Hyponymy, Synonymy and Antonymy

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Hyponymy, Synonymy and Antonymy In linguistics, a specific term used to designate a member of a class is called a hyponym. For instance, daisy and rose are hyponyms of flower. Words that are hyponyms of the same superordinate term (that is, a hypernym) are called co-hyponyms. In general, there are a number of hyponyms for each superordinate. For example, boar and piglet are also hyponyms of the superordinate pig, since the meaning of each of the three words sow, boar, and piglet 'contains' the meaning of the word pig. In defining a word like sow, boar, or piglet, the superordinate word pig is often used as part of the definition: 'A sow is an adult female pig.' Thus, it is not surprising that hyponymy is sometimes referred to as inclusion. The superordinate is the included word and the hyponym is the including one. The basis of Carnap's meaning postulates, where it is suggested that the meaning of lexical items can be stated in terms of such entailments. Hyponymy is therefore defined in terms of a one-way entailment. Thus, if one says 'this is a witch/wizard', it entails that she/he is a human being and means that the person practises witchcraft. From this example it can be deduced that being a witch/wizard is hyponymous to being a human being and synonymous with practising witchcraft. Synonyms are described as two or more forms with very closely related meaning, which are often, but not always, intersubstitutable in sentences. In a general and broader sense, synonymy is a relation of sameness of meaning. It is usually possible to find some nuances that separate synonyms or contexts in which one of the lexemes can appear, but the other cannot. Therefore, when this fact is taken into consideration, it becomes clear that absolute synonymy is rare, because synonyms often have different distributions along a number of parameters. Synonymous forms differ in terms of
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