IA902 Practical Description of English : Session 8
Sense Relations
HOMOPHONY
flour and flower, meat and meet (same sound, different spelling and meaning)
HOMONYMY
South Bank and Lloyds Bank (different uses of the same word, different senses)
POLYSEMY
Mickey Mouse, wireless mouse, head in headache and head in headteacher
(different uses but same sense)
HYPONYMY
flower and rose (superordinate and hyponym, general and specific)
tree and oak
building and house
MERONYMY
house and dining room (superordinate and meronym, whole and part)
hand and knuckle
day and afternoon
plant and shoot
(LOOSE) SYNONYMY
find and discover
pavement and sidewalk (difference in dialect)
famous and notorious, new and novel (difference in connotation)
western and occidental (difference in register)
(STRICT)
heaven and sky, ghost and spirit (examples of semantic change)
ANTONYMS
happy and unhappy, logical and illogical, include and exclude, encourage and
discourage (note the effect of affixation here)
long and short, young and old, beautiful and ugly (gradable)
alive and dead, asleep and awake (contradictory / complementary)
above and below, husband and wife (converse)
METAPHOR and
METONYMY
When do babies start crawling? (basic sense)
The traffic crawled to a halt. (metonymy)
The morning crawled past. (metaphor)
The UK Government and Downing Street
The US President and The White House (both metonymic)
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IA902 Practical Description of English : Session 8
HYPONYMY
MERONYMY
(Jackson and Ze Amvela, 2000)
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IA902 Practical Description of English : Session 8
Distinguishing synonyms
Adapted from Jackson and Zé Amvela (2002 : 110-113):
Differences in DIALECT
British English vs American English
standard v northern British English
bonnet
caravan
drawing pin
nappy
pavement
rubbish
tap
lawyer
lift
anyway
child
frightening
money
nothing
passageway
sandwich
trousers
hood
trailer
thumbtack
diaper
sidewalk
garbage
faucet
attorney
elevator
anyroad
bairn
fleysome
brass
nowt
ginnel
butty
pants
Standard British English vs Cockney Rhyming Slang
hair
feet
curry
on my own
look
crap
five pounds
fifteen pounds
Barnet (Barnet Fair)
Plates (plates of meat)
Ruby (Ruby Murray)
on my Jack (Jack Jones)
butcher’s (butcher’s hook)
Pony (pony and trap)
Lady (Lady Godiva)
Commodore
(The Commodores sang “Three Times A Lady” – 3 x £5 = £15!!!)
Differences in REGISTER
Less formal context
More formal context
argument
cross
die
give up
letter
praise
warning
western
disputation
traverse
decease
renounce
missive
eulogy
caveat
occidental
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IA902 Practical Description of English : Session 8
Where these synonyms come from
from Old English
from other languages
ask for
glove
need
rope
slake
ghost
din
drive back
drop
smother
heaven
request (French)
gauntlet
require
cable
satisfy
spirit
commotion (Latin)
repulse
globule
suffocate
sky (Old Norse)
Connotation
Synonym 1
Synonym 2
Connotation of synonym 2
ambiguous
famous
hate
misuse
new
obtain
proud
recollection
simulate
equivocal
notorious
loathe
abuse
novel
procure
haughty
reminiscence
feign
deliberate
disreputably
with disgust
privilege of power
strikingly
with effort
with distain
with pleasure
with craftiness
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IA902 Practical Description of English : Session 8
Antonyms
Adapted from Jackson and Zé Amvela (2002 : 115-116):
Graded antonyms
beautiful
expensive
fast
hot
increase
long
love
rich
sweet
wide
ugly
cheap
slow
cold
decrease
short
hate
poor
sour
narrow
Complementary antonyms
asleep
dead
on
permit
remember
shut
true
win
awake
alive
off
forbid
forget
open
false
lose
Converse antonyms
above
before
behind
buy
give
husband
parent
speak
below
after
in front of
sell
receive
wife
child
listen
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IA902 Practical Description of English : Session 8
Sense and definitions
An attempt to distinguish a group of loose synonyms from the 1991 Longman Dictionary of the English
Language:
Beg, entreat, beseech, implore, supplicate and importune all signify the making of an appeal which is
likely to be refused or demurred at. A person begs for what he/she cannot claim as a right; beg suggests
earnestness, insistence, and sometimes self-abasement. By entreating someone, one hopes to
persuade him / her by earnest pleading and reasoning. Beseech and implore convey eager anxiety
which seeks to inspire sympathy or pity. Implore may be stronger than beseech, with a suggestion of
tearfulness or evident anguish. Supplicate adds to entreat a humble, prayerful attitude…Importune
denotes persistence with one’s requests to the point of annoyance or even harassment.
(cited in Jackson and Ze Amvela, 2000)
Can you identify the following four words from their definitions, taken from the Cambridge Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary Online?
1. _____________: of a high standard or quality [≠ bad, poor]
2. _____________: [uncountable] a feeling of unhappiness because something is not as good as
you expected, or has not happened in the way you hoped
3. _____________: when something _____________, there is an event, especially one that is not
planned [= occur]
4. _____________: to happen
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IA902 Practical Description of English : Session 8
What about the following three less orthodox definitions?
5. ___________
6. ___________
7. ___________
SEMANTIC PRIMITIVES
(Definitions and table from Wierzbicka, cited in Jackson and Ze Amvela, 2000: 127-128)
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IA902 Practical Description of English : Session 8
Semantic Sets and Collocation
Hoey (2005 : 64) observes the following collocates of the verb TRAIN:
train
trains
trained
training
as a
teacher
doctor
nurse
lawyer
painter
dancer
barrister
chef
Braille shorthand typist
In Hoey’s corpus, “train* as a teacher” is 25 more common that “train* as a Braille shorthand typist”,
but he argues that teacher and Braille shorthand typist are co-hyponyms, since they belong to the
semantic set of SKILLED ROLE OR OCCUPATION. Individual co-hyponyms may have unique collocational
behaviour, but TRAIN AS A collocates with the semantic set SKILLED ROLE OR OCCUPATION.
Willis (2003) identifies relationships between semantic sets, pattern grammar, and meaning:
Semantic Set
(from Francis et
al, 1996)
LAST
Verbs following the pattern VERB + for +
NP
Purpose of + for NOUN (Willis)
endure, keep, live, last
TIME
LAST
extend, stretch
DISTANCE
WAIT
wait
REASON WHY
PLAN
plan, arrange, provide
REASON WHY
PREPARE
prepare, study, train
REASON WHY
COMPENSATE
pay, answer, apologise
REASON WHY
VOLUNTEER
report, sign on, show up, enrol
REASON WHY
SEARCH
hunt, look, shop, listen
ASK / LOOK FOR
ASK
beg, send, shout, call
ASK / LOOK FOR
WORK
act, fight, play, speak
WHO WANTS OR NEEDS
DEPUTISE
substitute, stand in
WHO WANTS OR NEEDS
ARGUE
pray, speak up, vote
WHO WANTS OR NEEDS
CARE
feel, grieve
WHO WANTS OR NEEDS
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IA902 Practical Description of English : Session 8
References and further reading
Ballard, K. 2007 The Frameworks of English, 2nd Edition, Palgrave MacMillan
Cobb, T. 2004 The Compleat Lexical Tutor. Available online at http://tesl-ej.org/ej31/m2.html [Accessed
27 November 2011]
Culpeper, J. et al (eds) 2009 English Language: Description, Variation and Context. Palgrave Macmillan
Francis, S., Hunston, S. and Manning, E. 1996 Grammar Patterns 1: Verbs. Harper Collins
Hoey, M. 2005 Lexical Priming, Routledge
Jackson, H. and Ze Amvela, E. 2000 Words, Meaning and Vocabulary : An Introduction to Modern English
Lexicology, Continuum
Leech, G. 1974 Semantics, Penguin
Schmitt, N. 2000 Vocabulary in Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press
Willis, D. 2003 Rules, Patterns and Words, Cambridge University Press
Yule, G. 1985 The Study of Language, Cambridge University Press
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