Prototypes and Hyponymy

Ericka Lopez
Los Angeles Pacific University
ENGL 420
Professor Salgado
Hyponymy
Hyponymy
What is a hyponymy?
A hyponymy is a word that is included in the meaning of another word. Such as
a rose or daisy is a hyponym of a flower. A hyponymy is another way to organize
words into categories.
 Living Organisms

Animals Flowers

Bear Wolf Rose Daisy

Hyponymy Hierarchy
Prototypes
Prototypes
What is a prototype?

When we hear the word prototype we think of an inventions in the beginning

stages that is tested and redesigned over and over again until it is perfect. The
prototype we are looking at is a grammar reference for the idea of a characteristic
instance of a category, a way to help explain the meaning of certain words.
Prototypes are the words that are most associated with a category. When someone
hears the word clothes the first thing we think of would be shirts, not pants.
Thinking about Prototypes

Robin

Bird

Penguin
References
General linguistics. ELLO. (2023). Retrieved April 16, 2023, from
http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Semantics/SemanticsPrototypes#:~:text=A%20prototype%20is%20a%20cognitive,bad
%20example%22%20of%20this%20category.

Hyponymy. StudySmarter US. (n.d.). Retrieved April 16, 2023, from https://www.studysmarter.us/explanations/english/lexis-and-
semantics/hyponymy/

Prototype. Glossary of Linguistic Terms. (2016, June 2). Retrieved April 16, 2023, from https://glossary.sil.org/term/prototype

Yule, G. (2023). The study of language. Cambridge University Press.