III Hyponyms.

Hyponymic relations are the relations of inclusion. The term hyponymy introduced by John Lyons is not traditional, it’s of recent creation. Although, the term hyponymy may be comparatively new, the notion of hyponymy is traditional enough. It is one of the constitutive principles in the organization of the vocabulary. The “upper” general term is the super ordinate or hyperonym, the lower term specific is hyponym. We also speak of co-hyponyms or equonemes, e.g. “plant” is a super ordinate or a hyperonym in relation to “flower”, “corn”, “tree”, which are hyponyms or co-hyponyms while “flower” is a hyperonym to “tulip”, “rose”, “lily” – which are co-hyponyms.

Animal (hyperonym)

Cat Dog Sheep Cow (hyponyms)

The formula: “Every dog is an animal but not every animal is a dog” represents the essence of hyponymy. The relations between co-hyponyms may be described as the relations of exclusion. This may be illustrated with the help of the formula in the set of the co-hyponyms referring to the hyperonym animal “a dog is not a cat, a cat is not a sheep…”

The members of the set of co-hyponyms may be described as incompletables (несовместимые члены ряда). Semantic-paradigmatic relations of words within the vocabulary prove its systematic character.