Meaning relations or Meaning Relations in Semantics

What is Meaning Relations?

In language, Every lexical item of the word, which we use in language, has meaning. Sometimes it happens that one word s related to another in terms of meaning. This semantic relationship between two or more words is called meaning relations.

Types of meaning/Semantics relations

Geoffrey Leech has identified at least four types of meaning relations. They are:

1. Synonymy
2. Antonymy
3. Hyponymy
4. Incomparability
Other meanings are-
5. Ambiguity
6. Polysemy
7. Homonyms
8. Homophones

1. Synonymy:  Synonymy is that kind of meaning relation where more than one forms have the same meaning.  In other words, two or more words having the same meaning are called synonymous.

For example, “hidden” and “concealed” are the two separate words of the English language, but they have the same meaning. Hence they are called synonymous, and the relationship between these two words is called synonymy.

Other examples of synonymy are “beautiful/lovely”, “evil/vice”, “happy/glad” freedom/liberty” etc.

Types of Synonyms

English language, there are three types of synonyms

A. True synonyms
B. Close synonyms
C. Partial synonyms

A. True Synonyms: True Synonyms are the words or expressions which have exactly the same meaning. For example, uncle being a true synonymy of the brother of one's father or mother, or the husband of one's aunt.

B. Close Synonyms: Close Synonyms are words or expressions whose meanings and/or interpretations are not entirely the same, but very close, for example, war, battle, combat, fight, and struggle.

C. Partial synonyms: Partial Synonyms are words or expressions whose meanings and/or interpretations are partially associated or similar, for example, hen being the partial meaning of chicken.

2. Antonymy: Antonymy refers to oppositions of meaning. When two or more words have the opposite meaning, they are called antonyms. In other words, a word or expression that is opposite that is in meaning to another word or expression is called antonym.

For example, big /small, love /hate, happiness / grief, day/ night, man / woman, boy /girl etc.

Sometimes there is absolute oppositeness or contrast between two words, such as, “life and death” but sometimes it becomes very difficult to find out the absolute contrast. In that case, we distinguish different types of oppositeness of meaning, such as multiple oppositions, polar opposition etc.

In multiple oppositions, one word can be put in contrast with all the words in the group, such as, the word for trees, fruits, colours etc. Where we cannot find absolute opposition. If we take, example the metals like gold, silver, copper, iron, we can establish the absolute contrast.

Other examples are-

i. rich and poor
ii.old and young
iii. deep and shallow
iv. large and small etc.

Types of Antonyms

Antonyms can be of four types:

A. True antonyms
B. Reciprocal antonyms
C. Gradual antonyms
D. one-to-many antonyms

A. True antonyms : True Antonyms include two or more words or expressions having true opposite meaning, for example:

i. Male versus female
ii. True versus false
iii. Big versus small

B. Reciprocal antonyms: Reciprocal antonyms refer to two or more words or expressions having reciprocally opposite meaning, usually in the form of action, for example:

i. close versus open
ii. sleep versus awake
iii. go versus come

C. Gradual antonyms: Gradual antonyms indicate words or expressions which have gradually opposite meaning, for example: uninjured- barely injured-injured-badly wounded-died big-medium-small, etc.

D. One-to-many antonyms: One-to-many antonyms encompass words or expressions which have many opposite meanings, for example:

i. sweet versus Aner, salty, sour, hot, etc.

3. Hyponymy: Hyponymy means the inclusion of meaning. If there are two words and the meaning of one word is concluded in the meaning of another, it is called Hyponymy. In other words, in a language, some words or terms are used to refer to classes, groups, types, kinds and the like. Each group, class, type, or kind possesses some members. That is, some items are included in one item.

Hence, a Hyponymy is a word whose meaning is encompassed by the meaning of the word. For example the word ‘ woman’ it includes the meaning of group up. It also includes the meaning of human. The moment we come across the “woman” all on a sudden in our mind there comes the image of a grown-up human being.

4. Incompatibility: Incompatibility is the opposite of Hyponymy. It may be defined as the exclusion of one meaning from the other. If we take, e.g., the two words “woman” and “child”, we mind that these two words are incompatible in terms of age. “Woman” refers to grown up or (+) ADULT and the word “child” refers to(-)ADULT.

5. Ambiguity: Ambiguity is a meaning relation that involves only one expression having more than one interpretation, Lexical ambiguity arises when the context is insufficient to determine the sense of a single word that has more than one meaning, for example: can, bank, duck and so forth.  Again, syntactic ambiguity arises when a sentence can be parsed in more than one way, for example, The chicken is ready to eat.

6. Polysemy: Polysemy is a meaning relation that involves a word or phrase with multiple and/or related meanings or interpretations, for example:

i. The house is at the foot of the mountains.
ii. One of her shoes felt too tight for his foot.

In (i) foot refers to the bottom part of the mountains, whereas in (ii) foot refers to the bottom part of the leg.

7. Homonyms:  Homonyms refer to the words which are written and pronounced in the same way, but which are used to convey different meanings.

For example, in the following sentences, the verbs “lie” and “lie” are written and pronounced in the same way. But they give different meanings.

i. Please lie down
ii. Don't lie, tell the truth!

8. Homophones: Homophones stand for the words that are pronounced in the same way, but are written differently and often have different meanings.

For example, the English words “no” and “know” are pronounced in the same way, but are written differently and have different meanings. Similarly, “so" and “sew" are homophones.