english lexicology meaning relations week 10 instructor: liu hongyong
TRANSCRIPT
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
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.
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.
freedom of choice
a person
a person who leads
a headmaster
head: the upper part of the body
1) chief
2) boss
3) leader
mental ability
the top of something
Problems with the definition
Besides the denotative meaning, a word may also have connotative meaning, stylistic meaning, and affective meaning.
adult: [+human, +adult]
grown-up: [+human, +adult]
formal
Informal/colloquial
Denotative meaning is the same, but the stylistic meaning is different. Can they be called synonyms?
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.
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.
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 somethingfind: experience something in some way
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
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:
BrE AmE BrE AmE
lift elevator farm ranch
lawyer attorney biscuit cookie
rubbish garbage pavement sidewalk
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.
Informal Formal Informal Formal
die decease daddy father
blame chide guy man
west occidental praise eulogy
Synonyms with different connotative meanings
Synonyms may have different emotive associations (connotative meanings).
famous notorious
(disreputably)
misuse abuse
(of privilege or power)
ambiguous
equivocal
(deliberately)
new novel
(strikingly)
hate loathe
(with disgust)
obtain procure
(with effort)
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.
English French Latin
ask question interrogate
time age epoch
begin commence
buy purchase
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
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.
Contradictory (complementary) antonyms
Contradictory antonyms include pairs like the following:
asleep awakedead aliveon offremember forgetwin losetrue false
These pairs are called contradictory antonyms because they represent an either/or relation.
If you permit some behavior, then it is not forbidden.
Since they are not gradable, they do not allow comparison.
Converse antonyms ( 逆行 )
The following are examples of converse antonyms :
lend borrowhusband wife above belowbefore afterbehind in front ofbuy sellgive receiveparent childspeak listen
Lend is the converse of borrow and 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.
The bridge is above the river.
The river is below the bridge.
This behavior is allowed.
This behavior is not prohibited.
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 antonymsvs. Converse antonyms
Converse antonyms are relational antonyms.
Contradictory antonyms are either/or antonym.
I don’t forbidden you to introduce Mary.
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.
FOOD
MEAT
We are not going to have any food today.
We are not going to have any vegetables today.
VEGETABLE
MEAT VEGETABLEFRUIT
BEEF PORK MUTTON
CABBAGE CELERY SPINACH
APPLE PEACH ORANGE
superordinate They are subordinate terms. They are hyponyms of the superordinate term FOOD.
FOOD
Reading from the bottom of the hierarchy, ORANGE is a ‘kind of’ fruit, which is a kind of food.
They are subordinate terms. They are hyponyms of the superordinate term MEAT.
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.
主攻
Outside hitters
二传
Setters
接应
Opposite hitters
自由人
Liberos
排球队 (volleyball team)
副攻
Middle hitters
排球队员 (volleyball player)
Hyponyms of ??? 【 kind-of 】
Meronyms of ??? 【 part-of 】
Collocation: a structural relation ( 搭配关系 ) Collocation refers to a structural or syntagmatic rel
ation. 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?
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.
Example of collocation (Corpus Data ) Word: political
(from a small (90,000 word) corpus of obituary texts)
left 2 left 1 right 1 right 2
4 of 4 his 3 career 3 the
2 the 3 a 2 life 3 to
3 of 2 courage 3 in
2 into 2 in
2 great
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations
… of his political life in …
private
professional
academic
…
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.
A word has the syntagmatic relation with its neighboring words. It is a kind of collocation relation.