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3 Wording Meaning
The Third Week
Key Points:
Componential analysis
Homonymy
Synonymy
Antonymy
Hyponymy
Difficulties:
Homonymy
Synonymy
Antonymy
Hyponymy
Meronymy
Lexical gap
The absence of a word in a particular
place in a semantic field of a language
is called lexical gap.
horse ---stallion and mare
uncle--- , ,
An unmarked item is a
member word in a semantic
field that its conceptual
meaning is more general
and inclusive.
Samples:
How
How
How
How
How
How
old/young
big/small
powerful/weak
tall/short
Definition of CA:
CA is a way proposed by the
structural semanticists to analyze
word meaning. It believes that
the meaning of a word can be
dissected into meaning
components called semantic
features.
[MALE]
Father
Mother
Uncle
Aunt
Brother
Sister
Son
Daughter
Nephew
Niece
Cousin
+
-
[ASCEND]
[DESCEND]
[LINEAL]
Advantage of CA:
CA allows a highly explicit and
economical account of meaning
relations such as hyponymy and
incompatibility.
Woman: + HUAMN +ADULT
Spinster: +HUMAN +ADULT
-MARRIED
+ FEMALE
+FEMALE
Homonymy
Polysemy
Synonymy
Antonymy
Hyponymy
Meronymy
5.3.5.1 Homonymy
Homophones
When two words are identical in
pronunciation, but different in
spelling and meaning, they are called
homophones.
Samples:
rain/reign night/knight piece/peace
bare/bear sun/son flour/flower
Homographs
When two words are identical in
spelling, but different in
pronunciation and meaning, they are
homographs.
Samples:
bow n./bow v. tear n./tear v.
lead n./lead v. close v./close adj.
Complete homonyms:
When two words are identical in
both pronunciation and spelling, but
different in meaning, they are
called complete homonyms.
fast/fast scale/scale bank/bank
pupil/pupil mole/mole
5.3.5.2 Polysemy
5.3.5.4 Synonymy
Words that sound different but
have the same meaning are called
synonyms, and the sense relation
of sameness of meaning is
called synonymy.
Ex. answer/reply big/large
liberty/freedom
5.3.5.5 Antonymy
Words that are opposite in meaning
are often called antonyms. The
oppositeness of meaning is called
antonymy.
They can be grouped into 3 types:
gradable, complementary, and
relational antonyms.
(1)
Gradable antonyms
5.3.5.6 Hyponymy
For example
potato
Vegetable
cabbage
carrot
5.3.5.7 Meronymy
Head
neck
trunk
leg
arm
Distinction between
meronymy and hyponymy
Meronymy can be expressed by the
pattern X is a part of Y, whereas
hyponymy is by the pattern X is a
kind of Y. For example, head is a part
of body, but not a kind of body, while
potato is a kind of vegetable, but not
a part of vegetable.