SEMANTIKA

The pragamtic relations of inclsuion, sameness and opposition
There are two main types of sense relations:

Lexical relation – that is a relation between senses of words and was the main topic of structuralist
linguistics. The underlined assumption is that there is a totality of words in a language – the lexicon
or dictionary. This concerns semantic words called lexemes not their grammatical forms (go, goes,
went are grammatical realizations of the lexeme go). Semantic units are composed of more than one
word (put up with, kick the bucket).
The meaning of words arises out of an investigation as to what relations they entr in a sentence
and in a language system. There are two main types of sense relations: syntagmic and pragmatic
relations. Syntagmic relations – relations between individual items are not usually given specific
names although certain effects of putting meanings together are recognized (the little dog barks, a
light green illness-anomaly and dental toothache-pleonasm). The requirements for normal
combinations are described as selectional descriptions. Paradigmatic relations (I saw a crow/sparrow
– incompatibility, a long/short journey – anatomy, she touched Tom’s arm/elbow - meronymy),
words that stand in paradigmatic relations usually belong to some syntactic category.
Example l) – shape: round, square, oval, ablong, triangular – there is no hyperonym of which
these adjectives are hyponyms although they are related in hyponym-like way to the noun shape.
Such relations are called quasi-relations such as quasi-hyponymy.
There are particular types of paradigmatic relations based on inclusion, sameness and
opposition. These relations hold between words that belong to a particular subset of the lexicon,
which is delimited by the similarity of contexts, in which such words can be used. This subset is
called a semantic or lexical field. There is also another way to partition paradigmatic relations based
on inclusion, sameness and opposition. The vertical relation or lexical hierarchy with two main
types based on inclusion. One is hyponymy and its variety of taxonymy. The 2nd is meronymy or
partonymy and the other is the horizontal relation of coordination. Co-ordinate categories are co-
hyponyms, co-meronyms, synonyms and antonyms.
Lexical hierarchy – there are two main types: taxonymy and meronymy. The vertical relation
is taxonymy and the horizontal is co-taxonymy. The two occurrences of the word animal illustrate
auto-hyponymy, one of the senses of a polysemous word is a hyponym of another sense. Meronymy
or the part-whole relation. The vertical relation is meronymy and the horizontal relation is co-
meronymy. The two occurrences of the word body illustrate auto-meronymy. Taxonymy is a special
variety of hyponymy that constitutes the vertical relation in a taxonomic hierarchy. It is the relation
expressed by kind of, type of. Not all hyponyms are taxonyms (waitress is a woman, so the word
waitress is a hyponym of a woman but it is odd to say “a waitress is a type of woman”). (cat, dog and
apple, banana are co-taxonyms).
Inclusion
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There are two main types of inclusion: hyponymy (dog-animal) and meronymy (finger-hand).
They have properties in common, both involve type of inclusion but they are also distinct and should
not be confused (a dog is a kind of animal but not a part of animal - nyponymy). However, certain
lexical items show ambivalence regarding the hyponymy/meronymy distincrion such as concrete
mass nouns and abstract nouns (there were tables, chairs and other items/kinds of furniture-
hyponymy, a chair is an item/part/kind of furniture – meronymy…). A cognitive explanation of this
ambivalence might be a difference in perspective, both hyponymy and meronymy have as their
common core the semantic element – “part of” while in meronymy this lement is based on direct
perception of extra linguistic world. In hyponymy, there is no such direct perception so that the idea
“part of” is purely notional.
Hyponymy is a symmetrical relation between dog and animal and between rose and flower.
This relation is usually explained in terms of inclusion but there are two ways of looking at this. One
is the extensional and the other is intensional perspective. A) Tom bought roses, B) Tom bought
flowers, C) Tom didn’t by flowers, D) Tom didn’t by roses. The meaning in A) includes the meaning
of B). entailment is automatic commitment to the truth of the other sentence. In C)-D) entailment is
reversed, C entails D, in spite of the inclusion of the meaning of flower includes the class of roses.
The class membership is the extensional perspective is opposite to meaning-inclusion, which is the
intensional. On the level of sentences we talked about the entailment. On the level of lexical items,
entailment is called hyponymy (all animals are forbidden, all dogs are forbidden, flower-animal-
hyperonym, rose-dog-hypnym). Rose nad tulip are hyponyms of the hyperonym flower. In contrast
color terms have no hyperonym that would include black and white since colored is inappropriate. A
word may be a hyponym of one word and hyperonym of another (dog is a hyponym of animal, dog is
a hyperonym of collie).hyponymy may be many-level relation creating co-networks. The relation of
hyponymy is transitive. If robin is a hyponym of bird, bird is a hyponym of animal then robin is of
course hyponym of animal. Hyponymy is a principle on which whole taxonymy can be buiid based
on species and kinds of animals and plants. Words of the same level in the network such as rose, tulip
and poppy, hyponyms of flower are called sisters. It is common for a hypernym to have a set of
incompatible hyponyms and this is basis of taxonomic hierarchy. In male/frmale pairs some sisters
have the superordinate available (hog and sow have a superordinate term pig). Some sisters do not
have this in which case either the male member of the pair as in (dog and bitch have superordinate
term dog) or the female member of the pairs as in (drake and duck have supeordinate term duck, bull
and cow have a superordinate term cow) takes the roles of the superordinate. Dog is called the
unmarked member of the pair, bitch is marked semantically and distributionally. It is more
informative and restricted in meaning or distribution. Markedness can also be morphological as in
lion-lioness. It may vary from speaker to speaker. The level of “oak” is basic for rural population
while the level of “tree” is basic in urban societies.
3
The unique beginner – there are few such categories (fruit, vegetables, tool, cloathing, vehicle,
furniture, plant, animal, indoors, outdoors, substance, location, communication). A lower subordinate
category is the terminal taxonomy (kinds of apples, kinds of trees, kinds of birds, kind of school –
elementary, secondary, and high). Immediate hyponym if there is no other hyponym in between
(oak of tree, tree of plant). Meronymy (cuffs are a part of a sleve, the village consists of 55
households, this substance consists of/is composed of gold). Cuff, household and gold are partonyms
or meronyms. Sleeve and village or substance are holonyms. The verb consist and compose come
between holonym and a partonym or meronym. The nouns can be uncountable such as gold or
substance or countable such as household.
The names of sister parts of the same whole are called co-meronyms. This is a relational notion.
Word may be a meronym in relation to a 2nd word but a holonym in relation to a 3rd, meronymy also
forms a hierarchy (body to nail), but meronymy is an optional relation. Because the part is not
necessary constituent of the whole not all houses have chimneys. A special type of meronymy is with
collective superordinate either countable or uncountable while the subordinate member is a concrete
countable noun often in plural (countable superordinate collectives – meal, cattle, set, her, family,
team; uncountable superordinate collectives – cutlery, clergy, furniture). The nouns – chairs, tables
are members, merinyms of the collective furniture.
The part-whole relation can sometimes be diversified into member-collection relation as in
tree-forest or sheep-flock and the portion-mass relation as in (grain of-sand, sheet of-paper).

SEMANTIKA

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The pragamtic relations of inclsuion, sameness and opposition

There are two main types of sense relations:

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