When the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another, the relationship is described as hyponymy. Examples are the pairs: animal/dog, dog/poodle, vegetable/ carrot, flower/rose, tree/banyan. The concept of “inclusion” involved in this relationship is the idea that if an object is a rose, then it is necessarily a flower, so the meaning of flower is included in the meaning of rose. Or, rose is a hyponym of flower.

When we consider hyponymous connections, we are essentially looking at the meaning of words in some type of hierarchical relationship. We can represent the relationships between a set of words such as animal, ant, asp, banyan, carrot,

cockroach, creature, dog, flower, horse, insect, living thing, pine, plant, poodle, rose, snake, tree and vegetable as a hierarchical diagram.

Looking at the diagram, we can say that “horse is a hyponym of animal” or “cockroach is a hyponym of insect.” In these two examples, animal and insect are called the superordinate (= higher-level) terms. We can also say that two or more words that share the same superordinate term are co-hyponyms. So, dog and horse are co-hyponyms and the superordinate term is animal.

The relation of hyponymy captures the concept of “is a kind of,” as when we give the meaning of a word by saying, “an asp is a kind of snake.” Sometimes the only thing we know about the meaning of a word is that it is a hyponym of another term. That is, we may know nothing more about the meaning of the word asp other than that it is a kind of snake or that banyan is a kind of tree.

It is worth emphasizing that it is not only words for “things” that are hyponyms. Words such as punch, shoot and stab, describing “actions,” can all be treated as cohyponyms of the superordinate term injure.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم حفظ النظام ينهي استعداداته الخاصة بحفل تخرج طالبات الجامعات العاشر

العتبة العباسية المقدسة تنشر أكاليل الزهور ومظاهر الفرح بمناسبة ذكرى ولادة أمير المؤمنين (عليه السلام)

مجمع الشيخ الكليني يواصل تحضيراته لاستقبال المشاركات في حفل تخرج طالبات الجامعات العاشر

وصول المشاركات في فعاليات مهرجان روح النبوة الثقافي النسوي العالمي الثامن إلى كربلاء

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

ماذا يحدث لجسمك عند تناول الوجبات السريعة يوميا؟

لصحة عظام المرأة.. الشاي أفضل أم القهوة؟

لبناء العضلات وإنقاص الوزن.. ما أفضل توقيت لتناول البيض؟

أطعمة صحية تساعد على التعافي من "الإنفلونزا الخارقة"

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

دراسة تكشف قدرة الحيتان على سماع الأصوات منخفضة وعالية التردد من مسافة بعيدة

تجربة جديدة: الأسفلت المدعوم بالطحالب يقاوم الحفر ويقلل الانبعاثات الكربونية

تسريبات تكشف ملامح أول هاتف قابل للطي من "أبل"

رصد نوع نادر من القطط في تايلاند للمرة الأولى منذ عقود

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Anaphora vs. deixis

Grammatical case vs. semantic case

Semantic roles and Grammatical Relations Conclusion

Arguments and semantic roles

Semantic roles and Grammatical Relations

Constituency

Identifying meaningful elements Summary

Identifying meaningful elements within words

Identifying meaningful elements Identifying word meanings

Consequences of modifying Gunlogsons 2001 model

A case study of the semantics of clear - Factivity revisited

A case study of the semantics of clear - The analysis