Semantic features

Semantic features

1. Synonymy

   • Restrictions on total synonymy
     • contextual restriction
     • sytilistic differences
     • social/regional variation
     • collocational restrictions
     • different connotations

2. Antonymy

   • 1. complementary antonymy
     • relationship between 2 opposites (male-female)
   • 2. Gradable antonymy
     • opposite poles of a continum (warm-cold)
   • 3. relational opposites
     • same situation from different perspectives (teacher-pupil)
   • 4. directional opposites
     • a change of direction (open-shut, in-out)

3. Hyponymy

   • flower

4. Hyperonymy

   • plant

5. Meronymy

   • part-whole relationships between words on different hierarchical levels
     • mouth-face, mouth-teeth, book-cover

6. Lexical ambiguity

   • ambiguous words can be divided in 2 major types
     • Homonymy
       • same form but different lexemes (completely different meaning)
         • race (tour de france) - race (human race)
       • different types
         • homophony
           • same prononciation but different spelling: see-sea, flour-flower
         • homography
           • identical spelling but different pronounciation: bass (instrument)-bass (fish)
         • total homonymy
           • share the same grammatical properties: pupil (eye)-pupil (student)
         • partial homonymy
           • different grammatical classes: bear (animal)- bear (to bear =endure)
     • Polysemy
       • Same lexemes with several (but often relatable) different meaning
         • paper (sheet), paper (newspaper), paper (persentation)
       • based on semantic extension: metaphor and metonymy (paper = material - for product newspaper)
       • economic: ability to adapt voc to new usages /out increasing the number of lexemes

7. Collocations

   • co-occurence restictions between words in an expression
     • roast-beef - toast beef, glass of water - cup of tea