lexical and semantie relations

not be equally
hey denote the
~yare variants
umber of nonmd
affect. The
let but no bath)
iear- ynonyms,
word to mean
abhor absolute
near- ynonyms
ecau e English
gical processes
fect ynonyms
ung generally
tel'drops out of
:heOld English
. In other ca es,
when Norman
Engli h in the
r these animal
e ox or sheep or
ngli h speakers
as beef, mutton,
led for denoting
rrowings, either
e case of lamb)
:a e of turkey).
:d for technical
ile, the Latinate
; more likely to
ans. First, it is
~- it takes more
nt, When we go
the as umption
Lexical and semantie relations l 13
of a principie of contrast - that different lingui tic form are associated with
different meanings. This means that if we come across a word that seem to mean
the same thing a another word we already know, we expect it to have orne
difference - in denotarion, connotation, or social meaning - from the other word.
Clark and Clark (1979) give examples of when the common proce of making
nouns into verbs result in a new lexerne that contra ts with the extant verb, a
for to cook and to chef in (l l):
(Il) a. Phil cooked up a feast.
b. Phil cheťd up a feast.
Tocook is an e tabli hed verb, but if we read a new ve rb to ch~fthat ostensibly
denotes the same activity as to cook, then we presurne it mu t mean something
a little different than cook. For instance, one might interpret (l lb) as connoting
more professionalism or panache on Phil's part than (lIa) does.
In summary, while language resist synonyrny, they can nevertheless tolerate
words that are very close in meaning. Having words that overi ap in meaning
can be seen as enriching, rather than duplicating, our vocabulary. While English
is aid to be particularly synonyrn-rich, this should not be taken to say it is
more expressive than languages with fewer synonyms, since subtie differences
in mean ing can be conveyed a well through other yntactic, rnorphological, and
paralinguistic (e.g. intonational, gestural) means.
6.2.3 Hyponymy and hyperonymy: inclusion relations
Another type of paradigmatic relation involves meanings that contain,
or are contained in, other meanings - or, to put it a different way, when the
extension (§2.3. l) of one word is a subset of the extension of another. For example,
the extension of cheddar i a ubset of the extension of chee e; everything that
ischeddar is also cheese, but everything that is chee e is not necessarily cheddar
(since it could be gouda or rnozzarella or feta instead). We could say then that
cheddar is a type of cheese, and that the meaning 'cheese' is included in the
meaning of cheddar.
Properties of inclusion relations
The inclusion relation i asymmetrical; cheddar i a type of cheese, but cheese
i not a type of cheddar, o we need different names for the two directions in the
relation: cheddar i a hyponym of cheese, and cheese is a hyperonym of cheddar.
These terms come from the Greek-derived prefixes hypo- 'under' and hyper-
'over,' and this under/over imagery is useful in picturing hyponyrn paradigms
a "family trees" as illustrated in figure 6.1 which shows the y ternatic classification,
or taxonomy, of foods (with particular attention to chee e). Strictly
speaking we u e the terms hyponytn and hyperonym. when speaking about the
relations between word like cheese and cheddar. lf we talk about cheese or
cheddar itself, or the notion of CHE E S E or CHE O o AR (rather than the words for