Lynne. Lexical meaning / M. Lynne Murphy. (Cambridge textbooks in linguistics).
Cambridge University Press, 2010. – P. 108-129.
    Semantic and lexical relations
This chapter examines particular semantic relations among words.They are calledsemantic relationsbecause they are
relations between senses.Some cases of semantic relation can also belexical relationsin which it isnot just the meanings
that are related, but also other aspects of the lexemes,like morphological form or collocational patterns. After looking at
the details ofsynonymy, hyponymy, antonymy, and other relations, we evaluate two approachesto the representation of
semantic relations in the mental lexicon. In the firstapproach, the lexicon is theorized to be like a dictionary, which records
sensesbut not necessarily relations among them. The second views the lexicon like athesaurus, in which relations, but not
meanings, are represented.
    Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations
 Relations among words can be divided roughly into two types:paradigmatic and syntagmatic.Syntagmatic
relationsare relations betweenwords that go together in syntactic phrases – likeship’sandcaptainordogsandbark.
Notice thatsyntagmaticandsyntaxare from the same Greek roots,meaning ‘touching together’ – in other words,
words in syntagmatic relations“touch” each other in phrases. Because they go together in phrases, syntagmat-ically
related words often belong to different word classes – e.g.dog(noun)+bark(verb). Syntagmatic relations are studied
more and more these days as108
 Lexical and semantic relations109corpus research highlights the ways in which words tend to occur with certainwords
rather than others. For instance, we can notice that the adjectiveasleepgoes with certain modifiers to indicate
‘absolute state of sleep,’ as infast asleeporsound asleep, and that it occasionally goes with some other general-
purposemodifiers that indicate the same meaning, likecompletely asleep, but less withothers, likevery asleep. Our
focus in this chapter is the more traditional area ofstudy for lexical semantics: paradigmatic relations. We’ll see
some syntagmaticissues in the later chapters – including the issue of which modifiers go with whichadjectives,
inchapter 11.Words inparadigmatic relationsbelong to the same word class and sharesome characteristics in
common. The words in such relations can be said toform aparadigm– that is, a set of examples that show a pattern.
One kind ofparadigmatic relation is a morphological paradigm, such as the tense forms of averb:drink, drank,
drunk. Notice that the verbs in this paradigm have everythingin commonexcepttheir tense. We are interested in
semantic paradigms, whichinvolve word senses that share many semantic properties, but differ in some. So,for
example, the set of basic color adjectives forms a paradigm whose memberseach refer to a different part of the
color spectrum. Unlike syntagmatically relatedwords, paradigmatically related words are usually substitutable for
each other.

    Dictionary and thesaurus approaches to relations in the lexicon

Different schools of thought exist regarding the role of paradigmaticsemantic relations in the mental lexicon. These can be
classified according towhether the theory views the mental lexicon as more like a dictionary or morelike a
thesaurus.Dictionary approacheshold that the meanings of words arecomponentially represented in the mind – so these
include the main approachesintroduced in chapters3 and 4 (e.g. Katz and Fodor1963, Conceptual Semantics,Generative
Lexicon theory). In this case, semantic relations do not need to berepresented in the lexicon (i.e. nothing in the lexicon
needs to say ‘coldis theantonym ofhot’) because those relations are derivable from the words’ com-ponential semantic
representations.Thesaurus approaches, on the other hand,hold that semantic relations are represented in the lexicon. In
this case, words (orsenses) are linked to one another in order to indicate which words are synonyms,antonyms, and
hyponyms of which other words. These mostly derive from thetradition of Structuralism that begins with Ferdinand de
Saussure
     Properties, subtypes, and problems in defining synonymy, hyponymy, and
antonymy/contrast
2) Lipka L. An Outline of English Lexicology. – 2 ed. – Tübingen Niemeyer, 1992. – P. 151–159.
    Lexical fields and hierarchies
    Association and lexical sets
3) Lipka L. An Outline of English Lexicology. – 2 ed. – Tübingen Niemeyer, 1992. – P. 75–77.
         What does the term sememe mean?
         Does the term sememe correlate with archisememe? 

            

EXERCISES
1.       The following sentences may be lexically or structurally ambiguous, or both. Provide
paraphrases showing that you comprehend all the meanings.
Example: I saw him walking by the bank.
1)     I saw him and he was walking by the bank of the river.
2)     I saw him and he was walking by the financial institution.
3)     I was walking by the bank of the river when I saw him.
4)     I was walking by the financial institution when I saw him.
          
            a) I cannot recommend visiting professors too highly.

  I strongly recommend that you visit professors.

2.                I do not recommend that you visit professors.

3.                I strongly recommend professors who are visiting.

4.                I do not recommend professors who are visiting.

            b) She is a plain girl.

           c) Time flies like an arrow. (Hint: There are a few paraphrases possible, but some of them
require imagination.)

Time proceeds as quickly as an arrow proceeds.

2.                Measure the speed of flies in the same way that you measure the
speed of an arrow.

3.                   Measure the speed of flies in the same way that an arrow measures the
speed of flies.

4.                Measure the speed of flies that are similar to an arrow

5.                Flies of a particular kind, namely time-flies, are fond of an arrow.

                                                                                   (adapted from Fromkin et al. 2011: 220)

2.                   Identify the basic meaning in the semantic structure of the nouns head, tea, volume and
arrange the other senses in a), b) and c) with respect to the chain pattern, the radial pattern, or
their combination:
a)    head (n): ‘upper part of human body’, ‘seat of intellect’, ‘life (e.g. it cost him his head)’, ‘image
of head on one side of coin’, ‘knobbed end of nail’, ‘foam on top of liquor’, ‘top of page’, ‘fully
developed part of boil’, ‘end of table occupied by host’;
b)    tea (n): ‘plant, shrub’, ‘(dried, shredded) leaves of shrub’, ‘beverage made by infusion of
leaves’, ‘beverage made by infusion of leaves of other plants (e.g. ‘camomile tea’)’, ‘beverage
not made of plants (e.g. beef tea)’, ‘meal which consists of this beverage, cakes etc.
(e.g. afternoon tea, high tea);
c)    volume (n): ‘roll of parchment’, ‘book tome’, ‘size, bulk of a book’, ‘size, bulk of other things
                                                                                (adapted from Lipka 1992:127-128)
3.        

 Comment on the semantic relations between the following lexico-semantic variants of the
polysemantic words:
Example: glass is very fragile – exhibition of Czech glass: ‘Material’ – ‘Product’
a)    The shower isn’t working – I’m going to have a nice hot shower and go to bed – Is Sue still in
the shower?; thing- place
b)    I planted strawberry – ice cream with strawberry; berry- taste
c)    a wine glass – a glass of wine; material- thing for drinking
d)    to catch a fish – to eat fish; animal- dish
e)    We flew into Heathrow on Monday evening – My grandfather flew bombers during the war
d
4.         For each definition, write in the first blank the word that has that meaning and in the second
(and third if present) a differently spelled homonym that has a different meaning. The first letter
of the words is provided. Identify the type of homonymy in each case.
a)    ‘naked’  b___ if a part of your body is naked, it is not covered by clothe         b naked emotions 

b)    ‘base metal’               l a metal that is not worth a lot of mone         l_______________

c)    ‘worships’  p   to love and admire someone or something very much       p    to feel or show respect and love for
a god                   p____________
d)    ‘eight bits’                  in music          b in images    b____________
e)    ‘one of five senses’    Humans have five basic senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste
                                                                                        (Fromkin et al. 2011: 223)

5.       Substitute the following euphemisms with the words that have can be considered as having
negative overtones. Comment on the euphemistic value of the following expressions in
contemporary English.
a)    to be in the family way, to be in an interesting position, to have a bun in the oven, to have a
watermelon on the vine; mother
b)    without a roof over one’s head, to be displaced; homeless
c)    intoxicated, tired and emotional, disciple of Bacchus, elevated;
d)     to be economical with truth, to paint a picture, to speak with forked tongue, a stranger to the
truth;
e)    as God made him, to wear a smile, in one’s birthday suit, au naturel; natural
f)     people of size, quantitatively challenged, well-fleshed, to go to the fat farm, devoted to the table.
fat

6.  Single out a common semantic component in each synonymic string, identify the synonymic
dominant (when it is possible), decide if the synonyms in a string are ideographic or stylistic,
and decide if the synonyms in the synonymic string are absolute, relative, or contextual:
a)    gleam, flash, shine, glisten, twinkle, glow- context
b)     avant-garde, modern, contemporary, futuristic- relative
c)    fatherland, motherland, homeland - absolute
d)    father, dad, papa- context
e)     hand, give, turn- absolute

7.    Words may have different antonyms, depending on the meaning. For instance,
both long and tall are antonyms of short. Write down at least three antonyms for each of the
following polysemantic words:
plain fancy beautiful affected
light   darkness night-time
smart stupid unfashionalle gentle
take   give liberate free
free     abstructed attached occupied

8. Are the pairs in columns A and B contrary (antonyms proper), complementary, converse, or
directional antonyms?
A                    B   
absent           present            complementary
left                 right              complementary
like                hate               directional
pass               fail                 directional
order              obey               directional
expansive     cheap             complementary
short              long              complementary 
parent           child              converse
boy                 girl                 complementary
centre            periphery    directional

        
9.    A) Think of as many hyponyms of the words tree(apple/orange/oak),
car(cab/bus/taxi) and dog(Doberman/boxer/puppy) as you can.
     B) Think of as many meronyms of the words tree(root/brunch/leaf),
car(door/wheel/window) and dog(Dalmatian/Chihuahua/bulldog) as you can.

10.    List the possible members of the semantic field ‘Jewellery’ (US: ‘Jewelry’) and comment on its
possible structure. Consult, among other references,
http://www.roget.org/ and http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn .
11.    Translate into Ukrainian the words grandparents – дідусь та бабуся, brother-in-law- зять
шурин, sister-in-law- сноха, cousin двоюрідний брат , aunt тітка and single out differences
in the semantic field ‘Kinship’ in English and Ukrainian. 

12.    Read a passage from Dirk Geeraert’s Theories of Lexical Semantics and decide what semantic
fields the vocabulary of the passage can be arranged into. Give examples.   
To conclude, in the metaphor with which we started, the geography of word meaning
research in linguistics is indeed a mountainous one, and a cartographical expedition through this
varied landscape inspires modesty: with each of the steps forward on our tour d’horizon, we
passed vistas to the left and right—thematic domains, individual positions, applied perspectives,
interdisciplinary connections—that invited a more detailed investigation than we could afford.
Undoubtedly, then, given the scale of the map that we were able to draw, all the areas we
travelled through remain underrepresented. But the inspiration works in the other direction as
well: none of the tribes that cultivate the different regions occupies the complete territory, and
none may claim to dominate the entire field. So, even though these communities are not
overwhelmingly exogamous, an awareness of their limits may hopefully stimulate their most
inquisitive members to explore the regions beyond their native scenery, exchanging hypotheses
and methods and results.
                                                                                                        (Geeraerts 2010: 287)