English Lexicology Meaning Relations

1. English LexicologyMeaning Relations Week 10 Instructor: Liu Hongyong

2. We are going to discuss • Words that have the “same” meaning:synonymy • Words that have “opposite” meaning: antonymy • Hierarchies of meaning: hyponymy and meronymy • Meaning and word combination: collocation

3. Synonymy (同义关系) • Synonymy is a relationship of ‘sameness of meaning’ that may hold between two words. • Synonyms(同义词) are traditionally defined as words having different form but identical or similar meaning.

4. Problems with the definition • It is possible that a polysemous word just shares one meaning with another word. Are the two words synonyms? There are no such thing as true synonymy. the top of something freedom of choice head: the upper part of the body mental ability a person 1) chief 2) boss 3) leader a headmaster a person who leads

5. Problems with the definition • Besides the denotative meaning, a word may also have connotative meaning, stylistic meaning, and affective meaning. adult: [+human, +adult] formal grown-up: [+human, +adult] Informal/colloquial Denotative meaning is the same, but the stylistic meaning is different. Can they be called synonyms?

6. Strict (absolute) synonymy • Linguists make a distinction between ‘strict’ or ‘absolute’ synonymy and ‘loose’ or ‘relative’ synonymy. • Strict synonyms refer to two words which are identical in meaning in all its aspects. They are interchangeable in all contexts. • Strict synonyms are very rare, and some linguists even argue that strict synonyms do not exist.

7. Strict (absolute) synonymy • Strict synonymy is uneconomical; it creates unnecessary redundancy in a language. • When two words are in danger of becoming strict synonyms, one of them would either • change its meaning, or • fade away from the language and become an archaic word.

8. Loose (relative) synonymy • When we speak of synonymy, we mean ‘loose’ or ‘relative’ synonymy, where we find not only a significant overlap in meaning between two words, but also some contexts where they cannot be used interchangeably. John found/discovered the basketball in the grass. Maria Curie discovered radium in 1898. *Maria Curie found radium in 1898. discover: be the first one to come across something find: experience something in some way

9. Differences between loose synonyms • We often take the following things into consideration when we try to find the differences between synonyms. • Different English dialects • Different stylistic meanings • Different connotative meanings

10. Synonyms from different dialects • Some synonym pairs differ in that they belong to different dialects of English. Here are some examples of synonyms from British and American English:

11. Synonyms with different stylistic meanings • One of a pair of synonyms may be used in a more formal context than the other. Here are some examples of synonym pairs.

12. Synonyms with different connotative meanings • Synonyms may have different emotive associations (connotative meanings).

13. Source of synonyms • Why are there so many synonyms in English? • The primary reason for this has to do with the heavy borrowing from other languages, especially from French and Latin.

14. Antonymy (反义关系) • Antonymy is a relationship of ‘meaning opposition’ that may hold between two words. • Antonyms can be defined as words which are opposite in meaning. • Major types of antonyms： • Gradable antonyms • Contradictory or complementary antonyms • Converse antonyms

15. Gradable antonyms • Gradable antonyms include pairs like the following: beautiful ugly expensive cheap fast slow hot cold long short rich poor wide narrow These pairs are called gradable antonyms because they do not represent a more/less relation. The words can be the end-points of a continuum (连续体). Since they are gradable, they allow comparison.

16. Contradictory (complementary) antonyms • Contradictory antonyms include pairs like the following: asleep awake dead alive on off remember forget win lose true false These pairs are called contradictory antonyms because they represent an either/or relation. If you permitsome behavior, then it is not forbidden. Since they are not gradable, they do not allow comparison.

17. Converse antonyms (逆行) • The following are examples of converse antonyms： lend borrow husband wife above below before after behind in front of buy sell give receive parent child speak listen Lend is the converse of borrowand vice versa; i.e. the substitution of one member for the other does not change the meaning of a sentence if it is accompanied by the change of subject and object. John lent Mary five dollars. Mary borrowed five dollars from John.

18. Contradictory antonymsvs. Converse antonyms Converse antonyms are relational antonyms. The bridge is above the river. The river is below the bridge. This behavior is allowed. This behavior is notprohibited. Mary is John’s wife. John is Mary’s husband. ?？Mary is not John’s husband. I allow you to introduce Mary. *You forbidden me to introduce Mary. Contradictory antonyms are either/or antonym. I don’t forbidden you to introduce Mary.

19. Hyponymy(词义之间的) 下义关系 • Hyponymy is the sense relationship that relates words hierarchically. The underlying observation is that some words have a more general meaning, while others have a more specific meaning, while referring to the same entity. We are not going to have any food today. We are not going to have any vegetables today. FOOD MEAT VEGETABLE

20. superordinate They are subordinate terms. They are hyponyms of the superordinate term FOOD. FOOD FRUIT MEAT VEGETABLE They are subordinate terms. They are hyponyms of the superordinate term MEAT. BEEF PORK MUTTON CABBAGE CELERY SPINACH APPLE PEACH ORANGE Reading from the bottom of the hierarchy, ORANGE is a ‘kind of’ fruit, which is a kind of food.

21. Meronymy • Metonymy (借喻修辞手法) • simile; metaphor; metonym • Meronymy (the part-of relation)

22. Meronymy • Different from the kind-of relation displayed by hyponymy, meronymy involves part-whole relation between words. arm: body wheel: car An arm is part of a body; A wheel is part of a car.

23. 排球队 (volleyball team) 二传 Setters 主攻 Outside hitters 副攻 Middle hitters 接应 Opposite hitters 自由人 Liberos 排球队员 (volleyball player) Hyponyms of ??? 【kind-of】 Meronyms of ??? 【part-of】

24. Collocation: a structural relation (搭配关系) • Collocation refers to a structural or syntagmatic relation. It refers to meaning relations that a word has with other words in the same sentence. • If the noun ‘kettle’ occurs in a sentence, there is a high chance that the verb ‘boil’ will also occur, e.g. I will boil a kettle. Is the kettle boiling now?

25. Collocation • Collocation • Grammatical collocation (e.g. fond+of, want+to, etc.) • Meaning collocation (our focus) • Collocation refers to a meaning relation of predictable co-occurrence. There is a mutual expectancy between two collocated words. The force may be weak or strong. We can use corpus to identify the collocation patterns.

26. Example of collocation (Corpus Data）

27. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations A word has the syntagmatic relation with its neighboring words. It is a kind of collocation relation. A word has the paradigmatic relation with other words which can be used in the same position in a sentence. It is a kind of substitution relation.