Understanding English
Linguistics
Chapter 3 Semantics
: Sense
Tae-Jin Yoon
Dept. of English Language and
Literature
Overview and Objectives
After completing this chapter, you should
be able to
 Identify cases of lexical ambiguity and
overlap.
 Identify a superordinate of a given
hyponym (or vice versa).
 Label a set of antonyms as binary,
gradable, or converse.
Sense properties and relations

Lexical ambiguity
◦ A word is lexically ambiguous if it has more than one sense

Synonymy
◦ Two words are synonymous if they have the same sense

Hyponymy
◦ A hyponym is a word that contains the meaning of a more
general word, known as the superordinate.

Overlap
◦ Two words overlap in meaning if they have the same value
for some (but not all) of the semantic features that
constitute their meaning.

Antonymy
◦ Two words are antonyms if their meanings differ only in the
value for a single semantic feature.
Lexical ambiguity

Waldo saw a fly.
An insect, a zipper on a pair of pants, a baseball hit into the air with a bat
Syntactic ambiguity
American history teacher
 American history teacher

◦ 'a teacher of American history'
◦ 'a history teacher who is American.‘
◦ the ambiguity of American history teacher is
syntactic
Synonymy

Two words are synonymous if they
have the same sense
◦ If they the same values for all of their
semantic features.
The pairs
◦ conceal and hide
◦ stubborn and obstinate
◦ big and large
No absolute synonyms
There are no absolute synonyms in
any language, that is, words that mean
exactly the same thing in all contexts.
 Example:

◦ big and large: (near) synonyms
◦ But my big sister and my large sister
certainly do not have the same meaning.
Connotations and register

connotations, or the assertions that speakers have
with a word.
◦ senior citizen and old coot - denote the same entity (a
person over 65)
 the former has a positive connotation, while the latter is
pejorative.
◦ sanitation engineer vs. garbage collector,
◦ administrative assistant vs. secretary.

register or level of formality, with which they are
associated.
◦ an adult male may be referred to




as a guy when the speaker is telling a joke
e.g., "A guy walks into a bar .. "
as a man when the speaker is using language more formally
e.g., "A man walked into the bar ... "
Hyponymy

A hyponym is a word that contains the
meaning of a more general word, known
as the superordinate.
◦ oak contains the meaning of tree
 oak is a hyponym of the superordinate tree.
◦ The meaning of the word sow has exactly the
same feature values as the word pig (e.g., [human]) plus some additional ones (e.g.,
[+adult], [-male]).

boar and piglet are also hyponyms of the
superordinate pig,
◦ since the meaning of each of the three words
sow, boar, and piglet "contains" the meaning
of the word pig.

In defining a word like sow, boar, or
piglet, the superordinate word pig is
often used as part of the definition:
◦ "A sow is an adult female pig."
Overlap.
Two words overlap in meaning if
they have the same value for some
(but not all) of the semantic features
that constitute their meaning.
 sister, niece, aunt, and mother  [+human, male, +kin]
 add the words nun and mistress to the list
 [+human/-male]
 add mare and sow to this list  [-male]

Overlap vs. hyponymy

Hyponymy
◦ the meaning of one word is entirely included
in the meaning of another.
◦ pig and sow

Overlap
◦ the meanings of two words intersect, but
neither one includes other.
◦ Sister and niece
Antonymy
Two words are antonyms if their
meanings differ only in the value for
a single semantic feature.
 The following pairs are all antonyms:
dead and alive, hot and cold, and above
and below.

◦ The meanings of dead and alive are identical
except that dead is marked [-living] and alive is
marked [+living].
Three groups of antonyms

Binary antonyms
◦ pairs that exhaust all linguistic possibilities along some
dimension.
◦ Dead and alive
◦ There is no middle ground between the two.

Gradable antonyms
◦ pairs that describe opposite ends of a continuous
dimension.
◦ Hot and cold
◦ A liquid can be in between, say, warm or cool.

Converse antonyms
◦ pairs that describe the relationship between two items from
opposite perspectives.
◦ Above and below:
 If a picture is above a sofa, then the sofa is necessarily below the picture.
Antonym tests

Converse antonyms:
◦ If X is__ Y, then Y is __ X.
◦ Nouns: If X is Y's ___, then Y is X's __ .
◦ If the painting is above the sofa, then the sofa is below the
painting.
◦ If George is Martha's husband, then Martha is George's
wife.

Binary antonyms
◦ If X is not ___, then X must be ___.
◦ If that person is not dead, then he must be alive.

Gradable antonyms
◦ X is very ___.
◦ This soup is very hot/cold.
liquid vs. solid
antonyms or hyponyms?
 liquid and solid

◦ not converse antonyms
 *If X is liquid Y, then Y is solid X.
◦ not binary antonyms
 *If X is not a liquid, then it must be solid
◦ not gradable antonyms
 *This is very liquid/solid.

liquid and solid (along with gas):
hyponyms of matter.
Exercise B.2


Identify a superordinate (included term)
for the following set: aunt, grandmother,
cousin, nephew.
Exercise B.4
If a floozle is a type of schtek, then
_________________ .
a. The word floozle is a hyponym of schtek.
b. The word floozle is a superordinate of
schtek.
c. The word schtek is a hyponym of floozle.
d. The word schtek is a superordinate of
floozle.
e. both (a) and (d)

Exercise C.2

What sense property is illustrated by the
word bar in George passed the bar?
Exercise C.3
Classify the following antonyms as binary
(B), gradable (G), or converse (C).
1.
B
G
C
wide/narrow
2.
B
G
C
smoking/nonsmoking
3.
B
G
C
near/far
4.
B
G
C
defeat/lose to
5.
B
G
C
innocent/guilty
