1. Word Meaning
Lexical Relations

2. Lexical meaning (word
meaning)
• What do we mean when we say that
we know the meaning of a word?
• We know one or more of the following:
dictionary meaning, mental image,
referential meaning, componential
meaning (semantic features), lexical
relations, semantic roles and
pragmatic content
• All these constitute our LEXICON.

3. What is a word?
• Word form
– Any sequence of letters, which in normal
typographical practice, is bounded on either side
by a space.
• Lexeme
– Abstract meaning unit underlying such
semantically related word-forms as had and
having, she and her, or conversation and
conversations.
• Citation form
– The form of the lexeme that is conventionally
employed to refer to it in standard dictionaries
and grammars of the language.

4. Typographical
conventions
• The words (i.e. word forms) found and
find are different forms of the same
word (i.e. lexeme).
• Find and found are forms of “find”
(=citation form).
• The word bank is ambiguous between
“bank”1 ‘financial institution’ and “bank”2
‘sloping side of a river’.

5. Examples
• He walks like a duck.
• He’s walking like a duck.
• He walked like a duck.
• 3 different grammatical words representing one
semantic word – same lexeme “walk”
• The inverse is possible – several lexemes can be
presented by one phonological and grammatical
word
• He scored with his left foot.
• They made the camp at the foot of the mountain.
• I ate a sandwich with a foot long frankfurter.
• 3 senses of the word ‘foot’
• Part of the leg below the ankle, base or bottom of
something, one third of a yard

6. • Once we have established our lexemes, the
lexicon will be a listing of them with a
representation of:
• The lexeme‘s pronunciation
• Its grammatical status
• Its meaning
• Its meaning relations with other lexemes

7. Lexical (semantic)
relations
• The lexicon as a network rather than a
listing of words as in a published dictionary
• Knowing the meaning of lexemes in any
language is the recognition that 2 or more
lexemes may have semantic relationship
• 2 approaches – semantic lexical field & truth
conditional semantic
• Lexical field – a group of lexemes which
belong to a particular activity or area of
special knowledge
• Truth conditional semantics – compare
predications that can be made about the
same referring expressions

8. Lexical fields
• We can define a lexeme by telling what set it
belongs to and how it differs from other members of
the same set. Ex:
• Sport (tennis, badminton, golf, soccer, basketball…)
• Creative writings (poem, novel, short story,
biography, essay…)
• Some lexical sets involve part-whole relationship
(arms include hand; which includes finger and
thumbs). Some sets are sequential (numbers 1,2, 3
or cyclical Jan, Feb; Monday, Tuesday; spring,
summer)
• The determination of features – componential
analysis

9. • Let’s consider these nouns: stool chair bench sofa
• These have in common a component (piece of
furniture) that is also shared by table, but not by
door
• How do the four items differ form one another?
• Let’s say that chair differs from stool in the feature
(having a back)
• Bench and sofa?
• The important point here is the recognition of 2
kinds of features: distinctive & non-distinctive

10. Truth conditional
semantics
• There are tulips in the
vase.
• There are flowers in
the vase.
• Rover is a collie.
• Rover is a dog.
• Tulip is a hyponym of
flower; collie is a
hyponym of dog.
Flower and dog,
respectively, are
superordinates
(hyperonym) of tulip
and collie

11. What about these?

12. Hyponyms are senses that are related to
each other through inclusion. These
relationships of inclusion are often
represented by tree diagrams:
• animal is the superordinate item (or the item that determines the field)
• the other items are all hyponyms of animal and any other items higher up in the
hierarchy (hypo- means ‘under’)
• items under one branch and on the same level (e.g. dog, cat, hamster) are called co-
hyponyms.

13. Synonymy
• “Expressions with the same meaning are
synonymous” (Lyons 1981: 50)
• Jack a seaman.
• Jack is a sailor.
• Seaman and sailor are synonyms.
• If A is synonymous with B, A and B mean the same
thing, A can be paraphrased by B.
• Synonymous words:
• Postpone = put off
• Vomit = throw up
• Couch = sofa

14. Synonyms are words with
the same or similar senses.
• English-French synonym
pairs:
• Old English-Norman
French
• King – sovereign
• Ox - beef
• Sheep - mutton
• Folk - people
• Help - aid
• Begin - commence
• End - terminate
• Hinder - prevent
• Germanic-based phrasal
verbs also often make
synonym pairs with Latin-
based verbs:
• Germanic - Latin
• catch up with - reach
• come back - return
• give up - surrender
• hold back - retain
• let down - disappoint
• make out - distinguish
• pick up - collect
• point out - indicate
• put up with - tolerate

15. Synonymy
• Expressions with the same meaning
are
– Fully synonymous
• iff all their meanings are identical
– Totally synonymous
• iff they are synonymous in all contexts
– Completely synonymous
• iff they are identical on all (relevant)
dimensions of meaning
iff = ‘if and only if’

16. Synonyms
• Absolute synonyms
– Expressions that are fully, totally, and
completely synonymous
• Partial synonyms
– Expressions that are synonymous but not
absolutely so.
• Near synonyms
– Expressions that are similar but not
identical in meaning

17. Not fully synonymous
• Not all their meanings are identical
• They live in a big/large house
(synonymous)
• My big/large sister (not synonymous)
• I got good marks/a good grade for the
essay (synonymous)
• But “mark” also has the meaning ‘spot’
or ‘symbol’

18. Not totally synonymous
• Not in all contexts (i.e. collocational
restrictions)
• Flaw, blemish, defect
• A flaw/blemish in someone’s
complexion (not defect)
• A flaw/defect in someone’s argument
(not blemish)

19. Not completely
synonymous
• Same conceptual meaning but
different associative meanings
– Statesman, politician
– Small gifts, expensive presents, bribes
– Loyal, blindly obedient

20. Register, social and geographical variation
What do you call this?

21. toilet (BrE)
lavatory (BrE), lav (informal)
WC (BrE, used especially on signs in public places)
the gents and the ladies (BrE, used for public conveniences)
loo (BrE informal)
bath/rest/washroom (AmE, cf. Italian ‘bagno’) = BrE toilet
john (AmE informal)

22. Antonyms
• 1a. Alvin is watching television now.
• 1b. Alvin isn’t watching television now.
• Two sentences that differ in polarity
like these are mutually contradictory. If
one is true, the other one must be
false.
• Antonyms are opposite in meaning.

23. AntonymsAntonyms
• In its barest form, antonymy refers to
the condition of being opposites.
– Complementary/contradictoryComplementary/contradictory
• Complete/incomplete, married/single
• Must be one or the other
– Relational opposites/contrariesRelational opposites/contraries
• Over/under, doctor/patient, stop/go
• Can be neither, represent symmetrical relationships
– Scalar antonyms/gradable pairsScalar antonyms/gradable pairs
• Hot/cold, big/small, tall/short
• Can be neither, represent extremes on a scale

24. AntonymsAntonyms
• Complementary/contradictory pairs
– Given XX and YY, every entity in the world is
either in X’sX’s set or in Y’sY’s set, but never in
both.
• married/unmarriedmarried/unmarried
• visible/invisiblevisible/invisible

25. Complementary antonyms
• Complementary antonyms have a
relationship where there is no middle
ground.
• There are only two possibilities, either one
or the other.
• Examples include: man and woman, push
and pull, dead and alive, off and on, raise
and lower, day and night, absent and
present, exit and entrance, sink or float, true
or false, pass and fail, former and latter,
input and output, inhale and exhale, and
interior and exterior.

26. Complementarity
either X or Y, not both – non gradable concepts
single vs. married
dead vs. alive
legal vs. illegal
asleep vs. awake
true vs. false
male vs. female
pregnant vs. not pregnant
on vs. off
pass vs. fail

27. Relational opposites /
Contraries/Converseness
– Given X and Y, everything in the world is
in X’s set, in Y’s set, or in neither set, but
never in both sets.
• over/underover/under
– An object can be over or under another,
but never both. It could also be NEXT TO
another object.
• married/bachelormarried/bachelor
– A man can be married or a bachelor, but
not both. He could also be a divorcé or a
widower.

28. • Relational antonyms are sometimes
considered a subcategory of complementary
antonyms.
• With these pairs, for there to be a
relationship, both must exist.
• Examples are: husband and wife, doctor
and patient, buy and sell, parent and child,
predator and prey, above and below, give
and receive, teach and learn, instructor and
pupil, servant and master, borrow and lend,
come and go, toward and away, and divisor
and dividend.

29. • Reciprocal antonyms
• Nouns: An example is husband and wife. If I am
your husband, you must be my wife.
• Verbs: An example is buy and sell. If I buy
something from you, you must sell it to me.
• Reversive antonyms
• Verbs: An example is rise and fall. Note the
difference here with buy and sell. If the temperature
rises, this does not mean that something else falls!
• Adverbs: An example is backwards and forwards.
Again, if I am going backwards, this doesn’t mean
that you or anyone else is going forwards!

30. Scalar antonyms/Gradable pairs
– Given X and Y, X and Y fulfill the
conditions for being relational opposites
but in addition can be interpreted as
endpoints on some scale.
• good/badgood/bad
• hot/coldhot/cold
• strong/weakstrong/weak
– A good test for this kind of relationship is
the potential use of the modifier “quite”.

31. • Graded antonyms deal with levels of the
meaning of the words, like if something is
not “good”, is may still not be “bad.”
• There is a scale involved with some words,
and besides good and bad there can be
average, fair, excellent, terrible, poor, or
satisfactory.
• Examples include: fat and skinny, young
and old, happy and sad, hard and soft, last
and first, foolish and wise, fast and slow,
warm and cool, wide and narrow, abundant
and scarce, joy and grief, dark and light,
dangerous and safe, clever and foolish,
early and late, and empty and full.

32. • Gradable antonyms have a few interesting
properties:
• · Exactly how ‘hot’ is hot? This depends on
what you are talking about: a hot day, a hot cup of
tea, hot noodles, a hot shower, hot oil, hot air, etc.
A hot cup of tea is likely to be much hotter than a
hot day, for example.
• · Gradable antonyms are often modified by
adverbs to express higher and lower points on the
scale: e.g. extremely hot, very hot, too hot, so hot,
quite hot.
• · There are often other adjectives expressing
extreme and intermediate points on the scale: e.g.
warm, tepid, lukewarm, cool, chilly, freezing.

33. • Dead and alive are good examples of non-gradable
antonyms:
• · They are not points on a scale. They are
opposed states. This means that if you are dead,
you are not alive. If you are alive, you are not dead.
• · Non-gradable antonyms are not usually
modified by adverbs. In colloquial English, we do
say almost dead (=about to die), half-dead (=very
tired), so alive (=feeling very well), stone dead and
dead as a doornail (emphatic/hyperbolic), but these
expressions do not represent points on a scale.
• · There are usually no adjectives
representing intermediate states between non-
gradable antonyms.

34. • Gradable
antonyms
• wet – dry
• young – old
• easy – difficult
• happy – sad
• big – small
• long - short
• Non-gradable
antonyms
• male – female
• true – false
• north – south
• single – married
• full – empty
• before - after

35. gradable concepts (e.g. scalar adjectives)
big vs. small
high vs. low
small vs. large
wet vs. dry
hot – warm – lukewarm – cool – cold

36. 36
Hyponymy
• Inclusiveness
• A is included in / a kind of B.
• Cf.: chair and furniture, rose and flower
– Superordinate/hypernym: the more general
term
– Hyponym: the more specific term
– Co-hyponyms: members of the same class

37. Hyponymy (i.e. category membership)
It may be problematic to identify the superordinate terms:
brother & sister < sibling (formal)
uncle & aunt < ?
cow & bull < cow/cattle (collective)/bovine (technical)
human being & animal < animal (vs. vegetable, mineral)
fish
snapper trout bass [bæs] sole salmon [ sæm nˈ ə ]
chinook [( )tˌ ʃɪ nuˈ ːk] spring coho [ kˈ əʊ həʊ] king sockeye [ sˈ ɒk aɪ]
hypernym
(co)hyponyms

38. Hyponymy

39. Polysemy vs. Homophony
• Polysememous word ‘hard’
– meaning1 meaning2
– “difficult” “durable, solid”
• => Single lexical entry

40. Homophones and
Homonyms
• Homonymy: A word which has two or more
entirely distinct (unrelated) meanings,
– e.g. bank: ‘financial institution’ ; ‘of a river’.
– Bat: ‘flying creature’ or ‘used in sports’
– Race: ‘contest of speed’ or ‘ethnic group’
• Homophony: Different words pronounced the
same but spelled differently,
– e.g. two, to and too.
– Flour and flower
– Meat and meet
– Right and write

41. Polysemy
• Polysemy: A word which has multiple
meanings related by extension,
– e.g. bright: ‘shining’ ; ‘intelligent’
– ‘Head’ of the body and the person at the
top of a company.
– ‘Foot’ of a body and of a mountain and of
the bed or chair.
– ‘Run’ a person runs, the water runs