Unit 10Sense Relations (1)

Synonymy:

Synonymy is the relationship between two predicates that have the same sense.

For example:In most dialects of English , stubborn

and obstinate are synonyms.

Practice:

In the following sentences , do the capitalized pairs of words have the Same sense?

1 -The thief tried to Conceal/ Hide the

evidence. Yes/ No

2 -I ‘m going to Purchase/ Buy a new

Yes/ No coat.

3 -These tomatoes are Large/ Ripe. Yes/ No

It doesn’t have the same sense

The two predicates have the same sense

The two predicates have the same sense

4 -This is a very Loose/ Short definition.

No Yes/

5 -It is a very Wide/ Broad street.

Yes /

It doesn’t have the same sense

The two predicates have the same sense.

Clearly the notions of synonymy and sense are interdependent. In considering the sense of a word, we abstract away from any stylistic, social, or dialectal associations the word may have, We concentrate on what has been called the cognitive or conceptual meaning of a word.

How many kids have you got ?How many children have you got ?

Here we would say that Kids and Children have the same sense, although clearly they differ In style or formality.

Practice:In the following sentences, do the pairs of words in capitals have the same sense ? They differ in their dialectal , Stylistic or Social associations . :Circle S for Same or D for Different

1 -He comes to see us every Fall/ Autumn

2 -We have just bought a new House/ Apartment

3 -Nothing is more precious to us than our Freedom/ Liberty.

4 -A Bloke/ Chap I know has pickled onions for breakfast.

5 -John got a bullet wound in his Head/ Guts.

•*Synonymy is a relation between predicates not words . A word may have many different senses ; each distinct sense of a word is a predicate. We distinguish between predicates by giving them subscript numbers. For example, hide1 (trans. v.), hide2 (intrans.v.), hide3 (n.) and hide4 (n.). The first three senses are related. The fourth is unrelated. • Hide2 is a synonym of conceal.

Paraphrase:A sentence which expresses the same proposition as another sentence is a paraphrase of that sentence

Practice:Are the following pairs paraphrases of each other ( assuming that the referents of the names and

other referring expressions remain the same ) ?

1 -John is the parent of James James is the child of John

2- John is the parent of of James James is the parent of John

3 -My father owns this car This car belongs to my father

4 -The fly was on the wallThe wall was under the fly

5 -Some countries have no coastlineNot all countries have a coastline.

Done By :

Amal Salih Al Motrafi

HYPONYMY is a sense relation between predicates such that the meaning of one predicate is included in the meaning of the other.

E.g. The meaning of red is included in the meaning of scarlet. Red is the superordinate term, thus scarlet is a hyponym of red.

Practice: Give some hyponyms of emotion.

Synonymy can be seen as a special case of hyponymy, i.e. SYMMETRICAL HYPONYMY.

Rule: If X is a hyponym of Y and if Y is also a hyponym of X, then X and Y are synonymous.

Definition: A proposition X ENTAILS a proposition Y if the truth of Y follows necessarily from the truth of X.

E.g. John ate all the kippers (X) entails Someone ate something (Y).

John killed Bill (X) entails Bill died (Y).

Practice:Which statement shows

entailment?1- John cooked an egg entails John

boiled an egg.2- John boiled an egg entails John

cooked an egg.

Rule: Two sentences may be said to be PARAPHRASES of each other if and only if they have exactly the same set of ENTAILMENTS.

The relationship between entailment and paraphrase is parallel to the relationship between hyponymy and synonymy. Paraphrase is symmetric entailment.

Rule: Given two sentences A and B, identical in every way except that A contains a word X whereas B contains a different word Y, and X is a hyponym of Y, then sentence A entails sentence B.

This basic rule of sense inclusion does not work with logical words such as not and all.

E.g.1 A- David didn’t steal a pound of

beef.B.- David didn’t take a pound of

beef.2 A- Mary coloured all the square

shapes purple.B- Mary coloured all the rectangular

shapes purple.* B entail A.

In the case of gradable words, like big, tall, small, expensive etc., there is no entailment.

E.g.A- John saw a big mouse.B- John saw a big animal.

Unit 11Sense Relations (2)ANTONYMY is simply “oppositeness of

meaning”. There are four types of antonymy (or incompatibility).

1- Binary antonymy (complementarity): Binary antonyms are predicates which come in pairs and between them exhaust all the relevant possibilities. If the one predicate is applicable, then the other cannot be, and vice versa.

E.g. Dead/alive, same/different, and married/unmarried.

2-CONVERSES:If a predicate describes a

relationship between two things (or people) and some other predicate describes the same relationship when the two things (or people) are mentioned in the opposite order, then the two predicates are converses of each other.

E.g. parent and child are converses because: X is the parent of Y (one order) describes the same relationship as Y is the child of X (opposite order).

The notion of converseness can be applied to examples in which three things are mentioned as in the case of buy and sell.

John bought a car from Fred.Fred sold a car to John.Are come and go converses?

3- GRADABLE antonyms are two predicates at opposite ends of a continuous scale of values.

E.g. Hot and cold are gradable antonyms. Between hot and cold = warm, cool or tepid.

A good test for gradability is to see whether a word can combine with very, or very much, or how? or how much?

Apply this test to: near, cheap, electrical and triangular.

4- CONTRADICTORYAntonymy is a relationship

between predicates, and the rorresponding relationship between sentences is contradictoriness.

A proposition is contradictory of another proposition if it is impossible for them both to be true at the same time and of the same circumstances. Alternatively a sentence contradicts another sentence if it entails the negation of the other sentence.

E.g.“The beetle is alive” is a

contradictory of “The beetle is dead“.

AMBIGUITYA sentence is ambiguous if it has

two paraphrases which are not themselves paraphrases of each other.

The chicken is ready to eat.Visiting relatives can be boring.

In the case of words and phrases, a word or a phrase is AMBIGUOUS if it has two SYNOYNYMS that are not themselves synonyms of each other, e.g. sage, plane.

HOMONYMY is one of an ambiguous word, whose different senses are far apart from each other, e.g. mug.

POLYSEMY is one where a word has several very related senses, e.g. mouth.

STRUCTURAL ambiguity results from the different ways in which the words of an ambiguous sentence relate to each other, although they are not ambiguous.

The chicken is ready to eat.

LEXICAL ambiguity results from the ambiguity of a word.

The captain corrected the list.

Structural ambiguity can be shown by constituency diagrams (square brackets around the relevant parts of the sentence).

E.g. old men and women=1- [old men] and women2- old [men and women]

Where exact synonyms are not available, it is possible to indicate different senses of a word by giving different environments in which the word may be used. In many cases, the word used in different senses belongs to different part of speech.

E.g. rock in 1 and 2:1- The ship hit a rock and sank.2- I will buy an electric guitar and

become a rock star.