lexical and semantie relations

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e/able grain . So, we can say that the category breviate this with 101always points word may have on the next level aid to be transi- :xample, cheddar ddar is a type of :not all 'type-of" p m from the fact ne. The relation included in the Ind opening and uticular kind of 2b) i not proper trinking vesseI - drinking ve el. rxonymy ( ince a e in (12b) can rather than 'is a " there are other hyponymy. A r to aya queen of monarch). In ny in which we relation, while ica! hyponym , lexical and semantie relations I 15 ince they are reliably transitive and are easiest lo de eribe in the terms 'X is a type of Y. ' Puzzle 6-2 The inclu ion/taxonym relation is asymmetrical and transitive. Reconsider ynonymy in light of the e terms. Is ynonymy symmetrical or a ymmetrical? Tran itive or intransitive? Is your an wef the same for perfect ynonym and near- ynonym ? Folk vs. scientific taxonomies and the basie level An important thing to notice about taxonomies is that the level are not equally valuable to u on an everyday basis. Dairy product i somewhat artificial as a hyperonym for cheese. In everyday language we would probably ay that cheese is a type of food, but in the language of supermarket manager, dairy product i a much-need ed lexeme that allow. for a contra t between the category that chee e belong to and the one that potatoes belong to. The everyday kind of taxonomy that goe traight from cheese to food is called a folk taxonomy, while in more speeialist context, we might need more elaborate taxonornies with more fine-grained level of cIas ification. For instance, in everyday ituations, we are happy to ay a dog is a type of animal, but a zoologi t might need to specify dog < canine < mammal < vertebrate < animal. o matter how many levels a laxonomy has, though, the same principie generally apply. Even among the smaller number of level in folk taxonomy one level i more alient - i.e. more readily used and noticed - than the others. Sticking with the cheese example, notice that if you make a sandwich out of cheddar, you are likely to cali it a cheese andwicli rather than a cheddar sandwich. lf you saw a picture of cheddar, you would probably say it wa a picture of cheese. Even though you have more pecific information about the nature of the ehee e. you are likely to cali it cheese rather than cheddar in many situations. We would not u e more general name in the e ituations either; you would not ay CI food sandwich or Q dairy-product sandwich. There i a level between too peeifie and too general that we generally attend to, called the basie level. Ro ch (1978) and other have noted that the basie level is pecial, both in linguistic and cognitive terms. In cognitive term ,the ba ie level i the level at whieh we notice and can ea ily differentiate between type of thing. At the lingui - tic level, the name for basie level items tend to be more ba ic them elves - one morpheme rather than more - and are the term we learn fir t. Some of the recognized properties of basie level item /term are ummarized in table 6.1.
116 LEXICAL MEANING Table 6.1 Properties of the basic-level category CHEESE and the basic-Ievel word cheese TypicaI properties of basíc-level categories Similarity of food (superordinate): different shapes shape cheeses (ba ic level): similar hapes cheddar ( ubordinate): shape that are indistinguishable from one another Similarity of motor movements food: meat, cheese, ice cream, nut (erc.) are prepared and eaten with different motions cheeses: prepared and eaten with similar motions cheddar : prepared and eaten with identical motions Typical properties of basic-level words Most frequently food: used when referring to mixed collections of food (e.g. the used contents of a grocery bag), but rarely used to refer to cheese speei fieally cheese: oeeurs about 5 times per million words in English cheddar: oecurs less than 1 time per mill ion words in English (Dahl 1979) Most readily used Morphologieally simple Earliest learned If shown a pieture of some cheddar, most people say it's cheese, rather than iťs food or it's cheddar. superordinate: dairy product = 2 morphemes basie-level: cheese = I subordinate: we of ten use eompounds like cheddar cheese (2 morpheme ) or goat's chee e (3 morphemes) Children learn to name cheese before hyperonyrns jbozŕ or dairy product or hyponym cheddar.feta, etc. Thus we can conclude that while we describe things at many different taxonornic levels, alllevels are not created equal. The basie levej is perceptually more salient, and therefore the most unmarked (i.e. morphologically implest and mo t broad ly used) level, lingui tically speaking. Hyponymy and word classes So far, all of our examples of hyponymy have been nou ns, and this is typical in discussions of hyponymy, raising the question of whether inclusion relations exist in other word cias es. Certainly, it i more natural to u e noun in X is a type of Y statements, a shown in (13). (13) a. b. c. Cheddar is a type of cheese. [nouns] ? To march is a type of to walk. [verbs] ? Nauseated is a type of iiI. [adjectives) Cru e (1986) propo e that Xing is a way of Ying insn copular ("linkjng") verb be (14) a. b. Marching i a wa Being nau eated But while we can identif taxonornies do not tend to example, it is hard to thin inc1usion chain marching < a hyperonym for ili could b state of health, but notice I paradigmatic relation to ili cross word-class boundarie type of incJusion relation Is hyponymy éI While incJusion relations ar tics, it is not clear that ucl say that the relation betwee of the relation between com word s are in a hyponym re related by inclusion relatio meaning is only part of the ub titutable) synonyms ut and dialect as well a deno to the e non-denotational ii even though kitty and anii cat is a type of animal JUI pronouncement of X being something called kitty is jl thi rea on, it can be said both a semantic (i.e. denot since it involves similarity I hyponymy is just a semanti 6.2.4 Incompatibilit The relation di lapping categories. Incom can not denote the same thi patible, a there are no fíov link flower and equatiom that constitute semantic par
Page 1 and 2: 6 lexical and semantie relations Ke
Page 3 and 4: 110 LEXICAL MEA ING or antonym for
Page 5 and 6: 112 LEXICAL MEA ING are not strictl
Page 7: 114 LEXICAL MEA l G food I =--= mea
Page 11 and 12: 118 person adult ~ child mÔoman bo
Page 13 and 14: 120 LEXICAL MEA I G not tall ------
Page 15 and 16: 122 LEXICAL MEA ING for instance mo
Page 17 and 18: 124 LEXICAL MEANI G The mo t extrem
Page 19 and 20: 126 l' z o vi :J ..J U ~ 11 (l) X -
Page 21 and 22: 128 LEXICAL MEANING finger (l have
Page 23 and 24: 130 d. I want lo be a somebody/(#so

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