hyponymy
Hyponymy
The term HYPONYMY is of recent creation, which has not found its way to some small dictionaries yet. But the notion of meaning inclusiveness is not new. For example, the meaning of desk is included in that of furniture, and the meaning of rose is included in that of flower. In other words, hyponymy is a matter of class membership.
The upper term in this sense relation, i.e. the class name, is called SUPERORDINATE, and the lower terms, the members, HYPONYMS. A superordinate usually has several hyponyms. Under flower, for example, there are peony, jasmine, chrysanthemum, tulip, violet, carnation and many others apart from rose. These members of the same class are CO-HYPONYMS.
Sometimes a superordinate may be a superordinate to itself. For instance, the word animal may only include beasts like tiger, lion, elephant, cow, horse and is a co-hyponym of human. But it is also the superordinate to both human and animal in contrast to bird, fish, and insect, when it is used in the sense of mammal .It can still further be the superordinate to bird, fish, insect and mammal in contrast to plant.
From the other point of view, the hyponym' s point of view, animal is a hyponym of itself, and may be called auto-hyponym.
A superordinate may be missing sometimes. In English there is no superordinate for the colour terms red, green, yellow, blue, white, etc. The term colour is a noun, which is not of the same part of speech as the member terms. And the term coloured does not usually include white and black. When it is used to refer to human races, it means "non-white" only. The English words beard, moustache and whiskers also lack a superordinate.
Hyponyms may also be missing. In contrast to Chinese, there is only one word in English for the different kinds of uncles:伯伯，叔叔，舅舅，姑姑，姨父. The word rice is also used in the different senses of 稻，谷，米，饭.
Most people are familiar with the terms synonymy and antonymy. Both refer to a relationship between
The term HYPONYMY is of recent creation, which has not found its way to some small dictionaries yet. But the notion of meaning inclusiveness is not new. For example, the meaning of desk is included in that of furniture, and the meaning of rose is included in that of flower. In other words, hyponymy is a matter of class membership.
The upper term in this sense relation, i.e. the class name, is called SUPERORDINATE, and the lower terms, the members, HYPONYMS. A superordinate usually has several hyponyms. Under flower, for example, there are peony, jasmine, chrysanthemum, tulip, violet, carnation and many others apart from rose. These members of the same class are CO-HYPONYMS.
Sometimes a superordinate may be a superordinate to itself. For instance, the word animal may only include beasts like tiger, lion, elephant, cow, horse and is a co-hyponym of human. But it is also the superordinate to both human and animal in contrast to bird, fish, and insect, when it is used in the sense of mammal .It can still further be the superordinate to bird, fish, insect and mammal in contrast to plant.
From the other point of view, the hyponym' s point of view, animal is a hyponym of itself, and may be called auto-hyponym.
A superordinate may be missing sometimes. In English there is no superordinate for the colour terms red, green, yellow, blue, white, etc. The term colour is a noun, which is not of the same part of speech as the member terms. And the term coloured does not usually include white and black. When it is used to refer to human races, it means "non-white" only. The English words beard, moustache and whiskers also lack a superordinate.
Hyponyms may also be missing. In contrast to Chinese, there is only one word in English for the different kinds of uncles:伯伯，叔叔，舅舅，姑姑，姨父. The word rice is also used in the different senses of 稻，谷，米，饭.
Most people are familiar with the terms synonymy and antonymy. Both refer to a relationship between