Tema 5

Lexical semantics apart from the study of meaning also deals with the relation lexical relations:
There are two basic types of lexical relations although I am going to explain the paradigmatic
relations (Relations of presence, explains the choice of an element over another) in contrast with
syntagmatic relations, it has to do more with syntax.

5.1.1 Antonymy

Antonymy are, in a broad sense the opposite words in meaning although this is not quite exact.

Antonymy may be characterized as a relationship of incompatibility between two terms with

respect to some dimension of contrast. Reference to two ideas that we conceptualize as opposites
although they may not be opposed in meaning but we think of them as opposite concepts.

Instead of opposites we may talk about incompatibility, they may not appear at the same time in
discourse. Depending of the dimension we are contrasting a word may have more than one
antonym, the context is necessary and culturaly speaking the dimension of contrast may change.
Some parts of the meaning may be opposed but maybe they share things because we are contrasting
a same dimension, they will always have something in common.

Although not every word has an obvious antonym library, angry.

There is a principal distinction within antonyms although the classification is not clear, because
there are some words that does not belong to one group:

-Gradable: Are pairs of words like good-bad, white-black, hot-cold, they name point on a scale
which contains a midpoint (Usually pointing out as antonyms the two extremes of a scale). They are
gradable and this implies the antonyms could serve to make comparisons hotter, colder (We can
not say that someone is more dead or more alive in a literal way).

Some of the integrants of a gradable pair of antonyms also behaves as neutrally: Good (Neutral) /
Bad, in this dimension of contrast one of them is marked. The negative term is the marked one in
adjectives.

-Equipollent gradable antonyms (both are neutral, not associated to evaluation) cold/hot- (How
cold is the saucepan, how hot?)

-Non-gradable: are antonyms which do not admit a midpoint, such as male-female or pass-fail.
Assertion of one of these typically entails the denial of the other. Thus, if someone is female, they
are necessarily not male, and someone who has failed an exam has necessarily not passed it. Not
open to comparison

According to Murphy: 1. Autoantonyms: Some words are their own antonyms. Thus, temper
means both to harden and to soften; cleave means both stick together and force apart. This
may create confusion but due to the context we can guess the meaning.

Other antonymic relations:

2. Converse opposition: exemplified by relations like parent-child, buy-sell, give-receive, above-

below; more than dimension of contrast, they have a relation of changing the point of view. To
someone to buy there must be someone to sell, they have a relation of different point of view
borrow lend same action from different view-point.
3. Directional opposition such as north-south, and come-go, it indicates a movement
4. Reversive opposition like do-undo, colour-bleach, build-demolish. An action and the contrary of
this action.

To finish, Murphy says the relation in antonyms (synonyms etc.) is metalexical, it has to do with
out encyclopedic knowledge of the words meaning.

5.1.2 Meronymy

(Meros in Greek means part) Is the relation of part to whole: Hand is a meronym of arm, seed is a
meronym of fruit (Arm is the holonym of hand converse).

It is a transitive relation. It always needs a complement, continuity in relation if a is part of b

and b is part of c, a is part of c but it depends, it would sound more natural depending on how we
partitionate things, there are also other things that the same word serves the part and the whole.

EXAMPLE: Chantal is part of the department, Chantals finger is part of Chantal, Chantals finger
is part of the department ? It is ok but does not sound natural.

Some scholars suggested that there are differente types of meronyms although there are different
classifications depending on the scholars that stated it.

#1 Classiffication

1.The relation of the functional component to its whole Heart -Body

2. The relation of a segment to a preexisting whole (slice-cake)
3. The relation of a member to a collection or an element to a set Sheep / Flock (Oveja, rebao)
4 subset-set (fruit-food) Could also be considered like a hyponym

#2 Classification TYPES: different clasification

1-component-integral (pedal-bike)
2. member-collection (ship-fleet)
3. portion-mass (slice-pie)
4.Stuff-object (Steel-car)
5. Feature-activity (Paying-shopping)
6. Place-are (Everglades-Florida)

5.1.3 Hyponymy

It is a basic relation in our lexic constructions and one of the first we learn. Identification procedure
for hyponymy is based on the notion of class-inclusion: Transitive relation. Hyponymy, is
described as the relation of sort of / kind of. A chain of hyponyms defines a hierarchy of elements.
Hyponymy has also a crucial communicative function, it serves to understand each other when
someone does not know a hyponym, we tend to relate to the hyperonym.

blues jazz > music,

martini cocktail drink
Most of the times the hyponyms share the chatacteristics of the hyperonym, but sometimes we
negate one of the characteristics because the element does not heritage that quality but this does not
mean it is a hyponym. For example

pjaro pingino?, avestruz?

What we conceptualize its not in an estrict sense kind of, we assimilate a category, and observing
the taxonomies which may seem similar to the sight we assign a kind of ti something that may not
belong to this categorization. For example we categorize tomatoe as a vegetable although it is a
fruit, if we talk in the strict sense, we talk about taxonomies.

5.1.3 Fuzzy categorization

There is no exact categorization, categories are not always that exact or precise

A zebra is a kind of horse / A DVD is a kind of video / A koala is a kind of bear

Writting is a kind of drawing / A watch is a kind of clock

In none of these cases, however, would we claim that the nouns related by the phrase a kind of are
hyponyms. Kind of, in other words, seems to have a variety of values, not all of which correspond
to the strict class-inclusion model

5.1.4 Taxonomy

Taxonomies, is the same as hyponym but in the strict sense and scientific which implies an stric
organization of conceptualization. For example in a koala is a kind of bear it would not by a
taxonomy but a hyponym relation, it is used to make ourselves understand but it is not
taxonomically true. Taxonomies are perfect hyponym relations

5.1.5 Synonymy

Lexical synonyms (Relation of similarity in words) and Phrasal synonymy (Relation of similarity
with phrases or sentences). Although we will only consider the lexical synonym relation. There are
different deffinitions depending of the author (Context free-bound / Grammatical context)

It is a relation of similarity in meaning, semantic effect, reference and sense remain more or less
the same. The context has much to do while choosing a synonym, a word does no have one single
synonym, it is context-bound, if a word has more than one sense, we would have to check the
different meanings to look for different synonyms. However a word does not have an strict
synonym because they are similar but not exactly the same, humans would not have two words for
exactly the same thing, all the words are context bound.

The question of synonymy and grammatical context is another to take into account. Two words
which are synonyms may not behave the same way syntactically: likely and probable in (20), they
have the same meaning, even behave different: a. Its likely/probable that hell be late. b. He is
likely/*probable to be late

Another important distinction is between synonymy of words and synonymy of senses. Sense-
synonymy is the synonymy of some, but not all, the senses of a word. Thus, pupil is arguably
synonymous with student with respect to one of its senses (person being instructed); but with
respect to the sense centre of the eye the two words are, non-synonymous. Pupil and student are
thus not lexical synonyms, but they are synonymous with respect to one of their senses.
True Lexical synonymy if two words have more than one meaning and both are synonyms in all
the meanings, monosemous words and their synonym is monosemous, they are lexical synonyms

Pupil = Part of the Eye Student = not synonym would not be true lexical synonyms

Graded phenomenon: the more senses two words share, the more synonymous they are.

-synonymy seems reasonably common in technical vocabulary, giving as example the fact that in
medicine inflammation of the blind gut can be synonymously referred to as either caecitis or
typhlitis.

Total synonyms Pekin Beijing, London Londres

The denotation can be the same but part of the sense or connotation is lost when we use a synonym
(Pejorative words lose their bad meaning)

As a conclusion, synonyms are useful to: Avoid repetition in discourse.

5.2 Componential analysis

This type of analysis was first used in phonetics, integrating binary elements to study languages that
have never been studied before so with the binaries it was easier to know their phonetic system.

It is later applied to semantics and meaning. When we talk about componential analysis we analyse
meaning in terms of binary feature. regarding groups of similar words belonging to a same category
(+, -).

It served as one of the first iniciatives of semantics as a scientific study that could be formalized.
And also it was applied to the teaching of some languages. It is based on a number of co-hyponyms
(mainly) to make an extensional definition, we transform what we would write in a definition into
binary features. With back / With legs / For a single Person With arms / Rigid

Infinite binary features to have into account (Unlike phonetics that is a finite number of sounds and
characteristics)

Advantages Semantic analysis could be formalized, and by using binary features it is easily
formalizable. They even added another neccessary feature, neutral one (o).

PROBLEMS OF COMPOSITIONAL ANALYSIS The binary terms did not apply to the
categorization of people, we may see an object that do not correspond with a prototype but it may
be the same object, we are not 100% sure. Many words or semantic fields can not be analyzed in
binary terms of positive and negative, it just serves to vocabulary that can be separated as
hyponyms.

5.3 Polysemy and meaning division

Polysemy means that a word more than one meaning / sense. These verbs show metaphorical uses
like those in (27) there is no price involved in (27a), and no change of possession in (27b):

(27) a. Its a crazy theory, but Ill buy it.

b. He gave them one last chance.
This can be explained that these words have polysemous senses and that the componential analysis
does not apply to all of them. We can thus define polysemy as the possession by a single
phonological form of several conceptually related meanings.

The opposite of polysemy is monosemy (Greek single meaning): a word is monosemous if it

contains only a single meaning. Many technical terms are monosemous.

5.3.1 Polysemy, monosemy and homonymy

Polysemy also contrasts with homonymy (Greek same name), the situation where a single
phonological form possesses unrelated meanings and sometimes even written in a different way
to two / Wave- Waive. Although not all homonyms are distinguished by spelling.