Lecture 4- Lexical relations 1

Lexical relations 1: Paradigmatic relations

❖ Paradigmatic sense relations based on:
1. Hyponymy
2. Meronymy
3. Lexical gaps

❖ Lexical relations
➢ Paradigmatic
➢ Syntagmatic (syntax)

❖ Terms
➢ paradigm: A set of all the different forms of a word.
➢ relations: The way in which two or more things are connected.

Differentiation between paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations

➔ What a word means depends on its association and/or relations with other words.
➔ Part of the relationship is seen in the way word meanings vary with context.
- Professor Jones has a rather large library. (a collection of books)
- The library is at the corner of Wilson and Adams Streets. (a building)

➔ English verbs can be used in two different ways (different grammatical associations)
and have slightly different meanings.
➔ Adjectives can have different senses.
➔ A lexeme does not merely ‘have’ meaning; it contributes to the meaning of a larger
unit, a phrase or sentence.
◆ Each lexeme is linked in some ways to numerous other lexemes of language.
● Syntagmatic relations
● Paradigmatic relations

Syntagmatic relations (horizontal)

➢ The relation of the lexeme with other lexemes with which it occurs in the same
phrases or sentences.
- arbitrary can co-occur with judge
- happy can co-occur with child

➢ The mutual association of two or more words in a sequence (not necessarily right
next to one another) so that the meaning of each is affected by the other(s) and
together their meanings contribute to the meaning of the larger unit, the phrase or
sentence.
Paradigmatic relations (vertical)
➢ This is a paradigmatic relation, a relation of choice.
➢ We choose from among a number of possible words that can fill the same blank:
○ the words may be similar in meaning;
○ or the words may have little in common;
○ but each is different from the others.
- The judge is ………
arbitrary
cautious
busy
careless
irritable
➢ Paradigmatic sense relations can
○ express identity and inclusion between senses
■ inclusion between senses:
● Relationships are described as taxonomic or classificatory
→ Hyponymy
● The part and whole relationship→ Meronymy
○ express opposition and exclusion between sense

★ Hyponymy (inclusion between senses 1.)

- apple and fruit (apple and hyponym of fruit)
Fruit is an hyperonym / superordinate of apple
[Diapositiva 24]

○ Hyponymic (classifying, taxonomic) categorize the non-linguistic world into

more general items and more specific items.
○ Nouns, verbs and adjectives.
○ The terms hyponymy, hierarchy, taxonomy, classification, categorization are
synonymous in many case BUT not absolutely interchangeable.

★ Meronymy (inclusion between senses 2.)

○ la parte de algo: hand/finger, car/ engine
○ part → meronym (finger)
○ whole → holonym (hand)
○ Pattern A is part of B (the opposite is not possible)
○ Members or the same level are co-meronyms.

To sum up homonymy vs. meronymy

● HYPONYMY: kind-of relationship / taxonomic / classificatory.
● MERONYMY: Part-whole relation

Lexical gaps (diapositiva 43)

➢ the male name coincides with the general name.
➢ The absence of a word in a taxonomy of hyponymic or meronymic relations is usually
described as a lexical gap.