3.Lexico-semantic grouping in Modern English lexicone

The meaning relations that hold within the voc-ry of a language between words themselves are called lexical or sense relations. Lexemes can be grouped together into lexical fields on the bases of shared meaning and that most, if not all, the voc-ry of a language can be accounted for in this way. The description of meaning, the definition of lexemes is then undertaken within each lexico-semantic field and involves defining each lexeme in relation to the other lexemes in its field. Hence, we distinguish between synonymic, antonymic andhyponymic fields.

The term synonymy derives from Greek ‘syn’ and ‘nymy’ that means ‘same’ and ‘name’ and deals with sameness of meaning.

Antonymy means ‘opposite’+’name’ and deals with oppositness of meaning.

Hyponymy means ‘under’+’name’ and refers hierarchical relationship between the meaning of lexemes in which the meaning of one lexeme is included in the meaning of another lexeme.

Origin of a word may explain how the E. voc-ry to contain so many pairs of synonyms. Synonyms may be differentiated:

1. By belonging to diff. dialects. This is the case with many pairs of synonyms in British and Am. English.

E.g. lift – elevator, pavement – side-walk, sweet – candy.

In some case there may be misunderstanding which works with Br.E. ‘homely’ which in Am.E. has the meaning of ‘ugly, plane’. The Am.E. equivalent of ‘homely’ is ‘homy’.

There are synonyms pairs not only between national variants of the language, but also between dialects of a national varieties of regional dialects.

E.g. heart-some – cheering, packed-lunch – snap.

2. By stile or level of formality. Of the synonym pair climb-ascend climb is of Anglo-Saxon origin, ascend – of Latin. In general, Latin suggests more formal synonyms.

3. By technicality. Many professions, trades, sports and hobbies have developed voc-ries which have special words. We refer to such words as technical voc-ry, or jargon.

E.g. optic – eye, phoneme – sound, semantic – meaning.

4. By connotation. One member of a pair of synonyms may have connotation not shared by the other member.

E.g. love – adore (adore has connotation of passion, love is more neutral).

Euphemism. There is a taboo at some contexts at least in referring directly to certain subject, especially death, sex and some bodily functions. Consequently euphemistic synonyms have been coined to refer more obliquely to their taboo subjects. These topics usually have colloquial or slang synonyms too.

E.g. the euphemistic synonym of ‘die’ is ‘pass away’ and the colloquial synonym (disphemism) is ‘to kick the bucket’.

There is a further kind of synonymy. Part of the meaning of two or more words are the same. There is overlack of meaning but not complete identity of meaning.

E.g. maiden – lass – girl. Girl – synonymic dominant.

Hyponymy refers to the semantic relation of generality and inclusion. The meaning of a more specific lexeme is included in that of another, a more general lexeme. A more specific lexeme is called hyponym. A more general lexeme is called superordinate term.

E.g. star (superordinate term) – sun (hyponym) – nova (hyponym), dress – shirt – hat – scarf – clothes (superordinate term) – raincoat.

Antonymy do not differentiate for formality, dialect or technicality that makes it quite a diff. kind than synonym. Antonyms occur within the same style or register but the relations of antonymy are not uniform. Kinds of antonyms:

• Gradable. They are mosrly adjective. E.g. narrow – narrower – narrowest.

• Complementary. The denial of one of the member of the pair applies the assertion of the other one. E.g. mail – femail, dead – alive.

• Conversives, or relational antonyms. One member of the pair is the converse of the other. They represent two opposite perspectives of the same relation.

E.g. husband – wife, to receive – to give.