A.SYNONYMY
Synonymy is the state or
phenomenon in which the words that sound different (different in pronunciation)
but have the same or identical meaning as another word or phrase. The concrete form of synonymy is called “synonym”. Examples:
small = little big = large
mother and father = parents politician = statesman
B.ANTONYMY
Antonymy is
the state or phenomenon in which the words have the sense relation which
involve the opposite of meaning. The concrete form of antonymy is called
“antonym” (opposite). The word pairs of antonym can be divided into several
types:
a. Implicitly Gradable Pairs
(Graded Antonym)
implicitly Gradable Pairs (Graded Antonym) refers to the
words related to the object they modify. The words themselves do not provide an
absolute scale. Examples:
big >< small good >< bad Relatively fast
>< slow comparable young >< old Thus, when we say that “a fly is
bigger than another”, we imply that „big‟ is to be
understood in the context of „flies‟. Another
fact dealing with this type is that “a small elephant”, for example, is much
bigger that “a big mouse”. A big mouse A small elephant.
b. Complementary Pairs (Complementarity)
Complementary Pairs (Complemetarity) refers to the existence
of pairs that the denial of one, implies the assertion of the other. Examples:
male >< female
alive >< dead Incomparable present >< absent objects awake ><
asleep Thus, if one is not male, then one is certainly female; if one is not
present, then he/she must be absent, and so on.
c. Relational Pairs
(Converseness).
Relational Pairs (converseness) refers to the pair of words
that display symmetry in their meaning. If X gives Y to Z, then Z receives Y
from X Relationships between certain semantic features can reveal knowledge
about antonyms. Consider: A word that is [+married] is [-single] A word that is
[+single] is [-married]These show that any word that bears the semantic
property “married”,such as „wife‟, is
understood to lack the semantic property “single”; andconversely, any
word that bears the semantic property “single”, such as„bachelor‟, will not have the property “married”.
C.HYPONYMY
Hyponymy is
the state or phenomenon that shows the relationship between more general term
(lexical representation) and the more specific instances of it. The concrete forms of sets of word (the specific instances) are
called “hyponyms”. Example:
The lexical representation of: red,
yellow, green, blue, purple, black, is [+color]. Thus, we can say that: “red”
is a hyponym of “color”, and so on.
Sometimes there is no single word in the
language that encompasses as set of hyponyms. Example:
clarinet, guitar, piano, trumpet, violin
are hyponyms because they are “musical instruments”, but there is not a single
word meaning “musical instrument” that has these words as its hyponyms.The
relationship between the general term and the specific instances is often be
described using a hierarchical diagram, called “taxonomy”.Example of Taxonomy:
vegetable greens pulses roots tuberscabbage spinach peas
beans carrots turnips potatoes yams
Look at the following
list: Tea,Black coffee , coffee ,Milk ,White coffee ,Beverage
From the list, we can make the taxonomy as follow: Beverage tea coffee milk
Black coffee White coffee.