Introducing English LinguisticsCharles F. MeyerChapter 6: English words: structure and meaningSemantic Relations

Semantic Relations

Synonymy: sofa=couch=divan=davenportAntonymy: good/bad, life/death, come/goContrast: sweet/sour/bitter/salty, solid/liquid/gasHyponymy, or class inclusion: cat<mammal<animalMeronymy, or part-whole relation:

line<stanza<poem

qtd. from M.L. Murphy (2003: 9) Semantics and the Lexicon. Cambridge University Press.

Does ‘true’ synonymy really exist?

“Absolute synonymy, if it exists at all, is quite rare. Absolute synonyms would be able to be substituted one for the other in any context in which their common sense is denoted with no change to truth value, communicative effect, or ‘meaning’ (however ‘meaning’ is defined).”

Qtd. from Philip Edmonds and Graeme Hirst (2002) “Near-Synoymy and Lexical Choice” Computational Linguistics 28:2. 105-144

Some Examples

1. My friend is dating a life-long bachelor 2. My friend is dating a life-long adult male who is unmarried

1. The receptionist pointed to a chair where I should wait

2. The receptionist pointed to a seat where I should wait

adapted from Murphy (2003: 140)

1. Someone ate my lunch2. Somebody ate my lunch3. I want to be a somebody (#someone),

not a nobody (#no one)

Murphy (2003: 164)

1. Let’s take the elevator to the 3rd floor (AmE)

2. Let’s take the lift to the 3rd floor (BrE)

Near-Synonymy

“A word can express a myriad of implications, connotations, and attitudes in addition to its basic ‘dictionary’ meaning. And a word often has near-synonyms that differ from it solely in these nuances of meaning. So, in order to find the right word to use in any particular situation—the one that precisely conveys the desired meaning and yet avoids unwanted implications—one must carefully consider the differences between all of the options” (Edmonds and Hirst 2000: 105).

Roget’s Thesaurus (1911)

Table of contents in original book

Roget2000 hypertext version

The ARTFL Project

Hyponymy

WordNet

Among co-hyponyms some instances are more ‘prototypical’ than others