Lecture 9 Hyponymy, Meronymy and Semantic Field

Βιβλιοθήκη CoherenceThere was a fine rocking-chair that his father used to sit in, a desk where he wrote letters, a nest of small tables and a dark imposing bookcase. Now all this furniture was to be sold, and with it his own past.

------Jost Trier (German linguist)
Semantic field

A semantic field contains words that belong to a defined area of meaning. We might talk about a semantic field of FOOD or CLOTHING or EMOTIONS. Within CLOTHING we find words for all the different kinds of garments, plus those for making and wearing them.
weight-lifting
wrestling running
running race
boxing
hurdle race
long-distance race
sprinting
relay
move
walk
run
swim
fly
Quasi-hyponymy 准下义关系
The superordinate and its subordinate(s) sweet are of different parts of speech.
sheep
animal
tiger
wolf
dove bird swallow
cuckoo
In other words
genus 种
species 属
species 属
species 属
super-ordinate term
subordinate term
subordinate term
hyperonym /hypernym 上义词
……
co-hyponyms并列下义词
Hierarchy 层级结构
FOOD
FRUIT
MEAT
VEGETABLE
BEEF
PORK
MUTTON
CABBAGE APPLE PEACH ORANGE
CELERY
SPINACH
sports
swimming ball games athletics gymnastics

Exercise: cohesion by lexical relationships People today can travel to almost any place they wish. On their travels, they may choose many vehicles. They can take a trip to the countryside by b________ or to a faraway city by t__________. They can visit a foreign country by a________ or go around the world on a sh__________. People have even traveled to the moon by s____________.
Lecture 9 Sense Relations between Words (III)
Hyponymy, Taxonomy and Partonomy
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. CHEN Yan Email: cyan@
Major contents
9.1 Hyponymy (下义关系) 9.2 Taxonomy (分类关系) 9.3 Partonomy (部分整体关系) 9.4 Semantic field (语义场)

…part of…
Types of partonomy/meronymy

1. component — object (e.g. branch — tree, page — book) 2. member — collection (e.g. tree — forest, fish — shoal) 3. portion — mass (e.g. slice — cake, strand — hair) 4. stuff — object (e.g. aluminum — airplane, gold — ring) 5. feature — activity (e.g. paying — shopping ) 6. place — area (e.g. Cambridge — Massachusetts) 7. phase — process (e.g. adolescence — growing up)
holonym
bird
meronym
wing
type object-component
face
mouth
object-component
tree forest air growing up shopping
branch tree oxygen adolescence paying
object-component collection-member object-substance process-phase activity-feature
A kitten is a cat.
A stallion is a horse.
? A kitten is a sort of cat.
? A stallion is a type of horse.
A queen is a woman.
? A queen is a kind of woman.
Taxonymy vs Hyponymy
I met a newspaper reporter who is the brother of Senator Buckley.


Practice: Rewriting

He got a piece of furniture recently. He bought a cupboard three days ago. It is said that a magnificent building was destroyed yesterday. The news says that the Royal Hotel was burnt down last night.

Finger is a meronym of hand. Hand is a meronym of arm. Arm is a meronym of body.

Inverse term: holonym

Holonym is the name of the whole of which the meronym names a part. [Grk holo “whole” + onuma “name”]
taste
sour bitter
Vivid, exact, concrete

Trees surround the water near our summer place.
I met a writer who is a relation of a politician.

Old elms (榆树) surround the lake near our summer cabin.
Hyponymy 分类关系具有严格 的层次性，一般不 超过五层，每个层 次的词项必须严格 地遵守同一分类标 准；而上下义关系 中的词项虽然也能 够划分层次，但没 有严密的定义标准， 对层次的数目也没 有规定。
Taxonymy
9.3 Partonomy/Meronymy
Meronymy [ <Gr. meros, part + -nym, name] Meronymy is part-whole relationship between lexical items.

X is a kind/sort/type/token of Y.
literature
prose
fiction
drama
poetry
novel
novelette
short story

Pine is a kind of conifer, which is a kind of tree, which is a kind of plant.
What about a polysemic hypernym?
living
vegetable
animal
mammal
insect animal
bird
fish
beast
human animal
9.2 Taxonomy
taxonomy [tæk'sɒnəmɪ] [< Fr. taxonomie < Gr. taxis, arrangement, division + nomos, law] the science of classifications In lexicology, taxonomy refers to the relationship in which “X is a kind of Y”.
What about a polysemic holonym?
day
day
night
dawn
morning
afternoon
twilight
evening
night
9.4 The semantic field theory (语义场理论)

The vocabulary of a language is not simply a listing of independent items, but is organized into areas or fields, the members of which are joined together by some common semantic component. The whole vocabulary can be divided up into fields. Words in each field are semantically related and define one another. Vocabulary is seen as ‘ an integrated system of lexemes interrelated in sense’.
hyponym 下义词
co-hyponyms 并列下义词
hyponym 下义词
superordinate/ hypernym 上义词
Plant tree
subordinate /hyponym 下义词 rose
flower
lotus tulip lily
vegetable
cabbage
carrot
Taxonymy – distinctive feature


It appears that a taxonym must engage with the meaning of its superordinate in a particular way, by further specifying what is distinctive about it. Not all hyponyms are good taxonyms. Hyponyms large spoon, deep spoon are not “a kind of spoon” Taxonyms teaspoon, soup spoon are “a kind of spoon”

hyponymy Relationship of inclusion
下义关系
taxonymy partonymy
分类关系
部分整体关系
Hyponymy: Definition
Hyponymy [haɪ'pɒnɪmɪ] [hypo- or hyp- “below, beneath, under”] deals with the relationship of semantic inclusion, i.e. the meaning of a more specific word is included in that of another more general word.