Lecture 4

• Sense relations
• Semantic fields
• Paraphrase and contradiction
• Lexical gap
• Marked and unmarked terms
• Componential analysis
• Entailment and the truth of sentences
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 Sense relations
• Definition
• Types of sense relations
1. Major types
a. Substitutional (paradigmatic)
b. Combinatorial (syntagmatic)

2. Other types
a. Hyponymy
b. Meronymy
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 Definition

The lexical structure of a language can be

seen as a network of sense relations,
effected by the members of the lexicon

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Lexical Structure

Word/expression

Sense relation
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 Example

stare
glance
look
glimpse
gaze

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 Groups Of Sense Relations

• Synonymic groups
• Antonymic groups

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 Types Of Sense Relations

• Major types
- Substitutional (paradigmatic)
- Combinatorial (syntagmatic)
• Other types
- Hyponymy
- Meronymy

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 Major Types Of Sense Relations
Substitutional Combinatorial
relations relations
• Are those existing • Are those existing
between members of between items of
the same grammatical different grammatical
categories categories

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The girl is pretty/ugly/polite/rude
SUBSTITUTIONAL COMBINATORIAL
RELATIONS RELATIONS

“pretty” &”ugly” & “the pretty girl” is a

“polite” & “rude” are combination
interchangeable and between a noun and
belong to the same an adjective
category of adjective

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 Note
A number of words tend to co-occur with
others which are described as collocational

False/forged passport
To proceed along
To make friends
To commit a crime
A deep river / ocean
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 Other Types Of Sense Relations

Hyponymy Meronymy
• Defined in terms of • Defined as part-whole
inclusion relation

• Ex: • Ex:
“Washing powder” “Face”
=
TIDE OMO … Eyes + nose + lips
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 Hyponymy - Definition
• Hyponymy is the relationship between two words
in which the meaning of one of the words
includes the meaning of the other.
• This relationship is ASYMMETRICAL
(hierarchical) relationship.
• E.g. Dog - animal
Oak - plant
Rose - flower
Car - vehicle
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 Some Features Of Hyponymy

1) Hyponym is decided based on the viewpoint of intension

and extension
E.g.: “Flower” and “rose”

superordinate hyponym

• Rose, daffodil and tulip…are co-hyponyms of “rose”

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• The hyponym is the member whose intensional
meaning is specific enough to cover the meaning
of the superordinate whereas the superordinate
member is the one whose extensional meaning is
broad enough to cover the hyponym.
• E.g. a “rose” is a flower, but not every flower is a
rose. The meaning of “flower” is included in the
meaning of “rose”
• A hyponym is the opposite of a hypernym, which
is another term for superordinate .
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Some Features Of Hyponymy
2) Makes substitution possible

- Did she smile with you?

- Yes, she grinned with me

- Have you bought some flowers?

- Yes, I’ve bought some roses.

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 Some Features Of Hyponymy
3) Hyponymy is a transitive relation:

x is H of y
y is H of z => x is H of z

E.g.: Cow - mammal - animal

Honda - car - vehicle
wine - drink - liquid

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 Some Features Of Hyponymy
4) Hyponymy is related to synonym. Synonymy is
special case of hyponymy: SYMETRICAL
hyponymy.

x is H of y x and y are
y is H of x synonyms

E.g. :“Mercury” & “quicksilver”

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 Features Of Meronymy
• Part-whole relation between discrete referents is
transitive

x is part of y
=> x is part of z
y is part of z

E.g.: Drive - CPU - computer

Picture - page - book
face - head - body
• Meronymy is the opposite of holonymy
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 Fill in the missing hyponyms or
superordinates
i. _____ (sow, … )
ii. Virtue (…… )
iii. Tree (…… )
iv. ______ ( fear, … )
v. ______ (pig, ….. )

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 Semantic field (Lexical field)

• Definition

• Ways of grouping words

• Characteristics

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 Semantic field (Lexical field)
• A lexical/semantic field is the organization of related
words and expressions into a system which shows
their relationships to one another.
• The value of a word is determined by defining it in
relation to the value of neighbouring or contrasting
words. Thus, the vocabulary of a language is viewed
as an integrated system of lexemes interrelated in
sense. A semantic field is a set of interrelated
senses based on a conceptual field or spectrum.

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 Examples
• In terms of colour: 4 primary color terms: blue,
green, yellow, red.
• Environment: overfish, overexploit, pollute,
contaminate, ozone depletion, rain forests
• Beach: towel, umbrella, lotion, bikini, sand
• Carpenter: lumber, nails, drills, saw, chisel
• Dentist: filling, cavity, extract, pull
• Degrees of redness: Red, scarlet, orange,
crimson, rose
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 Ways of grouping words
• Thematically
Words of the same part of speech that cover the same
conceptual field
e.g., COOKING: boil, bake, fry, broil, steam, etc

• Ideographically
Words of different parts of speech but thematically
related
e.g., HOLIDAY: to book (a flight), a package tour, hotel,
luxurious, etc
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 Paraphrase
• A sentence which expresses the same proposition as
another sentence is a paraphrase of that sentence
(assuming the same referents for any referring expressions
involved).
E.g. John sold his car to Peter
Peter bought John’s car
I don’t like maths
I am not fond of maths
Bachelors prefer red-haired girls
Girls with red hair are preferred by unmarried men
• Paraphrase is a relationship where two propositions have the
same truth conditions. 24
 Contradiction (Mâu thuẫn)
• Contradiction is a relationship where a
proposition must be false because of the
meanings of the words involved.
E.g. He is both married and single
That cat is a dog
This animal is a vegetable
That girl is her own mother’s
mother
John killed Bill, who remained
alive many years later 25
 What is a proposition?
• A proposition is that part of the meaning of an
utterance of a declarative sentence which
describes some states of affairs.
• The state of affairs typically involves persons or
things referred to by expressions in the
sentence. In uttering a declarative sentence, a
speaker typically asserts a proposition.
• A proposition usually consists of (a) something
which is named or talked about known as
argument or entity, (b) an assertion or
predication made about the arguments.
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 Notes
• A proposition can be True or False depending
on the truth conditions.

• True proposition correspond to facts in the

ordinary sense of the word fact. False
propositions do not correspond to fact.
E.g. There are lions in Africa (T)
The state of California is
uninhabited by human beings (F)
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 Lexical gap
• “Lexical gap” refers to the absence of a word in
a particular place in a lexical field of a language,
denoting an object which does exist in the
culture in which the language is used. Two
questions:
Q.1: Can we have co-hyponyms without
an existing superordinate lexeme?
A.1: Yes. There is no superordinate term for
- cow + bull = ???
- stallion + mare = horse
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• Q.2: Can we say that there is a lexical gap
at a place in the hierarchical structure
where we could expect a hyponym of
an existing superordinate to be?
• A.2: Yes.
a. corpse: body of a dead human
b. carcass: body of dead animal
c. “?????” : body of a dead tree

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 Marked and unmarked terms
• Two forms of marking
a. Formal marking: based on the presence or
absence of some particular elements or forms. It
applies to both grammar (tense, mood, voice,
number, comparison) and derivation (happy vs.
unhappy).
b. Semantic marking: based on the meaning of the
words (old vs. young; dog vs. bitch)
• In both cases the unmarked member has a more
general sense while the marked member tend to be
more restricted in its distribution. 30
 Componential analysis
• CA is an approach to the study of meaning which
analyses a word into a set of meaning components or
semantic features / semantic properties / semantic
components.
e.g. The meaning of the word “boy” may be shows as:
+human, -adult, +male.
• Usually CA is applied to a group of related words
which may differ from one another by one or two
components
• It is obvious from CA that the meaning of sense of a
word may be described as a function of certain
semantic features.
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• These semantic features may be classified into
markers and distinguisher
• The markers are descriptive of the sense
• The distinguishers are to distinguish between
different senses.
E.g. man: +human, +adult, +male
woman: +human, +adult, -male
boy: +human, -adult, +male
girl: +human, -adult, -male
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 Entailment (phép suy diễn)
• Entailment is a relationship that applies between
two sentences / propositions, where the truth of
one implies the truth of the other because of the
meanings of the words involved. In other words,
a sentence expressing proposition X entails a
sentence expressing proposition Y if the truth of
Y follows necessarily from the truth of X
• E.g: Mr. Smith has married Mary
Mary is now a married woman
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• It is a relationship between two or more
sentences (strictly speaking propositions). If
knowing that one sentence is true gives us
certain knowledge of the truth of the second
sentence, then the first sentence entails the
second.
• John ate the cake entails Someone ate
something
• John killed Bill entails Bill died
• Entailment is concerned with the meaning of the
sentence itself (not utterance meaning). It does
not depend on the context in which the sentence
is used. 34
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 The truth of sentences
• A sentence can be either necessarily true (tự xác
tín) or contingently true (xác tín có điều kiện).
• A necessarily (analytically) true sentence (an
ANALYTIC sentence) is one that is necessarily
true as a result of the senses of the words in it.
• E.g. Dogs are animals
John is as tall as himself
Bachelors are unmarried
Cats are not vegetables
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 Synthetic sentence
• A contingently (synthetically) true sentence (a
SYNTHETIC sentence) is one which may be either
true or false, depending on the way the world is.
• E.g. Keep to the left
It often rains a lot in Autumn
John is from Ireland
Bachelors are lonely
Bachelors cannot form lasting relationship

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