(a) football

(b) snooker
(c) reading

Lexical relationships
In the previous section, we learnt how to carry out a componential analysis.
Componential analysis allows one to identify the core meanings of a word and can be
used to categorize them. In this section, we will look at a few ways in which words relate to
each other, this can be based on semantics (synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy) or can be
based on their phonology/graphology (homophony, homonymy, polysemy). Below, we
will look at each one of these relationships in more detail.

Synonymy
Synonymy refers to the sameness or similarity of meaning. Words that exist in this
relationship are called synonyms. In other words, synonyms are different lexical items
which have similar meanings such as ‘finish’ and ‘complete’, ‘make’ and ‘create’, ‘ask’
and ‘inquire’ etc. Both ‘finish’ and ‘complete’ in performing a task suggest that the task is
fulfilled. Similarly, both ‘make’ and ‘create’ suggest that something is produced through
the action of ‘making’ or ‘creating’. Both pairs of words can in fact be used
interchangeably in certain circumstances:

Susana has yet finished her assignment.

Susana has yet completed her assignment.

Susana is making a new design.

Susana is creating a new design.

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However, a pair of synonyms need not be synonymous in all their meanings or uses. For
example, while the words ‘finish’ and ‘complete’, and ‘make’ and ‘create’ are
synonymous in the examples above, they cannot be used interchangeably in other
contexts:

Susana finished her meal.

Susana completed her meal.

Susana is making a Christmas cake.

* Susana is creating a Christmas cake.

By contrasting the two sets of sentences, we note that only certain ‘senses’ of the words
‘finish’ and ‘complete’, and ‘make’ and ‘create’ are synonymous, others are not.

Synonymy allows language users to differentiate in nuances of meanings between

different lexical items and select appropriate words for particular uses or contexts. The
variations in the meanings of synonyms can be used to signal a number of social and
contextual variations, e.g., politeness, technicality, familiarity, and formality, etc. For
example, two doctors may choose to use technical terminology to discuss the case of a
patient but use everyday terms to explain the case to the patient. As a matter of fact, the
difference in the ‘technicality’ of the terms can be used for a range of purposes. For
example, by using technical terms, a person can identify themselves as professional and
knowledgeable in a particular field of expertise. This also serves the purpose of building
communities of practice and to identify who is or is not a member of a particular
community.

The words ‘mommy’ and ‘mother’, and ‘daddy’ and ‘father’, on the other hand, vary in
terms of their formality. While it is possible to say ‘My mommy/daddy is taking a shower
and is not available now’ and ‘My mother/father is taking a shower and is not available
now’, the first sentence suggests that we are familiar with the people with whom we are

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speaking with, while the second one marks some distance. While we can use ‘mommy’
and ‘daddy’ in an informal context, we will use ‘mother’ and ‘father’ in a formal context.

In addition to the functions of synonyms described above, synonyms can also mark a
variation in intensity of meanings, e.g., ‘happy’ and ‘ecstatic’ (where ‘ecstatic’ is more
than just being happy). Synonyms also carry implicit connoation such as ‘thin’ vs. ‘slim’
(where ‘slim’ carries a positive connotation), and ‘squander’ vs. ‘spend’ (where
‘squander’ is seen as a waste of money).

Antonymy
Antonyms are words that are opposite in meaning to each other. Let illustrate with ‘tall’
and ‘short’. The two words are in an inherently incompatible relationship where if someone
is ‘tall’, he or she cannot be ‘short’; and if someone is ‘short’, he or she cannot be ‘open’.
Other examples of antonym include ‘on’ and ‘off’, ‘human’ and ‘animal’, ‘open’ and
‘close’, ‘deep’ and ‘shallow’, ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ etc.

Antonyms can be gradable antonyms, non-gradable anonyms, or directional opposites.

Gradable antonyms refer to words that can be compared by degree. That means,
gradable antonyms lie at opposite ends of a scale or a continuum. For example, the
words ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ are gradable opposites because they can be placed on a scale
with a range of other words that describe ‘coldness’ as part of the continuum.

Hot Cold

scorching hot warm cool cold freezing

Other examples of gradable antonyms include ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, ‘tall’ and ‘short’, ‘good’
and ‘bad’ etc. Gradable antonyms have comparative and superlative forms, e.g., rich,
richer, and richest. In addition, the negative of one gradable antonym does not imply the

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other. For example, if we say ‘It is not hot today’, it doesn’t imply that ‘It is cold today’,
because it is possible that today is warm, but not scorching or freezing.

Not all antonyms can be placed on a scale and have comparative or superlative forms.
For examples, if a light is ‘on’, it cannot be ‘off’. Similarly, if someone is not a ‘male’, then
she must be a ‘female’. A light cannot be in a stage between ‘on’ and ‘off’; or someone
a ‘male’ and ‘female’. ‘On’ and ‘off’, or ‘male’ and female’ are antonyms that are non-
gradable. Non-gradable antonyms are also called complementary pairs. ‘Dead’ and
‘alive’ is also a complementary pair. The two words are the opposite of each other and
there is no gradable scale or continuum between them. We cannot say that something is
‘aliver’ or ‘alivest’. Similarly, we cannot say that something is ‘more dead’ or ‘most dead’.
A thing is either alive or dead. It cannot be in between the two. When people say
something like ‘Susana is the most alive person I know’, the phrase ‘most alive’ is in fact
used metaphorically to imply that Susana is very active (and not that she is ‘more alive’
than any one else in a literal sense). Unlike gradable antonyms, the negative of non-
gradable antonym implies the other in the pair: for example, if a thing is not ‘on’, it is ‘off’.

There is a third type of antonym called directional opposites, which is further divided into
two sub-types: reversives and converses (also known as relational opposites). Reversives
are directional opposites that signal a reversal of relationship between words such as ‘zip’
and ‘unzip’, ‘expand’ and ‘contract’, ‘freeze’ and ‘defreeze’, etc. ‘Zip’ and ‘unzip’ are a
pair of reversive antonyms because unzipping is the reverse of zipping. Similarly, the
process of expanding is the reverse of contracting, and freezing the reverse of defreezing.
Converse antonyms, on the other hand, refer to words that describe the same relationship
from two different perspectives. For example, if I bought a book from you, you have sold it
to me. In this situation, ‘buy’ and ‘sell’ signal a converse relationship. Converse antonyms
are also known as relational opposites. Other common examples of relational opposites
are ‘give’ and ‘take’, ‘borrow’ and ‘lend’, ‘parent’ and ‘child’, ‘wife’ and ‘husband’ etc.

Activity 5.3

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 Give at least one opposite to each of the underlined items in the following passage
and state the type of opposites.

The new Venetian Macao Resort Hotel is the biggest building in Asia, they tell
you. Yet, you are still unprepared for just how BIG. At 7pm on a Thursday,
there was no queue and I was checked in within four minutes. It took 15
minutes to find the lifts.
(Adapted from “Big is Beautiful”, The Standard, 5 October 2007)

Hyponymy
Hyponymy refers to a particular kind of relationship between a more general word and a
more specific word such as ‘building’ and ‘church’, ‘profession’ and ‘teacher’, ‘drink’ and
‘coffee’, ‘fruit’ and apple’, etc. The more general word such as ‘fruit’ (technically known
as superordinate) includes a number of more specific words (technically known as
hyponym) like ‘apples’, ‘oranges’, ‘bananas’, etc. The various fruits, e.g., ‘apples’,
‘oranges’, ‘bananas’, etc. are considered co-hyponyms. Similarly, ‘hammer’,
‘screwdriver’, ‘pliers’ are hyponyms for the superordinate word ‘tools’; ‘rose’, ‘lily’,
‘jasmine’ are hyponyms for the superordinate word ‘flowers’.

Activity 5.4

List four sets of co-hyponyms from the paragraph below and for each set (i) name the
superordinate, and (ii) state the relationships between the superordinates and co-
hyponyms in terms of hyponymy.

Like a sprawling sidewalk market, the streets are full of food. There is a Squid
Street and a Shrimp Street and a Tuna Fish Street. There is Avocado Street,
Onion Street, Corn Street, Rice Street and Bean Street. However surprisingly,
Mexico City has no Chicken Street, Bull Boulevard or Sheep Avenue, but

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 there is a somewhat hallucinatory Fountain of Mushrooms.
(Adapted from “Kingfisher”, Ming Pao, 17 August, 2000)

Homophony
Homophony occurs when two or more words (known as homophones) sound the same.
However, it is noted that homophones do not have to be written with the same spelling.
Examples of homophones include ‘beer’ and ‘bear’, ‘die’ and ‘dye’, ‘flower’ and ‘flour’,
‘hi’ and ‘high’, ‘new’ and ‘knew’, ‘tail’ and ‘tale’, etc. Each pair of words have the same
phonological realization, but are spelled differently.

Homonymy
Homonymy occurs when two or more words (known as homonyms) share the same
spelling, but have unrelated meanings. For example, the word ‘spring’ can have at least
four distinct meanings:

1. the season between winter and summer

2. a natural source of water, where water comes from under the ground
3. a metal or plastic piece shaped like a coil and that can expand if pulled, but
takes its original shape when the tension is removed
4. to jump quickly or suddenly

Other examples of homonyms include ‘air’, ‘mould’, ‘steer’, etc. It needs to note that
some words like as ‘row’. It can mean number of people or things arranged in a line. It
can also mean loud noice or uproar. However, ‘row’ with the first meaning and ‘row’ with
the second meaning have different pronunciations and represent two different words.
Therefore, they are not homonyms.

Polysemy

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Polysemy occurs when one word having more than one meanings that are related by
extension. Polysemous words are similar to homonyms, but with one important difference –
the meanings of polysemous words are somehow related to each other (unlike
homonyms, where the meanings of the word are different). In other words, polysemous
words tend to share some core semantic features, whereas homonyms are semantically
distinct from each other. For example, ‘mouth’ of a river and ‘mouth’ of a person’ is
polysemous. Another example of a polysemous word is ‘crane’, which can refer to a type
of bird and to a machine used to move heavy objects because the bird crane and the
machine crane look similar to each other. Other examples of polysemous words include
fork (instrument for eating; in a road), head (of a person; of a team/department etc.).

Activity 5.5

Which of the words italicized in the following sentences are best described as cases of
polysemy or homonymy? Explain how you made your decision.
a) i) He has been appointed to the chair of sociology at Southampton
University.
ii) She is the chair of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the
Military.
b) i) I took Michelle for a row on the lake.
ii) A man had been stabbed to death in a family row.

Activity 5.6

What are the lexical relationships between the following pairs of words? A list of lexical
relations is provided in the following:
Hyponym, Co-hyponym, Homophone, Homonym, Polysemy, Metonomy, Synonym and
Antonym. You need to specify the subtypes of Antonym (Gradable, non-gradable,
reversive, converse (relational opposite)).

136 English Today: Forms, Functions and Uses

 1) liberty – freedom
2) male – female
3) enter – exit
4) pine – tree
5) race (contest of speed) – race (ethnic group)
6) foot (of a person) – foot (of a mountain)
7) king – crown
8) suite – sweet
9) fair – unfair
10) appear – disappear

Processes of semantic change

In the previous section, we look at ways in which words relate to each other on the base
of their semantics (synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy) and on the base of their
phonology/graphology (homophony, homonymy, polysemy). We can also use semantics
to understand how people use words to refer to things or ideas that are not the core
meaning of those words. In this section, we will start by developing our understanding of
metaphors. We will then examine how people use words or phrases to either make
something that is not very positive look better (euphemism), and how they can use
language to make something look bad (dysphemism). We will then end the section with a
brief discussion of metonymy.

Metaphors
In semantics, literal language vs. figurative language is an important dichotomy, and
metapghor is certainly an important aspect of figurative language. A metaphor, to put it
in the simplest way, is a word or a phrase that is used to refer to another thing, which is
originally not part of its core meaning. As such, metaphors are a type of figure of speech,
and are therefore non-literal. They typically use characteristics from a tangible ‘source’ to

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refer to an abstract ‘target’, i.e., a less tangible idea or notion (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980).
Let us illustrate the point with the following example:

Don’t worry. Things have started looking up!

In this example, the speaker supports his/her optimistic view with the observation that
things have already started ‘looking up’. Things are not animate that can be ‘looking up’.
The use of the phrase ‘looking up’ is thus figurative. It does not refer to an actual physical
‘look up’, but rather is symbolic or metaphorical.

Metaphor is an important meaning-creation source in English as it helps the language

users develop an understanding of concepts that are more abstract by using references
that are more concrete and familiar to them.

In English, fire is a concept that generates a number of fire-related metaphors such as

‘spark off’, ‘play with fire’, ‘spread like wild fire’, ‘burnt out’, ‘light up’ etc. So we can say
things like ‘Your article sparked off a number of research avenues’, ‘His act is simply
playing with fire’, ‘The rumor is spreading like wild fire’ etc. Apart from ‘fire’, ‘food’ is
another concept that generates a lot of metaphors because food-related terms are
common and widely understood in our lives. As a result of this, we can say ‘to devour a
book’, ‘the raw facts’, ‘try to digest (an idea)’, ‘to stew over (something)’, ‘to let
(something) simmer for a while’, ‘to put on the back-burner’, ‘to regurgitate
(ideas/thoughts)’, ‘to cook up explanations’, ‘half-baked ideas’ etc. Other examples of
concepts that are widely used for developing metaphors include: body parts (mouth,
foot, hand, etc.), building/construction (foundation, stand, framework, scaffolding, etc.),
directions (moving up, feeling down, aside, looking forward, looking backward, etc.), and
travel (journey, lose one’s way, move through, etc.) etc.

Traditionally, the study of metaphor focused on lexical metaphors as the above-

mentioned examples. However, linguists have also identified the existence of grammatical
metaphors in which one grammatical category is used to construe a meaning that is

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typically captured by a different grammatical category. For example, we can use a noun
to construe the meaning of verb as shown in the following example:

He studies the movement of the current in the Indian Ocean.

The voltage of the secondary circuit is induced by the changing of magnetic field.

In the example above, the phrase ‘the movement of the current’ can be unpacked to
mean ‘the pattern of how the current moves’. The verb ‘moves’ is construed as the noun
‘movement’. Similarly, the phrase ‘the changing of magnetic field’ can be unpacked to
mean ‘the magnetic field changes and this induces…’ The verb ‘changes’ is construed as
the noun ‘changing’. ‘Movement’ and ‘changing’, in the example above, thus function
as a grammatical metaphor. Grammatical metaphors are an important aspect of
technical and academic writing because they allow us to make meanings in incongruent
ways resulting in more formal language. The appropriate use of grammatical metaphors
allows writers to realize technicality and abstraction, create logical reasoning within
clause, use authoritative language while giving opinions, and provide incongruent ways of
text structuring. For a more detailed discussion of grammatical metaphors, see
Schleppegrell (2004).

Euphemism and dysphemism

Euphemism refers to words or phrases that are used in place of other expressions that are
considered offensive or unpleasant in the particular contexts or cultures. Like metaphors,
euphemisms carry a non-literal meaning. However, unlike metaphors, euphemisms serve a
very specific purpose: to hide unpleasant or disturbing ideas. Subjects that are
euphemized are generally cultural-specific. In western culture, they include excretion, sex,
war, death, religion, disability, etc. As words referring to excretion are considered taboo in
English, people use a number of euphemisms to say things that refer to excrement. For
example, ‘going to the toilet’ can become ‘pay a call’, ‘urinate’ can become ‘take a
leak’, and the ‘toilet’ itself can be referred to as ‘the powder room’, ‘the washroom’, ‘the
restroom’ etc.

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We should note that euphemisms may change meaning over time. Let us illustrate with
the following example of disability:

lame  crippled  handicapped  disabled  physically challenged  differently abled

This example shows how, over time, words that refer to disability have changed. Today,
calling someone a cripple or even handicapped is evaluated negatively. Instead, people
prefer ‘differentially abled’, which is seen as a neutral term. Over time, these terms will
most likely change again. This serial shift of euphemisms over time is called the
‘euphemism treadmill’ (Pinker, 2003).

In contrast, dysphemisms are harsh or impolite words or phrases that are used in place of
neutral or polite ones. Some examples of dysphemisms that refer to death include ‘having
your ass handed to you’, ‘kick the bucket’, ‘left for the rats’, ‘toasted’, and ‘bent over the
barrel’.

It should be noted that dysphemism and euphemisms are not only culturally-specific, they
are sometimes an issue of perspective. That meant, even within the same culture, what for
some people might appear to be a polite way of referring to a socially tabooed topic,
might be offensive to the others.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Metonymy refers to a referential strategy by which a person refers to an entity by naming
to something closely associated with that thing. For example, in the sentence below, ‘the
White House’ refers to the US President:

The White House sent their congratulations to the newly elected Prime Minister.

Similarly, ‘the stage’ in the following example refers to the ‘theatrical profession:

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 He is expected to retire from the stage by the end of this year.

In both the examples above, the metonyms – ‘the White House’ and ‘the stage’ – are
closely associated with the entities or concepts that are being referred to – the US
President and the theatrical profession respectively. We can call this a symbol-
representtive relationship. However, this relationship between the two entities is not a
direct one (e.g., there is nothing intrinsic that ties ‘the U.S. President’ to ‘the hill’, nor ‘the
theatrical profession’ to ‘the stage’). The relationship may sometimes be a container-
contents one such as ‘John has finished the whole glass’ (‘glass’ = wine, etc.). This
relationship is alsonot a direct one.

A synecdoche, on the other hand, is similar to, but different from a metonym because
synecdoche refers to a part-whole relationship between the two entities. For example, if
we refer to ‘a car’ as ‘wheels’, we are using a part of the car to refer to the whole object.
In contrast, we can use the whole to refer to a part as in ‘Spain has initiated a number of
monetary reforms since the European debt problem’. Spain refers not to the full country,
but to the government of Spain.

Semantic relationships across sentences

Just as words can be related to each other semantically, so can sentences. In this section,
we will look at how sentences are related to each other. There are at least four types of
relationships between sentences: paraphrasing, contradiction, entailment, and
presupposition.

Paraphrase
While words that carry similar meanings are called synonyms, sentences carry similar
meaning are called paraphrase. In other words, when we have two or more sentences
that have similar meaning, then we consider them as paraphrases of each other.
Logically, a sentence is paraphrased by sentence Y if X has the same meaning as Y. We

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use paraphrasing to say or write what someone else has said or written, but using different
words. Let’s illustrate with the following set of sentences:

Jane to Jack: Davis is taller than Thomas.

Jack to Judy: Thomas is shorter than Davis.
Judy to Mary: Jack says that Thomas is not as tall as Davis.

In the examples above, Jack paraphrased Jane’s statement and Judy paraphrased what
Jack had told her. All three sentences carry similar meanings and are paraphrases of
each other. If Mary, after listening to Judy, tells someone that ‘Thomas is short’, then Mary
is misinterpreting Judy’s statement. It is not a paraphrase because even Thomas is not as
tall as Davis, it is not necessary that Thomas must be short.

Contradiction
Two or more sentences in a language can contradict each other. Logically, a sentence X
is contrary to sentence Y if X has the opposite meaning of Y. This can be done through
syntactic choices or through the choice of lexicon. To understand this better, let us look at
the following sentences.

Jane: The garage is empty.

Jack: The garage is not empty.
Judy: The garage is occupied.

Jane’s statement above is contradictory to Jack’s and Judy’s. Jack contradicts Jane’s
statement by using negation (not). On the other hand, Judy contradicts Jane’s statement
by using a different lexical item ‘occupied’.

Entailment
Entailment refers to a situation in which the truth of one sentence implies a number of
related truths. The entailment of an utterance is what follows logically from the information
communicated in the utterance. The entailment is the logical outcome or the conclusion
of what has been stated. To put it in another way, a sentence X may entail sentence Y if

142 English Today: Forms, Functions and Uses

when X is true, then Y is also true. For example, if I say, ‘Peter was late for school’, then the
utterance entails that: 1) someone was late for school, and 2) Peter was late for
something.

An interesting observation about entailment is that it is unidirectional, i.e., while one text
can entail a number of others, the reverse relationship may not hold. Let’s use the above
example as an illustration, the statement ‘Peter was late for something’ does NOT entail
that ‘Peter was late for school’. He could have been late for something else. Similarly, the
statement ‘someone was late for school’ does NOT entail that ‘Peter was late for school’.
It could be someone else was later for school.

Presupposition
Presupposition refers to a situation in which the truth of one sentence implies the truth of
the other. Logically, a sentence X presupposes sentence Y if X assumes that Y is true. For
example, if I say, ‘I apologize for my mistake’, then the utterance presupposes that I have
made a mistake. Similarly, if I say, ‘Peter drove his car to school’, then the utterance
presupposes that Peter had a car.

Like entailment, presupposition is also unidirectional. In the examples above, ‘I have made
a mistake’ does not presuppose that I have to apologize for it. Ssimilarly, ‘Peter had a car’
does not presuppose that he drove the car to school.

Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. By meaning in context, we mean that
pragmatics focuses on how meanings are created and understood in context. The
meanings of texts evolve and are understood in relation to factors such as shared
physical, linguistic, social, or conceptual experiences. These factors also allow us to read
between the lines – i.e., to interpret the text and understand meanings that are not
necessarily explicitly coded in the text. For example, it is our understanding of pragmatics

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