Meaning Lecture 1.2 Meaning Relations

Question 1

What is Lexical Semantics?

What is its purpose?

Answer 1

the study of word meaning

• representing the meaning of each word in a language
• showing how the meaning of words are interrelated

Question 2

What is a lexical field?

Answer 2

An organizational principle; it constitutes a group of lexemes that belongs to a particular area

Question 3

What are homonyms?

Answer 3

Unrelated senses of the same phonological word.
Includes Homophones (Four and for)

And homographs ( Bow (down) and (hair) bow)

Question 4

What is polysemy?

Answer 4

like a homonym but invoked if the senses can seem related

Question 5

What is a synonym?

Answer 5

Different phonological words with the same meaning

Question 6

What is a simple antonym?

Answer 6

+ve of one implies -ve of other e.g dead and alive

Question 7

What is a gradable antonym?

Answer 7

there are usually intermediate terms between them

rich - poor

Question 8

What are reverses (antonyms)?

Answer 8

characteristic reverses in terms referring to movement

push-pull

Question 9

What are converses (antonyms)?

Answer 9

The relation from a different viewpoint
above- below
employer - employee

Question 10

What is a hyponym?

Answer 10

A subset of words that belong to a greater set of words like cat and dog belong to ‘Animal’

Question 11

What is a meronym?

Answer 11

describes a whole - part relationship.

Cover and page are meronyms of ‘book’