Lecture Two: Sense Relations (Lexical Relations)

There are many approaches within semantics. We have, for instance, formal semantics, lexical semantics,

historical semantics and cognitive semantics. Formal semantics describes meaning using the tools of logic.

Lexical semantics is concerned with the study of word meaning or the study of lexemes. Cognitive

semantics treats meaning as a basic mechanism of thought. Historical semantics traces how meaning changes

through time. The study of the origin of words and the way their meanings have changed throughout history

is also known as etymology.

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Amel SOUCHA 2024- 2025
Sense Relations are the semantic relations that occur within the vocabulary of language or its lexicon.

Sense relations are relations among lexemes or the meanings of words. There are several sense relations

among lexemes. We will be looking at the following basic relations: hyponymy, incompatibility, antonymy,

synonymy, polysemy, homonymy and collocation.

1. Hyponymy

Hyponymy is a class inclusion relation. It is a sense relation between lexemes in which the meaning of one

lexeme is included in the meaning of the other. For instance, tulip, orchid, daisy and rose are included in

flower. Lion, cow and cat are included in animal. This relation is referred to as hyponymy. The upper term

(the general one) is the superordinate and the lower term (the specific one) is known as the hyponym.

Therefore, cat is the hyponym of animal and animal is the superordinate of cat.

Hyponymy involves entailment. To say this is a tulip entails (means necessarily) that it is a flower.

Likewise, if you say this is an apple; it implies that this is a fruit. Entailment in this case is one way

entailment.
 2. Incompatibility

Lexemes belonging to the same semantic field and sharing the same superordinate term are incompatible

terms. Incompatibility is a relation between the hyponyms or more precisely between the cohyponyms

which belong to the same lexical class. For example: parrot, eagle, turkey and owl are all kinds of birds. They

are cohyponyms sharing the same superordinate term and therefore incompatible terms because the assertion

of one member excludes the others. Incompatibility involves us in the notion of the mutual exclusion of

members belonging to the same field with or without the presence of a superordinate term. The vocabularies

of natural languages tend to have many gaps, for instance, there is no superordinate term in English of which

all the /First

Semantics colour terms
Year are(Applied
Master co-hyponyms. Other examples include days of the week and months of the year.
Linguistics)
Amel SOUCHA 2024- 2025
They are incompatible terms or cohyponyms; they belong to the same semantic field without having one

evident superordinate term.

3. Antonymy

The term antonymy is used for ‘‘oppositeness of meaning’’. Semanticists identify three main types of

antonyms which are: complementaries, gradable antonyms and converses or relational opposites.

-Complementaries

Complementaries refer to pairs of opposites where the denial of one lexical item implies the assertion of the

other and vice- versa. That is to say, the truth of one lexeme implies the falsity of the other. Examples

include the following pairs: ‘dead- alive’, ‘open- closed’, ‘absent-present’, ‘male- female’, ‘married-

single’. Complementaries are also referred to as contradictories or binary opposites.

-Gradable antonyms

Most gradable antonyms are adjectives. Therefore, they are also known as gradable adjectives. Examples

include pairs such as: easy- difficult, old- young, big -small, poor-rich, long-short, happy-sad, heavy-light, hot-

cold.
 Gradable antonyms are pairs of words with opposite meanings where the two meanings lie on a continuous

spectrum. In other words, they can be seen in terms of the degrees of the quality involved. The negation of

one term does not imply that the other applies; if something is not difficult, it does not mean necessarily that

it is easy. Mr. Smith may be neither old nor young, the road may be something between wide and narrow.

Moreover, they are opposite ends of a scale that may include intermediate terms such as: hot- warm- cool –

cold. This type of antonyms can be used in comparative constructions.

-Relational opposites / Converses

Relational opposites or converses are pairs of lexemes which exhibit the reversal of a relationship. Examples
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include the2024- 2025 pairs: ‘buy- sell,’ ‘husband -wife,’ ‘parent -child’, ‘teacher -learner’, ‘debtor-
following

creditor’, ‘give-receive’, ‘fiancé-fiancée’. These pairs of opposites are called relational opposites by Frank

Palmer, whereas John Lyons calls them converses. One item presupposes the other. If A is the parent of B,

then B is the child of A. These antonyms are mutually dependent on each other.

4. Synonymy

The English language is particularly rich in synonyms for historical reasons. Its vocabulary has come from

different sources (Anglo- Saxon, French, Latin and Greek). We may find pairs of ‘native’ (Anglo-Saxon)

and ‘foreign’ words. Thus, we have brotherly and fraternal, buy and purchase, begin and commence, world

and universe, kingly and royal, and many others. The Oxford dictionary defines a synonym as a word or

phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another in the same language; a word equivalent to another

in some but not all senses. Generally speaking, synonymy can be defined as sameness or closeness of

meaning. For example, the lexeme big has many synonyms such as: large, grand, huge, enormous and

immense. The same goes for the lexical item intelligent; bright, brilliant, smart, clever and sharp are listed

in dictionaries as its synonyms. But the important question is the following: how do semanticists define

synonymy?
 Palmer (1976) maintains that there are no real synonyms, that no two words have exactly the same meaning.

Indeed, it would seem unlikely that two words with exactly the same meaning would both survive in a

language. According to Lyons (1996), ‘identity -not merely similarity of meaning- is the criterion of

synonymy. It is by now almost a truism that absolute synonymy is extremely rare’.

It is a widely- held view that there are very few, if any, real or absolute synonyms in natural languages. There

is an agreement among semanticists that true or absolute synonymy is almost non-existent. There are three

main reasons that are often cited in order to argue for the absence of absolute synonymy and they include

stylistic differences, collocational differences and connotative differences.

Some lexical items are used in different styles. Style refers to the formality scale of language. There are
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different 2024-on2025
degrees the formality scale: formal, neutral, informal, colloquial, slang and taboo.

For example: proceed is formal, continue is neutral and carry on is informal. Gentleman is formal, man is

neutral whereas, chap or guy are informal. True synonyms are expected to have the same collocational

range, but this does not seem to be the case. For instance, strong collocates with tea or coffee but powerful

does not. Furthermore, big collocates with mistake and large does not. Some words may be said to differ

only in their connotative meaning while, their denotative meaning remains the same. For example, the

words politician and statesman have the same denotative meaning, but differ in their connotations.

One way of testing synonymy is substitution; substituting on word for another. It has been suggested that

true or total synonyms (also called absolute synonyms) are mutually interchangeable in all their

environments. But it is almost certainly the case that there are no total synonyms in this sense; indeed, no

two words have exactly the same meaning (100%). What we shall find, of course, is that some words are

interchangeable in certain environments only. For example, deep and profound may be both used with

sympathy; but only deep with water. A road may be broad or wide, but an accent is only broad.

These examples illustrate cases of what is referred to as complete synonymy or context- restricted

synonymy. It is relatively rare, but it does exist.

 5. Polysemy and Homonymy

Different words have different meanings; this sounds logical and quite expected. However, not

only different words have different meanings; it is also the case that the same word may have a

number of meanings. This phenomenon is known as polysemy and such a word is a polysemic

lexical item. The word flight is a polysemic or a polysemous term. It is defined in dictionaries as:

-An airplane trip (air journey): ‘They booked an early flight’. ‘The flight was so long’.

-The act/ power of flying: ‘Flight is natural to birds’. ‘He went to a flight school’.

-A set of stairs: ‘The classroom is up a flight of stairs’. ‘Her apartment is four flights up’.

There is the problem that if one form has several meanings, it is not always clear whether we

shall say that this is an example of polysemy (that there is one word with several meanings) or

of homonymy (that there are several words with the same shape).

The dictionary treats flight as a single (polysemic) word but, recognizes two homonyms for the

form bank. That is to say there are two words with the same form (spelling and pronunciation).

In homonyms, such as bank ‘a financial institution’ and bank ‘the edge of a stream’.

Pronunciation and spelling are identical but meanings are unrelated.

In general dictionaries base their decision on etymology to distinguish between homonymy and

polysemy. Lexicographers and semanticists sometimes have to decide whether a form with a wide

range of meanings is an instance of polysemy or of homonymy. A polysemous lexeme has several

(apparently) related meanings. The several meanings of flight seem to be related.

Dictionaries recognize the distinction between polysemy and homonymy by making a polysemous

item a single dictionary entry and making homophonous lexemes two or more separate entries.

Thus, flight is one entry and bank is entered twice. Lexicographers often make a decision in this
regard on the basis of etymology, which is not necessarily relevant, and in fact separate entries are

necessary in some instances even when two lexemes have common origin. The form pupil, for

example, has two different senses, ‘part of the eye’ and ‘school child.’ Historically these have a

common origin but at present they are semantically unrelated. The same is the case of the verbs to

poach (a way of cooking in water) and to poach (‘to hunt [animals] on another person’s land’),

but the meanings are now far apart and all dictionaries treat them as homonyms with separate

listing (separate lexical entries).

The distinction between homonymy and polysemy is not always an easy one to make. However, it

can be maintained that polysemy is the existence of many meanings for a word (multiple

meanings). Homonymy refers to the existence of many several unrelated words that look or sound

the same (or both). Generally speaking, polysemous words have different but related meanings;

homonyms have completely different meanings.

Polysemous words are listed under one lexical entry in dictionaries. Homonyms are listed

separately in dictionaries

6. Collocation

The British linguist J.R. Firth (also known as the father of collocation) argued that “you shall

know a word by the company it keeps”. For Firth this keeping company, which he called

COLLOCATION, is part of the meaning of a word. There is what he calls a mutual expectancy;

that is to say if you are given one word, you can predict the other. For instance, blond collocates

with hair. Rancid occurs with bacon and butter, while addled with brains and eggs. In spite of the

fact that English has the terms rotten and bad and milk is never rancid, but only sour.

J.R. Firth drew our attention to the fact that in natural language words are not randomly

combined or constrained only by syntax, but they have preferences. The prominent linguist
 coined the term collocations for such “habitual” word combinations. For example, in English it

is proper to say “strong tea” but not “powerful tea”. One can say “broad daylight” but not

“bright daylight”. Some forms are conventionally acceptable and others are not, and this appears

to have arisen arbitrarily in the course of language evolution. Collocations are, therefore, familiar

combinations of words which appear together on a regular basis.

In English, we say ‘heavy rain’ not big or strong rain (both “strong rain” or “big rain” may convey

the same meaning, but they are not used in English). In fact, both of them are also grammatically

correct. But, the use of big rain or strong rain will sound strange to native speakers; it is not natural

and thus inappropriate.

Collocations are fairly flexible patterns of language which allow several variations in form.

For example, deliver a letter, delivery of a letter, a letter has been delivered are all acceptable

collocations. Idioms and fixed expressions are at the extreme end of the scale from collocations in

one or both of these areas: flexibility of patterning and transparency of meaning. They are frozen

patterns of language which allow little or no variation in form and, in the case of idioms, often carry

meanings which cannot be deduced from their individual components. An idiom such as bury the

hatchet (‘to become friendly again after a disagreement or a quarrel’) or the long and the short of it

(‘the basic facts of the situation’) allows no variation in form under normal circumstances. Unless

he or she is consciously making a joke or attempting a play on words, a speaker or writer cannot

normally change an idiom.