Antonym1

Lexical gap• The absence of a word in a particular place in a semantic field of a language is called lexical gap... Marked and Unmarked Item• A marked item is a member word in a semanti

5.3 Wording Meaning

The Third Week

Lexical gap

• The absence of a word in a particular place in a semantic field of a

language is called lexical gap.

• horse -stallion and mare

uncle - 叔叔 , 舅舅 , 姑父，表叔

Marked and Unmarked Item

• A marked item is a member word in a semantic field

that its conceptual meaning

is specific and limited

compared to its synonym

with a more general

meaning

5.3.4 Componential analysis

• All lexical items can be analyzed into

a set of semantic features or

semantic components which may be universal This semantic theory is

called Componential Analysis (CA).

• How old are you?

• How big is the picture?

• How big the picture is!

• How old the grandpa is!

• How powerful are your glasses?

• How powerful the cannon is!

• old/young

• big/small

• powerful/weak

• tall/short

be dissected into meaning

components called semantic

features

Example of the kinship terms

• [MALE] [ASCEND] [DESCEND] [LINEAL]

• Father + + - +

Advantage of CA:

• CA allows a highly explicit and

economical account of meaning

relations such as hyponymy and

incompatibility.

• Woman: + HUAMN +ADULT + FEMALE

• Spinster: +HUMAN +ADULT +FEMALE

-MARRIED

• Bachelor: +HUAMN +ADULT +MALE

• Thus, spinster is incompatible with

bachelor by contrast of gender

specification; and with wife by the

marital specification.

Problem with CA:

• It is not easy to work out the set of features which could

be widely acclaimed and

accepted.

pronunciation, or both, but

more than one unrelated

meanings These words are

• When two words are identical in

pronunciation, but different in

spelling and meaning, they are called homophones

• Samples:

rain/reign night/knight piece/peace bare/bear sun/son flour/flower

bow n./bow v tear n./tear v

lead n./lead v close v./close adj

Complete homonyms:

• When two words are identical in

both pronunciation and spelling, but different in meaning, they are

called complete homonyms

• fast/fast scale/scale bank/bank pupil/pupil mole/mole

5.3.5.2 Polysemy

（多异异系）

• When a word has two or more

meanings that are related

conceptually or historically, it is said to be a polysemous or

polysemic word The phenomenon

is termed as polysemy

The distinction between

homonymy and polysemy:

• One indication of the distinction can

be found in the typical dictionary

entry for words If a word has two or more meanings (polysemic), then

there will be a single entry, with a

numbered list of the different

meanings of the word If two words are treated as homonyms, they will

typically have two separate entries

• Synonyms may be different in dialect, style, emotion and

5.3.5.5 Antonymy

• Words that are opposite in

meaning are often called

antonyms The oppositeness of

meaning is called antonymy.

• They can be grouped into 3

types: gradable,

complementary, and relational antonyms

• (1) Gradable antonyms

• The members of a pair differ in

terms of degree The denial of one

is not necessarily the assertion of the other Ex Rich -poor; high -low; wide -narrow; heavy -light; good -bad

(2) Complementary antonyms

• The members of a pair in this

type are complementary to each other Not only the assertion of one means the denial of the

other, the denial of one also means the assertion of the other Ex male/female

alive/dead married/single

(3) Relational antonyms

• They show the reversal of a

relationship between two

Antonyms often do not have equal status with respect

of markedness In certain pairs of gradable antonyms, one word is marked and the other unmarked That is,

usually the term for the higher degree serves as the

cover term.

• Ex a “How old are you?” is instead of “How young are you?”, the word old is used here to cover both old (unmarked) and

5.3.5.6 Hyponymy

（上、下义义系）

• Hyponymy is a matter of class membership which indicates a category to which the words all belong

• The upper term in this sense

relation, i.e the class name, is

called SUPERORDINATE, and

the lover terms, the members,

HYPONYMS A superordinate

usually has several hyponyms,

these members of the same class are CO-HYPONYMS

For example

• Vegetable

• potato cabbage carrot

5.3.5.7 Meronymy

（整义部分义系）

• Meronymy refers to the phenomenon that a word means a part of another.

• Samples:

body/neck drawer/desk

A small section of the

system of body-part terms

in English is given

• body

• Head neck trunk leg arm

Distinction between meronymy and hyponymy

• Meronymy can be expressed by the

pattern “X is a part of Y”, whereas

hyponymy is by the pattern “X is a

kind of Y” For example, head is a part

of body, but not a kind of body, while potato is a kind of vegetable, but not

a part of vegetable