TON DUC THANG UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Foreign Languages

SEMANTICS - 001169

CHAPTER 6
MEANING RELATIONS

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 Chapter 6: Contents

1. Synonymy

2. Hyponymy

3. Oppositions

4. Lexical fields

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 1. SYNONYMY

• E.g.: hide - conceal

kind - type - sort

Definition 1: Synonymy

Two expressions are synonymous iff they have the same

meaning.

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 1. SYNONYMY

• Synonymy: a relation in which various words have

different (written & sound) forms but have the same or
nearly the same meaning

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 1. SYNONYMY

True (Total) Partial

Synonymy Synonymy

• all meaning variants for two

• a polysemous word
lexemes and all meaning
shares one of
dimensions (descriptive,
its meanings
social, expressive): same with another word
• rare
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 1. SYNONYMY

• E.g: glasses & spectacles

• She wears glasses/ spectacles

• But: She drank 2 glasses (NOT 2 spectacles)

=> Partial synonymy

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 Chapter 6: Contents

1. Synonymy

2. Hyponymy

3. Oppositions

4. Lexical fields

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 2. HYPONYMY

E.g: duck –bird

beer – beverage

car – vehicle

=> Hyponymy

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 HYPONYMY

DEFINITION 2: Hyponymy

- An expression A is a hyponym of expression B – and B a

hyperonym of A iff

(i) The meaning of B is a proper part of the meaning of A and

(ii) A is a logical subordinate of B, i.e. A entails B.

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 HYPONYMY

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 HYPONYMY

• Hyponymy: A relation in which the referent of a word is totally

included in the referent of another word

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 HYPONYMY

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 HYPONYMY

• Regular compounds are generally hyponymous to their

heads, not to their modifiers

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 Chapter 6: Contents

1. Synonymy

2. Hyponymy

3. Oppositions

4. Lexical fields

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 3. OPPOSITIONS

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 3. OPPOSITIONS

3.1. Antonymy

3.2. Directional opposition

3.3. Complementary opposition

3.4. Heteronymy

3.5. Converses

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 3.1. Antonymy
• E.g: old/ young, old/ new, big/ small, thick/ thin

• Their meanings can be illustrated by means of a scale of age,

size, diameter, quality …which is open to both sides

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 3.1. Antonymy

• They are “gradable”

=> allow for the full range of adjectival forms &

constructions: comparative, superlative, equative,

modification (very, enough, too)

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 3.1. Antonymy

DEFINITION 3: Antonymy
Two expressions are antonyms iff they express two opposite out
of a range of possibilities.

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 3.1. Antonymy
• In many cases, the antonym of an adjective is formed by prefix
un-/ im-/in-/ir-/il-: pleasant/unpleasant, likely/ unlikely, adequate/
inadequate,

• Antonymous pairs of nouns: war/ peace, love/ hate

• Antonymous pairs of verbs: love/hate, encourage/ discourage

• Antonymous pairs of adverbs: always/never, often/seldom,

everywhere/nowhere
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 3.2. Directional opposition

E.g.

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 3.2. Directional opposition

DEFINITION 4: Directional opposition

Two expressions are directional opposite iff (if and only if) they
express opposite cases with respect to a common axis.

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 3.2. Directional opposition

• Directional opposites: related to opposite directions on a

common axis:

+ Vertical axis: top/bottom, high/low, up/down, rise/fall,

ascend/ descend

+ Horizontal axis: forwards/backwards, advance/retreat

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 3.2. Directional opposition

+ Time axis: before/ after, past/ future, since/ until,

yesterday/ tomorrow, last/ next, precede/ follow

+ Pairs of accomplishment verbs or verbs of change with

opposite resultant conditions: tie/untie, pack/ unpack, get
on/ get off, arrive/ depart

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 3.3. Complementary opposition

• E.g.: female / male, free / occupied, married/ unmarried,

odd/ even

• 1 out of 2 possibilities

• Complementary adjectives: not gradable => do not permit

the comparative, superlative, equative, or modification
(very, enough, too)

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 3.3. Complementary opposition

• Complementarity more typically occurs with nouns:

member/non-member, official/ non-official

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 3.3. Complementary opposition

DEFINITION 5: Complementary opposition

Two expressions are complementaries iff they express an either-
or alternative in some domain.

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 3.4. Heteronymy

• E.g.: red, blue, yellow, green, etc.

• Heteronyms: members of a set of different expressions which

have a common hyperonym

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 3.4. Heteronymy

DEFINITION 6: Heteronymy

Expressions are heteronyms iff they denote alternatives in some

domain of more than two possibilities.

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 3.5. Converses
E.g.: buy / sell

wife / husband

bigger / smaller

employer / employee

parent/ child

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 3.5. Converses
DEFINITION 7: Converses

Two expressions are converses of each other iff they express the
same relation between two entities, but with reversed roles.

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 3.5. Converses
❑ Verbs: buy--sell, give--receive, lend--borrow, import--export,
own--belong to, etc.

❑ Nouns: employer--employee, parent--child/offspring,, teacher--

pupil, doctor—patient

❑Comparative adjectives/adverbs: thinner--fatter, faster--more

slowly

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 3. OPPOSITIONS

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 4. Lexical field
•Most lexical items form groups with other lexemes.
+ antonyms and complementaries belong together as opposites:
father/mother, adult/child
+ Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, …, Sunday-> belong to one
superordinate category
 That phenomenon: lexical field
{Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday …}

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 4. Lexical field
DEFINTION 8: Lexical field
A lexical field is a group of lexemes that fulfils the following
conditions:
❖the lexemes are of the same word class
❖their meanings have something in common
❖they are interrelated by precisely definable meaning
relations
❖the group is complete in terms of the relevant meaning
relations

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 4. Lexical field

E.g: cow, pig, dog, cat …

 form a lexical field

 their underlying structure is a hierarchy with 2 or more

levels

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 4. Lexical field

Such system represent a special type of hierarchy: taxonomy

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 4. Lexical field

DEFINITION 9: Taxonomy
A set of expressions is a taxonomy iff:

(i) They form a conceptual hierarchy in terms of hyponymy

(ii) Hyponyms denote sub-kinds of what their hyperonyms

denote.

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 4. Lexical field

• Many objects in the world are conceived as a whole consisting

of different parts

• E.g: Human body: legs, arms, head …

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 4. Lexical field

=> Mereology: a system of terms for a whole and its parts, the parts of
the parts …
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 4. Lexical field

DEFINTION 10: Mereology, Meronymy

A set of expressions forms a mereology iff they form a hierarchy

in terms of holonyms and meronyms, where A is a meronym of
B, and B a holonym of A, iff A denotes constitutive parts of the
kind of things that B denotes.

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