Sense relations

1. go, going, went, gone
2. put up with, kick the bucket, dog in the
manger

• Lexeme:
A lexeme is an abstract unit that roughly corresponds
to a set of words that are different forms of "the same
word".
For example, the English word forms run, runs, ran and
running are forms of the same lexeme.

‘Police officer’ and ‘cop’
have different connotations, but similar
denotations
Other examples:
brat and child
toilet and rest room
country town and regional centre
underprivileged area and slum
mutt and dog
doctor and quack

Connotation
• Emotional and imaginative
association surrounding a word; the
meaning given to a word through its
use in a society or culture

Sense Relations
the sense of desk is more closely related to
that of table than to chair.
the sense of desk is more different from that
of chair than from table.
the sense of desk is included in the sense of
furniture, or the sense of furniture includes
that of desk.

1. Sameness Relation
2. Oppositeness Relation
3. Inclusiveness Relation

Sameness Relation
1. Synonymy
• Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity
of meaning.
• Words that are close in meaning are called
synonyms.
• English borrowed a lot of words from other
languages. That’s why we find in English pairs of
words bearing the same meaning.
buy and purchase, world and universe, brotherly and
fraternal.

Style:
Little Tom__________ a toy bear.
The word ‘buy’ is more appropriate
than the word ‘purchase’

Stylistic Synonyms
Words having the same meaning
may differ in style, or degree of
formality .
Old man, daddy, dad, father, male
parent

Connotations:
"I'm thrifty. You are economical.
And he is stingy".
Collaborator and accomplice

Words that bear the same
meaning but express different
emotions
to like – to admire – to love – to
adore – to worship

Dialectal differences
"Autumn" is British while "fall" is
American.
The British live in “flats" and take the
"tube".

Dialectal synonyms – synonyms
used in different regional dialects.
Lift elevator
luggage baggage
petrol gasoline

Collocational synonyms
• Some synonyms differ in their collocation, i.e.
in the words they go together with.
• Accuse, charge, rebuke are followed by
different prepositions:
• accuse of, charge with, rebuke for

Semantically different synonyms
• These are synonyms that differ slightly in what they
mean.
• Compare:
• amaze – suggests confusion and bewilderment
• astound suggest difficulty in believing

Polysemy
• Polysemy happens when one and the same word may
have more than one meaning.
• Historically speaking, polysemy can be understood as
the growth and development of or change in the
meaning of words.
draw 1. ‘cause to move in a certain direction’,
2. ‘produce a picture

POLYSEMY
• Polysemy – is the ability of a word to possess
several meanings or lexico-semantic variants
(LSV), e.g. bright means “shining” and
“intelligent”.
• Monosemantic word - a word having only
one meaning;
• Polysemantic word - a word having several
meanings

The word table has 7 meanings:
• 1) a piece of furniture
• 2) all the people seated at a table
• 3) the food that is put on the table
• 4) a thin flat piece of stone, metal, wood, etc.
• 5) orderly arrangements of facts, figures, etc.
• 6) part of a machine tool on which the work is put to
be operated on
• 7) a level area, a plateau

Homonymy
• Homonymy refers to the phenomenon
that words having different meanings
have the same form, i.e. different words
are identical in sound or spelling, or in
both.

Types of Homonymy
• Homophones – when two words are
identical in sound.
• rain/reign night/knight
piece/peace

Homographs – when two words
are identical in spelling.
bow v./bow n.
tear v./tear. n.
lead v./lead n.

Complete homonyms – when two words are identical in
both sound and spelling.
fast adj./fast v.
scale n./scale v.

Antonymy
Antonymy is the name for
oppositeness relation.
Words that are opposite in meaning
are antonyms

There are three main sub-types:
gradable antonymy,
complementary antonymy, and
converse antonymy.

Gradable Antonymy
good: bad, long: short, big: small
It has three characteristics

1. They are gradable. That is, the members of a
pair differ in terms of degree.
The denial of one is not necessarily the assertion
of the other.
Something which is not "good" is not
necessarily "bad” it may be "average”
They can be modified by "very"

The intermediate degrees may be
lexicalized.
The size which is neither big nor
small is medium
between hot and cold, there are
warm and cool

2. Antonyms of this kind are
graded against different norms.
No absolute criterion by which we
may say something is good or bad

3. One member of a pair, usually
the term for the higher degree,
serves as the cover term
How old are you ?
The word old is used here to cover
both old and young
"What is your age ?"

The cover term is called
"unmarked", i.e. usual; and the
covered "marked", or unusual

Complementary antonymy
Antonyms like alive: dead, male: female,
present: absent, innocent: guilty, odd: even,
pass: fail ( a test ), hit: miss ( a target ),
boy: girl are of this type.
The members of a pair in this type are
complementary to each other.

The assertion of one means the denial
of the other, the denial of one also
means the assertion of the other.
Not only He is alive means "He is not
dead", He is not alive also means "He
is dead".

Adjectives in this type cannot be
modified by "very".
One cannot say somebody is very alive
or very dead.

(3) Converse antonymy
Pairs of words like buy: sell, lend:
borrow, give: receive, parent: child,
husband: wife, host: guest, employer:
employee, teacher :student, above :
below, before : after
belong to this type of antonymy

This is a special type of antonymy in
that the members of a pair do not
constitute a positive-negative
opposition. They show the reversal of a
relationship between two entities
X buys something from Y means the
same as Y sells something to X

Sense relations

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