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Semantika - Seminarski

This document discusses lexical semantics and the relationships between words. It examines homonymy, which refers to words that are spelled or pronounced the same but have different meanings. Polysemy is discussed as words having multiple related meanings. Synonymy is defined as words that have nearly the same meaning. Antonymy describes words with opposite meanings, including gradable, complementary, and relational antonyms.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
122 views9 pages

Semantika - Seminarski

This document discusses lexical semantics and the relationships between words. It examines homonymy, which refers to words that are spelled or pronounced the same but have different meanings. Polysemy is discussed as words having multiple related meanings. Synonymy is defined as words that have nearly the same meaning. Antonymy describes words with opposite meanings, including gradable, complementary, and relational antonyms.

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Ivana
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................3

1. HOMOMYMY……......................................................................................................4

2. POLYSEMY……………………..................................................................................5

3. SYNONYMY……………………………………………………………………....…7

4. ANTONYMY.........................................................................................................…...8

CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................9

BIBLIOGRAPHY...........................................................................................................10
INTRODUCTION

This seminar paper will discuss lexical semantics, i.e. semantic relations between
lexemes.

Lexemes are vocabulary words which may take on different forms depending on the
context they find themselves in.1

Lexical semantic is the study of how and what the words of a language denote.2 It is a
subfield of linguistic semantics. It is also called lexicosemantics. Lexical semantics is
concerned with the identification and representation of the semantics of lexical items. It deals
with a language lexicon, i.e. the collection of words in a language. It is, unlike compositional
semantics, concerned with the individual words.

Some relations between lexical items are:

 Homonymy
 Polysemy
 Hyponymy
 Synonymy

1
Lyon, 1977
2
Pustejovsky, 1995
2
1. HOMONYMY

The word homonymy is of the Greek origin – homonumon, ‘having the same name’. It
is derived from homos – same and omnia – name.

Homonymy refers to the relationship between words that are spelled or pronounced the
same way but that have different meanings.

Homonymy can be total or partial. If the both, writing and pronunciation of words are the
same we can speak about total homonymy. If there is coincidence in some, but not all of their
grammatical forms we can speak about partial homonymy.

Partial homonymy is divided into:

 Homography
Homograph is a word that has the same written form as another word, but has a
different meaning.
E.g.
bear (verb) – to support or carry
bear (noun) – the animal

 Homophony
Homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word, but has a different
meaning.
E.g.
night - knight

3
3

3
http://conceptsinsemantics.weebly.com/

4
2. POLYSEMY

The word polysemy is of the Greek origin: poly – many and sema –sign.

Polysemy is the coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase. Multiple
meanings of a word may be unrelated or unconnected.

Polyseme is a word that has multiple meanings.

E.g.

 Mouth – opening area through which an animate being takes food


Mouth – the part of a river which empties into a lake or a sea.4
 Wood – a piece of a tree
Wood – a geographical area with many trees

4
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~flohaas/Handout%207_SemI.pdf
5
3. SYNONYMY

The word synonymy is of the Greek origin: sun – with and onoma – name.

Synonymy is a state of being a synonym. Synonym is a word or phrase that means


exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language.

Absolute synonymy does not exist because there are always some contexts in which one
member of the pair cannot be used.

Example for that is:

 She had only one answer correct in the text.


 She had only one reply correct in the text.

Synonymous forms may also differ in terms of formal and informal uses.
For example:
 My father purchased a large automobile.
 My dad bought a big car.

Some examples for synonymy:5

100% same quick/rapid, sick/ill, couch/sofa

tap/faucet/spigot, skillet/pan, hot cakes/pancakes,


regional
soda/pop
formality pass away/die/pop off

emotion/political freedom fighter/guerrilla/terrorist


legal kill/manslaughter/murder

5
http://emedia.leeward.hawaii.edu/hurley/Ling102web/mod4-3_semantics/4mod4.3.2_lexical.htm
6
4. ANTONYMY

Two words are antonymous if their meanings are opposite. There are three types of
antonyms:

 Gradable antonyms deal with the levels of the meaning of the words. For example, if
something is not good it may still not be bad.
E.g.
- fat/skinny
- young/old
- last/first
- dark/light

 Complementary antonyms have a relationship where there is no middle ground, i.e.


there are only two possibilities.
E.g.
- man/woman
- dead/alive
- true/false
- pass/fail

 Relational antonyms – to be a relationship between pair of words both must exist.


E.g.
- husband/wife
- buy/sell
- come/go
- parent/child

7
CONCLUSION

In conclusion it can only be said that lexical semantics is a broad term that has many
semantic relations, out of which in this seminar paper are explained homonymy, polysemy,
antonymy, and synonymy. There are also hyponymy, heteronymy, etc. Most of them are easy
to understand nevertheless there are many similarities between them.

8
BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Löbner, Sebastian Understanding Semantics, Hodder Education, London, 2002


 http://emedia.leeward.hawaii.edu/hurley/Ling102web/mod4-
3_semantics/4mod4.3.2_lexical.htm
 http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~flohaas/Handout%207_SemI.pdf
 http://conceptsinsemantics.weebly.com/

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